attempt a return
with a cargo, or "_in distress_," and, accordingly, she is either sunk
or burnt where she lies.

When the genuine African reaches a plantation for the first time, he
fancies himself in paradise. He is amazed by the generosity with which
he is fed with fruit and fresh provisions. His new clothes, red cap,
and roasting blanket (a civilized superfluity he never dreamed of),
strike him dumb with delight, and, in his savage joy, he not only
forgets country, relations, and friends, but skips about like a
monkey, while he dons his garments wrongside out or hind-part before!
The arrival of a carriage or cart creates no little confusion among
the Ethiopian groups, who never imagined that beasts could be made to
work. But the climax of wonder is reached when that paragon of
oddities, a Cuban _postilion_, dressed in his sky-blue coat,
silver-laced hat, white breeches, polished jack-boots, and ringing
spurs, leaps from his prancing quadruped, and bids them welcome in
their mother-tongue. Every African rushes to "snap fingers" with his
equestrian brother, who, according to orders, forthwith preaches an
edifying sermon on the happiness of being a white man's slave, taking
care to jingle his spurs and crack his whip at the end of every
sentence, by way of _amen_.

Whenever a cargo is owned by several proprietors, each one takes his
share at once to his plantation; but if it is the property of
speculators, the blacks are sold to any one who requires them before
removal from the original depot. The sale is, of course, conducted as
rapidly as possible, to forestall the interference of British
officials with the Captain-General.

Many of the Spanish Governors in Cuba have respected treaties, or, at
least, promised to enforce the laws. Squadrons of dragoons and troops
of lancers have been paraded with convenient delay, and ordered to
gallop to plantations designated by the representative of England. It
generally happens, however, that when the hunters arrive the game is
gone. Scandal declares that, while brokers are selling the blacks at
the depot, it is not unusual for their owner or his agent to be found
knocking at the door of the Captain-General's secretary. It is often
said that the Captain-General himself is sometimes present in the
sanctuary, and, after a familiar chat about the happy landing of "the
contraband,"--as the traffic is amiably called, the requisite
_rouleaux_ are insinuated into the official desk u