"My companion had a thousand questions for 'the captain,' all of which I answered with so much bonhommie that we soon became the best friends imaginable, and chatted over all the scandal of Cuba. I learned from this man that a cargo had recently been 'run' in the neighborhood of Matanzas, and that its disposal was most successfully managed by a Señor ***, from Catalonia.

"I slapped my thigh and shouted eureka! It flashed through my mind to trust this man without further inquiry, and I confess that my decision was based exclusively upon his sectional nationality. I am partial to the Catalans. Accordingly, I presented myself at the counting-room of my future consignee in due time, and 'made a clean breast' of the whole transaction, disclosing the destitute state of my vessel. In a very short period, his excellency the captain-general was made aware of my arrival, and furnished a list of 'the Africans,' by which name the Bosal slaves are commonly known in Cuba. Nor was the captain of the port neglected. A convenient blank page of his register was inscribed with the name of my vessel as having sailed from the port six months before, and this was backed by a register and muster-roll, in order to secure my unquestionable entry into a harbor.

"Before nightfall everything was in order with Spanish dispatch, when stimulated either by doubloons or the smell of African blood; and twenty-four hours afterwards, I was again at the landing with a suit of clothes and a blanket for each of my 'domestics.' The schooner was immediately put in charge of a clever pilot, who undertook the formal duty and name of her commander, in order to elude the vigilance of all the minor officials whose conscience had not been lulled by the golden anodyne.

"In the meanwhile every attention had been given to the slaves by my hospitable ranchero. 'The head-money' once paid, no body-civil, military, foreign, or Spanish-dared interfere with them. Forty-eight hours of rest, ablution, exercise and feeding, served to recruit the gang and steady their gait. Nor had the sailors in charge of the party omitted the performance of their duty as 'valets' to the gentlemen, and 'ladies' maids' to the females; so that when the march towards Sant Iago began, the procession might have been considered as 'respectable as it was numerous.'

"The brokers of the southern emporium made very little delay in finding purchasers at retail for the entire venture. The returns were, of course, in cash; and so well did the enterprise turn out, that I forgot the rebellion of our mutineers, and allowed them to share my bounty with the rest of the crew. In fact, so pleased was I with the result on inspecting the balance sheet, that I resolved to divert myself with the dolce far niente of Cuban country life for a month at least.

1

"But while I was making ready for this delightful repose, a slight breeze passed over the calmness of my mirror. I had given, perhaps imprudently, but certainly with generous motives, a double pay to my men in recompense of their perilous service on the Rio Nunez. With the usual recklessness of their craft, they lounged about Havana, boasting of their success, while a French

man of the party, who had been swindled of his wages at cards, appealed to his consul for relief. By dint of cross questions, the Gallic official extracted the tale of our voyage from his countryman, and took advantage of the fellow's destitution to make him a witness against a certain Don Téodore Canot, who was alleged to be a native of France! Besides this, the punishment of my mate was exaggerated by the recreant Frenchman into a most unjustifiable as well as cruel act.

"Of course the story was promptly detailed to the captain-general, who issued an order for my arrest. But I was too wary and flush to be caught so easily by the guardian of France's lilies. No person bearing my name could be found in the island; and as the schooner had entered port with Spanish papers, Spanish crew, and was regularly sold, it became manifest to the stupefied consul that the sailor's 'yarn' was an entire fabrication. That night a convenient press-gang, in want of recruits for the royal marine, seized the braggadocio crew, and as there were no witnesses to corroborate the consul's complaint, it was forthwith dismissed.

"Things are managed very cleverly in Havana-when you know how!" The following extract presents a new phase of the slave-trade; as the ordinary horrors of the middle passage were increased by that terrible disease, the small-pox. The narrator had shipped as a sailing master on board the San Pablo. The vessel was disguised as a French cruiser; her officers wore the French uniform, and on all occasions, except in the presence of a genuine French cruiser, she hoisted the Bourbon lilies, and the vessel was conducted in every way as if she belonged to the royal navy. She proceeded to the Mozambique channel, took on board eight hundred victims, and started on the return voyage: "We had hardly reached the open sea before the captain was prostrated with an ague which refused to yield to ordinary remedies, and finally ripened into fever, that deprived him of reason. Other dangers thickened around us. We had been several days off the cape of Good Hope, buffeting a series of adverse gales, when word was brought me after a night of weary watching, that several slaves were ill of small-pox. Of all calamities that occur in the voyage of a slaver, this is the most dreaded and unmanageable. The news appalled me. Impetuous with anxiety, I rushed to the captain, and regardless of fever or insanity, disclosed the dreadful fact. He stared at me for a minute as if in doubt; then opening his bureau and pointing to a long coil of combustible material, said that it communicated through the decks with the powder magazine, and ordered me to-blow up the brig!'

