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 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