As for A. G., he didn't count. We filled up and weighed anchor on
August 12, having on board 420 blacks--290 men and 130 women--all
chained, and all held under by us twenty-two whites, of the which
nineteen were women. The weather turned sulky almost from the start,
and after ten days of drifting, with here and there a fluke of wind,
we found ourselves off the Gaboon river. From this we crept our way
to the Island of St. Thomas, three days; watered there, and fetched
down to the south-east trades. The niggers were dying fast, and
between the south-east and north-east trades, six weeks from our
starting, we lost between one and two score every day. I will say
that all the women worked like horses. We reached Barbadoes short of
our complement by 134 negroes and one of Klootz's wives. This last
did not trouble him much.
He kept mighty cheerful all the way, although the speculation up to
now had turned out far from cheerful; and all the way he kept singing
scraps about the Kays of Mortallone in a way to turn even a healthy
man sick. I had patched up a kind of friendship with A.G., and we
allowed that, for all his heartiness, the old man was enough to
madden a saint. The slaves we landed fetched about nineteen pounds
on an average.
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