Some were emaciated from disease, many bruised and bloody.

Antoine tells me that some were found strangled; their hands still grasping each others' throats." It is of a Brazilian slaver that this awful tale is told, but the event itself was paralleled on more than one American ship.

Occasionally we encounter stories of ships destroyed by an exploding magazine, and the slaves, chained to the deck, going down with the wreck.

Once a slaver went ashore off Jamaica, and the officers and crew speedily got out the boats and made for the beach, leaving the human cargo to perish.

When dawn broke it was seen that the slaves had rid themselves of their fetters and were busily making rafts on which the women and children were put, while the men, plunging into the sea, swam alongside, and guided the rafts toward the shore.