"The master's madness sobered his mate. I lost no time in securing both the dangerous implement and its perilous owner, while I called the officers into the cabin for inquiry and consultation as to our desperate state.

"The gale had lasted nine days without intermission, and during all this time with so much violence that it was impossible to take off the gratings, release the slaves, purify the decks, or rig the wind-sails. When the first lull occurred, a thorough inspection of the eight hundred was made, and a death announced. As life had departed during the tempest, a careful inspection of

the body was made, and it was this that first disclosed the pestilence in our midst. The corpse was silently thrown into the sea, and the malady kept secret from crew and negroes.

"When breakfast was over on that fatal morning, I determined to visit the slave deck myself, and ordering an abundant supply of lanterns, descended to the cavern, which still reeked horribly with human vapor, even after ventilation. But here, alas! I found nine of the negroes infected by the disease. We took counsel as to the use of laudanum in ridding ourselves speedily of the sufferers-a remedy that is seldom and secretly used in desperate cases to preserve the living from contagion. But it was quickly resolved that it had already gone too far, when nine were prostrated, to save the rest by depriving them of life. Accordingly, these wretched beings were at once sent to the forecastle as a hospital, and given in charge to the vaccinated or inoculated as nurses. The hold was then ventilated and limed; yet before the gale abated, our sick list was increased to thirty. The hospital could hold no more. Twelve of the sailors took the infection, and fifteen corpses had been cast into the sea! "All reserve was now at an end. Body after body fed the deep, and still the gale held on. At last, when the wind and waves had lulled so much as to allow the gratings to be removed from our hatches, our consternation knew no bounds when we found that nearly all the slaves were dead or dying with the distemper. I will not dwell on the scene or our sensations. It is a picture that must gape with all its horrors before the least vivid imagination. Yet there was no time for languor or sentimental sorrow. Twelve of the stoutest survivors were ordered to drag out the dead from among the ill, and though they were constantly drenched with rum to brutalize them, still we were forced to aid the gang by reckless volunteers from our crew, who, arming their hands with tarred mittens, flung the fœtid masses of putrefaction into the sea!

"One day was a counterpart of another; and yet the love of life, or, perhaps, the love of gold, made us fight the monster with a courage that became a better cause. At length death was satisfied, but not until the eight hundred beings we had shipped in high health had dwindled to four hundred and ninetyseven skeletons!

"The San Pablo might have been considered entitled to a 'clean bill of health' by the time she reached the equator. The dead left space, food, and water for the living, and very little restraint was imposed on the squalid remnant. None were shackled after the outbreak of the fatal plague, so that in a short time the survivors began to fatten for the market to which they were hastening. But such was not the fate of our captain. The fever and delirium had long left him, yet a dysenteric tendency, the result of a former malady, suddenly supervened, and the worthy gentleman rapidly declined. His nerves gave way so thoroughly that from fanciful weakness he lapsed into helpless hypochondria. One of his pet ideas was that a copious dose of calomel would insure his restoration to perfect health.

"But there was no balm in calomel for the captain. Physic could not save him. He declined day by day; yet the energy of his hard nature kept him

alive when other men would have sunk, and enabled him to command even from his sick bed.

"It was always our Sabbath service to drum the men to quarters and exercise them with cannons and small arms. One Sunday, after the routine was over, the dying man desired to inspect his crew, and was carried to the quarter-deck on a mattrass. Each sailor marched in front of him and was allowed to take his hand; after which he called them around in a body, and announced his apprehension that death would claim him before our destination was reached. Then, without previously apprising us of his design, he proceeded to make a verbal testament, and enjoined it upon all as a duty to his memory to obey implicitly. If the San Pablo arrived safely in port, he desired that every officer and mariner should be paid the promised bounty, and that the proceeds of the cargo should be sent to his family in Nantz. But if it happened that we were attacked by a cruiser, and the brig was saved by the risk and valor of a defense, then he directed that one-half the voyage's avails should be shared between officers and crew, while one-quarter was sent to his friends in France, and the other given to me. His sailing-master and Cuban consignees were to be the executors of this salt-water document.

