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are observed on the occasion. If the corpse be 

 that of a grown person, they consult it as to which 

 way it pleases to be carried ; and they make at- 

 tempts upon various roads without success, before 

 they can hit upon the right one. Till that is ac- 

 complished, they stagger under the weight of the 

 coffin, struggle against its force, which draws them 

 in a different direction from that in which they had 

 settled to go ; and sometimes in the contest the 

 corpse and the coffin jump off the shoulders of the 

 bearers. But if, as is frequently the case, any person 

 is suspected of having hastened the catastrophe, the 

 corpse will then refuse to go any road but the one 

 which passes by the habitation of the suspected 

 person, and as soon as it approaches his house, no 

 human power is equal to persuading it to pass. 

 As the negroes are extremely superstitious, and 

 very much afraid of ghosts (whom they call the 

 duppy'), I rather wonder at their choosing to have 

 their dead buried in their gardens ; but I under- 

 stand their argument to be, that they need only fear 

 the duppies of their enemies, but have nothing to ap- 

 prehend from those after death, who loved them in 

 their lifetime ; but the duppies of their adversaries 

 are very alarming beings, equally powerful by day as 

 by night, and who not only are spiritually terrific, but 

 who can give very hard substantial knocks on the 

 pate, whenever they see fit occasion, and can find a 

 good opportunity. 



Last Saturday a negro was brought into the hos- 



