s hanging on every side, and if, in the center of this
retreat, an old man and his family, a young mother and her children meet
the eye, what a crowd of delicious ideas is aroused in this moment? Who
would not be astonished at the generous fore-sight of nature? and where is
the man who would not be transported with indignation if, while he was
contemplating this charming scene, he beheld a party of ferocious Moors
violate this peaceful asylum, and carry off some of the members of a
family, to deliver them up to slavery? It would require the pencil of the
author of the Indian Cottage, to do justice to such a picture.

This is not the only service which the blacks, who inhabit Senegambia,
derive from the Adansonia or Baobab. They convert its leaves, when dried,
into a powder which they call _Lalo_, and use it as seasoning to almost all
their food. They employ the roots as a purgative; they drink the warm
infusion of its gummy bark, as a remedy for disorders in the breast; they
lessen the inflamation of the cutaneous eruptions, to which they are
subject by applying to the diseased parts cataplasms made of the parenchyma
of the trunk: they make an astringent beverage of the pulp of its fruit;
they regale themselves with its almonds, they smoke the calyx of its
flowers instead of tobacco; and often by dividing into two parts the
globulous capsules, and leaving the long woody stalk fixed to one of the
halves, which become dry and hard, they make a large spoon or ladle.

It has been found that the substance, called very improperly, _terra
sigillata of lemnos_, is nothing more than the powder made of the pulp of
the fruit of the Baobab. The Mandingians and the Moors carry this fruit as
an article of commerce into various parts of Africa, particularly Egypt;
hence, it finds its way to the Levant. There it is that this pulp is
reduced to powder, and reaches us by the way of trade. Its nature was long
mistaken: Prosper Alpinus was the first who discovered that it was a
vegetable substance.

After the Isle of Sor, towards the South is that of Babague, separated from
the former and that of Safal, by two small arms of the river; this island,
in an agricultural point of view, already affords a happy result to the
colonists, who have renounced the inhuman traffic in slaves, to become
peaceable planters. Many have already made plantations of cotton, which
they call lougans. Mr. Artique, a merchant, has hitherto been the most
successful