Then the need for fast vessels restricted hold room and the methods of the trade attained a degree of barbarity that can not be paralleled since the days of Nero.
[Illustration: "A FAVORITE TRICK OF THE FLEEING SLAVER WAS TO THROW OVER SLAVES"] Shackled together "spoon-wise," as the phrase was, they suffered and sweltered through the long middle passage, dying by scores, so that often a fifth of the cargo perished during the voyage.

The stories of those who took part in the effort to suppress the traffic give some idea of its frightful cruelty.
The Rev.Pascoa Grenfell Hill, a chaplain in the British navy, once made a short voyage on a slaver which his ship, the "Cleopatra," had captured.
The vessel had a full cargo, and when the capture was effected, the negroes were all brought on deck for exercise and fresh air.

The poor creatures quite understood the meaning of the sudden change in their masters, and kissed the hands and clothing of their deliverers.

The ship was headed for the Cape of Good Hope, where the slaves were to be liberated; but a squall coming on, all were ordered below again.

"The night," enters Mr.Hill in his journal, "being intensely hot, four hundred wretched beings thus crammed into a hold twelve yards in length, seven feet in breadth, and only three and one-half feet in height, speedily began to make an effort to reissue to the open air.