When I got on the deck of the brig it was quite dark, and every thing was in great confusion, preparatory to getting under weigh in the morning. The crew—blacks, browns, and whites, Englishmen and Spaniards—were gabbling aloft and shouting below, as some were bending sails, and others hoisting them up to the yards; while others were tumbling about bales of tobacco on deck, and lowering them down the hatchway, where a number of hired negroes were stowing the same away in the hold. Her cargo consisted of logwood, hides, and tobacco, the blending of the effluvia from the two latter being any thing but ambrosial.
When I went below I found at least a dozen Spanish passengers busily employed in stowing away their luggage in the cabin. I could not help being greatly struck with the careless way in which they chucked their bags of doubloons about, as if they had been small sacks of barley; and the recklessness they displayed in exposing such heaps of glittering pieces of apparently untold gold, to the eyes of the crew and myself, for I was an utter stranger to all of them. "Were I to exhibit a handful of bank-notes in England in this way!" thought I. The confidence these traders appeared to place in their negro servants, absolutely astonished me, so much greater was it than I ever could have dreamed of; but the strangest part of the affair was yet to come. The English captain of the brig, after having ordered the boats to be hoisted in, had just come down; and seeing me seated on the locker, leaning with my back against the rudder-case, and silently observing, with folded arms, the tumultuous conduct of the Dons, addressed me—
"A new scene to you, Mr Brail, I presume?"
"It is so, certainly. Are our friends there not afraid that those black fellows who are bustling about may take a fancy to some of these rouleaux of doubloons, that they are packing away into their portmanteaus, and trunks there?"
"No, no," rejoined he, smiling; "most of these poor fellows are household slaves, who have been, very probably, born and bred up in their families; not a few may even be their foster brothers, and all of that class are perfectly trustworthy; in truth, sir, as an Englishman, I am sorry to say it, but they treat their domestic negroes infinitely better than we do. As to the field slaves, I cannot judge, but I can speak as to the fact of the others from long experience. A Spanish family look on negroes of this class as part and portion of the household; in fact, they are not bondsmen at all, except in name; for they are better cared for than servants, be they white or black, in any other countries I know. Indeed, now that I reflect, you must have noticed, they don't even suffer the humiliation of being called 'slave,'—'criado,' the common name given them by their masters, signifying literally servant. The harsher, 'esclavo,' being seldom, indeed never, applied to them, unless when they have been guilty of some default."
"Heavens!" I here exclaimed, "what, are they all going to bed, with your supper untouched on the table?—see if they be not undressing!"
He laughed. "You shall soon know the reason of their stripping, sir," said he. "It is contraband to carry off either gold or silver coin here; and you shall presently see an instance of Spanish ingenuity in defrauding their revenue laws on the one hand, and of the trust they place in their coloured servants on the other; of their own dishonesty, and the implicit confidence they place in the integrity of others, and those others negro slaves."
The operation of peeling was all this while going on amongst the gingham-coated gentry, who, when naked to their trowsers, presented a most absurd appearance, each of them having sewed round his waist and loins, next his skin, from four to six double bands of coarse linen or canvass, like so many eel-skins, each filled with broad gold pieces, packed on their edges, and overlapping each other, until they were fairly pistol proof, in scale armour of gold.
After loud shouts of laughter at the manner in which they had done the piés de gallo, or custom-house officers, they stowed away the specie and donned their clothes again, when lo! the black "criados," to my great astonishment, began to strip in turn. Presently Blackie was exhibited in the same state of nudity as his master had recently been; and the gold pieces were in like manner peeled off him.
These transactions taking place in a confined well-cabin, lit by a small skylight, with the thermometer standing at ninety-five, had no very great purifying effect on the atmosphere—the blended steam of human carcasses and tallow candles being any thing but savoury.