"In the day-time, in fair weather, they are sometimes brought on deck. They are then placed in long rows on each side of the ship, two and two together. As they are brought up from their apartments, a long chain is passed through the shackles of each couple, successively, and thus the whole row is fastened down to the deck. In this situation, they receive their food. After their coarse and meagre meal, a drum is beaten by one of the sailors, and at its sound the Negroes are all required to exercise, for their health, jumping in their chains as high as their fetters will let them; and if any refuse to exercise in this way, they are whipped until they comply. This jumping, the slave-merchants call "_dancing_." "The middle passage is the whole from the time the ship weighs anchor until she arrives at her destined port. On the passage, the situation of the slaves is, indeed, doubly deplorable, especially if the ship have a long passage, and is very full. A full-grown person is allowed, in the most commodious slave-ships, but sixteen inches in width, three feet three inches in height, and five feet eight inches in length. _They lie in one crowded mass on the bare planks, and by the constant motion of the ship, are often chafed until their bones are almost bare, and their limbs covered with bruises and sores._ The heat is often so great, and the air they breathe so poisoned with pestilence by the feverish exhalations of the suffering multitude, that nature can no longer sustain itself. It is no uncommon occurrence, to find, on each successive morning, some who have died during the night, in consequence of their suffering and confined situation. A large proportion of those who are shipped, die before they have crossed the ocean. Many also die soon after completing the voyage, from what is called "the seasoning;" that is, in becoming acclimated in the country to which they are carried. "It is said that when the slave-holders first visited the western coast of Africa, the country was most delightful. The coast was covered with villages, or thickly settled towns, which swarmed with inhabitants. Simple in their manners, amiable in their dispositions, in quiet enjoyment of the profuse bounties of nature, they are represented as exceeding happy. "They were a comparatively innocent, unoffending, contented, happy race. It was not until slave-dealers introduced among them every thing that could please the fancy and awaken the cupidity of uncivilized men, that they were at all prone to interfere with each other's happiness. By the more than brutal cruelty of white men, quarrels were fomented, tribe was set against tribe, and each supplied with the means of mutual destruction."