Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/103

Rh was not laid until the slaves were on the beach ready to embark. Being then in great haste the slaver did not usually go to the trouble of erecting stanchions and building his deck substantially. He merely laid his rafters or timbers on the barrels, as best he might; spread the boards over them, with a nail driven in here and there, perhaps, but sometimes with never a nail to hold them in place, and then the slaves were brought on board and jammed into the thin space with less regard for their comfort than is shown now for hogs shipped in a two-deck stock-car.

In fact, when the cruisers became at last somewhat vigilant, cargoes were shipped in vessels that had no slave-deck; the slaves were piled on the barrels of food and water until the barrels were blanketed out of sight.

But the limit of devilish ingenuity in stowing slaves was not reached until the trade was outlawed. To increase the number of slaves on the deck they were then compelled to lie on their sides, breast to back, "spoon fashion," to use the term then common. Where the 'tween-deck space was two feet high or more the slaves were stowed sitting up in rows, one crowded into the lap of another, and with legs on legs, like riders on a crowded toboggan. In storms the sailors had to put on the hatches, and seal tight the openings into the infernal cesspool. It was asserted by the naval officers who were stationed on the coast to stop the traffic that in certain states of the weather they could detect the odor of a slaver further away than they could see her on a clear night. The odor was often unmistakable at a distance of five miles down wind.

Tt was possible for a humane ship-master, such as