me rough
idea how it should be done. So while getting some splints of keg staves
and bandages ready, I kept a stream of water pouring on the fracture,
and then ordered two men to pull the limb in place, and it took all
their strength. That done I put on the splints and wrapped the bandages
tightly. Three weeks later I landed him in a fair way of recovery.

Gradually I allowed a larger number of the blacks to remain on deck,
a privilege which they greatly enjoyed. To lie basking in the sun like
saurians, half sleeping, half waking, appeared to satisfy all their
wishes. They were perfectly docile and obedient, and not by word,
gesture, or look did they express any dissatisfaction with orders given
them. But again for any little acts of kindness they expressed no kind
of appreciation or gratitude. Physically they were men and women, but
otherwise as far removed from the Anglo-Saxon as the oyster from the
baboon, or the mole from the horse.

On the fourteenth day from parting with the brig we made the palms
on Cape Mesurado, the entrance to Monrovia Harbor. A light sea breath
wafted us to the anchorage, a mile from the town, and when the anchor
dropped from the bows and the chain ran through the hawse pipe, it was
sweet music to my ears; for the strain had been great, and I felt years
older than when I parted from my messmates. A great responsibility
seemed lifted from my shoulders, and I enjoyed a long and refreshing
sleep for the first time in a fortnight. At nine the next morning I went
on shore and reported to the authorities, the officials of Liberia, of
which Monrovia is the capital.

This part of the African coast had been selected by the United States
government as the home of emancipated slaves; for prior to the abolition
excitement which culminated in the war, numbers of slaves in the South
had been manumitted by their masters with the understanding that
they should be deported to Liberia, and the Colonization Society, an
influential body, comprising some of the leading men, like Madison,
Webster, and Clay, had assisted in the same work. The passages of the
negroes were paid; each family was given a tract of land and sufficient
means to build a house. Several thousand had been sent out, most of whom
had settled at Monrovia, and a few at other places on the coast. They
had made no impression on the natives. On the contrary, many of them had
intermarried with the natives, and the off-spring of these unions had
lo