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122   GUSTAVUS ASSA.

many hardships, and being sold several times, one evening my dear sister was brought to the same house. We were both so overcome that we could not speak for some time, but clung to each other and wept. And when the people were told that we were brother and sister, they indulged us with being together; and one of the men at night lay between us, and allowed us to hold each other's hand across him.

10. "This comfort, small as it may appear to some, was not so to us: but it was of short duration; when morning came, we were again separated, and I never saw her more. I remembered the happiness of our childish sports, the indulgence of maternal affection; and fear that her lot would be still harder then mine, fixed her image so indelibly on my mind, that neither prosperity nor adversity has ever erased it.

11. "I once attempted to run away; but when I had got into the woods, and night came on, I became alarmed with the idea of being devoured by wild beasts, and with trembling steps, and a sad heart, I returned to my master's house, and laid down in his fireplace, where I was found in the morning. Being closely reprimanded by my master, he ordered me to be taken care of, and I was soon sold again. I then  travelled through a very fertile country, where I saw cocoa nuts and sugar cane.

12. "All the people I had hitherto seen, resem- 

GUASTAVUS VASSA.   123

bled my own; and having learned a little of several languages, I could understand them pretty well; but now, after six or seven months had passed away, from the time I was kidnapped, I arrived at the sea coast, and I beheld that element which before I had no idea of. It also made me acquainted with such cruelties as I can never reflect upon but with horror. The first object that met my sight was a slave ship riding at anchor, waiting for her cargo!

13. "When I was taken on board, being roughly handled and closely examined by these men, whose complexion and language differed so much from any I had seen or heard before, I apprehended I had got into a world of bad spirits, which so overcame me that I fainted and fell. When I came to, their horrible looks and red faces frightened me again exceedingly. But I had not time to think much about it, before I was, with many of my poor country people, put under deck in a loathsome and horrible place. In this situation, we wished for death, and sometimes refused to eat, and for this we were beaten.

14. "After enduring more hardships than I can relate, we arrived at Barbadoes, in the West Indies. When taken on shore, we were put into a pen like so many beasts, and thence sold and separated--husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, without any distinction. Their cries excited some compassion in the hearts of those who