"And again thy sweet voice murmured,
    In a low and thrilling tone;
'I have loved thee, truly loved thee,
    Though that love was all unknown!

"'And the sorrows and the trials
    Which thy youth in bondage hold,
Make thee to my heart yet dearer
    Than if thou hadst mines of gold!

"'Go forth—pay thy debt to duty;
    And when thou art nobly free,
He shall know, my good old uncle,
    Of the love 'twixt thee and me!'

"Ellen, thou wast my good angel!
    Once again in life I strove—
But the hardest task was easy,
    In the light and strength of love.

"And, when months had passed on swiftly,
    Canst thou not that hour recal—
Twas a Christmas Sabbath evening—
    When we told thy uncle all?

"Good old uncle! I can see him,
    With those calm and loving eyes,
Smiling on us as he listened,
    Silent, yet with no surprise.

"And when once again the lilacs
    Blossom'd, in the merry May,
And the woodlarks sang together,
    Came our happy marriage day.

"My sweet Ellen, then I blessed thee
    As my young and wealthy wife,
But I knew not half the blessings
    With which thou wouldst dower my life!"

Here he ceased, good Thomas Harlowe;
    And as soon as ceased his voice—
That sweet chorusing of woodlarks
    Made the silent night rejoice.

OUR PHANTOM SHIP.
NEGRO LAND.

IN our Phantom Ship we shall occasionally
take a cruise, in order to see what is going on
in various parts of the globe. To-day, we
intend looking in for a little while upon the
land of the Negro, chiefly with the view of
seeing how he is first converted into an article
of merchandise for the supply of the American
markets, North and South. Meanwhile, we
think it but fair to the voyagers and travellers
who have preceded us, to give some account
of their exertions, discoveries, and disasters,
made and encountered to check the Slave
Trade.

For a long while after the establishment
of the Slave Trade, nothing was known of
the countries whence Negroes came. In
1442 it was that the Portuguese admiral
brought ten Africans to Europe, for the
purpose of converting them to Christianity, and
found them excellent as slaves. In the next
year some native boats were captured, and
their crews brought home in slavery. The
notion seized upon the public mind, and an
association was got up at once for systematised
traffic in Africans. In 1444, two
hundred slaves were captured, and brought
home.

The discovery of the New World set our
wise and good ancestors a-digging after gold.
That is to say, it made them urge the native
Indians to dig on their behalf. We, degenerate
men, of the year 1851, have weaker nerves
than were in vogue in the good old times, three
or four hundred years ago; and we are silly
enough to shudder at the barbarous blood-
guiltiness of our rapacious forefathers. The
Indians were found to be a difficult material,
and were, moreover, being tortured rather fast
into that great new world which each of us is
destined some day to discover. So, in the
year 1511, Ferdinand the Catholic gave his
most Christian sanction to the importation of
Africans as slaves into Hispaniola, that is to
say, Hayti, which produced, in after days,
Toussaint l'Ouverture.

The Portuguese had all the profit of the
slave trade until the English put in their
claim to a part of it. The first batch of
negroes sold from English vessels was a cargo
of three hundred, obtained by Sir J. Hawkins,
from the cost of Guinea, and sold in Hispaniola.

Well; flesh and blood being a profitable
commodity, the trade in it very naturally
grew. It became an important part of the
world's commerce. So it occurred that curiosity
became at length awakened on the subject
of those unexplored regions which produced
these black machines. In 1788, there was
formed in England "The African Association,"
for the solace of geographers. Under the
auspices of this association, two gentlemen,
Mr. Ledyard and Mr. Lucas, went out as
volunteers. Ledyard was to cross from
Sennaar, westward; Lucas, starting from Tripoli,
was to find his way through Fezzan to the
Gambia and Guinea. Ledyard died at Cairo,
Lucas was unable to reach Fezzan. The
Association next sent Major Houghton, who
was to reach the Niger by the Gambia. In
the kingdom of Bambrook, this traveller, too
rich in merchandise, was plundered by his
guides, and left to perish.

Mungo Park was the next volunteer.
Ascending the Gambia, and reaching Sego,
the capital of Bambarra, he there, on the 21st
of July, 1796, was the first European who
saw the Niger. It was there called—for its
name varies in each country through which it
flows—the Joliba.

Other travellers followed, but without
success. A student of Göttingen probably
penetrated far, but perished in the enterprise.

Muugo Park then went out again, in 1805,
under the auspices of Government, with three
officers, and forty-two men. Ascending the
Gambia, he arrived at a point up the Niger,
having seen all his companions die except
Lieutenant Martyn and three men. These
made a rude boat out of three rotten canoes,
calling it H. M. schooner "Joliba." In this
they embarked, to complete their enterprise,
by tracing the stream down until it reached