54 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



that Colony will rise or fall, when, if ever, the hand and the counsels of the 

 Caucasian race shall have been entirely withdrawn, and the Colony be left exclu- 

 sively to its own government and support. Should it rise, as its friends predict, 

 to wealth and power, it will be more than history would teach us to hope for, 

 if the watchful rapacity of the white man does not rob the fruit of which benev- 

 olence had planted the seed. It did not avail the lamb to show the wolf who 

 was bent on eating him that he stood uppermost in the stream, and could not 

 muddy it. Again I repeat, let us hope for the best ; in the mean time, here are 

 the observations of this acute German traveler : 



" In Lima, and indeed throughout the whole of Peni, the free negroes are a plague to soci- 

 ety. Too indolent to support themselves by laborious industry, they readily fall into any 

 dishonest means of getting money. Almost all the robbers who infest the roads on the coast 

 of Peru, are fi-ee negi-oes. Dishonesty seems to be a part of their nature ; and moreover, all 

 their tastes and inclijiations are coarse and sexual. Many warm defenders of the negroes 

 excuse these qualities by ascribing them to the want of education, the recollection of slavery, 

 the spirit of revenge, &c. But I here speak of free-bom negroes, who are admitted into the 

 houses of wealthy famiUes, who from their eaily childhood have received as good an educa- 

 tion as falls to the share of many of the white Creoles — who are treated with kindness and 

 hberally remunerated, and yet they do not differ from their half-savage brethren who are 

 shut out from these advantages. If the negro had learned to read and write, and thereby 

 made some advance in education, he is transformed into a conceited coxcomb, who, instead 

 of plundering travelers on the highway, finds in city hfe a sphere for the mdulgence of his 

 evil propensities. What is the cause of tins incorrigible tm-pitude of the negroes ? To 

 answer this important question is not easy, if we admit the principle that the Negro is as 

 capable of cultivation as the Caucasian : and in support of it, the names of some highly edu- 

 cated Ethiopians may be cited. Those who are disposed to maintain this principle, and 

 who are at the same time intimately acquainted with the social relations of the countiies in 

 •which free negroes are numerous, may solve the problem. My opinion is that the negi'oes, 

 with respect to capability for improvement, are iiir behind the Europeans, and that, considered 

 in the aggregate, they will not, even vidth the advantages of careful education, obtain any 

 vei7 high degree of cultivation ; because the sti'ucture of the Negi'o skull, on which depends 

 the development of the brain, approximates closely to the animal form. The imitative 

 faculty of the monkey is highly developed in the Negro, who readily seizes anything merely 

 mechanical, while tilings demanding intelligence are beyond his reach. Sensuality is the 

 impulse which controls the thoughts, the acts, the whole existence of the negi-oes. To them, 

 freedom can be only nominal ; for if they conduct themselves well, it is because they are 

 compelled, not because they are inclined to do so. Herein he at once the cause of, and the 

 apology for their bad character. 



" The negro women differ but little from the men, in their general characteristics. They 

 are, however, more active and industrious, and better tempered. As domestic servants, they 

 are superior to the mixed races [meaning mixtures of Indian blood]. They are much em- 

 ployed as nurses, and in those situations they dischai-ge their duties well. Their personal 

 vanity is boundless, and every real they can save is spent in dress and ornaments. It is 

 amusing to see them on festival days parading about the streets, dressed in white muslin 

 gowns trimmed with lace, and short sleeves displaying their black amis. Very short petti- 

 coats, seldom extending below the ankle, serve to exliibit the tawdiy finery of red sillt stock- 

 ings and blue satin shoes. From their ears are suspended long gold drops, and their uncov- 

 ered necks are not unfrequently adorned with costly necklaces. A negi-ess, who was a slave 

 belonging to a family of my acquaintance, possessed a necklace composed of five Panama 

 pearls, worth several thousand dollars." 



This story reminds me, Mr. Editor, of a slave negress I once saw on Colonel 

 Hampton's estate in Carolina. Her holiday had already commenced at 11 A. M. on 

 Saturday, and her ladyship was boomed out, with her head thrown back, and all 

 sail set, moving like a steamboat into Columbia, probably with the proceeds of 

 her hen-house°or truck-patch, to add another to the seven flashy dresses she had 

 been known to display on a single day, on some festival occasion— of which they 

 have not a few.— But to " begin at the beginning," let us speak a word, and they 

 need but a word, of the 



CONVEYANCES FROM NEW-YORK TO FREDERICKSBURG. 



Properly to estimate the speed and perfection of arrangements for traveling 

 between these points, on various routes, one should have lived long enough to 

 contrast the present with the old systems, when, not many short of a baker's 

 dozen were packed in a stage-coach, and fortunate was he who arrived at Havre 

 de Grace with whole bones late at night, the first day out from Baltimore 



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