As cruel as was the preparation before leaving their native land, it was equalled, if not surpassed, by the passage on shipboard. Two thousand human beings put on a vessel not capable of accommodating half that number; disease breaking out amongst the slaves, when but a few days on the voyage; the dead and the dying thrown overboard, and the cries and groans coming forth from below decks is but a faint picture of the horrid trade. “All ready?” cried the captain; “Ay, ay!” the seamen said; “Heave up the worthless lubbers-- The dying and the dead.” Up from the slave-ship’s prison Fierce, bearded heads were thrust; “Now let the sharks look to it-- Toss up the dead ones first!” Slave-factories, or trading-pens, were established up and down the coast. And although England for many years kept a fleet in African waters, to watch and break up this abominable traffic, the swiftness of the slavers, and the adroitness of their pilots, enabled them to escape detection by gaining hiding-places in some of the small streams on the coast, or by turning to the ocean until a better opportunity offered itself for landing. Calabar and Bonny were the two largest slave-markets on the African coast. From these places alone twenty thousand slaves were shipped, in the year 1806. It may therefore be safe to say, that fifty thousand slaves were yearly sent into the colonies at this period; or rather, sent from the coast, for many thousands who were shipped, never reached their place of destination. During the period when this traffic was carried on without any interference on the part of the British government, caravans of slaves were marched down to Loango from the distance of several hundred miles, and each able-bodied man was required to bring down a tooth of ivory. In this way a double traffic was carried on; that in ivory by the English and American vessels, and the slaves by the Portuguese. All who have investigated the subject, know that the rivers Benin, Bonny, Brass, Kalabar, and Kameruns, were once the chief seats of this trade. It is through these rivers that the Niger discharges itself into the ocean; and as the factories near the mouths of these different branches had great facility of access to the heart of Africa, it is probable that the traffic was carried on more vigorously here than anywhere else on the coast. But the abolition of the slave-trade by England, and the presence of the British squadron on the coast, has nearly broken up the trade.