is to say, those with whom he is going to deal, and for whom he has brought goods.

"Every man immediately goes out to the forest and selects a tree for himself, which he begins to cut down. The barwood of commerce is the heart or main part of the trunk, and is red. This useful wood is surrounded by a covering of white sap-wood about two inches thick, which is useless, and is carefully cut off. Then the wood is cut into lengths of three feet, each piece weighing from fifteen to twenty pounds. The father and his children cut and split the wood and the wives carry it into the villages, and the latter thereupon claim a distinct part of the returns, which they get, though often unwillingly. Barwood is so lowpriced in Europe that the natives here get but very small prices, and five dollars for a hundred billets is already a high rate. As they have to carry everything down to the sea on their backs, unless they are lucky enough to live near rivers or creeks, they have to work hard enough for the little they get."

One of the best harbors on the coast is Cape Lopez, latitude 0° 36' 10" S. and longitude 8° 40′ E. from Greenwich, which takes its name from the Portuguese, who formerly called it Cape Lope Gonsalvez. The bay is about fourteen miles in extent, having several small rivers which empty their waters into it at or near its base. The water is very deep near the Cape itself, and vessels of large size may sail in close to the land. The productions of this region deserve the attention of enterprising merchants. The author says:

"The region known generally as the Cape Lopez country includes all the shores of the bay, and the interior for thirty or forty miles. It has much fine land, and King PANGO, if he were not a drunken vagabond, might be a prosperous king. Back from the seashore the land becomes higher and hilly, the mangroves give place to forests of palm and more useful woods, and fine prairies dot the country quite thickly. The whole of this district is given to the slave trade. It produces small quantities of ivory, ebony, wax, &c.; but the slave factory is the chief commercial establishment, and the buying, selling and transporting of slaves for the barracoons at the Cape is the most profitable business."

At Cape Lopez are found two slave factories or dépôts, one of which is kept by the Portuguese. The author narrates that upon one occasion when he was present, two young women and a boy of fourteen years were brought in for sale, and were bought by the Portuguese. The price paid for the boy was a twenty gallon cask of rum, a few fathoms of cloth and a quantity of beads. The women sold at a higher rate. Each was valued at the following goods, which were promptly paid over: one gun, one Neptune, (a flat disk of copper,) thirty fathoms of cloth, two iron bars, two cutlasses, two looking-glasses, two files, two plates, two bolts, a keg of powder, a few beads and a small lot of tobacco.

Soon after a slave schooner of 170 tons hove in sight and approached the landing, when six hundred slaves were taken off to her. (P. 180.) The author concludes that a more general intercourse between foreigners and the coast tribes would be beneficial.

"A greater development of regular civilized trade would be a great boon to these people. Many articles, such as guns, powder, tobacco, brass and iron in various shapes, &c., have become necessities to the tribes who are within reach of white trade; but they are never obtainable in

nearly sufficient quantities, and consequently are held very precious. Now the high prices are a great temptation to the cupidity of the African, who having, by custom, rights of property in his children, often does not hesitate to sell these when other produce is lacking. He finds that one of his children is not bright, that it has no sense, or that it wants to bewitch the father. Then a consultation ensues with the relatives of the mother; they are promised a share in the produce of the sale--for they have rights also in the child-and, when they are brought to consent, the unhappy child is sold off.

"With the increase of legitimate trade such temptations will be done away with. At the same time, I am convinced that the introduction of agricultural industry, the planting of cotton and sugar for export, when these ends are accomplished, will only serve to rivet the bonds of the slave by so much as they will increase his value to the master. Now, the slave only adds to his master's ease and consequence; then, he will appeal to his cupidity. Show him that he can make a profit on his labor, and he will never consent to set him free."

Near each village, particularly near the boundaries of the forest, are large plantations carried on with industrial labor, where tobacco, peanuts, plantains, yams and sugar cane are grown in large quantities. Cotton is found growing, but not in abundance. (P. 461.)

Narcotic plants are used to excess, as is the case in Asia, Europe and other portions of Africa, as well as in America. Of the lamentable results of this poison upon the human system M. CHAILLU makes the following remarks; sufficient, we think, to deter our own people from indulging

in the noxious weed:

"One day during my journey I found a village in great excitement. One of the men had been smoking liamba leaves, and had run out to the forest in an insane state, and it was feared that he would be eaten by wild beasts. Such cases are not uncommon in the Ashira country. Under my own observation, afterwards, one liamba-smoker became furiously and permanently insane, and I saw many who were miserably debilitated by the habit.

