To show that their labours are not needlessly continued, the Society make the following statement of the present state of prisons:

But although these considerations are highly encouraging, there is yet much to accomplish in this work of national improvement. So extensive are the defects of classification, that in thirty gaols, constructed for the confinement of 2985 persons, there were, at one time in the last year, no fewer than 5837 prisoners; and the whole number imprisoned in those gaols, during that period, amounted to 26,703. There are yet prisons where idleness and its attendant evils reign unrestrained where the sexes are not separated-where all distinctions of crime are confounded - where few can enter, if uncorrupted, without pollution; and, if guilty, without incurring deeper stains of criminality. There are yet prisons which receive not the pious visits of a Christian minister-which the light of knowledge never enters-and where the truths and consolations of the Gospel are never heard.—There are yet prisons where, for the security of the prisoners, measures are resorted to as revolting to British feeling as they are repugnant to the spirit and letter of English law.'- Report, pp. 63, 64.

With this statement we take our leave of the subject of prisons, thoroughly convinced that, since the days of their cleanliness and salubrity, they have been so managed as to become the great school for crimes and wretchedness; and that the public, though beginning to awake, are not yet sufficiently aware of this fact, and sufficiently alarmed at it. Mrs. Fry is an amiable excellent woman, and ten thousand times better than the infamous neglect that preceded her; but hers is not the method to stop crimes. In prisons which are really meant to keep the multitude in order, and to be a terror to evil doers, there must be no sharing of profits- no visiting of friends no education but religious education-no freedom of diet no weavers' looms or carpenters' benches. There must be a great deal of solitude; coarse food; a dress of shame; hard, incessant, irksome, eternal labour; a planned and regulated and unrelenting exclusion of happiness and comfort.

ACCOUNT OF SIERRA LEONE. (E. REVIEW, 1804.)

An Account of Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone. To which is added, An Account of the present State of Medicine among them. BY THOMAS WINTERBOTTOM, Physician to the Colony of Sierra Leone. Hatchard, Piccadilly. Vol. I.

It appears from the Preface of this book, that the original design of Dr. Winterbottom was to write only on the medical knowledge of the Africans in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone; but as he had lived among them some time in quality of physician to the colony, and had made many observations on the genius and manners of the various African nations which surround it, it was thought fit (i. e. profitable) that he should write one volume for general, and one for therapeutic readers.-The latter has not yet come to our hands. The former we have read with pleasure. It is very sensibly and agreeably drawn up; and the only circumstance we regret is, that, upon the whole, it must be rather considered as a compilation from previous writers, than as the result of the author's experience: not that he is exactly on a footing with mere compilers; because every account which he quotes of scenes to which he is familiar, he sanctions by his authority; and, with the mass of borrowed, there is a certain portion of original matter. It appears also, that a brother of the author, in company with a Mr. Watt, penetrated above 400 miles into a part of Africa totally unknown to Europeans; but there are very few observations quoted from the journal kept in this excursion; and the mention of it served for little more than to excite a curiosity which is not gratified by further communication.

By the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, Mr. Winterbottom means the windward coast, or that portion of the western shore of Africa which extends from the river Senegal to the latitude of nearly 5 degrees north, where

the coast quits its easterly direction, and runs away to the south, or a little to the east of south.

The whole of this coast is inhabited by a great number of independent nations, divided by different shades of barbarism, and disputed limits of territory, plunged in the darkest ignorance and superstition, and preyed upon by the homicide merchants of Europe. The most curious passage in this section of the work, is an extract which Mr. Winterbottom has given us from a report made to a Committee of the House of Commons by the Directors of the Sierra Leone Company; and which (as we conjecture, from Dr. Winterbottom's mode of expressing himself, it has never been printed) we shall extract from his book.

