Jonathan reaches home in time to receive the last adieu of his mother, a worthy but eccentric old lady, who had fitted out her son, on his departure for school, with a winding-sheet, amongst other necessaries, that he might be buried decently should he die far from his friends, and that he might be reminded of his mortality as often as he emptied his trunk. It was a curious conceit, but, as Jonathan observes, she was from Nantucket, and they are all queer people there, and filial affection induced him long to preserve the shroud. Mrs Romer dead, her son applies to the study of surgery, gets himself into trouble by a body-snatching exploit, has to levant to New York, and there, finding he is still in danger from the friends of the disinterred corpse, who have set the police upon his track, ships himself on board the fine fore-topsail schooner, "Lively Anne," bound for the Western Islands, and commanded by Captain Coffin, an old shipmate of his father's. In this smart little craft, he sees some country and more water, until, upon the voyage from the Azores to Malaga, a white squall or a waterspout—which of the two he could never ascertain—capsizes the schooner and dashes him senseless down the hatchway, whence he was just emerging, in alarm at the sudden uproar on deck. On recovering himself, he finds the vessel dismasted, the deck swept of all its fixtures, and the captain and crew missing. Doubtless they had been hurled into the waves by the same terrible force that had shattered the bulwarks and carried away boats, casks, and galley. The horizon was now clear, not a sail was in sight, and Jonathan Romer was alone on a helpless wreck in the middle of the wide ocean. But he was a man of resource and mettle, whom it was hard to discourage or intimidate; and finding the schooner made no water, he righted her as well as he could, and resigned himself to float at the will of the wind until he should meet a rescuing sail. This did not occur for some weeks, during which he floated past Teneriffe in the night, within hail of fishermen, who would not approach him for fear of the quarantine laws. At last, sitting over his solitary dinner, he perceived a ship heading up for the schooner.
"As she came on, I had full time to note all her beautiful proportions. She was small, apparently not above 300 tons, and had a peculiarly trim and clipper-like look. Her bright copper, flashing occasionally in the sunlight, showed that she was in light sailing trim; whilst from the cut of her sails, the symmetrical arrangement of her spars and rigging, and her quarter-boats, I concluded she must be a man-of-war. Passing me about half a mile astern, she stood on for a little distance, then, hoisting the bilious-looking flag of Spain, she tacked and ran for me, backing her main-topsail within twenty yards of my larboard beam. Her quarter-boat was immediately lowered, and half-a-dozen fellows, in red caps and flannel shirts, jumped into it, followed by an officer in a blue velvet jacket, with a strip of gold lace upon his shoulders, and a broad-brimmed straw hat upon his head. I ran below, stuffed all the money that I had in gold—about a thousand dollars—into my pockets, and got upon deck again just as the boat touched the side."
The precaution was a good one: the saucy Bonito, Pedro Garbez master, was bound from Cuba to the coast of Africa, with a cut-throat crew and an empty slave-deck. Owing to an accident, she had sailed without a surgeon, and Romer was well received and treated so soon as his profession was known. When he discovered the ship's character, he would gladly have left her, but means were wanting, for the Bonito loved not intercourse with passing craft, and touched nowhere until she reached her destination—Cabenda Bay, on the western coast of Africa. There being no slaves at Cabenda, it was resolved to run a few miles up the Congo river.
"We at length reached Loonbee, and anchored off the town, which is the chief market or slave-depot for Embomma. It consists of about a hundred huts of palm-leaves, with two or three block-houses, where the slaves are confined. About two hundred slaves were already collected, and more were on their way down the river, and from different towns in the interior. After presents for the King of Embomma, and for the Mafooka (a sort of chief of the board of slave-trade,) and other officials, had been made, and a deal of brandy drunk, we landed, and in company with several Fukas, or native merchants, and two or three Portuguese, went to take a look at the slaves. Each dealer paraded his gang for inspection, and loudly dilated upon their respective qualities. They were all entirely naked, and of all ages, sexes, and conditions, and all had an air of stolid indifference, varied only in some of them by an expression of surprise and fear at sight of the white men."
