insupportable. At this season, the winds blow so very hot from
off the land, that I can compare them to nothing but the heat
proceeding from the mouth of an oven. This occasions the
Europeans to be sorely vexed with bilious and putrid fevers.
From this account you will not be surprized, that the total loss
of British subjects in this island only, amounted to above two
thousand five hundred, in the space of three years that I was
there, in such a putrid moist air as I have described."

]


[Footnote B: James Barbot, agent general to the French African company,
in his account of Africa, page 105, says, "The natives are seldom
troubled with any distempers, being little affected with the unhealthy
air. In tempestuous times they keep much within doors; and when exposed
to the weather, their skins being suppled, and pores closed by daily
anointing with palm oil, the weather can make but little impression on
them."]

That part of Africa from which the Negroes are sold to be carried into
slavery, commonly known by the name of Guinea, extends along the coast
three or four thousand miles. Beginning at the river Senegal, situate
about the 17th degree of North latitude, being the nearest part of
Guinea, as well to Europe as to North America; from thence to the river
Gambia, and in a southerly course to Cape Sierra Leona, comprehends a
coast of about seven hundred miles; being the same tract for which Queen
Elizabeth granted charters to the first traders to that coast: from
Sierra Leona, the land of Guinea takes a turn to the eastward, extending
that course about fifteen hundred miles, including those several