A SLAVE VILLAGE. 103

one interfering with me. As I went through the
village I passed a house of some size, in front of
which the captain was seated in the verandah with
another white man, with whom he appeared to be
eagerly bargaining. The latter was, I found, the
principle slave-dealer, to whom the sheds or barra-
coons, in which the slaves were confined, belonged.
Going on I looked into one of the barracoons. The
heat and odour which proceeded from it made me
unwilling to enter. It was full of blacks, seated on
narrow benches, with their arms and legs secured
to long bars which ran in front of them. Here
they had been placed as they were brought down
from the interior, and kept in readiness for the
arrival of the slaver. This, I suspect, was the
gang for whom the captain had been bargaining
with their owner, as they were immediately after-
wards summoned out and marched down, as the
others had been, to the vessel.

While I was still on shore I saw coming through
the woods another long line of captives. They had
come, apparently, .a long distance, for they were
mostly foot-sore, and several could scarcely move
along; not a few were wounded, and many of the
men, and even of the women, bore traces on their