used often to beat me and to
threaten my life, so I resolved to try and run away.

"I have not told you more about the young gentleman, our passenger. I
have no doubt he was your brother, and I will call him so. He seemed
pretty content with his lot, for though he had to work hard his master
was pretty kind. I told him what I thought of doing; and he agreed to
accompany me if he could, but advised me to run away without him if I
had the chance, and that he would try and follow by himself. The other
poor fellow about this time caught the fever and died. The blacks were
not a bad or a cruel set of people after all; and when they saw that we
appeared contented and happy, they were much kinder to us. We learned
their language and all their ways; and then we showed them how to do all
sorts of things which they did not know anything about. When my clothes
were worn out I took to dressing like the blacks. There wasn't much
difficulty in doing that. Then I began to hunt about to try and see if
I couldn't make my skin like theirs. At last I found some berries which
I thought would do it. After trying a number of things, to my great
pleasure I found that I could make my skin as black as that of any of
the negroes in the country. To make a long story short, I collected
plenty of the dye, and one evening I covered myself all over with it.
When it was done I crept out of the hut where I lived to try and see
your brother, to get him to run off with me, intending to colour his
skin as I had done mine. I found, however, that he had been sent off up
the country by his master. If I waited I might be discovered; so, doing
up my old seaman's clothes in a bundle, with as much food as I could
scrape together, I set off towards the coast. I knew that I must meet
with unnumbered difficulties. I travelled by night chiefly, when the
natives were not likely to be about; and as I had to go round about to
avoid villages and huts, it took me a week to reach the coast. When I
got there, however, I was no longer afraid of showing myself. I felt
pretty sure that I should be taken for a native of the interior. I
therefore walked into the first hut I came to on the shore, belonging to
a fisherman, and told him that I had been sent by one of the chiefs to
learn what was going forward along the coast, and what the slave-dealers
were about. I did not let him know whether I was for or against them.

"He, I found, was in favour of slave-de