The Dutch were too sharp-eyed to permit such an opportunity to fill their coffers to pass by, so they followed the example set by the Portuguese, the English, and the French. The trade being considered lawful by all countries, and especially in Africa, the means of obtaining slaves varied according to the wishes of the traders. Some whites travelled through the country as far as it was practical, and bartered goods for slaves, chaining them together, who followed their masters from town to town until they reached the coast, where they were sold to the owners of ships. Others located themselves on the coast and in the interior, and bought the slaves as they were brought in for sale. A chief of one of the tribes of the Guinea coast, who had been out on a successful marauding expedition, in which he had captured some two hundred slaves, took them to the coast, sold his chattels to the captain of a vessel, and was invited on board the ship. The chief with his three sons and attendants had scarcely reached the deck of the ship when they were seized, hand-cuffed, and placed with the other Negroes, which enabled the captain to save the purchase money, as well as adding a dozen more slaves to his list. Had this happened in the nineteenth century, it would have been pronounced a “Yankee trick.” Some large ships appeared at the slave-trading towns on the coast, ready to convey to the colonies any slaves whose owners might see fit to engage them. Their cargoes would often be made up of the slaves of half a dozen parties, on which occasions the chattels would sometimes become mixed, and cause a dispute as to the ownership. To avoid this, the practice of branding the slaves on the coast before shipping them, was introduced. Branding a human being on the naked body, the hot iron hissing in the quivering flesh, the cries and groans of the helpless creatures, were scenes enacted a few years ago, and which the African slave-trader did not deny. There on a rude mat, spread upon the ground, A stalwart Negro lieth firmly bound; His brawny chest one brutal captor smites, And notice to the ringing sound invites; Another opes his mouth the teeth to show, As cattle-dealers aye are wont to do. Hark, to that shrill and agonizing cry! Gaze on that upturned, supplicating eye! How the flesh quivers, and how shrinks the frame, As the initials of her owner’s name Burn on the back of that Mandingo girl; Yet calmly do the smoke-wreaths upward curl From his cigar, whose right unfaltering hand Lights with a match the cauterizing brand, The while his left doth the round shoulder clasp, And hold his victim in a vise-like grasp.