march of eight days, the company arrived on the banks of
the Ohio River, where they took a steamer for the place of their
destination. Jennings had already advertised in the New Orleans papers,
that he would be there with a prime lot of able-bodied slaves, men
and women, fit for field-service, with a few extra ones calculated for
house-servants,--all between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five years;
but like most men who make a business of speculating in human beings, he
often bought many who were far advanced in years, and would try to pass
them off for five or six years younger than they were. Few persons
can arrive at anything approaching the real age of the negro, by mere
observation, unless they are well acquainted with the race. Therefore,
the slave-trader frequently carried out the deception with perfect
impunity.

After the steamer had left the wharf and was fairly out on the bosom of
the broad Mississippi, the speculator called his servant Pompey to him;
and instructed him as to getting the negroes ready for market. Among
the forty slaves that the trader had on this occasion, were some whose
appearance indicated that they had seen some years and had gone through
considerable service. Their gray hair and whiskers at once pronounced
them to be above the ages set down in the trader's advertisement. Pompey
had long been with Jennings, and understood his business well, and if
he did not take delight in the discharge of his duty, he did it at least
with a degree of alacrity, so that he might receive the approbation of
his master.

Pomp, as he was usually called by the trader, was of real negro blood,
and would often say, when alluding to himself, "Dis nigger am no
counterfeit, he is de ginuine artikle. Dis chile is none of your
haf-and-haf, dere is no bogus about him."

Pompey was of low stature, round face, and, like most of his race, had
a set of teeth, which, for whiteness and beauty, could not be surpassed;
his eyes were large, lips thick, and hair short and woolly. Pompey had
been with Jennings so long, and had seen so much of buying and selling
of his fellow-creatures, that he appeared perfectly indifferent to the
heart-rending scenes which daily occurred in his presence. Such is the
force of habit:--

"Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,
That to be hated, needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

It was on t