210 WEST INDIA SOCIETY. 



Marry a personable black fellow to one wench, and it is Epping 

 forest to a broom bush, that another can exhibit equally prominent 

 claims for the Church to hallow. Our dusky beauties follow the 

 enceintes of Portland, in this respect, well. But in the north are 

 worldling devices of pin-money and settlements to tempt our 

 chaster passions to delay : here the great impress of moral feeling is 

 wanted to secure a bond that would be but too easily engaged in. 

 Then concubinage begins to wear a reproach among us ; let us not 

 degrade the matrimonial tie by risking too many instances of its dis- 

 ruption. This caution, after all, will be unsatisfactory enough, but 

 what can we do, Massa Williforce, while black folk are so wanton ? 



My walk, however, had yet a glimpse of lawful wedlock to pre- 

 sent me. The manager of Quamina's plantation was born to afflu- 

 ence in a fashionable street of " the West end,'' his father having a 

 lucrative civil office under government. Circumstances led him to 

 embark his property on an estate in one of the foreign islands held 

 by us ; where, happily for him, he died, before a return to its old 

 masters brought his son among the proscribed there. Du Bois tug- 

 ged against fortune, as well as he could, for some years ; while sickness 

 among his gangs, and losses on produce were making him daily a 

 wiser, although a sadder, man. At last the minions, who had so 

 long harrassed him, accomplished their aim, his banishment and 

 ruin. 



The refugee brought only his youth and a buoyant spirit to this 

 island ; but the former procured him employ among us, the other 

 made employ a comfort. Then there was somewhat in his hand- 

 some countenance and figure that want herself could not hide, 

 nothing like it ; she might disguise, but not blot out, the patrician 

 stamp on him. So no wonder the fairest among our Virgin maids, 

 when he spoke a love tale to her, seriously inclined to listen. We 

 found Du Bois and his young bride sitting together in the hall, and 

 both looking happiness. I thought there was a gentle pressure of 

 her hand, as he resigned it to welcome us ; a thing passing sweet to 

 them doubtless, although savouring some way ridiculous to a cool 

 observer. The lady, as usual, was a loisir, only she had slices of 

 shadock with sweetmeats near, to break her pretty Creole listless- 

 ness, by offering them to you between whiles : her spouse had just 

 been issuing his mandates to a negro driver who stood at the door. 

 The gist of these were, for Ponto " to blow the shill ;" that is, send 

 the gangs to field after their noonday meal ; and to order that one, 

 whom the driver reported dead, should receive a score lashes! Says 

 I to myself, neat bone for tlie saints' picking have we here. 



