ngs they put in pots of garden musk to train the plants on,
broad at one end and narrow at the other--something like a triangular
grating--so that a lot of the niggers can stand on it at a time and pick
away from the same tree, on which, perhaps, there are millions of buds
to be taken off in less than no time. When they are all gathered
they're spread out in the sun and dried, and then sent off in bags to
whoever wants 'em."

"And where are they principally grown?" said I.

"Why, Pemba. That's an island up above Zanzibar, about sixty miles from
the coast, though they're very good cloves grown on Zanzibar Island too;
but Pemba is the chief place, and it is to there that the chief runs of
slaves are made by the Arab dhows. That is why the _London_ was so long
stationed thereabouts: it was in order to intercept these craft and stop
the traffic."

"I suppose you've seen some service chasing the dhows yourself, eh?" I
said, thinking this a good opening for getting him back to his yarn, as
he seemed inclined to end the conversation at this point, hinting that
he had an appointment "in the yard"--meaning Portsmouth dockyard--and
that it was getting on late, and they would soon be closing up.

"Oh yes, sir! I served my time dhow-chasing when I was in the _London_;
and saw a few sights, too, in the different craft we overhauled that
would ha' made your blood boil against slavery. One dhow, I remember,
we captured with nearly a hundred on board, all crammed into a space
that you couldn't have thought would have held half that number of human
beings, for it was a small dhow, of probably not more than forty tons at
the outside. On the ballast at the bottom of the vessel were huddled up
twenty-three women, some with infants in their arms. They were
literally doubled up, sir, as they could not stand from the position
they were in, as right over them was placed a bamboo deck not three feet
above the keel of the boat, on which forty men were jammed together in
the same way. This was not all, either, for, right above the men, right
on to their heads almost as they squatted down, was another deck of
bamboo, on which were over fifty children of all ages. The whole lot,
too, when we boarded the dhow, were in the last stages of starvation and
dysentery, not to speak of what they must have suffered from the cramped
position in which they were confined and the want of air. They smelled
something awful when we unkiverd them; it w