"Hasheesh and the Cannabis Indica are so well known that it is not necessary to say any thing about them here. The plant is a native of Abyssinia, and Persia, and Hindostan, and is not, in my opinion, indigenous to this part of Africa. This I think, because I nowhere heard of its growing wild, and because the Ashira and Assingi, the only people I met who used it, cultivate it with considerable care. How it came hither, or how they first came by a knowledge of its qualities, I could not learn. There are among the Ashira many confirmed liamba-smokers, and the habit seems very quickly to fix itself with a fatal tenacity. Beginners I have seen fall down in convulsions from the first few puffs. Practiced smokers are seen laughing, talking, quarrelling, and acting in all respects like a drunken person. Insanity is its ultimate effect on those who persist in its use. I have several times seen men run into the forest under the influence of a few whiffs of liamba, perfectly unconscious and raving. The negroes acknowledge its pernicious effects, but yet its votaries increase, and though the plant is yet unknown to the seashore tribes, they will soon fall under its subjugation, for it is making gradual but sure advances. I never saw the leaf on the seashore, but once saw a few of the seeds in the possession of a slave in a slave factory. He was care

fully preserving them, intending to plant them in the country to which he should be sold."

There are no doubt thousands of enterprising American merchants who are prepared to enlarge their sphere of trade in African products. The work of M. CHAILLU will furnish them much information on this subject.

TAPESTRY ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY.

By CHARLES TOMLINSON, Esq., Lecturer on Natural Science, King's College School, London. Author of the "Cyclopædia of the Useful Arts."

TAPESTRY, derived from the French, tapis, a carpet or table-cover, (which comes from the Latin, tapetum, a carpet or covering for a bed or couch,) is a name given to woven or embroidered fabrics, employed chiefly as lining or hangings on the walls of rooms or churches, and occasionally as ornamental coverings for articles of furniture, such as tables, couches, desks, &c.

Tapestry appears to be of oriental origin. Its materials were silk and wool, dyed in brilliant colors; also flax, byssus, gold and precious stones. Figures, landscapes and various ornamental devices were embroidered in the ancient tapestries, many of them apparently by hand. The embroidered curtains of the tabernacle, described in the book of Exodus, are supposed to have been worked with the needle in thread of silk, gold or wool. Embroidery and other ornamental works were extensively practiced among the Egyptians, and their figured cloths were made both by the needle and the loom. Respecting the latter, we are told that many patterns worked in colors by the loom were so richly composed that they vied with cloths embroidered by the needle. The Babylonians and other nations of antiquity were acquainted with this art, and made use of it to represent the mysteries of their religion, and also celebrate historical events. The Greeks attributed the invention to MINERVA. Shawls or hangings for the temples formed an important part of the gifts offered by devotees to heathen divinities. On these hangings the utmost care and skill were bestowed, and they were even celebrated by the poets. Thus, EURIPIDES describes a shawl on which the sun, moon and stars were represented, and which, with others containing hunting-pieces, &c., belonging to the temple of APOLLO, at Delphi, were used to form a magnificent tent. In what way the precious metals, jewels, &c., were introduced into ancient tapestry, we are not clearly informed. In the 39th chapter of Exodus there are directions for beating gold into thin plates, and then cutting it into wires for the cunning work of the ephod; and it is thought probable that the gold thread used in Egyptian embroidery was made in the same manner, and rounded by the hammer, for no trace of wire-drawing has been discovered in the ancient accounts of working in metal.

The working of tapestry with the the earliest times of the monarchy.

needle can be traced, in France, to When CLOVIS and his people em

braced Christianity, not only were the churches adorned with rich tapestries, but the very streets were curtained with them. At that time, and down to the ninth century, they appear to have been fabricated entirely by hand; but at about the latter date the loom was introduced, and shared in the manufacture, which, however, was still largely carried on by the needle, and formed the employment of females in convents and elsewhere. In the two following centuries other parts of Europe produced fine embroideries; and those of England gradually became highly prized on the Continent.