"We were now well advanced north-westwardly on our voyage, and in every cloud could see a promise of the continuing trade-wind, which was shortly to end a luckless voyage. From deck to royal-from flying-jib to ring-tail, every stitch of canvas that would draw was packed and crowded on the brig. Vessels were daily seen in numbers, but none appeared suspicious till we got far to the westward, when my glass detected a cruising schooner, jogging along under easy sail. I ordered the helmsman to keep his course; and tautening sheets, braces, and halyards, went into the cabin to receive the final orders of our commander.

"He received my story with his usual bravery, nor was he startled when a boom from the cruiser's gun announced her in chase. He pointed to one of his drawers and told me to take out its contents. I handed him three flags, which he carefully unrolled, and displayed the ensigns of Spain, Denmark, and Portugal, in each of which I found a set of papers suitable for the San Pablo. In a feeble voice he desired me to select a nationality; and, when I chose the Spanish, he grasped my hand, pointed to the door, and bade me not to surrender.

“When I reached the deck, I found our pursuer gaining on us with the utmost speed. She outsailed us-two to one. Escape was altogether out of the question; yet I resolved to show the inquisitive stranger our mettle, by keeping my course, firing a gun, and hoisting my Spanish signals at peak and main.

"At this time the San Pablo was spinning along finely at the rate of about six knots an hour, when a shot from the schooner fell close to our stern. In . a moment I ordered in studding-sails alow and aloft, and as my men had been trained to their duty in man-of-war fashion, I hoped to impose on the cruiser by the style and perfection of the manœuvre. Still, however, she kept her

way, and, in four hours after discovery, was within half gun-shot of the brig. Hitherto I had not touched my armament, but I selected this moment to load under the enemy's eyes, and, at the word of command, to fling open the ports and run out my barkers. The act was performed to a charm by my welldrilled gunners; yet all our belligerent display had not the least effect on the schooner, which still pursued us. At last, within hail, her commander leaped on a gun, and ordered me to 'heave to, or take a ball!'

"Now, I was prepared for this arrogant command, and, for half an hour, had made up my mind how to avoid an engagement. A single discharge of my broadside might have sunk or seriously damaged our antagonist, but the consequences would have been terrible if he boarded me, which I believed to be his aim. Accordingly, I paid no attention to the threat, but tautened my ropes and surged ahead. Presently, my racing chaser came up under my lee within pistol-shot, when a reiterated command to heave to or be fired on, was answered for the first time by a faint 'no intiendo,'-'I don't understand you,'-while the man-of-war shot ahead of me. Then I had him! Quick as thought, I gave the order to 'square away,' and putting the helm up, struck the cruiser near the bow, carrying away her foremast and bowsprit. Such was the stranger's surprise at my daring trick that not a musket was fired or boarder stirred, till we were clear of the wreck. It was then too late. The loss of my jib-boom and a few rope-yarns did not prevent me from cracking on my studding-sails, and leaving the lubber to digest his stupid forbearance!

"This adventure was a fitting epitaph for the stormy life of our poor commander, who died on the following night, and was buried under a choice selection of the flags he had honored with his various nationalities. A few days after the blue water had closed over him forever, our cargo was safely ensconced in the hacienda nine miles east of St. Jago de Cuba, while the San Pablo was sent adrift and burned to the water's edge."

In a former chapter of this work the natives of the Gold Coast are described as remarkable for ferocity, courage and endurance. Four hundred and eighty of these negroes were embarked on board the Estrella at Ayudah, and the incidents of the voyage are thus related: "I have always regretted that I left Ayudah on my homeward voyage without interpreters to aid in the necessary intercourse with our slaves. There was no one on board who understood a word of their dialect. Many complaints from the negroes that would have been dismissed or satisfactorily adjusted, had we comprehended their vivacious tongues, and grievances were passed over in silence or hushed with the lash. Indeed, the whip alone was the emblem of La Estrella's discipline; and in the end it taught me the saddest of lessons.

"From the beginning there was manifest discontent among the slaves. I endeavored at first to please and accommodate them by a gracious manner; but manner alone is not appreciated by untamed Africans. A few days after our departure, a slave leaped overboard in a fit of passion, and another choked himself during the night. These two suicides, in twenty-four hours,