530 SLAVERY 



the true corals, during the outward growth of the mass, become 

 killed by exposure to the sun and air. These insignificant 

 organic beings, especially the Serpulse, have done good service 

 to the people of Pernambuco ; for without their protective aid 

 the bar of sandstone 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 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. 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 power- 

 ful negro afraid to ward off a blow directed, 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 of 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 met with several people, 

 so blinded by the constitutional gaiety of the negro, as to 

 speak of slavery as a tolerable evil. Such people have generally 

 visited at the houses of the upper classes, where the domestic 

 slaves are usually well treated ; and they have not, like myself, 

 lived amongst the lower classes. Such inquirers will ask 



