The first description that Olaudah Equiano gives of conditions below decks on the slave ship is of "the stench," which is so loathsome that he is unable to eat. In chapter two of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, he recalls

the closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died.

The people are chained together, and when Equiano refuses to eat, his feet are tied and he is severely flogged by two slavers. Others are also whipped for refusing to eat. He describes the other captives as extremely dejected and despairing.

He writes of children falling into the "necessary tubs"—a euphemism for toilets—of women shrieking, and of the groaning of people dying. Equiano attributes the horrendously inhumane treatment of the kidnapped Africans to the "avarice" of the slavers, who saw the people as commodities.