IN PERILS BY SEA. 
165 
often found can scarcely be realised. “ The gaunt 
skeleton forms, the abject apathetic looks of the 
miserable captives, and the utterly hopeless aspect 
of the various groups as they sat about the feet of 
their deliverers, and scarcely had strength left to 
realise that they were free, reminded the spectator 
often of Charon and his crew of slaves.” Sick¬ 
ness, disease, hunger, and the brutality of the 
treatment they had received on board the dhows, 
where they were sometimes found packed in layers, 
in numbers amounting to 200 or 300 in a space 
only sufficient for 100 at the outside, often induced 
insanity, and they have been known to throw 
themselves into the sea in their paroxysms of 
mad despair. The melancholy duty of gathering 
up the corpses of the dead from the loathsome 
hold can only be performed after the living have 
been drawn up to the fresh air on deck. The 
mangled bodies of the feebler children and women 
who sank down and were crushed to death in the 
fearful struggle, only add another and more 
repulsive feature to the already overwhelming 
horrors of life on a slave-ship. 
It has been stated, on good authority, that 
30,000 slaves were annually landed, a few years 
ago, by our cruisers at the Seychelles alone: these 
islands, which are very important by reason of 
their geographical position, forming a convenient 
rendezvous for her Majesty’s ships which are em- 
