of the sea almost convinced us that it was playing
on the shore, we were beyond all doubt for
the space of ten hours that the ship had made a
convenient landfall. Our captain therefore gave
the man who first discovered it ten gallons of rum
and twenty pounds of sugar; but about six
o'clock in the evening, as we were washing the
decks, and the sun was shining clear from the
westward, in less than a minute we lost all
sight of the land, and nothing but the horizon,
interspersed with a few pale clouds, was
perceptible from the deck. This filled the ship's
company with the utmost astonishment and
confusion; nor did we make the coast of Ireland
for several days after. Our captain and
ship's company concluded that it was Old
Brazil, which navigators affirm to have been
destroyed by an earthquake between five hundred
and six hundred years ago."

The Old Brazil was of course simply the Fata
Morgana, brilliantly vivid, and seen in an
unusual latitude—an optical illusion in the world's
camera, very curious as a phenomenon, but
quite refusing to be classed as a fact even on the
verge of the supernatural.

On arriving at Bristol, Told was transferred
by his master to the Royal George (Timothy
Tucker commander), bound for Guinea and the
West Indies. Told's new captain proved a
most cruel villain. One Sunday, a very short
time after Told's joining, as he was down in the
gun-room, busy at the bread-cask getting out
biscuit for the ship's company, Captain Timothy
Tucker came down, accused Told loudly of
waste, and, going to his cabin, returned with a
large horsewhip, and beat the boy till his
clothes were cut in ribbons and his bones began
to show. He then threw him along the deck,
and leaped upon him. This cruelty would
have certainly ended in murder, had not the
people taken the lad and thrown him under the
windlass as if he had been a dead cat.

One day, at Bonny, Told was taken on
shore, by the king Arigo, for change of air. On
this occasion, when the negroes found a sudden
alarm would not cure Told of an excruciating
headache, they carried him up to the precipice
where their great "palaver house" was, and
offered yams, and sacrificed dogs, to their gods.
The "grandymen" then led him, through a
desert, back to the ship (just as bad as ever),
sprinkling the dust before him with palm wine
on going on board. Cruel Captain Tucker, to
bring him out of the fever, whipped him till he
could not stand.

These Guinea captains were savage wretches,
hardened by the brutalities of slave-dealing. Once
when a black slave was ill, and would not eat,
Tucker flogged him savagely, till he was all one
wound. He then called for one of his men to
bring him two pistols, putting one to the slave's
forehead, crying he would "tickeravoo him,"
which was negroish for "settle him." The poor
creature made no resistance, but merely said,
"Adomma," "so be it." Tucker fired, the
man put his hand to his head, and the blood
gushed out like wine from a cask; but he did
not fall. Tucker then put a pistol to his ear,
and fired; but the negro still did not drop. "At
last," says Told, "the captain swore horribly,
and ordered John Lad to fire another through
his heart, which was done; he then dropped
down dead. All the men slaves, in consequence
of this uncommon murder, rose upon the ship's
company, with full purpose to slay us all; but
we, nimbly betaking ourselves to the cannons,
pointed them through a bulk-head that parted
the main and quarter deck; which when they
perceived, the greater part of them ran down
between decks, and the remainder jumped overboard,
and were all drowned, save one or two,
which, with the assistance of the jolly-boat, we
rescued from the violence of the sea."

On his arrival at Bristol, Told's original
master received all his wages, and did not
even give him a present. He was, therefore,
having no friends, compelled to take a second
voyage with that terrible murderer, Captain
Timothy Tucker.

When the vessel was "slaved," that is, ready
with her human cargo, and ready to sail for
Bonny, one midnight, outside the bar, the slaves
began to scream and howl, crying that Egbo
(the devil) was among them. The next morning,
when the hatches were opened, forty were
dead of suffocation, out of eighty, and were
instantly thrown overboard. The ship's cook,
having only green wood for his furnace, was
always late with his dinner, which so exasperated
the fierce-tempered captain that he used
to perpetually horsewhip the man, or cut him
with his own knife. The poor cook (Jack
Bundy), weary of life, at last threw himself over
the ship's side, and was drowned, to the captain's
great satisfaction.

After this, Told was shipped on board the
Scipio, commanded by a liberal, pleasant-tempered
man, named Roach. One evening, when
they lay at anchor off New Calabar, a negro-
dealer came on board to sell slaves, while the
captain was brewing a tub of punch on the
quarter-deck with the ship's company. Tom
Ancora (the dealer, who talked English),
making the captain's favourite female slave
drink brandy out of his own glass, so irritated
Roach that he thrust out Tom's front teeth
with his cane, and then ran to the state cabin
for his pistol to shoot the man. Tom, however,
threw himself overboard, and was picked up by the
men of his own canoe. The captain then resolved,
against the advice of the whole ship's company,
to go on shore and make peace with Tom. He
therefore put on his sword, arrayed himself in
a state suit of scarlet plush, and went and
supped with Tom, who took care, under the
guise of frank friendliness, to give him a strong
dose of poison that partially paralysed and
eventually killed the captain. The friendly
negroes could have given him antidotes, but
the captain, not believing he had been poisoned,
refused their remedies.

Just inside the bar, Adam, a negro, headed a
mutiny of the slaves, who threw the cook into
a furnace full of boiling rice, and stabbed and