298 The Man of IlUOmen. [Sept. 



from the coast as I could, in the surmise that there my indignant anti- 

 quarian might have made my route troublesome. But just as I was 

 beginning to grow weary of solitude, a cloud of dust rose at a distance. 

 I trotted towards it, and found it to be a caravan of negroes marching to 

 the coast for embarkation. I saw that here was something for a man 

 of my style, and addressed myself to the superintendant of this battalion 

 of sugar and indigo makers. I offered liim my tribute — a flask of excel- 

 lent brandy out of the Englishman's store. He swallowed it to the bot- 

 tom, embraced me with tears in his eyes, suffocated me with kisses and 

 snuff, and pronounced me a bon sujet on the spot. I had found the royal 

 road to his heart, and he told me his whole story. He was from Nantes, 

 and ' boasted but of three things on earth — his knowledge of brandy, 

 beauty, and the slave-trade.' He was now driving the * finest venture 

 of negroes that had been caught for the last twenty years,' on account 

 of one of the French ministers, who had just made a prodigious harangue 

 against the trafKc, and established his fame over Europe as an Ami des 

 Noirs of the first magnitude. 



" We were within a day's march of the coast, when, on entering a 

 miserable village, whom should I find, in the midst of an Arab rabble, 

 but my Englishman. A bag of dollars, that escaped my accurate eye, 

 had worked the miracle. He was as furiously bent on the plunder of 

 stones and old clothes as ever ; and the tumult had arisen from his secret 

 purchase of the travelling costume of the sheik's favourite wife. He flew 

 to the Frenchman for protection, saw me, and charged me with robbery. 

 I denied ever having seen his antiquarian face before. He stormed, and 

 threatened the rigour of the law on our first reaching a civilized port. 

 The threat put me on my mettle, and I determined that we should never 

 reach one together. A Greek would have shot him in his bed ; a French- 

 man would have run* him through in daylight ; an Englishman would 

 have brought an action for libel, and sent him to die in a jail ; a Vene- 

 tian would have invited him to liis casino, and poisoned him : — but we 

 of Naples are tender creatures. I asked him to supper ; but I only made 

 him ch'unk with his own brandy, and, in his sleep, painted his face as 

 pnre an ebony as ever shone on negro. The ship was at hand ; the cap- 

 tain was a man of the world ; the slave-dealer made no scruples, on 

 condition of sharing the pm'chase-money ; and, before the antiquarian 

 could open his eyes next day, he was in the hold of the Bwi Citoi/cn of 

 Nantz, enjoying the finest opportunity imaginable of studying African 

 habits, and rolling away at the rate of ten knots an hour. ]\Iy friend 

 the slave-dealer, and myself, took om- coffee on the shore, while we con- 

 templated the rapid run of the vessel, and congratidated ourselves on the 

 good fortune of having fallen in with so capital a display of thews and 

 sinews as the Englishrran. But then came the grand affair, which has 

 broken up so many friendships — the division of the money. The French- 

 man tried to cheat me ; and I was forced to warn ham against the 

 ill-luck of every one who injured me. He laughed at the idea, and pro- 

 posed a bumper of brandy to our chance of coming athwart another 

 anriquarian. 



" The brandy was excellent ; but I either indulged my taste too much 

 for the laws of IMahomet, or my French friend had been trying his skill 

 on it ; for I soon fell into a sti-ange half-slumber, not quite so solid as 

 the Englishman's, but with a narrow escape of the same consequence. 

 I could still hear the hum of voices ; and as the slave-dealer, in his 



