The fine favorable breeze has brought us this evening, at eight bells, nearly twelve miles from the river Volta, which rolls its turbid waters through a vast alluvial plain. To the eastward and westward of this river, important both for its size and its being the boundary between the Gold and Slave Coast, emptying into it near its mouth, stretches a vast sheet of salt water, some twenty miles long, west of the river, and east of it about a hundred and ninety miles or more, as is said, extending to Quitta, Wydah and Lagos, with an average breadth of ten miles. Slavers are said to embark their cargoes at Wydah, etc., on this salt lagoon, and ship them for market at several stations on the shore and through the Volta, with which both sheets of water communicate, although there is a bar off its outlet which interferes with navigation. The shore that intervenes between this salt sea and the ocean is very narrow, a mere slip of land in many places. Little or nothing is known of the Volta higher than fifty miles from its mouth.

We are now nearing that part of the coast behind which, far and wide in the interior, rules the despotic king of Dahomey; a second edition, as reports go, of the king of Ashantee.

In former days, when the spirit of African adventure and discovery was strong and active, travellers visited the capital of this powerful nation, and tell us most strange and startling stories of king and people. It is represented as the quintessence of the purest kind of despotism, where the monarch is worshipped as a god, and body and soul are offered up to his whims and passions. Creeping like reptiles in his awful presence, and kissing the rod that spares neither them nor theirs, though fearless and ferocious with every body else, to hear their king's wishes or commands is to obey, not only without a murmur, but cheerfully and with a smile. Men, women and children, houses, goods and lands, all, all are his, and his nod, like that of the cloud-compelling Jove, is the sign of fate. Most strange to say, these very men, who in the field are without a fear and merciless to others who meet their king in arms, will at his beck and call abandon all they hold most dear, and offer themselves and theirs as willing victims to his lusts and passions. At this barbaric court, where three thousand wives adorn the royal harem, this bevy of dusky dames are regularly enrolled as a guard, and musket, spear, buckler and sword are wielded by the Amazonian band. There, too, the weaker sex being the property of the Dahomey Blue-Beard, this uxorious African periodically distributes the dames among his cringing nobles and slaves, without consulting the tastes of either party, or allowing remonstrance or a choice. Boots it little to him, clothed with his brief and terrible authority, whether old be yoked to young, grave to gay, ugly to handsome, rich to poor, sickly to healthy. He is the state, and his word is law, and no man dares dispute it. These travellers' stories, so Arabian-Night-like, do tempt one hugely to go and see; but visiting a leopard in his lair, though sleek his skin and beautiful his shape and spots, is a sport I, for one, take no peculiar pleasure in; so, even were I free, I think I would rather swallow the stories, startling though they be, than test the conclusion that 'seeing is believing.'

Another amiable trait in the manners of these strange people is, that on the death of the lord and master, the royal widows, whose name is legion, carry on such a ferocious skirmish, and come so impressively to the scratch, that the fight goes on, and the fond victims are sacrificed at each other's hands to the memory of the dear departed, until ordered to desist by his deified successor. And yet another peculiarity in the fashions of these gentry is, that they have a particular fancy to constructing their walls and ceilings in part of human skulls and bones; thus at the same time keeping up a due ferocity of temper and the proofs of their warlike renown.

To return to Accra. I must not forget to state, as matter of statistical, financial and culinary interest, that fowls cost one dollar the dozen, turkeys fifty cents each, and bananas, yams, etc., are proportionally moderate. A couple of fine young parrots were purchased for a dollar and a half, monkey-skins, large and glossy, fifty cents for several stitched together, and a Lilliputian house full of little pinked birds or sparrows, for a dollar and a half. The ship is now quite stocked with our purchases; and could we by art-magic send them home, a curiosity-shop might be soon opened, both attractive and profitable.

A PASS AT OUR IMPROVEMENTS.

BY KIT

KELVIN.

A PROVERB, ancient as the days of Zeno, reads: 'We are constituted with two ears and one mouth, that we may hear more and say less.' It would be well were this oftener remembered; and peradventure, Dear KNICK., you may, thinking me garrulous, rank me as one who sees motes, yet recognises no beams; but I alluded slightly to a subject in my last paper which I wonder has not engaged the pen of some matter-of-fact writer, and of which I would fain speak more at large.

