TOUSSALIT L OcTVERTUKE.


 -reaned. Under the growing fears and distrust, some
 to purchase their freedom. The request was refused by
 former owners. We are then," said mothers of families,
 tears in their eyes, we are then about to fall back into
 r." To prevent the calamity, the blacks made such
 tion as they could. Circumstances were in their favor:
 y which had gone far to destroy the army and the fleet;
 rainy season, which was at hand, not less baneful to the
triass than favorable to the blacks; the asylum of the moun-
 p where their tbes would pursue them almost in vain. Full
*fear, yet full of courage, they spoke to each other words of
l taortation: Do they expect to find slaves in us ? Why did
thASy not leave us at largu in our forests? Was Africa, our
ittive land, weary of us t Have our rivers been dried up ? Did
ut oar flocks, our tieldi, did not hunting and fishing, suffice for
.lr wants ? We learned no other wants but at the price of
mofr liberty ; they have der-eived us in our simplicity by poisoned
.if6t. Were not our liuet accustomed, unshod, to walk over
1;rning sands; and did not our uncovered heads brave the fires
ClF the torrid zone ? Our skin, given by Nature to enable us to
hin near the sun, perbrnmed the office of garments fabricated
by-luxury. Was not the limpid wave of our fountains prefer-
eble to the liquors which cause brutal fury ? To enjoy the
ktweet manift'sations of friendship, the. guileless smile of our
children, the caredses of a mother who, during three years, nw-
stred us with her milk; to trouble neither our own lot nor the
*.st of others; to pass our life without fear and without desires,
s. a river of a tranquil and uniform flow, -such were the pre-
iowus advantages of which we have been robbed by our ene-
Mise." While thus they inflamed each other by fancy pictures
If-their ancestral mode of life, lhey drew a too true and a very
Iainful contrast in adverting to their actual condition. Here a
.aa held lortn his arm, mutilated by a barbarous monster;
itere another pointed to his leg, eaten into by the links of an
itan chain; others drew attention to the scars left by the
.diver's thong; women uncovered their breasts, which showed
 21*