For the next four years we had plenty of chasing of ships, plenty of cruising, plenty of jollity and fun, both on shore and afloat, and now and then a pitched battle.
We had never seen Zareppa again, but we had often and often heard of him. We knew that he was in the habit of marching into the interior upon peaceful negro villages lying about the Equator, burning them, and capturing the inhabitants as slaves.
Oh! boys at home, if you but knew the horrors of the slave trade; if you could but realise even a tithe of the misery and wretchedness and fearful crimes included in that one word “slavery,” as applied to Africa alone, you would not deem yourself entitled to the proud name of British boy, until you had registered a vow to do all that may ever lie in your power, be that little or be it much, by deeds or by words alone, to wipe out the curse.
Had you seen what I have seen of it, had you sojourned where I have sojourned, you would have witnessed deeds that would harrow your mind to think of even till your dying day.
My life on board the Niobe was altogether a very pleasant one; the best part of it was the long glorious cruises we used to have in open boats. Fancy, if you can, going away in a well-found boat, away from your ship entirely for, perhaps, a month or six weeks at a time, in the glorious summer weather, with the blue sky above, the blue sea below, and hardly ever more wind than sufficed to cool and fan you, and to raise the sea into a gentle ripple. We cruised along the coast, we cooked our food on shore—and oh! what jolly “spreads” they used to be, what soups, what stews!—we cruised along the coast, and we sailed or pulled up rivers, and into many a lovely wooded creek, going everywhere, in fact, where there was a chance of capturing a slaver, or of making a prize. When the slave ships ran we chased them, when they fired on us we fought them, and they were always beaten. They might win a race, but never a battle. We were some fifty men strong; we never stopped, therefore, for an invitation to go on board; we went, sword or cutlass in hand, and they were bound to give way.
But to me, I think, the glad sense of being away from the ship and of leading a free and roving life, was the greatest part of the pleasure, and I used to be so sorry when we bore up at last for the rendezvous where we were to meet our ship.
That, then, was the bright side of the picture of my life in these glad old days. And I must confess that it really had not a dark one, although sadness used to steal over my heart, when letters came from what others called home—England.