Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 3 | Page 4

men, and with
one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny, in Africa, April,
1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out,--an
obstinate disease of the eyes,--contagious, and altogether beyond the
resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water
among the slaves (only half a wine-glass per day being allowed to an
individual), and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they
breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck
occasionally; but some of the poor wretches, locking themselves in
each other's arms, leaped overboard, in the hope, which so universally
prevails among them, of being swiftly transported to their own homes
in Africa. To check this, the captain ordered several who were stopped
in the attempt to be shot, or hanged, before their companions. The
disease extended to the crew; and one after another were smitten with it,
until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condition
did not preclude calculation: to save the expense of supporting slaves
rendered unsalable, and to obtain grounds for a claim against the
underwriters, thirty-six of the negroes, having become blind, were
thrown into the sea and drowned!" Speech of M. Benjamin Constant, in
the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820.
In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual, whose
sight remained unaffected, should also be seized with the malady, a sail
was discovered. It was the Spanish slaver, Leon. The same disease had
been there; and, horrible to tell, all the crew had become blind! Unable
to assist each other, the vessels parted. The Spanish ship has never
since been heard of. The Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of
June; the only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus been
enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it in three days after its
arrival.-- Bibliotheque Ophthalmologique for November, 1819.

"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!"
Corpse after corpse came up,
Death had been busy there;
Where
every blow is mercy,
Why should the spoiler spare?
Corpse after
corpse they cast
Sullenly from the ship,
Yet bloody with the traces

Of fetter-link and whip.
Gloomily stood the captain,
With his arms upon his breast,
With his
cold brow sternly knotted,
And his iron lip compressed.
"Are all the dead dogs over?"
Growled through that matted lip;

"The blind ones are no better,
Let's lighten the good ship."
Hark! from the ship's dark bosom,
The very sounds of hell!
The
ringing clank of iron,
The maniac's short, sharp yell!
The hoarse,
low curse, throat-stifled;
The starving infant's moan,
The horror of a
breaking heart
Poured through a mother's groan.
Up from that loathsome prison
The stricken blind ones cane
Below,
had all been darkness,
Above, was still the same.
Yet the holy
breath of heaven
Was sweetly breathing there,
And the heated brow
of fever
Cooled in the soft sea air.
"Overboard with them, shipmates!"
Cutlass and dirk were plied;

Fettered and blind, one after one,
Plunged down the vessel's side.

The sabre smote above,
Beneath, the lean shark lay,
Waiting with
wide and bloody jaw

His quick and human prey.
God of the earth! what cries
Rang upward unto thee?
Voices of
agony and blood,
From ship-deck and from sea.
The last dull
plunge was heard,
The last wave caught its stain,
And the unsated

shark looked up
For human hearts in vain.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Red glowed the western waters,
The setting sun was there,

Scattering alike on wave and cloud
His fiery mesh of hair.
Amidst a
group in blindness,
A solitary eye
Gazed, from the burdened
slaver's deck,
Into that burning sky.
"A storm," spoke out the gazer,
"Is gathering and at hand;
Curse on
't, I'd give my other eye
For one firm rood of land."
And then he
laughed, but only
His echoed laugh replied,
For the blinded and the
suffering
Alone were at his side.
Night settled on the waters,
And on a stormy heaven,
While fiercely
on that lone ship's track
The thunder-gust was driven.
"A
sail!--thank God, a sail!"
And as the helmsman spoke,
Up through
the stormy murmur
A shout of gladness broke.
Down came the stranger vessel,
Unheeding on her way,
So near that
on the slaver's deck
Fell off her driven spray.
"Ho! for the love of
mercy,
We're perishing and blind!"
A wail of utter agony
Came
back upon the wind.
"Help us! for we are stricken
With blindness every one;
Ten days
we've floated fearfully,
Unnoting star or sun.
Our ship 's the slaver
Leon,--
We've but a score on board;
Our slaves are all gone over,--

Help, for the love of God!"
On livid brows of agony
The broad red lightning shone;
But the
roar of wind and thunder
Stifled the answering groan;

Wailed from
the broken waters
A last despairing cry,
As, kindling in the stormy'
light,
The stranger ship went by.
. . . . . . . . .

In the sunny Guadaloupe
A dark-hulled vessel lay,
With a crew
who noted never
The nightfall