Chapter 3 Summary

Balliol College is a floating asylum, but the crew is quick and efficient. Flashy longs for Elspeth and loathes Morrison during dull days of sailing, but finds life tolerable. They bypass the Guinea Coast, which is played out for slaving nowadays; fast ships slip in and out of river mouths, where they pick up large quantities of slaves gathered for them by native chiefs. The Navy cannot keep up patrolling. Flashy is surprised at pious white people who condemn the slave traders without blaming the blacks who sell them. He is also upset at whites who say nothing about those who enslave white women and children in mills, factories, and mines, and keep them in conditions that no plantation owner would permit.

Spring works with King Gezo of Dahomey and calls at the less populated rivers and lagoons on the Bight of Benin...