By the way, in your last Table,' speaking of an article as being 'too interminably long' for insertion, reminds me of a jeu d'esprit which had existence some years ago. A widow, whose patience and christian spirit had been severely tested by the conduct of her several sons, had, after much trouble and more anxiety, made arrangements for her youngest- a wild, rollicking, reckless sprig, in whom was combined the essence of all species of roguery- - in a store at a neighboring village. Hither, after many and repeated desires that he should strive to make glad the heart of his mother, the youth was sent, bearing a letter to the trader breathing sentiments which only a mother could express. He had been absent a fortnight, and the fond parent was anticipating the success of her boy, filling the future with gladdened projects, and creating him, by the different stages of promotion, a rear-admiral of dry-goods, when the very object of her thoughts presented himself before her. His face was sorrowful, and his appearance like one greatly humbled and deeply troubled. The mother's heart beat quick, and with its pulsations went the visions of advancement and happiness for her son which she had been quietly enjoying a moment before. Alas, my son! what new trouble has come upon you? Your presence troubles me!'

Indeed, dear mother, I am sorry to say Mr.

does not want

me any longer!' And beneath the grave exterior a lurking smile played bo-peep with the appearance of sadness.

At this plain announcement the mother could no longer restrain either her tears or her despair. Bitterly she wept and deplored the supposed misconduct of her son, who cruelly permitted her to bemoan the misfortune until his wayward spirit was fully gratified, and then coolly informed his mother that he spoke of stature rather than time!

Now, with brevity ever in view, permit me to introduce you to a few suggestions upon Present Improvements; the bearing they have upon the condition, as well as the influence which through them is exercised upon the country. These remarks are but the skeleton to the subject, which is susceptible of muscle and flesh, had you th

time to digest or the space to print them; but I neither have the vanity to suppose my sentiments California dust,' or boldness to ask of you many pages to display them.

As previously remarked, I advocate advancement and all wise schemes that claim alliance to progress, yet not so zealous in the advocacy thereof as to hazard the domestic happiness of quiet firesides, the innocency of retirement, and that otium cum dignitate' with which man was originally endowed. Self-interest, the prospect of rapid accumulation, and fame, (which is but ephemeral,) seem in fact the secret springs and pendulums to most of the present day benefits; and as it regards real melioration, half and more result in temporary deceptions and actual humbugs. Hoodwinked by the cunning artifice of unscrupulous experimentizers, we are lost in the whirl and confusion of the chaos of mortification and personal distress. There is no end to the dance of the wizard. Encircled as we are by the strange medleys of the nineteenth century, we are almost inclined to believe that the days of enchantment have existence, and that the Knight of the Sorrowful Figure' is abroad, from whom emanates the infection of madness, and that all the world are fighting wind-mills' and breaking wine-skins' in their chivalric delirium. However cool and philosophic the contemplator, while he looks he is fascinated; the whirlwind and the storm have embraced him, and giddy and intoxicated, he reels into the very excesses upon which he smiled in calm indifference.

Mania is every where. You detect it in the restless eye, the pallid cheek, the nervous step. It is whispered to us in breeze and gale, wafted to us by every stream. Like an ungovernable harpy, wounding us with its filthy breath and snatching from before us the food that nourishes us.

Those of your readers who date their nativity in town cannot regard this unsatisfactory harmonizing-if I may be allowed this seeming contradictory phrase-of city and country by steam, as a matter of interest. They have seen the countryman unsophisticated as he is, but they little dream of that quiet hearth-stone around which clusters innocence and virtue and the peace of the good man' which give him this simplicity, this confidence in his fellow. They may smile at his awkwardness and wonder at his apparent stupidity, yet the good and the finer feelings are there, which they neither know nor court. Is it not better that this sincerity, this plainness, this freedom from artificiality, should continue established at the hearth-stone? Is it not better that this quiet, this virtue, should remain unmolested, uninterrupted? Can it be, so long as Steam is the currency, the food, drink, the 'wherewithal to clothe us?' Nor can these same denizens regard with much interest the existence of improvements, the parhelia of that sun that shall illumine both city and country alike. But that this is, we have evidences north, south, east, west, and all about. The road and marshy pass and lonesome wood have scarcely a pilgrim to awake sleeping echoes now. The iron racehorse has proved the valorous knight, and with its fearful impetus defies all competition.