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THE above engraving represents an encampment of Arabs, of which some further ideas may be formed from the following description of a similar scene in Asia Minor, from Mr. Mac Farlane, published in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge.

was

| this done, by the mere voice. When ner. It was at Boudja, a village (a few they rest for the night, they generally miles from Smyrna) where many of the kneel down in a circle-it is rarely con- Franks have their country houses. sidered necessary to tie one of their fore-hurrying home, on a very dark night,legs, at the bend of the knee. They al-at the entrance of the village, and, in the ways repose on their knees; and a cu-shadow of a garden wall, I stumbled over rious thing in relation to their natural "On their journeys, the devidjis al- habits is, that I never saw one of them ways choose, for halting-places, spots that throw himself, even for a moment, on his abound in bushes or brakes, where such side. During the night's rest, the diare to be found; the camels are left at vidjis generally sleep in the midst of the liberty to browse, and their drivers smoke circle formed by the recumbent camels; their pipes or go to sleep. There is no if it be a rainy winter night, they will danger of the camels escaping, or wan-pitch a little tent; but in this genial clidering to any distance; they keep close to the spot where they are set at liberty, and can be rallied and formed in line in a moment. I have more than once seen

mate (I speak of Asia Minor) they nearly
always repose, like their quiet beasts, in
the open air. I once invaded a primitive
dormitory of this sort, in a curious man-

something, which proved to be a young camel (they accompany their dams on their journeys almost as soon as they are born), and, going forward, I stumbled again over a sack, and fell headlong through an opening of the "domestic circle into the midst of it, and upon the sleeping dividjis. I suppose they were surprised at the intrusion, but both men and beasts were very civil-the latter, indeed, never moved, and seemed as passive as if I had been falling over roots of trees."

106

In connexion with the foregoing de-water. This facility of abstaining from scription, some notice of the natural his- drink is not an effect of habit alone, but tory and habits of the camel may not be is rather dependant on their physical structure. Besides the four stomachs, unacceptable to the reader. This class of animals is divided into which are common to ruminating animals, two principal species; the dromedary, or the camel is provided with a fifth bag, Arabian camel, distinguished by one which serves as a reservoir for water. This bunch or protuberance on its back, and fifth stomach is peculiar to the camel. It the Bactrian camel, which has two, but is so large as to contain a vast quantity is in other respects like the former. Asia of water, which remains in it without coris, no doubt, their original country, and rupting or mingling with the other alihere we have mention made of them, in ments. When the animal is pressed with the Sacred Writings, at a very early pe- thirst, or has need of fluid to macerate its riod. The remarkable adaptation of their dry food, it causes a part of the conphysical structure to the peculiarities of tents of this reservoir to rise into the upclimate and soil in their native regions, per apartments of the stomach, and even and their great docility and power of en- as high as the throat, by the simple condurance, have made them, perhaps, the traction of certain muscles. It is by this most valuable auxiliaries to man that singular construction that the camel is are to be found among inferior animals. enabled to pass several days without Their feet are so formed as to tread lightly drinking; and to take, at a time, a proon a dry and shifting soil; their nostrils have digious quantity of water, which remains, the power of closing, so as to shut out the in this natural cistern, pure and limpid. sand when the wind raises and scatters it Travellers have sometimes, when much in the desert; and, above all, this animal oppressed with drought, been obliged to is provided with an apparatus for retain-kill their camels, in order to obtain a suping water in its stomach, so that it can ply from these reservoirs. march from well to well, without great inconvenience, although they be several hundred miles apart. With these advantages, it is not surprising that it should

FUTILITY OF THE OBJECTIONS

TO THE

SLAVERY.

enough to deal with the inference thus covertly intended when the distinction is broadly stated; namely, that the whites are, under all circumstances, orderly, moral, and industrious.

I will prove that free blacks, under every variety of condition, are able and willing to exercise the qualities of social life :--

1st. With respect to the manumitted slaves in our colonies;

2nd. With respect to the maroons, or descendants of runaway slaves;

3rd. With respect to the emancipated slaves of Hayti, Mexico, &c.

4th. With respect to the native Africans.

