“All ready?” cried the captain;
“Ay, ay!” the seamen said;
“Heave up the worthless lubbers—
The dying and the dead.”
Up from the slave-ship’s prison
Fierce, bearded heads were thrust;
“Now let the sharks look to it—
Toss up the dead ones first!”
Slave-factories, or trading-pens, were established up and down the coast. And although England for many years kept a fleet in African waters, to watch and break up this abominable traffic, the swiftness of the slavers, and the adroitness of their pilots, enabled them to escape detection by gaining hiding-places in some of the small streams on the coast, or by turning to the ocean until a better opportunity offered itself for landing.
Calabar and Bonny were the two largest slave-markets on the African coast. From these places alone twenty thousand slaves were shipped, in the year 1806. It may therefore be safe to say, that fifty thousand slaves were yearly sent into the colonies at this period; or rather, sent from the coast, for many thousands who were shipped, never reached their place of destination. During the period when this traffic was carried on without any interference on the part of the British government, caravans of slaves were marched down to Loango from the distance of several hundred miles, and each able-bodied man was required to bring down a tooth of ivory. In this way a double traffic was carried on; that in ivory by the English and American vessels, and the slaves by the Portuguese.