636.1 SLAVERY. 499 



layer, a few inches thick, of calcareous matter, wholly formed by 

 the successive growth and death of the small shells of Serpulae, 

 together with some few barnacles and nulliporae. These nulli- 

 porae, which are hard, very simply-organized sea-plants, play an 

 analogous and important part in protecting the upper surfaces of 

 coral-reefs, behind and within the breakers, where the true corals, 

 during the outward growth of the mass, become killed by ex- 

 posure to the sun and air. These insignificant organic beings, 

 especially the Serpulae, have done good service to the people of 

 Pernambuco ; for without their protective aid the bar of sand- 

 stone would inevitably have been long ago worn away, and 

 without the bar, there would have been no harbour. 



On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil. I 

 thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this 

 day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness 

 my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard 

 the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some 

 poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless 

 as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans 

 were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case 

 in another instance. Near Rio cle Janeiro I lived opposite to an 

 old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female 

 slaves. I have staid in a house where a young household mu- 

 latto, 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. These latter cruelties 

 were witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in which it has 

 always been said, that slaves are better treated than by the 

 Portuguese, English, or other European nations. I have seen 

 at Rio Janeiro a powerful negro afraid to ward off a blow di- 

 rected, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a kind- 

 hearted man was on the point of separating for ever the men. 

 women, and little children of a large number cf families who 

 had long lived together. 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 



2\l2 