1st. In our West India Colonies there are about 100,000 free persons of colour, who are either manumitted slaves, or the descendants of such. In some of the islands there is not a single

instance of these people having any relief from the public, and, throughout the whole, the number who received relief in a period of five years, was at the rate of 1 in 370; while, in the same period, the number of whites who received aid as paupers, was as 1 in 40.*

The testimony of the colonial authorities concurs with statistical facts in proof of the orderly, moral, and industrious habits of these free

negroes.

2nd. The maroons of Jamaica, though under circumstances the least favourable to any improvement, are, nevertheless, sufficiently industrious to maintain themselves in such a manner that the population increases rapidly. Those of them who were established at Sierra Leone, in 1800, "have shown an aptness which gives them the first place in the colony as tradesmen."+

3rd. Hayti, however, presents the most triumphant refutation of the aspersions cast upon the black race. There, nearly 500,000 slaves,

ever have been considered by the Ara- IMMEDIATE ABOLITION OF COLONIAL suddenly emancipated, have so improved their bians, to whom it is most useful, as a sacred animal, bestowed by Heaven for their use.

SIR,

You ask me for answers to the following objections, which are urged against the immediate emancipation of the slaves in our colonies. In the compass of a letter I can only state the matter shortly. It is urged that

1. "The slaves are idle and dissolute, and would not work to support themselves."

II. "The whites would be driven from the

islands, or their personal safety would be en-
dangered."

Indeed, from the time of Job to the present day, camels have constituted the staple, and the criterion of the wealth of Arabia; for without them the Arabs could neither travel, trade, nor subsist. They use their milk and flesh for food, and make stuffs for clothing and other furniture from their hair, which is fine and soft, and which is completely renewed every year. Besides this, their power of supporting the fatigues of travelling makes them of great value, in case of invasion, to their wandering owners, whom they can in one day remove 150 miles into the desert, and so effec-it tually cut off all approach from their

enemies.

III. "The capital of the planters would be destroyed, and the commerce and manufactures of this country greatly injured."

of sugar. Here, then, is the fact upon which it is falsely assumed that emancipation will be followed by desolation.

In the republic of Mexico, the slaves were suddenly emancipated; and I challenge evidence that the act has been followed by any ill consequences to society.

condition that the population has doubled itself in the course of 30 years. Let it never be forgotten, that it was at the latter end of the year 1793 that the slaves in St. Domingo were emancipated; that the massacres, and burnings, and plunderings, took place before; and that Malenfaut, in 1794, states that- After this public act of emancipation, the negroes remained quiet, both in the south and in the west, and they continued to work upon all the plantations." He further says, that "The colony flourished under Toussaint. The whites lived happily, and in peace, upon their estates; and the negroes continued to work for them." This state of things is up to 1802. It was the attempt after this to re-establish The two last are merely appendages to the first slavery which led to the devastation that expelled proposition; and, if this be a gratuitous hypothe-in the cultivation of the soil, and the manufacture the whites, and destroyed the capital embarked sis resting upon no facts, but derived from a false analogy, the remainder falls to the ground. "The slaves are idle and dissolute:" we admit fully and freely. How should they be otherwise? What inducements have they to be industrious, temperate, and chaste? But they are idle But it is in commerce that their ser- only when working for their masters. They support themselves by voluntary labour. It is a vices are most important. The caravans, great mistake to suppose that the slaves are altoor large companies in which the mer-gether fed by the masters. And if they do now chants travel, always consist of more camels than men. The largest of these animals will carry a burthen of a thousand, or even twelve hundred, pounds' weight, and the smallest from six to seven hundred, and, with these loads, they walk about thirty miles a day. When in a rich country, or fertile meadow, they eat, in less than an hour, as much as serves them to ruminate the whole night, and to nourish them for twenty-four hours. They seem, however, happily to prefer the nettles, and prickly plants, which they more commonly meet with, to richer herbage; and, when they can get plants of any kind, they easily dispense with

labour with unremitting toil, in order to procure
necessary food for themselves and families, will
they not continue to do so? It is clear that the
negroes must either work or plunder. And it is
not conceivable that the same means by which the
slaves are restrained should be inadequate to the
preservation of order amongst the same men when
free. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that
the slaves have not a proper sense of the benefits
of social order. The present race of slaves in our

West India colonies have either been born there,

or have been there from so early an age that they
than that derived from agriculture. Besides, the
are acquainted with no other mode of subsistence
physical character of these colonies precludes the
exercise of the pastoral life. Hence, to till the
earth is considered by the slave to be an essential

condition of his existence.

