PAUL AND VIRGINIA* 65 



prized by the fight of a new Atfrora, faluted, all at 

 once, the luminary of day, by a thoufand and a 

 thoufand fongs. 



The night very often furprized us regaling our- 

 felves with thefe rural feftivities ; but the purity 

 of the air, and the mildnefs of the climate, per- 

 mitted us to fleep under an ajoupa, in the midft of 

 the woods, free from all fear of thieves, either at 

 hand, or at a diftance. Every one returned, next 

 morning, to his own cottage, and found it in the 

 fame ftate in which it had been left. There reign- 

 ed, at that time, fo much honefty and fimplicity, 

 in this un-commercial iiland, that the doors of 

 many houfes did not faften by a key, and a lock 

 was an objeâ: of curiofity to many Creoles. 



But there were certain days of the year cele- 

 brated by Paul and Firginia, as feafons of peculiar 

 rejoicing -, thefe were the birth-days of their mo- 

 thers. Firginia never failed, the evening before, 

 to bake and drefs cakes of the flour of wheat, 

 which (he fent to the poor families of whites, born 

 in the ifland, who had never tafted the bread of 

 Europe, and who, without any affiftance from the 

 blacks, reduced to live on maize, in the midft of 

 the woods, poffefled, toward the fupport of po- 

 verty, neither the ftupidity which is the concomi- 



voL. V. p tant 



