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Updated: April 30, 2025
The dead having been disposed of, and the unwounded prisoners placed under a guard, the wounded were carried into the large and handsome cabin which, however, could not afford accommodation for all of them; the rest were therefore placed, with such spare bedding as could be found, on the upper slave-deck. By the time these arrangements were made, it was nearly daylight.
Charley proposed having the survivors up, so that the slave-deck might be washed and cleaned from the mass of gore and filth collected upon it, but Mr Hallton replied that it was perfectly unnecessary, and that if the slaves should break loose, we might have to kill them all, or be ourselves overpowered.
In building a slaver, the Spaniards and Portuguese spare no expense in order to make her light and buoyant. Her timbers and beams are small, and screwed together. When chased, the screws are loosened, to give the vessel play. Within her hold are erected huge water-casks called leaguers, on these are stowed the provisions, wood, etcetera; above this is the slave-deck.
Some were hoisting up her cargo and placing it either on deck or in the after-cabin ready for trade, and others were fixing in a slave-deck fore and aft, while casks of water and bags of farina were being brought on board in large quantities. I was thankful to see Tom Tubbs in the boat which was to convey the wounded men on shore.
A slave-deck is divided into two unequal parts, the larger for the men, the other for women and children. The stowage is managed entirely by the head-men, who take care that the strongest slaves should be farthest from the ship's side, or from any position in which their strength might avail them to secure a larger space than their neighbours.
Then there was the slave-deck, scarcely thirty-six inches in height, and large coppers for boiling the slaves' food, and some hundred pairs of slave irons or manacles for confining their legs or arms; indeed, nothing was wanting to condemn her.
As we passed near the main hatchway, we saw that the slave-deck was already crowded with blacks, seated literally like herrings in a tub, as close as they could be packed side by side, with shackles round their necks and legs. Our destination was, however, lower down by the after hatchway.
Hamilton having foreseen that it would be practically impossible to convey the stretcher and its burden up on deck by way of the companion ladder without injury to the patient, had caused some planks to be removed from the fore bulkhead, thus making a passage into the main hold, through which we now carried the stretcher, laying it gently down on the slave-deck immediately beneath the main hatch.
The two boatswains had perished the night before; the chief boatswain was doomed to share their fate; two others were hanged; the rest were sent below to the slave-deck, and chained to one of the oars, far enough away from the troublesome slaves who were undergoing punishment. The night passed without alarm. Hernando and Morgan walked the deck for hours in the starlight, planning for the future.
And as these days of calm and stagnation succeeded each other with relentless persistency, I kept up the custom of bathing the negroes and thoroughly cleansing the slave-deck, until at length the poor creatures actually grew fat and merry, so that Mendouca, despite his fast-growing impatience and irritability at the continued calm, was obliged to admit that he had never seen a cargo of "black ivory" in such promising condition before.
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