About Noon, On The 12th, Dr. Laidley Returned From Doomasansa, And
Received Me With Great Joy And Satisfaction, As One
Risen from the dead.
Finding that the wearing apparel which I had left under his care was not
sold nor
Sent to England, I lost no time in resuming the English dress,
and disrobing my chin of its venerable incumbrance. Karfa surveyed me in
my British apparel with great delight; but regretted exceedingly that I
had taken off my beard; the loss of which, he said, had converted me from
a man into a boy. Dr. Laidley readily undertook to discharge all the
pecuniary engagements I had entered into since my departure from the
Gambia, and took my draft upon the Association for the amount. My
agreement with Karfa (as I have already related) was to pay him the value
of one prime slave, for which I had given him my bill upon Dr. Laidley,
before we departed from Kamalia: for, in case of my death on the road I
was unwilling that my benefactor should be a loser. But this good
creature had continued to manifest towards me so much kindness, that I
thought I made him but an inadequate recompence, when I told him that he
was now to receive double the sum I had originally promised; and Dr.
Laidley assured him that he was ready to deliver the goods to that
amount, whenever he thought proper to send for them. Karfa was
overpowered by this unexpected token of my gratitude, and still more so,
when he heard that I intended to send a handsome present to the good old
schoolmaster Fankooma, at Malacotta. He promised to carry up the goods
along with his own; and Dr. Laidley assured him that he would exert
himself in assisting him to dispose of his slaves to the best advantage,
the moment a slave vessel should arrive. These and other instances of
attention and kindness shown him by Dr. Laidley were not lost upon Karfa.
He would often say to me, "my journey has indeed been prosperous!" But,
observing the improved state of our manufactures, and our manifest
superiority in the arts of civilized life, he would sometimes appear
pensive, and exclaim with an involuntary sigh, _fato fing inta feng_,
"black men are nothing." At other times, he would ask me with great
seriousness, what could possibly have induced me, who was no trader, to
think of exploring so miserable a country as Africa? He meant by this to
signify that, after what I must have witnessed in my own country, nothing
in Africa could in his opinion deserve a moment's attention, I have
preserved these little traits of character in this worthy Negro, not only
from regard to the man, but also because they appear to me to demonstrate
that he possessed a mind _above his condition_; and to such of my readers
as love to contemplate human nature in all its varieties, and to trace
its progress from rudeness to refinement, I hope the account I have given
of this poor African will not be unacceptable.
No European vessel had arrived at Gambia for many months previous to my
return from the interior; and as the rainy season was now setting in, I
persuaded Karfa to return to his people at Jindey. He parted with me on
the 14th with great tenderness; but as I had little hopes of being able
to quit Africa for the remainder of the year, I told him, as the fact
was, that I expected to see him again before my departure. In this,
however, I was luckily disappointed; and my narrative now hastens to its
conclusion; for on the 15th, the ship Charlestown, an American vessel,
commanded by Mr. Charles Harris, entered the river. She came for slaves,
intending to touch at Goree to fill up; and to proceed from thence to
South Carolina. As the European merchants on the Gambia had at this time
a great many slaves on hand, they agreed with the captain to purchase the
whole of his cargo, consisting chiefly of rum and tobacco, and deliver
him slaves to the amount, in the course of two days. This afforded me
such an opportunity of returning (though by a circuitous route) to my
native country, as I thought was not to be neglected. I therefore
immediately engaged my passage in this vessel for America; and having
taken leave of Dr. Laidley, to whose kindness I was so largely indebted,
and my other friends on the river, I embarked at Kaye on the 17th day of
June.
Our passage down the river was tedious and fatiguing; and the weather was
so hot, moist, and unhealthy, that before our arrival at Goree, four of
the seamen, the surgeon, and three of the slaves, had died of fevers. At
Goree we were detained for want of provisions, until the beginning of
October.
The number of slaves received on board this vessel, both on the Gambia
and at Goree, was one hundred and thirty; of whom about twenty-five had
been, I suppose, of free condition in Africa, as most of them, being
Bushreens, could write a little Arabic. Nine of them had become captives
in the religious war between Abdulkader and Damel, mentioned in the
latter part of the preceding chapter; two of the others had seen me as I
passed through Bondou, and many of them had heard of me in the interior
countries. My conversation with them, in their native language, gave them
great comfort; and as the surgeon was dead, I consented to act in a
medical capacity in his room for the remainder of the voyage. They had in
truth need of every consolation in my power to bestow; not that I
observed any wanton acts of cruelty practised either by the master or the
seamen towards them; but the mode of confining and securing Negroes in
the American slave ships, (owing chiefly to the weakness of their crews,)
being abundantly more rigid and severe than in British vessels employed
in the same traffic, made these poor creatures to suffer greatly, and a
general sickness prevailed amongst them.
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