the
exception of the band, officers servants, and mess-waiters, all the men
at San Josef's barracks, Trinidad, were slaver recruits. The ringleader
of the movement was one Daaga, or Donald Stewart, and the following
account of him, and of the mutiny, is taken from Kingsley's "At Last":

"Donald Stewart, or rather Daaga, was the adopted son of Madershee, the
old and childless king of the tribe called Paupaus,[46] a race that
inhabit a tract of country bordering on that of the Yarrabas.[47] These
races are constantly at war with each other.

"Daaga was just the man whom a savage, warlike, and depredatory tribe
would select for their chieftain, as the African negroes choose their
leaders with reference to their personal prowess. Daaga stood six feet
six inches without shoes. Although scarcely muscular in proportion, yet
his frame indicated in a singular degree the union of irresistible
strength and activity.... He had a singular cast in his eyes, not quite
amounting to that obliquity of the visual organs denominated a squint,
but sufficient to give his features a peculiarly forbidding appearance;
his forehead, however, although small in proportion to his enormous
head, was remarkably compact and well formed. The whole head was
disproportioned, having the greater part of the brain behind the ears;
but the greatest peculiarity of this singular being was his voice. In
the course of my life I never heard such sounds uttered by human organs
as those formed by Daaga. In ordinary conversation he appeared to me to
endeavour to soften his voice--it was a deep tenor: but when a little
excited by any passion (and this savage was the child of passion) his
voice sounded like the low growl of a lion, but when much excited it
could be compared to nothing so aptly as the notes of a gigantic brazen
trumpet.

"Daaga having made a successful predatory expedition into the country
of the Yarrabas, returned with a number of prisoners of that nation.
These he, as usual, took bound and guarded towards the coast to sell to
the Portuguese. The interpreter, his countryman, called these Portuguese
'white gentlemen.' The white gentlemen proved themselves more than a
match for the black gentlemen; and the whole transaction between the
Portuguese and the Paupaus does credit to all concerned in this
gentlemanly traffic in human flesh.

"Daaga sold his prisoners, and under pretence of paying him, he and his
Paupau guards were enticed on board a Portu