And are negro slaves only characterized by dissolute and licentious habits? It will be time

4th. The concurring testimony of all travellers to the present day respecting the Africans, shows that, in their own country, they are an industrious people, cultivating the earth, even though at the risk of not reaping that they have sown. Wherever the contrary to this is found, it is the effect of the wars, produced mainly by the slave trade, which the slavery of the European colonies excites and maintains.

The conclusion, then, is inevitable, that the slaves are fit for freedom, and that their emanci

pation should not be delayed an hour longer than is necessary to give it full and complete effect: meaning thereby," the substitution of a system of judicial restraint for the irresponsible authority of

the master."

I have argued this subject as a mere question of intellect, a dry investigation of the understanding. And, if immediate emancipation is thus demon

Parliamentary Papers, 1820.

+ Report of Commission of Enquiry, Sierra Leone, Parliamentary Papers, 1827,

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The Emperor's arrival commenced the grand display. He took his place under the curtains of the royal pavilion. The dead were removed; perfumes were scattered through the air; TOSE-water was sprinkled from silver tubes on the exhausted multitude; music resounded; incense burned; and, in the midst of these preparations of luxury, the terrors of the lion combat began.

A portal of the arena opened, and the combatant, with a mantle thrown over his face and figure, was led in, surrounded by soldiery. The lion roared and ramped against the bars of its den at the sight. The guard put a sword and buckler into the hands of the Christian, and he was left alone. He drew the mantle from his face, and bent a slow and firm look round the amphitheatre. His fine countenance and lofty bearing raised an universal sound of admiration. He might have stood for an Apollo encountering the Python. His eye at last turned on mine. Could I believe my senses! Constantius was before me!

All my rancour vanished. An hour past I could have struck the betrayer to the heart. I could have called on the severest vengeance of man and heaven to smite the destroyer of my child. But to see him hopelessly doomed;

the man whom I had honoured for his noble qualities, whom I had even loved, whose crime was at worst but the crime of giving way to the strongest temptation that can bewilder the heart of man; to see this noble creature flung to the savage beast, dying in tortures, torn piecemeal before my eyes, and this misery wrought by me-I would have obtested earth and heaven to save him. But my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth. My limbs refused to stir. I would have thrown myself at the feet of Nero; but I sat like a man of stone, pale, paralysed--the beating of my pulses stopped-my eyes alone alive.

I saw

The gate of the den was thrown back, and the lion rushed in with a roar, and a bound that bore him half across the arena. the sword glitter in the air: when it waved again, it was covered with blood, and a howl told that the blow had been driven home. The lion, one of the largest from Numidia, and made furious by thirst and hunger, an animal of prodigious power, couched for an instant, as if to make sure of his prey, crept a few paces onward, and sprang at the victim's throat. He was met by a second wound, but his impulse was irresistible, and Constantius was flung upon the ground. A cry of natural horror rang round the amphitheatre. The struggle was now for instant life or death. They rolled over each other; the lion reared on its hind feet, and, with gnashing teeth and distended talons, plunged on the man; again they rose together. Anxiety was now at its wildest height. The sword swung round the champion's head in bloody circles. They fell again, covered with gore and dust. The hand of Constantius had grasped the lion's mane, and the furious bounds of the monster could

the arena.

not loose the hold; but his strength was evi-
dently giving way: he still struck terrible
blows, but cach was weaker than the one be-
before; till, collecting his whole force for a
last effort, he darted one mighty blow into the
lion's throat, and sank. The savage yelled,
and, spouting out blood, fled bellowing round
But the hand still grasped the
mane, and his conqueror was dragged whirl-
ing through the dust at his heels. A univer-
sal cry now arose to save him, if he were not
already dead. But the lion, though bleeding
from every vein, was still too terrible, and all
shrank from the hazard. At length the grasp
gave way, and the body lay motionless on
the ground.

I lay helpless under him. I felt his fiery breath-I saw his lurid eye glaring-I heard the gnashing of his white fangs above me.

An exulting shout arose.-I saw him reel as as if struck. Gore filled his jaws -Another mighty blow was driven to bis heart.-He sprang high in the air with a howl.-He dropped; he was dead. The amphitheatre thundered with acclamation.

