RIO DE JANEIRO AND ITS ENVIRONS. 49 
dancing, while the upper part of the body and the arms 
had that swaying, rhythmical movement from side to side 
so characteristic of all the Spanish dances. After looking 
on for a while we went into the garden, where there 
were cocoanut and banana trees in fruit, passion-vines 
climbing over the house, with here and there a dark 
crimson flower gleaming between the leaves. The effect 
was pretty, and the whole scene had, to my eye, an aspect 
half Southern, half Oriental. It was nearly dark when 
we returned to the boat, but the negroes were continuing 
7 O O 
their dance under the glow of a bonfire. From time to 
time, as the dance reached its culminating point, they 
stirred their fire, and lighted up the wild group with 
its vivid blaze. The dance and the song had, like the 
amusements of the negroes in all lands, an endless mo- 
notonous repetition. Looking at their half-naked figures 
and unintelligent faces, the question arose, so constantly 
suggested when we come in contact with this race, 
" What will they do with this great gift of freedom ? " 
The only corrective for the half doubt is to consider the 
whites side by side with them : whatever one may think 
of the condition of slavery for the blacks, there can be 
no question as to its evil effects on their masters. Captain 
Bradbury asked the proprietor of the island whether he 
hired or owned his slaves. "Own them, a hundred and 
more ; but it will finish soon," he answered in his broken 
English. "Finish soon! how do you mean?' "It finish 
with you ; and when it finish with you, it finish here, it 
finish everywhere." He said it not in any tone of regret 
or complaint, but as an inevitable fact. The death-note 
of slavery in the United States was its death-note every- 
where. We thought this significant and cheering. 
4 
