FUOITITE NEGBOE5. 221 



of his companions who were concealed amidst the trees, 

 inspired us with some mistrust. These blacks were no 

 doubt maroon negroes: slaves escaped from prison. This 

 unfortunate class are much to be feared : they have the 

 courage of despair, and a desire of vengeance excited by the 

 severity of the whites. "We were without arms ; the negroes 

 appeared to be more numerous than we were, and, thinking 

 that possibly they invited us to land with the desire of 

 taking possession of our canoe, we thought it most prudent 

 to return on board. The aspect of a naked man, wandering 

 on an uninhabited beach, unable to free himself from the 

 chains fastened round his n~ck and the upper part of his 

 arm, was an object calculated to excite the most painful 

 impressions. Our sailors wished to return to the shore for 

 the purpose of seizing the fugitives, to sell them secretly at 

 Carthagena. In countries where slavery exists, the mind is 

 familiarized with suffering, and that instinct of pity which 

 characterizes and eilobles our nature, is blunted. 



Whilst we lay at anchor near the island of Baru, in the 

 meridian of Punta Gigantes, I observed the eclipse of the 

 moon of the 29th of March, 1801. The total immersion 

 took place at II 1 ' 30' 12*6 J mean time. Some groups of 

 vapours, scattered over the azure vault of the sky, rendered 

 the observation of the immersion uncertain. 



During the total eclipse, the lunar disc displayed, as 

 almost always happens, a reddish tint, without disappearing; 

 the edges, examined with a sextant, were strongly undula- 

 ting, notwithstanding the considerable altitude of the orb. 

 Jt appeared to me that the moon was more luminous than I 

 had ever seen it in the temperate zone. The vividness of 

 the light, it may be conceived, does not depend solely on 

 the state of the atmosphere, which reflects, more or less 

 feebly, the solar rays, by inflecting them in the cone of tho 

 shade. The light is also modified by the variable trans- 

 parency of that part of the atmosphere across which we 

 perceived the moon eclipsed. Within the tropics, great 

 serenity of the sky, and a perfect dissolution of the vapours, 

 diminish the extinction of the light sent back to us by the 

 lunar disc. I was singularly struck, during the eclipse, by 

 the want of uniformity in the distribution of the refracted 

 light by the terrestial atmosphere. In the central regiou of 



