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pass, and is famous for the manufacture of food, and clothing for new-born infants; and celebrated for nurses also.

Why, said I to Zipporah, the old native, "I never heard of your Town in my life." "That's false," answered she in her

course way, "there never was a nurse in the world who came not from this town, nor one article of infant's clothing, nor one grain of infant's food that is not made here; and moreover, if the nurses did not eat of an herb, called nature's bitters, (a) which grows in the gardens of these houses, they would have no milk, and your pampered children would be dried up for want. This town furnishes all that infants can want in this world; and such are the accommodations in it, that thousands, nay millions of children are born here every year, for indeed the air is exactly suited to their constitutions."

The herb

I was not a little confounded at this information. she spoke of I had never required, having never suckled my children myself, like a fashionable mother, not liking the fatigue of the same. But, now that I was determined to become a nurse to my own infant, I found that it was absolutely necessary for its sustenance, that I should drink decanters of this unpalatable root. (b) But my little Festus grew and throve daily, and was strong and healthy; and yet did my heart sink when I fancied I saw his little features expand to the form and fashion of all the disgusting natives of the wilderness and of this town. The child's ears were risen up to four inches in height before he was a month old: his eyes were sharp and fox-like, and long shaggy hair, (white and soft it is true,) began to sprout over his whole body. (e) I could only sigh and cry when alone, and mourn and weep, and put the best face on the thing when any one was by. We had large grounds and gardens down to the river edge, and in these the bitter roots, of which I have spoken, grew. Our business was to tend these roots, and weed, water, and dig about them, and we had a sort of machine for bringing up water out of the river, for they required much water, being often covered with sand blown from the deserts, and the streams of this river were peculiarly suited to the nature of the plant. I had the curiosity to ask of several the name of this river, and not obtaining a distinct answer I searched my book, which I still possessed, and I there found the following description:

(a) Jer. xxxi. 29.

(b) Jer. ix. 15.

(c) Job xi. 12.

"BRUTE TOWN, is a name given to a vast number of huts or houses all along the edge of the River of Wath, or Rath as it should be called, Rath, meaning a village or Town, near the deserts of Zin or Sin. Many marvels have been related of this district and its origin; all of which we believe to be utterly without foundation. But Fanaticism must have food to feed upon, and what it cannot find made ready to its hand, it anon creates. BRUTE TOWN PROPER is forty miles from the ocean."

I could not but lift up my eyes from the book with wonder, to see the account there, so different from the reality. I said to my poor husband, whose state of mind and body were pitiable, "well it is indeed better to trust to our eyes, and ears, and senses I find, than to this book." He lifted up his eyes at my remark, sighed,

cast a glance at his occupation.

wounded arm, and pursued his miserable

The two natives, male and female, who had purchased us, Joktan and Dinah, were, it seemed, a kind of merchants' trafficing in foreign lands. Three months after we were sold to them, they prepared to go on a circuit, and bales of goods were packed, and the camels were brought up from the surrounding moors, and conducted to their stables, prior to being laden. We also, to my great joy, were required to accompany our master in this journey, and the hope began to revive in our breasts of effecting our escape. There was a grand meeting, on the night previous to our departure, to arrange the Caravans, as many of the merchants joined company for protection and society; and also to sacrifice to their idols, which stood in the centre of the town. It was made of gold and precious stones, was as large as life, and exactly resembled the tallest of the robust natives, its name was SELF. We joined in the prostration, feeling that when one is in a country, one must do as others do; this being natural to expect. The ceremony over, the business of loading began; and the pretty camels knelt down to receive their baggage, rising up when they found the burden as great as they were able to bear. admired their instinct, and thought, of the two, they seemed wiser than their masters, who used them as their mere machines, to convey themselves and their burthens to foreign lands. My husband had a seat allotted to him, among the bales, of a very large dromedary, a native leading the animal. I was perched with my children Julian, Kezia, David, and my infant, between a couple

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of bales like panniers, on a fine camel; the panniers were filled with the bitter root, which was become so necessary to me, and I had the permission to help myself out of that abundance, from time to time, as I needed. A native led my camel also; but, let it not be supposed we were left to do nothing. My husband was furnished by his hard master with a bag which was hung round his neck, and this was filled with spider's webs, which was to be wove into cloth for garments :(a) and for myself I was provided with a piece of linen, on which the mildew of the desert had come, when it was out to dry on the water's edge, and it dropped into a thousand holes : nevertheless, I was required to cut out square pieces, and to sew them up for money, or wages bags: but a poor purchase would that one make, who bought these articles, for their money must have dropt through; however, I was required to cut and make a dozen a day, which, with considerable exertion I effected.(")

