These downs appear to be a sea-coast raised
by secular upheaval, and much older than the flat tracts which
encroach upon the Atlantic. We could now understand the position
of the town which figures so largely in the squadron-annals of
the equatorial shore; it was set upon a hillock, whence the eye
could catch the approaching sail of the slaver, and where the
flag could be raised conspicuously in token of no cruiser being
near.
But the glory had departed from Sanga-Tanga (Peel-White? Strip-
White?); not a trace of the town remained, the barracoons had
disappeared, and all was innocent as upon the day of its
creation. A deep silence reigned where the song of joy and the
shrieks of torture had so often been answered by the voice of the
forest, and Eternal Nature had ceased to be disturbed by the
follies and crimes of man.
Sanga-Tanga was burned down, after the fashion of these people,
when Mbango, whom Europeans called "Pass-all," King of the
Urungu, who extend up the right bank of the Ogobe, passed away
from the sublunary world. King Pass-all had completed his
education in Portugal: a negro never attains his highest
potential point of villany without a tour through Europe; and
thus he rose to be the greatest slave-dealer in this slave-
dealing scrap of the coast.
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