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 chmate, 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 wood hollowed, and the rude 

 guitar of three strmgs, 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. Inwitnessing the joyous songs and dances of 