With Salome clinging to my bosom, Constantius raised me from the ground. The roar of the lion had roused him from his swoon, and two blows saved me. The falchion was broken in the heart of the monster. The whole multitude stood up, supplicating for our lives in the name of filial piety and heroism. Nero, devil as he was, dared not resist the strength of the popular feeling.

He waved a signal to the guards; the portal was opened, and my children sustaining my feeble steps, and showered with garlands and ornaments by innumerable hands, slowly led me from the arena."--Salathiel.

COFFIN DEALERS IN JAVA.

What happened for some moments after I know not. There was a struggle at the portal; a female forced her way through the guards, rushed in alone, and flung herself upon the victim. The sight of a new prey roused the lion; he tore the ground with his talons; he lashed his streaming sides with his tail; he lifted up his mane, and bared his fangs. But his approach was no longer with a bound; he dreaded the sword, and came snuffing the blood on the sands, and stealing round the body in circuits still diminishing. The confuTHERE are many coffin-makers in this great sion in the vast assembly was now extreme. city, where death so often keeps his court, and Voices innumerable called for aid. Women slays not only his ordinary thousands in the screamed and fainted; men burst out into indig-course of the year; but, at particular seasons, nant clamours at this prolonged cruelty. Even strikes down his tens of thousands—in the the hard hearts of the populace, accustomed as houses in the streets-in the fields: walking they were to the sacrifice of life, were roused with the pestilence in darkness, and slaughterto honest curses. The guards grasped their ing with the arrow that flieth at noon-day. arms, and waited but for a sign from the emWe noticed particularly the Chinese coffi peror: but Nero gave no sign. which are not only exposed for sale in every undertaker's work-shop, but are frequently seen placed at the doors of their own dwellings; for a China-man likes a good bargain of any kind, and will eagerly buy a cothin for himself if he can get it cheap, though he hopes to live forty years; nor does the sight of it annoy him with any feeling less pleasant than the recollection that he has his money's worth in it. These coffins are not expensive, being made both solid and spacious out of four thick blocks of timber, the upper one forming the lid and projecting over the edges, with a Ishoulder-piece; the body of the chest, thus compacted, is nearly cylindrical. The buryingplace of the Chinese belonging to Batavia, like one which we have elsewhere described, is on the slope of a hill, where the graves are disposed in the most exact order, as cells, with their precious deposits sealed up in masonry, or brick-work, with ornaments according to the rank or riches of the deceased. A second corpse is never laid in a sepulchre already occupied.-Bennet and Tyerman's Voyages.

I looked upon the woman's face. It was Salome! I sprung upon my feet. I called on her name; I implored her by every feeling of nature to fly from that place of death, to come to my arms, to think of the agonies of all

that loved her.

up.

She had raised the head of Constantius on her knee, and was wiping the pale visage with her hair At the sound of my voice she looked and calmly casting back the locks from her forehead, fixed her gaze upon me. She still knelt: one hand supported the head, with the other she pointed to it as her only answer. again adjured her. There was the silence of death among the thousands round me. A sudden fire flashed into her eye, her cheek burned. She waved her hand with an air of superb sorrow.

"I am come to die," she uttered in a lofty
tone. "This bleeding body was my husband.
I have no father. The world contains to me

but this clay in my arms. Yet," and she
kissed the ashy lips before her, " yet, my
Constantius, it was to save that father
that your generous heart defied the peril of
this hour. It was to redeem him from
the hand of evil that you abandoned a quiet
home! Yes, cruel father, here lies the noble
being that threw open your dungeon, that led
you safe through conflagration, that to the
last moment of his liberty only thought how
he might preserve and protect you." Tears at
length fell in floods from her eyes.
said she, in a tone of wild horror, "he was
betrayed; and may the Power whose thunders
avenge the cause of his people, pour down just
retribution upon the head that dared".

"But,"

I heard my own condemnation about to be uttered by the lips of my child. Wound up to the last degree of suffering, I tore my hair, leaped on the bars before me, and plunged into the arena by her side. The height was stunning; I tottered forward a few paces, and fell. The lion gave a roar and sprang upon me.

