412 WE DELIVER UP THE "PIONEER." Chap. XV. 



appliance of means shown in cutting the hawser off the 

 screw nine feet under water with long chisels made for the 

 occasion ; a task which it took three days to accomplish. 

 Captain Chapman very kindly invited us on "board the 

 " Ariel," and we accepted his hospitality after the weather 

 had moderated. 



The little vessel was hauled through and against the 

 huge seas with such force that two hawsers measuring 

 eleven inches each in circumference parted. Many of the 

 blows we received from the billows made every plate quiver 

 from stem to stern, and the motion was so quick that we 

 had to hold on continually to avoid being tossed from one 

 side to the other or into the sea. Ten of the late Bishop's 

 flock whom we had on board became so sick and helpless 

 that do what we could to aid them they were so very much 

 in the way that the idea broke in upon us, that the close 

 packing resorted to by slavers is one of the necessities of 

 the traffic. If this is so, it would account for the fact that 

 even when the trade was legal the same injurious custom 

 was common, if not universal. If, instead of ten such 

 passengers, we had been carrying two hundred, with the 

 wind driving the rain and spray, as by night it did, nearly 

 as hard as hail against our faces, and nothing whatever to 

 be seen to windward but the occasional gleam of the crest 

 of a wave, and no sound heard save the whistling of the 

 storm through the rigging, it would have been absolutely 

 necessary for the working of the ship and safety of the 

 whole that the live cargo should all have been stowed down 

 below, whatever might have been the consequences. 



Having delivered the " Pioneer " over to the Navy, she 

 was towed down to the Cape by Captain Forsyth of the 

 "Valorous," and after examination it was declared that with 

 repairs to the amount of £300 she would be as serviceable 

 as ever. Those of the Bishop's flock whom we had on board 

 were kindly allowed a passage to the Cape. The boys went 



