Before I reached it I knew from
various signs what was the cargo of this ship. She was laden with slaves
captured in Fernandina, as the Spaniards name the island of Cuba, that
were to be sold in Hispaniola. Among these slaves I was now numbered.
How to tell the horrors of that hold I know not. The place was low, not
more than seven feet in height, and the slaves lay ironed in the bilge
water on the bottom of the vessel. They were crowded as thick as they
could lie, being chained to rings fixed in the sides of the ship.
Altogether there may have been two hundred of them, men, women and
children, or rather there had been two hundred when the ship sailed a
week before. Now some twenty were dead, which was a small number, since
the Spaniards reckon to lose from a third to half of their cargo in this
devilish traffic. When I entered the place a deadly sickness seized me,
weak as I was, brought on by the horrible sounds and smells, and the
sights that I saw in the flare of the lanterns which my conductors
carried, for the hold was shut off from light and air. But they dragged
me along and presently I found myself chained in the midst of a line
of black men and women, many feet resting in the bilge water. There the
Spaniards left me with a jeer, saying that this was too good a bed
for an Englishman to lie on. For a while I endured, then sleep or
insensibility came to my succour, and I sank into oblivion, and so I
must have remained for a day and a night.
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