I saw,

THE TWO FOUNTAINS.
(From Moore's Evenings in Greece.)
from yonder silent cave,
Two fountains running side by side;
The one was Memory's limpid wave,
The other cold Oblivion's tide.
"O Love!" said I, in thoughtless dream,
As o'er my lips the Lethe pass'd,
"Here, in this dark and chilly stream,
Be all my pains forgot at last."

But who could bear that gloomy blank,
Where joy was lost as well as pain?
Quickly of Memory's fount I drank,
And brought the past all back again :
And said, "O Love! whate'er my lot,
Still let this soul to thee be true-
Rather than have one bliss forgot,
Be all my pains remembered too!"

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We have received communications from R. C.,
A Hater of Slavery, A Buxtonite, and A. S.
We are particularly obliged by the contribution of
Marian, and hope we shall have to thank her for many

more.

THE TOURIST. MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1832.

tain, the still more fearful waste of human
life discovered, in an average decrease of seven-
teen Negroes annually out of 314-or eighty-
five slaves, being equal to one-fifth of the whole
population, cut off in the space of five years!
The estates of John Thorp, situate in the pa-
rish of Trelauney, show a diminution of num-
bers, within the same period, amounting to
two hundred, out of a population of 2809. But
on the coffee plantations, where night-work is
unknown, mark the contrast; on a plantation
having 214 slaves, the average increase for five
years is three per cent. per annum ; and, taking
an extensive parish, the staple commodity of
which is coffee, the average increase through-
out is not less than three per cent, per annum.
Can there be a more convincing proof of the
shocking waste to which human life is subject
on sugar estates (and owing mainly to the
system of night-work), than this? And yet to
such a system must the man of grey hairs, or
the mother of a numerous offspring, after toiling
throughout the day, under the scorching beams
of a tropical sun, submit; and again be ex-
posed to the bleak north wind, to the chilling
mists of heaven, or to the pelting rain; and,
when overtaken with sleep, to lie down faint
and weary, and at the risk of a heavy punish-
ment, under the great canopy of heaven, with-
out another comforter, save Him, who pities
the oppressed."*

West India planter as an encouragement of his expensive and murderous system, and after all are insulted and threatened with rebellion. When will the national conscience be aroused to the moral obliquity of such a course? When, especially, will British Christians do justice to their principles, by withdrawing their patronage from so accursed a traffic? The system is within our power, and we may do with it as we please. If our rulers refuse to manumit the slaves, we may accomplish it ourselves, by a process which, though slower, will be as effectual. If the opposition of the West India party prevent any parliamentary enactment, we have only to exclude their produce from our dwellings, and the triumph of humanity will be achieved. Let us, then, combine with a zeal and self-devotedness worthy of the cause. Let associations be formed throughout the kingdom for the exclusion of West India sugar. Let the ministers of religion take a lead in this movement, and outraged humanity will rise from its oppressions, and bless our

name.

We have commonly heard it alleged that such an attempt is hopeless; but we are persuaded to the contrary. This is the common plea of supineness, and should be treated as such. Suppose it were well founded, would it justify our continued encouragement of cruelty and murder? If we can effect no improvement in the condition of the slave, we are yet bound to abstain from the infliction of injury. If we cannot manumit, we must refrain from rivetting his chains. We owe it to ourselves as well as to the negro to wash our hands of this pollution.