A remarkable proof,' say the Directors, exists in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, of the very great advantages of a permanent, though very imperfect, system of government, and of the abolition of those African laws which make slavery the punishment of almost every offence. Not more than seventy years ago, a small number of Mahommedans established themselves in a country about forty miles to the northward of Sierra Leone, called from them the Mandingo Country. As is the practice of the professors of that religion, they formed schools in which the Arabic language and the doctrines of Mahomet were taught and the customs of Mahommedans, particularly that of not selling any of their own religion for slaves, were adopted; laws founded on the Koran were introduced; those practices which chiefly contribute to depopulate were eradicated; and, in spite of many intestine convulsions, a great comparative idea of civilisation, unity, and security, was introduced: population, in consequence, was rapidly increased; and the whole power of that part of the country in which they are settled has gradually fallen into their hands. Those who have been taught in their schools are succeeding to wealth and power in the neighbouring countries, and carry with them a considerable portion of their religion and laws; other chiefs are adopting the names assumed by these Mahommedans, on account of the respect with which it is attended; and the religion of Islem seems to diffuse itself peaceably over the whole district in which the colony is situated, carrying with it those advantages which seem ever to have attended its victory over African superstition.'

Agriculture, though in a rude infant state, is practised

all along this coast of Africa. All the lands must be strictly appropriated in a country, and the greater part cultivated, before any can be cultivated well. Where land is of little value, it is cheaper and better to till it slightly than perfectly; or rather, perfection, under such circumstances, consists in idleness and neglect. The great impediment to be removed from the fresh land which the Africans mean to cultivate, are those troublesome weeds called trees; which are first cut down, and then with the grass, set fire to at a particular season of the year. This operation is performed when the Pleiades, the only stars they observe, are in a certain position with respect to the setting sun. At that season the fires are seen rolling in every direction over the parched and inflammable herbage; and the blazing provinces are discerned at an immense distance in the night by ships approaching the coast. At this period of arson, it is not safe to travel without a tinder-box; for, if a traveller is surprised by the pursuit of the flame, his only safety consists in propagating the same evil before, by which he is menaced behind; and, in trudging on amidst the fiery hyphen, multiplying destruction in order to avoid it. The Foolahs, who seem to have made the greatest advances in agriculture, are, however, still ignorant of the use of the plough, though Dr. Winterbottom is quite persuaded they might easily be taught to use cattle for that purpose.

'There came,' says the Doctor, during my residence at the colony, a chief of considerable importance, from the river Gambia, attracted by curiosity, and a desire of information. The man, whose appearance instantly announced a mind of no common cast, was so much struck with what he saw there, that before he went away he engaged in his service two of the most ingenious mechanics in the colony, one of whom, a carpenter, among other things, was to make a plough, and the other was to teach his people the art of training oxen for the draught, and fixing them to the yoke. For a further account of this person, see the Report of the Directors of the Sierra Leone Company. London, 1795.'

It is curious to remark, that where any instance of

civilisation and refinement is discovered in the manners of a barbarous people, it exists in a much higher degree than the same virtue in nations generally refined. There are many single points of barbarous courtesy much more rigidly adhered to than the rules of European politeness would require. We have often remarked this in the voyages of Captain Cooke, among the islands of the Indian Archipelago; and there is a very remarkable instance of it among the natives of this coast. The houses (says Dr. Winterbottom) have seldom any other opening than the door, of which there are usually two opposite to each other. These serve the purpose of keeping up a current of air; they also admit the light; and afford an exit to the smoke of the fire, which is made in the middle of the floor. The entrance of a house is seldom closed by any thing but a mat, which is occasionally let down, and is a sufficient barrier against all intruders. The most intimate friend will not presume to lift the mat and enter, unless his salutation is returned. Nay, when the door is thus slightly closed, a woman, by pronouncing the word Mooradee (I am busy), can prevent her husband from entering, even though he is assured she is enter. taining her gallant. His only remedy is to wait for their coming out.

The explanation of these insulated pieces of superlative refinement among savages, frequently is, that they are not mere ceremonies, but religious observances; for the faith of barbarous people commonly regulates all the frivolous minutiæ of life, as well as its important duties; indeed, generally considers the first as of greater consequence than the last. And it must be a general fact, at all times, that gross ignorance more tenaciously adheres to a custom once adopted, because it respects that custom as an ultimate rule, and does not discern cases of exception by appealing to any higher rule upon which the first is found.

The Africans are very litigious; and display, in their law-suits or palavers, a most forensic exuberance of images, and loquacity of speech. Their criminal causes are frequently terminated by selling one of the parties