I have found other blacks who believed
that all good darkies when they die go to Guinea, and one of these was
very touching and strange. He had been brought as a slave-child to South
Carolina, but was always haunted by the memory of a group of cocoa-palms
by a place where the wild white surf of the ocean bounded up to the
shore--a rock, sunshine, and sand. There he declared his soul would go.
He was a Voodoo, and a man of marvellous strange mind.

Day by day my commander gave me, as I honestly believe, without a shadow
of exaggeration, all the terrific details of a slaver's life, and his
strange experiences in buying slaves in the interior. Compared to the
awful massacres and cruelties inflicted by the blacks on one another, the
white slave trade seemed to be philanthropic and humane. He had seen at
the grand custom in Dahomey 2,500 men killed, and a pool made of their
blood into which the king's wives threw themselves naked and wallowed.
"One day fifteen were to be tortured to death for witchcraft. I bought
them all for an old dress-coat," said the captain. "I didn't want them,
for my cargo was made up; it was only to save the poor devils' lives."

If a slaver could not get a full cargo, and met with a weaker vessel
which was full, it was at once attacked and plundered. Sometimes there
would be desperate resistance, with the aid of the slaves. "I have seen
the scuppers run with blood," said the captain. And so on, with much
more of the same sort, all of which has since been recorded in the
"Journal of Captain Canot," from which latter book I really learned
nothing new. I might add the "Life of Hobart Pacha," whom I met many
times in London. A real old-fashioned slaver was fully a hundred times
worse than an average pirate, because he _was_ the latter whenever he
wished to rob, and in his business was the cause of far more suffering
and death.

The captain was very fond of reading poetry, his favourite being
Wordsworth. This formed quite a tie between us. He was always rather
mild, quiet, and old-fashioned--in fact, muffish. Once only did I see a
spark from him which showed what was latent. Captain Jack was describing
a most extraordinary run which we had made before a gale from Gibraltar
to Cape de Creux, which was, indeed, true enough, he having a very fast
vessel. But the _Guinea_ captain denied that such time had ever been
made by any craft ever built. "And I have had to sail sometimes pretty
fast