NOV.] 
CAPE-TOWN. 
7 
assemble for their worship. About twenty free Ma- 
hometans club together, and rent a large house, to 
which they invite poor ignorant slaves to gain them 
over to their party. By this method an alarming 
number have been persuaded to join them, and ren- 
dered ten times more prejudiced against truth, and 
against all white people, or persons called Christians, 
than they were before. The masters say that such 
houses are dens of thieves, and receptacles of goods 
which the slaves steal from them. Perhaps this cir- 
cumstance may induce masters to attend better to the 
instruction of their slaves, which may ultimately prove 
a blessing and a security to the colony. In general^ 
the slaves are treated with tenderness in Cape-town. 
In the house where I lodged they are treated as if they 
were their own children, and most of them would be 
sorry to leave the family. Their children are put to 
school, and play about the room where the family sit 
at their meals with as much freedom, and receive as 
much attention as if they were their own children — 
but they are slaves ! a condition which shocks human 
mture. All the children of a female slave are the 
property of her master, whether the father be bond or 
free ; of course it is the interest of the master to see 
that even the mother treats the child well, on the same 
principle on which the farmer takes care of his young 
foals, because by their death, or their disease, he be- 
comes a loser. Slaves are not permitted to marry, 
which is not only an act of great injustice towards 
them, but a heinous sin against God. There are, 
