Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/288

286, and then upwards. After the termination of this punishment, each of the sufferers was washed with salt water, by a black woman, and they were then all dismissed. This was the most excruciating punishment that I ever saw inflicted on black people, and, in my opinion, it is very dangerous; for the claws of the cat are poisonous, and wounds made by them are very subject to inflammation.

During all this time, I had remained at the distance of fifty yards from the place of punishment, fearing either to advance or retreat, lest I too might excite the indignation of these sanguinary judges. After the business was over, and my feelings became a little more composed, I thought the voice of the gentleman in good clothes, was familiar to me; but I could not recollect who he was, nor where I had heard his voice, until the gentlemen at length left this place, and went towards the great house, and as they passed me, I recognized in the companion of the overseer, my old master, the negro trader, who had bought me in Maryland, and brought me to Carolina.

I afterwards learned from my master that this man had formerly been engaged in the African slave-trade, which he had given up some years before, for the safer and less arduous business of buying negroes in the North, and bringing them to the South, as articles of merchandise, in which he had acquired a very