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Snelgrave also says, "The country appears full of towns and villages; and being a rich soil, and well cultivated, looks like an entire garden." The field thus cleared, they dig it up a foot deep, and so let it remain for eight or ten days, till the rest of their neighbours have disposed their ground in the same manner.
William Snelgrave, long a ship captain in the trade, relates that he was accustomed when he had taken slaves on board to acquaint them through his interpreter that they were destined to till the ground in America and not to be eaten; that if any person on board abused them they were to complain to the interpreter and the captain would give them redress, but if they struck one of the crew or made any disturbance they must expect to be severely punished.
Snelgrave nevertheless had experience of three mutinies in his career; and Coromantees figured so prominently in these that he never felt secure when men of that stock were in his vessel, for, he said, "I knew many of these Cormantine negroes despised punishment and even death itself."
This work is very full on most topics relating to Guinea, not only in its physical, but also its economical and commercial state; and deservedly bears the character of one of the best old accounts of this part of Africa. New Accounts of some parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade. By Wm. Snelgrave, 1727. 8vo.
In one case when a Coromantee had brained a sentry he was notified by Snelgrave that he was to die in the sight of his fellows at the end of an hour's time.
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