he
same time. All of them had bags, made of skin, upon their shoulders; for
as they were to travel, in their way from the great mountains, through
barren sands and inhospitable woods for many days together, they were
obliged to carry water and provisions with them. Notwithstanding this,
many of them perished, some by hunger, but the greatest number by
fatigue, as the place from whence they came, is at such an amazing
distance from this, and the obstacles, from the nature of the country,
so great, that the journey could scarcely be completed in seven moons."

When this relation was finished, and we had been looking stedfastly for
some time on the croud that was going by, we lost sight of that
peculiarity of feature, which we had before remarked. We then discovered
that the inhabitants of the depopulated village had all of them passed
us, and that the part of the train, to which we were now opposite, was a
numerous body of kidnapped people. Here we indulged our imagination. We
thought we beheld in one of them a father, in another an husband, and in
another a son, each of whom was forced from his various and tender
connections, and without even the opportunity of bidding them adieu.
While we were engaged in these and other melancholy reflections, the
whole body of slaves had entirely passed us. We turned almost insensibly
to look at them again, when we discovered an unhappy man at the end of
the train, who could scarcely keep pace with the rest. His feet seemed
to have suffered much from long and constant travelling, for he was
limping painfully along.

"This man," resumes the African. "has travelled a considerable way. He
lived at a great distance from hence, and had a large family, for whom
he was daily to provide. As he went out one night to a neighbouring
spring, to procure water for his thirsty children, he was kidnapped by
two _slave hunters_, who sold him in the morning to some country
merchants for a _bar of iron_. These drove him with other slaves,
procured almost in the same manner, to the nearest market, where the
English merchants, to whom the train that has just now passed us
belongs, purchased him and two others, by means of their travelling
agents, for a _pistol_. His wife and children have been long
waiting for his return. But he is gone for ever from their sight: and
they must be now disconsolate, as they must be certain by his delay,
that he has fallen into the hands of the _Christians_".

"And now, as