A great extension of the employment of tapestry took place in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when it began to be applied to private use in the residences of the nobility, instead of being reserved, as heretofore, for the curtains, palls, altar-cloths and vestments of churches and monasteries. The lofty walls of stone were no longer allowed to remain cold and naked, but were covered, often by the industry of the ladies of the family, with rich hangings, on which the heroic deeds of their ancestors were embroidered with more or less dexterity, according to the skill of the draughtsmen in design and of the needlewomen in execution. The taste for these household luxuries is said to have been introduced from the East, in consequence of the increased intercourse occasioned by the Crusades. The oriental practice of covering walls with prepared and ornamented skins, united so as to form solid leather hangings, which not only resisted damp, but were capable of high ornamentation by means of gilding, seems to have suggested the use of tapestry for similar purposes, and thus to have led to a vast improvement in the domestic comfort of many a baronial dwelling. These solid and richly embroidered curtains must have saved the inmates from many cold currents of air, while their legends imparted an unwonted appearance of life and activity to the bare walls. The eastern origin of these wall-coverings may be traced in the name SARAYINS or SARAYINOIS, formerly applied in France to the workmen engaged in their manufacture. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the FLEMINGS, who had long been celebrated for their tapestries, carried the art to great perfection, and produced some of the finest specimens which had yet appeared. GUICEIARDINI ascribed the invention of tapestry to Flanders; but this could only apply, if at all, to such as is produced by the loom, and embroidery by the loom appears only to have followed when the fingers became inadequate to meet the demand for a well-known and necessary article. Among the early manufactories of tapestry were those of Brussels, Arras, Antwerp, Lisle, Oudenarde, Tournay, Bruges and Valenciennes. Those of Arras became highly celebrated; they were executed, as were most of the French tapestries, chiefly in wool, with a little hemp and cotton, but without silk or gold or silver thread. The richer and more costly kinds of tapestry were fabricated chiefly at Florence and Venice. In the sixteenth century FRANCIS I. established the celebrated manufacture of Fontainebleau, in which threads of gold and silver were introduced into the work. This manufacture was also patronized by his successor, HENRY II., who brought Italian workers to further French art. In the following century new edifices were erected for the tapestry weavers of Paris, and Flemish workmen were hired to assist them. But the work languished after the death of HENRY IV. It was revived by Louis XIV., who founded a manufacture in premises which had been erected by celebrated

dyers, named GOBELIN. The establishment was named Hotel Royal des GOBELINS, and has attained a world-wide celebrity on account of the fine tapestries executed there, often from designs of RAPHAEL, GUILIO ROMANO and other Italian painters. LE BRUN was at one time chief director of the establishment, and many fine productions are from his designs. This manufacture continued to flourish until the time of the Revolution, when it greatly declined. It was subsequently revived under the government of NAPOLEON, but never regained its ancient fame. The works executed in it were thenceforth chiefly for the use of the royal palaces, and very few were presented for general sale. Our great exhibition of 1851 presented two fine specimens from this celebrated manufactory. Both were copies of well-known pictures, the one, of RAPHAEL's fresco in the Farnesian, in which PSYCHE is represented carried through the air by genii, and bearing the vessel which, at the behest of VENUS, she has brought from the nether world; the other, of HORACE VERNET's picture of ALI PASHA looking on at the massacre of the Mamelukes, who, at his command, were shot by his soldiers. In both these copies the general effect, as well as much of the feeling of the artists, were preserved to an extraordinary degree, considering that the process of copying was so purely mechanical.

Of the use of tapestry in England we have many brief indications in Anglo-Saxon times. Silken curtains, embroidered in gold, were fabricated for some of the dwellings of the nobility; and, in the wonderful specimen of industry known as the Bayeux tapestry, we have an evidence of the use of linen tapestry, worked with wool, in the days of WILLIAM the Conqueror. This piece of needle-work is said to have been executed by his queen and her maidens, in commemoration of the conquest of England, and to have been bestowed by MATILDA herself on the cathedral of Bayeux, of which ODo, the Conqueror's brother, was bishop. At one time this piece of tapestry was annually hung up in the church, where it entirely surrounded the naves, and was so kept for eight days, when it was again carefully locked up. By order of NAPOLEON I. the Bayeux tapestry was exhibited in Paris in 1803, and in other large towns of France; it was then consigned, not to the cathedral, but to the municipality of Bayeux. It is twenty inches wide and two hundred and fourteen feet long, and is divided into seventy-two compartments, each bearing a superscription in Latin.

Tapestry hangings were introduced more generally in the time of ELEANOR of Castile, and began to be employed, also, as a covering for floors. The rich tapestry of ELIZABETH's time is noticed by poets and writers of the day, and indicates an abundance which could not have been supplied by the needle. And it appears that tapestry weaving had been introduced into England in the reign of HENRY VIII., and was practiced from that time with more or less success. A celebrated manufactory at Mortlake, in Surrey, produced superb hangings for the royal palaces, &c. These were hung up on frames by means of hooks, and often at some little distance from the walls, so that concealment behind the tapestry was quite possible. This arrangement facilitated the removal of one suit of tapestry and the substitution of another to suit particular occasions, such as a royal progress, when the tapestry was sometimes sent on and affixed to the walls for that special occasion. At a later period, tapestry shared in the improvements of weaving and dyeing, but became