THF NEGRO FRIEND. 185 



He sank the ooze of Ocean's bed 



Became Quamina's bier ; 

 But oft for him one white man shed 



Remembering pity's tear. 



Yes, oft when, in his British home, 



The white man told the tale, 

 How drifting 'mid the ocean's foam, 



And sinking 'neath the gale, 

 That Negro-friend breathed out his life, 



To snatch him from the grave ; 

 And perished in the water's strife, 



A negro's friend to save. 



* # * The affecting incident alluded to in the foregoing 

 stanzas, is thus simply but touchingly related in the 

 life of the late Edward Rushton of Liverpool, (author 

 of the well-known ballad of " Mary le More ") as pre- 

 fixed to his volume of poems by the Rev. W. Shepherd. 



" In one of his voyages to the West Indies, he had 

 " contracted an acquaintance with a black man, of the 

 "name of Quamina, whom he kindly taught to read. 

 " On some occasion he was dispatched to the shore 

 " with a boat's crew, of which Quamina was one. On 

 " its return to the ship, the boat was upset in the surf, 

 " and the sailors were soon swept by the billows from 

 " the keel, to which, in the first confusion, they had all 

 " adhered. In this extremity, Rushton swam towards 

 " a small water cask, which he saw floating at a dis- 

 " tance. Quamina had gained this point of safety be- 

 " fore him ; and when the generous Negro saw that 

 " his friend was too much exhausted to reach the cask, 

 " he pushed it towards him bade him good-bye, and 

 " sank to rise no more." This anecdote Mr. Rushton 

 has often related in the hearing of the author of this 

 memoir ; and never without dropping a tear to the 

 memory of Quamina. 



But having thus put on record so generous an act of 



self devotion ; an act whose moral heroism, though the 



hero be only an humble negro, ascends, in the scale 



of human friendship, to the highest gradation marked 



VOL. i. 1833. z 



