“Well,” said I, “there is no sail trimming to be done in this weather, and it would be downright cruelty to send the men aloft to work about the rigging in this blazing heat; why not therefore spread an awning aft, here, and set the entire watch to work, beneath its shade, to patch up such of your canvas as needs repairing? And while they are engaged upon that job I will see—if you approve of the plan—whether I cannot get the negroes to take a bath in batches in a studding-sail rigged on the fore-deck, and thus rid themselves of some of the filth that is fast accumulating on their bodies; it will do them more good and tend more to keep them in health than a double allowance of food for the remainder of the voyage. And when they have done that they can be divided into two gangs, one on deck to draw and pass water, and the other below, with all the scrubbing-brushes and swabs that can be mustered, to give the slave-deck a thorough cleansing. That is what I should do, were they my property.”
“Well,” he said musingly, “I dare say it would do the rascals a lot of good, and would certainly make the ship sweeter—I’ll be bound that she could be scented a mile away in her present condition. But who is to undertake the supervision of such work? Not I, I tell you, frankly; and I believe the hands would refuse, to a man, were I to attempt to set them to such work.”
“If they will rig me a studding-sail, or an old fore-course for’ard, I will do the rest—or try to do it,” said I.
“Will you?” exclaimed Mendouca, in surprise. “Then I am sure you may, and I heartily wish you joy of the job.”
“Very well, then, I will set about it the first thing after breakfast,” said I.
And I did. I got the poor wretches forward in batches of thirty, induced them to stand in the basin-like hollow of the sail, and then set half-a-dozen of their number pumping and drawing water, and playing upon their fellows with the hose, or sluicing buckets of water over them, and the exquisite enjoyment, the unspeakable luxury of that bath, as the cool, sparkling liquid dashed upon the filth and sweat-begrimed bodies, was a sight to see! Enjoyed it? Why they revelled in it, so that it was with difficulty that I could get them out; the stony look of hopeless, utter despair faded temporarily out of their eyes, and some of them actually laughed! It was by no means a pleasant or a savoury job that I had undertaken, but witnessing the keen enjoyment that I had thus bestowed made it the most delightful that I had ever been engaged in. It occupied me the whole morning to pass the entire cargo through the bath and secure the thorough cleansing of their persons, and the whole of the afternoon to get the slave-deck properly cleansed and purified; but when the sun set that evening the ship was once more sweet and wholesome, while the slaves had—taking one with another—been on deck and actively exercised for about half a day instead of about twenty minutes morning and evening. As I had said, it did them more good than double rations for the entire voyage. Even Mendouca was fain to acknowledge that the day, instead of being wasted, had been well spent.
We had been hoping all day that with sunset a breeze would spring up from somewhere—I think nobody was very particular as to the quarter from which it should come, so long as it came at all—but our hopes were doomed to disappointment; the sun went down in a perfectly clear sky, and there was no sign whatever of wind from any quarter. The same weather conditions prevailed all through the night; and when the sun rose next morning there was still not the slightest sign of wind, while the glass exhibited a slight tendency to rise. Under these circumstances I thought I would endeavour to secure a repetition of the proceedings of the previous day, and so well pleased was Mendouca with the improved appearance of the blacks when, as usual, half of them came on deck at breakfast-time, that he readily gave his consent; and accordingly the poor creatures were again treated to the luxury of the bath, while the slave-deck received another thorough scrubbing to cleanse it from the filth accumulated during the night. And thus the negroes were enabled to pass a second day in pure air, to the great improvement of their health and spirits; indeed, the ecstatic delight with which they lingered over their bath, and the cheerfulness with which they afterwards worked at their task of drawing water and scrubbing, chattering almost gaily together all the time, were, to me, most eloquent testimony as to the miseries that they had previously endured, cooped up, tightly wedged together, day and night, in the close and noisome hold.
I must not omit to mention a very curious phenomenon of which I had often heard, but had never before beheld until this day. It is known among sailors as the phenomenon of “the ripples.” I was on the forecastle superintending the bathing operations when it first made its appearance, the sky being at the time clear and cloudless, with the sun blazing in its midst like a huge ball of living flame, while the water was so oil-smooth and glassy that it was quite impossible to distinguish the horizon, or to determine where the sea ended and the sky began. It was hotter than I had ever felt it before; dressed only in a thin shirt and the thinnest of white trousers, the perspiration was gushing so freely from every pore of my body that my light and airy garments were saturated with it, while the atmosphere was so stagnant that it seemed impossible to inhale a sufficiency of air for breathing purposes. Under these trying conditions we were, of course, all anxiously watching for a breeze; and it was with a feeling of exquisite delight that, happening to look abroad toward the north, I saw the horizon strongly marked with a line of delicate blue, indicating, as I believed, the approach of a thrice-welcome breeze. In the exuberance of my delight I shouted to Mendouca, who was reclining in a hammock aft slung from the main-boom, and, of course, under the shelter of the awning—
“Hurrah! here comes a breeze at last, although I do not know where it has sprung from, for there is not a cloud to be seen.”
Mendouca sprang up in his hammock at this news, and looked in the direction to which I was pointing; then sank back again, disgustedly.