![]() ![]() I had never experienced any thing of this kind before and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water. ![]() I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. … Soon after this the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and loose hair. When I recovered a little I found some black people about me, who I believed were some of those who brought me on board, and had been receiving their pay they talked to me in order to cheer me, but all in vain. When I looked round the ship too and saw a large furnace or copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. Indeed such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country. Their complexions too differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, (which was very different from any I had ever heard) united to confirm me in this belief. ![]() I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. The author’s birth and parentage-His being kidnapped with his sister-Their separation-Surprise at meeting again-Are finally separated-Account of the different places and incidents the author met with till his arrival on the coast-The effect the sight of a slave ship had on him-He sails for the West Indies-Horrors of a slave ship-Arrives at Barbadoes, where the cargo is sold and dispersed.
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