hrow aside their honest mode of obtaining a
living and resort to trading in human beings. A more repulsive looking
person could scarcely be found in any community of bad looking men.
Tall, lean and lank, with high cheek-bones, face much pitted with the
small-pox, gray eyes with red eyebrows, and sandy whiskers, he indeed
stood alone without mate or fellow in looks. Jennings prided himself
upon what he called his goodness of heart and was always speaking of
his humanity. As many of the slaves whom he intended taking to the New
Orleans market had been raised in Richmond, and had relations there, he
determined to leave the city early in the morning, so as not to witness
any of the scenes so common the departure of a slave-gang to the far
South. In this, he was most successful; for not even Isabella, who had
called at the prison several times to see her mother and sister, was
aware of the time that they were to leave.

The slave-trader started at early dawn, and was beyond the confines of
the city long before the citizens were out of their beds. As a slave
regards a life on the sugar, cotton, or rice plantation as even worse
than death, they are ever on the watch for an opportunity to escape.
The trader, aware of this, secures his victims in chains before he sets
out on his journey. On this occasion, Jennings had the men chained in
pairs, while the women were allowed to go unfastened, but were closely
watched.

After a 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 negro