s and children who had been ranged opposite one
another, now rushed forward to embrace, if it were for the last time;
mothers, holding their little children in their arms, threw themselves
down, covering their babes with their own bodies.

And yet these slaves were treated with kindness, and no difference was
made between them and other and freeborn servants. The younger captives
were taught trades, and those who showed that they could manage property
were set free and married. Widow ladies treated the girls they bought
like their own daughters, and often left them dowries by will, that they
might marry as entirely free. Never have I known one of these captives,
says Azurara, put in irons like other slaves, or one who did not become
a Christian. Often have I been present at the baptisms or marriages of
these slaves, when their masters made as much and as solemn a matter of
it as if it had been a child or a parent of their own.

During Henry's life the action of buccaneers on the African coast was a
good deal kept in check by the spirit and example and positive commands
of the Infant, who sent out his men to explore, and could not prevent
some outrages in the course of exploration. Again and again he ordered
his captains to act fairly to the natives, to trade with them
honourably, and to persuade them by gentler means than kidnapping to
come to Europe for a time. In the last years of his life he did succeed
in bettering things; by establishing a regular Government trade in the
bay of Arguin he brought a good deal more under control the unchained
deviltry of the Portuguese freebooters; Cadamosto and Diego Gomez, his
most trusted lieutenants of this later time, were real discoverers, who
tried to make friends of the natives rather than slaves.

In the early days of Portuguese exploration, it may also be said,
information, first-hand news of the new countries and their dangers, was
absolutely needed, and if the Negroes and the Azaneguy Moors could not
or would not speak some Christian tongue and guide the caravels to
Guinea, they must be carried off and made fit and proper instruments for
the work.

It would be out of place here to justify or condemn this excuse or to
enter on the wider question of the right or wrong of the slave-trade in
general. It is enough to see how brutally the work of "saving the
Heathen," was carried out by the average explorer, when discovery was
used as a plea for traffic.

No one then questi