The caravan consisted of a hundred and fifty camels and five hundred natives-reckoning males, females, and young ones. We set out by day-break in good order, and that day went, I should think, (at least) sixty miles; the camel will go an hundred when pressed; and, as is well known, is peculiarly suited to sandy districts of the earth, from its broad foot, from its patient endurance under drought and toil, and from its being furnished with several stomachs, or reservoirs from which it has the power of forcing up water to slake its thirst. In parching seasons, and in arid deserts, these creatures are occasionally killed for the sake of the water which is found pure and fresh within. We halted for the night, covered with dust, which blew with great force from the deserts of Sin, and encamped by a small lake, of the waters of which we drank, and found them cool and agreeable enongh to the palate, but leaving a bitter taste in the mouth.) While Buz, my camel driver was unloading and feeding the animal, I asked him how it was that the dust of the Great Desert did not swallow up his native town, and the many villages skirting the river of Wrath. He looked at me a minute, and made no answer. These natives, I should remark, are very churlish and perverse in their dispositions. You may kick them to fragments ere you can make them do what they are resolved not to do.

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I then changed my question to this-" How is it, my friend Buz, that the houses stand on one side of your river, and that there are none on the other?"

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"Why-how?" said he, musing and scratching his shaggy head, darting his sharp eyes from me to the ground, and from the ground to myself. Why, many's the house they've built on the sand, the other side of the river-but the wind blows the sand against them, and down they come, for they be built on the sand."

"And how is it, then, that your houses stand which are so close to the desert, my good Buz,” asked I.

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Why," responded Buz, rather perplexed, "I can't say. But my great grandsire heard of his grandsire that some great king said that the town and land was ours of a gift, and that nothing and nobody should take it from us; and so it is, woman; for we be often smothered with dust, and yet are never swallowed up in it."(a)

Indeed, I had no

Mr. Buz and I soon ceased conversation. little trouble to make him understand me, and his speech was difficult for me to make out, so that little intercourse passed between us.(6)

The next morning, at day break, we set off; and, after a long day's journey over sand and stones and prickly shrubs, we halted under a group of sycamore trees, by the side of a little stream, a very few miles from the city of the great nation of SUPERSTITION. Here the young of the caravan were washed and combed by their parents, and made as smart as their scanty way of dressing would admit. The parents then gave them liberty to play about; and the roguery and malice and venom and spite of these little wretches, even in their play, is beyond my powers of description; they bit and fought, kicked and scratched each other (as it appeared) for fun, and then they swore like practised blasphemers, spitting at each other like toads or serpents. They had every one crooked legs; indeed I never saw a straight leg among the swarms of young natives of Brute Town yet; consequently they never walk in a direct line, but generally in a sort of shuffling zigzag; which the men and women, if such they can be called, all retain to this day. (e)

(a) Job xxxix. 5, 6. (b) Jer. x. 14.

(c) Deut. xxxii. 5; Prov. ii. 15,

CHAPTER IV.

They cross the River Dark, and arrive in Natural Mans' Land-Entrance into the Province of Superstition-Arrival in the chief Town of Credulity Asses' Colts and their offspring-Description of the Inhabitants of Credulity Town, their Amusements, Religion, Customs, Habits, &c. Departure Arrival in Lust Land, entrance into its chief city, CrueltyLodgings-Habits of the People-Departure from Lust Land, and arrival in Image Land-Entrance into Black Pagan Town, the capital, where is also the Palace of the King-The Customs, Religion, &c., of the People-Departure-Gulf of Self Will-Impostor Land-Entrance into the chief city, Delusion Town-The Deceit, Lies, and Vanity of the Place and of its Inhabitants-Mr. Markwell's wound grows worse-. -Magdalena's Plan for escaping, with her Husband and Children, from Slavery — Her wonderful success-Zillah, Joktan's daughter, follows them.

WE crossed the bridge over the River DARK and entered the frontiers of large states, governed each by his own Prince, subject to the King of Natural Man's Land, to whom, indeed, the inhabitants of Brute Town and the deserts are tributary. The country we were entering is called the PROVINCE OF SUPERSTITION. The chief town, situated a little way from the river, goes by the name of CREDULITY. It is a large place, filled with people from various provinces of this great empire, dressed in the various costumes and colours of their tribes. To burst upon this thickly and variously inhabited city, after having lived so long among savages and in deserts, was very singular and cheering to my husband and myself; we seemed to merge from obscurity into light at once. Joktan, our master, hired a house for a week in the market place, where he daily exposed his commodities for sale. There were stables attached to the house, and a garden in which my children and my master's young ones were to run about; but it was terrifying to me to behold my precious offspring mixing with those little "ass colts" and learning their vicious ways and practices, for the young savages could not open their mouths except to swear, or utter a lie, or recommend some roguish or spiteful trick; however, the weather was sultry, and there was no other place for air, and I was fain to submit. I confess my great fear was lest my children should imbibe the vulgar practices and revolting manners of these little rogues, who were required to sleep in the chamber with us; and

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