Niger

off the legs and necks of the more muscular blacks.
Driven to the deck, these were set to work at the
unfamiliar pumps under the lash. The leak
increased ; Mungo, stumbling around below on his
surgeon’s duties, heard the whistle of the whips
overhead mingling with the unending creak of the
pumps.
Throughout the next ten days the leak gained
steadily : the slaver was little more than an
antique sieve. The crew began to murmur that it
was suicide to attempt an American port. They
must turn the Charlestown towards the West Indies.
Harris objected—probably violently and blas¬
phemously though that part of the record thins
down in Mungo’s phrase to the statement that the
captain made 4 some objections ’. But at last even
Harris saw the folly of attempting to make an
American port. The ship’s course was directed to
Antigua.
The island was sighted on the 5th of November.
Ludicrously, disaster had not yet finished with it.
The ship struck a rock, the Diamond Rock, and
with difficulty disentangled itself and squattered
into St. John’s harbour like a wounded duck.
Mungo made haste to disembark and found a
welcome lodging at the house of the Governor.
Thereafter, except for noting the fact that the
vessel was condemned as unfit for sea, the Charles¬
town disappears from his record and his life.
Antigua had no regular sailing times, and Mungo
might have to wait more weary months but for the
248