They were confined in this manner at least all the time they remained upon the Coast, which was from six weeks to six months as it might happen.
Their allowance consisted of one pint of water a day to each person, and they were fed twice a day with yams and horse-beans.
After meals they jumped up in their irons for exercise.

This was so necessary for their health, that they were whipped if they refused to do it.

And this jumping had been termed dancing.
They were usually fifteen and sixteen hours below deck out of the twenty-four.

In rainy weather they could not be brought up for two or three days together.

If the ship was full, their situation was then distressing.
They sometimes drew their breath with anxious and laborious efforts, and some died of suffocation.
With respect to their health in these voyages, the mortality, where the African constitution was the strongest, or on the windward coast, was only about five in a hundred.