actually _laughed_! It was by no means a pleasant or a savoury job
that I had undertaken, but witnessing the keen enjoyment that I had thus
bestowed made it the most delightful that I had ever been engaged in.
It occupied me the whole morning to pass the entire cargo through the
bath and secure the thorough cleansing of their persons, and the whole
of the afternoon to get the slave-deck properly cleansed and purified;
but when the sun set that evening the ship was once more sweet and
wholesome, while the slaves had--taking one with another--been on deck
and actively exercised for about half a day instead of about twenty
minutes morning and evening. As I had said, it did them more good than
double rations for the entire voyage. Even Mendouca was fain to
acknowledge that the day, instead of being wasted, had been well spent.

We had been hoping all day that with sunset a breeze would spring up
from _somewhere_--I think nobody was very particular as to the quarter
from which it should come, so long as it came at all--but our hopes were
doomed to disappointment; the sun went down in a perfectly clear sky,
and there was no sign whatever of wind from any quarter. The same
weather conditions prevailed all through the night; and when the sun
rose next morning there was still not the slightest sign of wind, while
the glass exhibited a slight tendency to rise. Under these
circumstances I thought I would endeavour to secure a repetition of the
proceedings of the previous day, and so well pleased was Mendouca with
the improved appearance of the blacks when, as usual, half of them came
on deck at breakfast-time, that he readily gave his consent; and
accordingly the poor creatures were again treated to the luxury of the
bath, while the slave-deck received another thorough scrubbing to
cleanse it from the filth accumulated during the night. And thus the
negroes were enabled to pass a second day in pure air, to the great
improvement of their health and spirits; indeed, the ecstatic delight
with which they lingered over their bath, and the cheerfulness with
which they afterwards worked at their task of drawing water and
scrubbing, chattering almost gaily together all the time, were, to me,
most eloquent testimony as to the miseries that they had previously
endured, cooped up, tightly wedged together, _day and night_, in the
close and noisome hold.

I must not omit to mention a very curious phenomenon of which I had
often heard, b