358 HISTORY OF [BOOK. 11. 



generally found it prudent to keep his distance, or be 

 siient. Nothing can more strikingly demonstrate the 

 forlorn and abject condition of the young women 

 among the Maroons, than the circumstance which 

 every gentleman who has visited them on festive oc- 

 casions, or for the gratification of curiosity, knows to 

 be true; the offering their own daughters, by the first 

 men among them, to their visitors ; and bringing the 

 poor girls forward, with or without their consent, for 

 the purpose of prostitution. 



Visits of this kind were indeed but too acceptable 

 both to the Maroons and their daughters; for they 

 generally ended in drunkenness and riot. The visit- 

 ers too were not only fleeced of their money, but 

 were likewise obliged to furnish the feast, it being 

 indispensably necessary, on such occasions, to send 

 beforehand wine and provisions of all kinds ; and if 

 the guests expected to sleep on beds and in linen., 

 they must provide those articles also for themselves. 

 The Maroons, however, if the party consisted of 

 persons of consequence, would consider themselves 

 as highly honoured, and would supply wild-boar, 

 land-crabs, pigeons, and fish, and entertain their 

 guests with a hearty and boisterous kind of hospita- 

 lity, which had at least the charms of novelty and sin- 

 gularity to recommend it. 



On such occasions, a mock fight always constituted 

 a part of the entertainment. Mr. Long has given 

 the following description of a scene of this kind, 

 which was exhibited by the Trelaw T ney-town Ma^ 

 roons, in the presence of the governor, in 1764, 



