“...Past our boat, as we approached [sic] the landing*, dashed a heavy, full-modeled barge, pulled by a score of oarsmen––all black as night, poor fellows!––and apparently just arrived from Yarriba-Borgoo**, or possibly from the hippopotamiferous shores of reedy Lake Ngami––slaves, every soul of them. Afar off they announced their coming, by a wild boat-song, timed to their stroke; the words in the Congo dialect, as nearly as we could judge….”
[Pernambuco, The Williams Quarterly, vol.V., no.II, November, 1857]
Williams College, Williamstown, MA.

* Recife
**Yoruba & Borgu (roughly speaking: Modern Benin, Nigeria, & Togo)