ON THE DISUSE OF SLAVE SUGAR. HUMAN nature has been termed a bundle of inconsistencies. Conflicting opinions are frequently entertained by the same person, and practices are sanctioned at open variance with the profession made. A very limited knowledge of mankind will be sufficient to convince as of the accuracy of such a representation. We have only to compare the conduct with the recorded sentiments of men, in order to be assured of their frequent incongruity. On no point is this inconsistency more gross and palpable than on that which is referred to in the title of this paper. It is well known that a large and rapidly increasing portion of the British public regard colonial slavery as a process of slow murder; and they appeal triumphantly to the population returns of the sugar islands in justification of their estimate. It is not simply that they view slavery with disfavour,From the population returns we learn, that that they regard the coerced and unremunein fourteen sugar colonies the decrease of the rated labour of the African as impolitic and Negroes, on an average of the last eleven years, Nnrighteous. Such a conviction would, in all has been 58,601. The advocates of slavery honesty, pledge them to abstain from the con- have endeavoured to account for this decrease sumption of slave produce,―to withhold from by various theories, which are sufficiently dissuch a system of exaction and wrong the proved by the notorious fact, that the Maroons But positive benefit must follow. If the slightest share of their patronage. But the in Jamaica, the free blacks throughout our co-slave-holder finds the sale of his sugars greatly truth of the matter is, their conviction of the lonies, and even the slaves in America and diminished, he will, as a mere matter of cominiquity of British colonial slavery is much on the coffee plantations in our own islands, mercial policy, modify his system, so as to meet the views of his customers, and to prestronger than we have supposed. They believe are uniformly increasing. The decrease on Let him once perit to be a barbarous and cursed system, involv- sugar plantations cannot therefore be account- serve himself from ruin. ing the worst features of rebellion against Goded for by circumstances which exist equally in ceive that the British public are thoroughly with unparalleled cruelty to man. And the case of those other classes. There must resolved no longer to encourage him in their they patronize it: they encourage the planter obviously be something in the nature of their market, and he will abandon slavery rather in the perpetration of wrong, yea, they bribe employment, and its duration and intensity, than abide by its consequences. The same which shall account for a difference so palpa- plan would work redemption to the slaves in derous extent. But how, it may be asked, is ble.-This argument is strengthened by the various other ways. It would materially lessen this done? How can charges of so serious a fact, that the rate of decrease in the sugar the value of slaves, and thus facilitate manunature be established? Nothing is more easy. colonies bears an observable proportion to the mission. This appears by the returns from the We consume the articles which the planter quantity of sugar produced. In Demerara, slave colonies printed May 9th, 1826, and numsends us, and more especially his sugar, to Trinidad, and the Mauritius, for instance, bered 353. These returns embrace a period of which our observations now extend. It is in whence the exportation of sugars has been five years-from the 1st of January, 1821, to the production of this latter article that the largest in proportion to the number of slaves, the 31st of December, 1825. Amongst other misery of the slaves is perfected. They are the Negro population has decreased most ra- matters, they furnish the number of slaves sold worked on an average through the year six-pidly; while in Barbadoes and Dominica, where in execution for their masters' debts, specifying teen hours per day, and their labour during little sugar is grown, the slaves have slightly their age, sex, price, &c. Hence we learn the the greater part of this time is performed under increased; and in the Bahamas, where no average price of slaves in the different islands, the impulse of the whip. Human nature cansugar is raised, their increase has been rapid. and the following are some of the results not endure such exaction. It is a demand The increase in the latter case has been sub- ascertained. In Demerara, a sugar colony, the value of the slave is £86 sterling, and in which her powers are not competent to meet: sequent to the abandonment of sugar cultivaand we find, what general principles would tion. As long as the soil would furnish a crop Berbice £90; while in Barbadoes, whence have led us to anticipate, that the negro po- of sugar-canes, the slaves in the Bahamas an- little sugar is exported, his price is reduced to pulation throughout the sugar colonies is ra- nually diminished; but, immediately that it be-£28; and in the Bahamas, where no sugar is pidly decreasing. came too exhausted for this purpose, the same race multiplied. The depressing force was removed, and nature acted on her general

yet

him to coerce the labour of his slaves to a mur

"Of all the evils to which the Negro is liable, throughout the whole system of slavery, there is not a greater than this-night-work on sugar estates. In proof of this, my Lord, only look at the facts to be found in a late return to Parliament, of the average increase and decrease of slaves for the five preceding years to 1828, on the principal properties in Jamaica, distinguishing coffee and other plantations from the sugar estates. We find from these returns, one sugar estate with 663 slaves, on which there has been an average decrease of ten. On another, with 242 slaves, a decrease of fifteen; and on a third, called Blue Moun

law.

Such is the fact. What, then, is the course which we pursue? Manifestly such as no moral principle or humane feeling can sanction. We receive the sugar raised at this sacrifice of human life. We exempt it from fair competition with free-labour sugar by our bounty and protecting duties. We give on an average several hundreds annually to each

raised, he may be purchased for £21 8s. How much greater the facility of manumission in the latter islands than in the former!-and how much more enviable in consequence the condition of the slaves!

