CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 19 
rock, and the profusion of fruit on the cocoa-nut, banana, 
and papau trees, where there is not a foot of soil, prove 
that, in this climate, water is the grand principle of 
vegetation. 
The negroes who watched the plantation, and tended a 
few cows and sheep, received us with much civility, and in 
return we purchased from them a fine milch goat with her 
kid, and all the eggs they had to dispose of. The hut of a 
poor negro slave is not luxuriously furnished ; where there 
are females, a partition of the branches of the date tree en- 
closes a recess for their use ; the bedsteads are four up- 
right sticks stuck in the clay floor, with transverse sticks for 
the bottom, over which is spread a mat or blanket ; a solid 
wooden chest, serving also for table and couch, a wooden 
mortar to pound their Indian corn, a pot to boil it, some 
gourds for holding milk and water, and some wooden 
spoons, form the sum total of furniture and domestic utensils ; 
the drum made out of a log of woed hollowed, and the rude 
guitar of three strings, which are seen in every hut, prove 
however that providence every where “ tempers the wind to 
the shorn lamb,” and that if it permits human slavery, it also 
blunts the feelings of the slave, not only to the degree of en- 
durance,but even to that of enjoying life under its most for- 
bidding form. In witnessing the joyous songs and dances of 
