Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1822 edition. Excerpt:... 50 CHAPTER V. Voyage to Granada--Treatment of the NegroesDancing and Songs--Long-Shorers chiefly Scots and Irishmen--Anecdote of a Welshman. My next voyage was on board the Cotton Planter, commanded by Captain Young, bound for the island of Granada. I was very happy under Captain Young; he had been long in the Mediterranean trade, where he had lost his health, and every year made a voyage to the West Indies, to avoid the English winters. We sailed in the month of October, and arrived safe at St George's, Granada. I wrought a great deal on shore, and had a number of blacks under me. They are a thoughtless, merry race; in vain their cruel HEGU0ES. 51 situation and sufferings act upon their buoyant minds. They have snatches of joy, that their pale and sickly oppressors never know. It may appear strange, yet it is only in the West India islands that the pictures of Arcadia are in a faint manner realized once in the week. When their cruel situation allows their natural propensities to unfold themselves on the evenings of Saturday and Sabbath, no sound of woe is to be heard in this land of oppression--the sound of the JBenji * and rattle, intermixed with song, alone is heard. I have seen them dancing and singing of an evening, and their backs sore from the lash of their cruel task-masters. I have lain upon deck of an evening, faint and exhausted from the heat of the * The Benji is made of an old firkin, with one end out, covered with shark skin, and beat upon with two pieces of wood. The rattles are made of a calabash shell, and a few small pebbles in it, fixed on a wooden handle; these they shake to the time of the Benji. day, to enjoy the cool breeze of evening; and their wild music and song, the shout of mirth and dancing, resounded along...