But this is not all. The time of a slave in a sugar colony is of more value to his master than in any other. Hence the labour exacted from him is more protracted and intense, and the opportunities of improving his own condition are proportionally smaller. But, further, in sugar colonies, the slaves are mainly dependent on imported goods with which their * Rev. J. M. Trew's Letters to the Duke of quantities as barely suffice for the maintenance masters supply them. These are given in such Wellington, 1830.

of life, and nothing can, in consequence, be | saved by the negro as part of the price of his redemption. But when the cultivation of sugar ceases, the master finds it for his profit to give provision grounds to his slaves, on which they raise their own support. Hence they become the small poulterers and greengrocers of the community, and are enabled, in many cases, gradually to accumulate a sufficient sum to purchase their freedom. The system, therefore, which we recommend, operates in their favour two ways: it reduces their value, and it supplies them with money. Englishmen! let your hereditary love of freedom dictate the course you should pursue. Open every door of escape to your oppressed and wretched fellow-subjects. Restore to them, by every means in your power, the rights of which they are deprived, the joys which have long been strangers to their breasts. Then will you have the purest satisfaction which is allotted to humanity on earth, and will shield your country from those appalling evils with which a retributive providence will otherwise visit it.

SUBSIDENCE OF THE BALTIC.

A SINGULAR and interesting fact has been ascertained respecting the level of the Baltic.

It was suspected that the waters of this sea were gradually sinking; but a Memoir in the Swedish Transactions for 1823 has put the change beyond doubt. From latitude 56 to 63 degrees, the observations show a mean fall of one foot and a half in forty years, or fourtenths of an inch annually, or three feet four inches in a century. The Baltic is very shallow at present; and, if the waters continue to sink as they have done, Revel, Abo, and a hundred other ports will, by and by, become inland towns; the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and ultimately the Baltic itself, will be changed to dry land.

ЕРІТАРН

ON THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEA'S LEG.

Attributed to the Right Hon. George Cunning.
Here rests and let no saucy knave
Presume to sneer and laugh,
To learn that mouldering in the grave
Is laid-a British calf.

For he who writes these lines is sure
That those that read the whole
Will find such laugh is premature,
For here, too, lies a sole.

And here five little ones repose,

Twin-born with other five, Unheeded by their brother toes, Who now are all alive.

A leg and foot, to speak more plain, Rest here of one commanding, Who, though his wits he might retain, Lost half his understanding.

And when the guns, with thunder fraught,
Pour'd bullets thick as hail,
Could only in this way be taught

To give the foe leg-bail.
And now in England, just as gay
As in the battle brave,
Goes to the rout, review, or play,
With one foot in the grave.
Fortune in vain here show'd her spite,
For he will still be found,
Should England's sons engage in fight,?
Resolv'd to stand his ground.

For fortune's pardon I must beg-
She meant not to disarm;
And when she lopp'd the hero's leg,
She did not seek his h-arm;
And but indulg'd a harmless whim,
Since he could walk with one,
She saw two legs were lost on him,
Who never meant to run.

[graphic]

SCULPTURE OF THE FATES INTERRUPTED BY THE GODDESS OF HEALTH.

Mark with what fatal skill yon deathful pair
The web of human destiny prepare ;
Life's brittle thread those ruthless sisters hold,
And swift around the impetuous wheel is roll'd.
A third more dreadful sister near them stands,
The fatal shears extended in her hands,
Eager to strike the blow, and seal the doom
Of some pale victim trembling o'er the tomb.
ANON.

THE ancient mythology recognized a power superior to that of the gods, namely, that of fate, or necessity. Hence Herodotus quotes an oracle which declared that "God himself could not shun his destined fate;" and in the fragments of

of a very singular figure common in the Latin language, being derived from the word parco, "to spare," because, forsooth, they spare nobody!

Philemon we find the following sentence: ) by an ancient commentator, is an instance "We are subject to kings, kings to the gods, and the gods to necessity." Indeed, to such a height was this impiety carried, in the earliest ages of Greece, that we find Homer and Hesiod teaching that the gods themselves were generated by Necessity of Night and Chaos. The same power exercised an uncontrolled dominion over the events and duration of human life, and in this character is represented by the three sisters, seen in the above engraving. They were called Parcæ; which name, as we are informed

Their personal appellations were, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos; of whom the first held a distaff, the second spun the thread of human destiny, and the third cut it short with a pair of scissors-thus determining the close of life. The ancients imagined that the Parcæ used white wool for a long and happy life, and black for a short and unfortunate one.

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