Land of the unicorn and the lion, —of the crouching panther and the stately elephant, —of the camel, the camelopard, and the camel-bird! land of the antelopes, —of the wild gemsbok, and the gentle gazelle, —land of the gigantic crocodile and huge river-horse, —land teeming with animal life, and last in the list of my apostrophic appellations, —last, and that which must grieve the heart to pronounce it, —land of the slave! Dread is that shore between Susa and Senegal, on the western edge of Africa, —by mariners most dreaded of any other in the world. The very thought of it causes the sailor to shiver with affright. And no wonder: on that inhospitable seaboard thousands of his fellows have found a watery grave; and thousands of others a doom far more deplorable than death!