In one of these unfortunate groups of dingy humanity, Romer was struck by the appearance of a young girl, whose features widely differed from the usual African stamp, and whose complexion, amongst a white population, would not have been deemed too dark for a brunette. Her gracefully curling hair contrasted with the woolly polls of her companions; her eyes were large and expressive, and her form elegant, but then emaciated by fatigue and ill-treatment. This is Kaloolah. On inquiry of the slave-dealer, a great burly negro, wielding a long thong of plaited buffalo hide, Romer learned that she is of a far distant nation, called the Gerboo Blanda, who dwell in stone houses on an extensive plain. The slave-dealer knows them only by report, and Kaloolah and her brother, who is near at hand, are the first specimens he has seen of this remote tribe. He had bought her two months' journey off, and then she had already come a long distance. And now that he had got them to the coast, he esteems them of small value compared to the full-blooded blacks; for Kaloolah has pined herself away to a shadow, and her brother, Enphadde, is bent upon suicide, and cannot be trusted with unfettered hands; so that for thirty dollars Romer buys them both. The Bonito having been driven out to sea by the approach of a British cruiser, he passes some days on shore with his new purchases; during which time, with a rapidity bordering on the miraculous, he acquires sufficient of their language, and they of his, to carry on a sort of piebald conversation, to learn the history of these pale Africans, and some particulars of their mysterious country.
"The Gerboo Blanda, I found, was a name given to their country by the Jagas, that its true name was Framazugda, and that the people were called Framazugs. That it was situated at a great distance in the interior, in a direction west by north, and that it was surrounded by negro and savage nations, through whom a trade was carried on with people at the north-west and east, none of whom, however, were ever seen at Framazugda, as the trade had to pass through a number of hands. Enphadde represented the country to be of considerable extent, consisting mostly of a lofty plateau or elevated plain, and exceedingly populous, containing numerous large cities, surrounded by high walls, and filled with houses of stone. Several large streams and lakes watered the soil, which, according to his account, was closely cultivated, and produced in abundance the greatest variety of trees, fruits, flowers, and grain. Over this country ruled Selha Shounsé, the father of Enphadde and Kaloolah, as king. It was in going from the capital to one of the royal gardens that their escort was attacked by a party of blacks from the lowlands, the attendants killed or dispersed, and the young prince and princess carried off."
Thirty dollars could hardly be deemed a heavy price for the son and daughter of the great Shounsé, and Jonathan was well pleased with his bargain, although it was not yet clear how he should realise a profit; but meanwhile it was something to be the proprietor of their royal highnesses of Framazugda; something too to gaze into Kaloolah's bright black eyes, and listen to her dulcet tones, as she warbled one of her country's ditties about the Fultul, a sweet-scented lily flourishing beside the rivulets of her native mountains. The verses, by the bye, are not to be commended in Mr Romer's version; they perhaps sounded better in the original Framazug, and when issuing from the sweet lips of Kaloolah.
Instead of a week, the Bonito was month absent, having been caught in a calm. Captain Pedro Garbez promised the Virgin Mary the value of a young negro in wax-lights for a capful of wind, but in vain; and he was fain to tear the hair from his head with impatience. Meanwhile Jonathan had caught a fever in the swamps of Congo, and Kaloolah had made his chicken-broth, and tended him tenderly, and restored him to health, although he was still so altered in appearance that Garbez knew him not when he mounted the side of the slaver. All speed was now made to buy and ship a cargo. The account of the latter process is interesting, and, we have no doubt, perfectly authentic; for although the author of Kaloolah has chosen to interlard, and perhaps deteriorate his book by strange stories of imaginary countries, animals, flowers, &c., it is not difficult to distinguish between his fact and his fiction, and to recognise the internal evidence of veracity and personal observation. A short extract may here with propriety be made, for the benefit of anti-slavery philanthropists.
"The first slaves that came on board were taken below the berth-deck, and arranged upon a temporary slave-deck placed over the water-casks, and at a distance of not more than three feet and a half from the deck overhead.... The slaves were arranged in four ranks. When lying down, the heads of the two outer ranks touched the sides of the ship, their feet pointing inboard or athwart the vessel. They, of course, occupied a space fore and aft the ship, of about six feet on either side, or twelve feet of the whole breadth. At the feet of the outside rank came the heads of the inner row. They took up a space of six feet more on either side, or together twelve feet. There was still left a space running up and down the centre of the deck, two or three feet in breadth; along this were stretched single slaves, between the feet of the two inner rows, so that, when all were lying down, almost every square foot of the deck was covered with a mass of human flesh. Not the slightest space was allowed between the individuals of the ranks, but the whole were packed as closely as they could be, each slave having just room enough to stretch himself out flat upon his back, and no more. In this way about two hundred and fifty were crowded upon the slave-deck, and as many more upon the berth-deck. Horrible as this may seem, it was nothing compared to the 'packing' generally practised by slavers. Captain Garbez boasted that he had tried both systems, tight packing and loose packing, thoroughly, and found the latter the best.
"'If you call this loose packing,' I replied, 'have the goodness to explain what you mean by tight packing?'
"'Why, tight packing consists in making a row sit with their legs stretched apart, and then another row is placed between their legs, and so on, until the whole deck is filled. In the one case each slave has as much room as he can cover lying; in the other only as much room as he can occupy sitting. With tight packing this craft ought to stow fifteen hundred.'"