Snelgrave's book also contains vivid accounts of tribal wars, human sacrifices, traders' negotiations and pirate captures on the Grain and Slave Coasts.] The discomfort in the densely packed quarters of the slave ships may be imagined by any who have sailed on tropic seas.

With seasickness added it was wretched; when dysentery prevailed it became frightful; if water or food ran short the suffering was almost or quite beyond endurance; and in epidemics of scurvy, small-pox or ophthalmia the misery reached the limit of human experience.

The average voyage however was rapid and smooth by virtue of the steadily blowing trade winds, the food if coarse was generally plenteous and wholesome, and the sanitation fairly adequate.

In a word, under stern and often brutal discipline, and with the poorest accommodations, the slaves encountered the then customary dangers and hardships of the sea.[38] [Footnote 38: Voluminous testimony in regard to conditions on the middle passage was published by Parliament and the Privy Council in 1789-1791.
Summaries from it may be found in T.F.Buxton, _The African Slave Trade and the Remedy_ (London, 1840), part I, chap.

2; and in W.O.Blake, _History of Slavery and the Slave Trade_ (Columbus, Ohio, 1859), chaps, 9, 10.] Among the disastrous voyages an example was that of the Dutch West India Company's ship _St.John_ in 1659.