GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 371 
Moravian missionariesto settle themselves in a negro village, 
to instruct the natives in the useful arts of agriculture, ma- 
nufactures and trade; to make them feel the comforts and 
advantages of acquiring a surplus property ; to instil into 
their minds sound moral precepts; and to divert their at- 
tention from their gross and senseless superstitions to the 
mild and rational principles and precepts of the Christian 
religion. 
The worst feature in the negro character, which is a very 
common one among all savage tribes, is the little estimation 
in which the female sex is held; or, rather their esteeming 
them in no other way than as contributing to their plea- 
sures, and to their sloth. Yet, if this was the extent to which 
female degradation was subject, some palliation might 
perhaps be found in the peculiar circumstances of the 
state of the society; but the open and barefaced manner in 
which both wives and daughters were offered for hire, from 
the Chenoo or chief, to the private gentleman, to any and all 
of the persons belonging to the expedition, was too disgust- 
ing toadmit of any excuse. Some of the Chenoos had no 
less than fifty wives or women, and the Mafooks from ten to 
twenty, any of which they seemed ready to dispose of, for 
the time, to their white visitors ; and the women most com- 
monly, as may well be supposed, were equally ready to 
offer themselves, and greatly offended when their ofter was 
not accepted. It would seem, however, that whether they 
are lent out by their tyrants, or on their own accord, the 
object is solely that of obtaining the wages of prostitution : 
the heart and the passions had no share in the transac- 
tion. It is just possible, that this facility in transferring 
