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It was six bells of the first watch when I reached the Berwick Castle, by which time the land-breeze was piping up strong; and as soon as the boat was hoisted to the davits we filled away for Port Royal, where we arrived in due course, and landed our prisoners, to the number of twenty-three.
An anxious half-hour followed, and then we ran out of the fog and found ourselves creeping along parallel with the land to the northward of the river-mouth, with the brig about half a mile ahead of us under every stitch of canvas she could show to the freshening land-breeze.
On the following morning we began to ship our cargo of slaves three hundred and forty of them; and that same night, about an hour before sunset, we weighed and stood out to sea, securing a good offing by means of the land-breeze which sprang up later on, and finally bore away for Cape Palmas.
When I turned the next fore-land, I all at once began to see a number of craft, which increased as I advanced, most of them small boats, with some schooners, sloops, and larger craft, the majority a-ground: and suddenly now I was conscious that, mingling with that delicious odour of spring-blossoms profoundly modifying, yet not destroying it was another odour, wafted to me on the wings of the very faint land-breeze: and 'Man, I said, 'is decomposing': for I knew it well: it was the odour of human corruption.
Fortunately, the wind died away when we were on our inward tack, and she on her outward, so we were in-shore, and caught the land-breeze first, which came off upon our quarter, about the middle of the first watch.
"The slightest cloud upon his character was the greatest suffering the affairs of life could cause him," writes Madame de Stael; "the worldly aim of all his actions, the land-breeze which sped his bark, was love of reputation."
As we began to feel the fresh morning land-breeze, and to draw out slowly from under the cliffs of the western coast, I drank a farewell glass of wine to the success of the "Amur River Exploring Party," shook hands with the captain and complimented his Dutch History, and bade good-bye to the mates and men.
Urged forward by a brisk trade-wind, to which we exposed every possible stitch of canvas, the little squadron made short miles of it, arriving, at three o'clock in the morning, off Port a l'Ecu; where, at a distance of about a mile off the shore and some two miles from the harbour of Jean Rabel on the one hand, and Port au Paix on the other, the trade- wind encountering the land-breeze, we ran into a calm.
The night got very dark, for the land-breeze brought off a haze, but the engine lamp and glow from the furnace door threw an elusive glimmer about the craft. White sea-crests chased and caught her up, and rolling forward broke between the funnel and the bows. Water splashed on board, the engine hissed as the spray fell on it, and the floorings got wet.
Although the light land-breeze would now have sufficed to carry her a knot or two through the water, she preferred maintaining her position and giving her people a good night's rest to getting under way.
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