DAR WIN. 35 



was as powerless as a child, even to remonstrate. I sus- 

 pected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for 

 I was told that this was the case in another instance. 

 Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who 

 kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I 

 have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, 

 daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted 

 enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have 

 seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with 

 a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, 

 for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean ; I 

 saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's 

 eye. ... I will not even allude to the many heart- 

 sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of; nor 

 would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had 

 I not met with several people, so blinded by the consti- 

 tutional gaiety of the negro, as to speak of slavery as a 

 tolerable evil. . . . Those who look tenderly at the slave- 

 owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to 

 put themselves into the position of the latter. What a 

 cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change ! 

 Picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, 

 of your wife and your little children those objects which 

 nature urges even the slave to call his own being torn 

 from you, and sold like beasts to the first bidder ! And 

 these deeds are done and palliated by men who profess 

 to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in 

 God, and pray that His will be done on earth!" 



Such burning expressions are not yet superfluous, and 

 it is wholesome to recall to a generation which scarcely 

 realises the past miseries of slavery, and is too apt to 



