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The cruise of the Midge. By the author of 'Tom Cringle's log'.
The cruise of the Midge By the author of 'Tom Cringle's log' Author:Michael Scott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: craft. It was upwards of sixty feet long, and manned by forty hands, twenty of a side, all plying their great broad-bladed paddlos. These men sat close to the gu... more »nwale of the vessel on each side, looking forward, and delving up the water with their shovel- shaped paddles; the two rows sufficiently apart to leave room for upwards of fifty naked men and women to be stowed amidships. These last were all bound with withes, or some kind of country rope; and although there was no. serious or very evident demonstrations of grief amongst them, yet it at once occurred to me that they were slaves sent down to our black friend's depot to await the arrival of the next vessel, or probably they were intended to have completed the polacre's cargo. An old white-headed, yellow-skinned negro, bearing the tatooed marks of a high-Caste man of his tribe on his square-featured visage, as if the skin had been peeled off his temples on each side, was seated in the bow. 'He evidently took us for part of te crew of some slaver lying below. He shouted to us, and pointed to his cargo; but we had other fish to fry, and accordingly never relaxed in our pulling, until at five in the afternoon we were once more on board of tho felucca. CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING AJTER THE BRUSH. On mustering we found our loss had been exceedingly severe: no fewer than seven missing, five of whom, I knew, had been killed outright, and fourteen wounded, some of them seriously enough. The first thing we did was to weigh and drop down out of gunshot of the fort, when we again anchored close under the bank on the opposite side of the river. By the time we were all snug it was near six o'clock in the evening; and the wild cries and uproar on the bank had subsided, no sound marking the vicinity of our dangerous neighbours, excepti...« less