MARRIAGE ON THÈ ISLAND. 
117 
When a black man wishes to marry, and has made his choice, 
lie finds the parents of the girl, and asks their consent : if he ob- 
tain it, the day is fixed for the ceremony. The girl then, veiled 
from head to foot, is conducted by her parents and nearest 
friends to the house of the bridegroom : here they find every 
thing disposed for a feast, and a table copiously served. The 
guests eat, drink, sing, and dance to the sound of instruments 
during the whole night, and make a shocking riot. The married 
couple are then conducted to a chamber, and the musicians, 
buftbons, and mountebanks attend at the door, till the marriage 
be consummated, in order to publish the success of the bride- 
groom and the virtue of the bride. They carry the testimony 
through the streets, written in letters of blood on a piece of 
white cotton; but the blood is generally that of a fowl. If the 
new married woman be a widow, this ridiculous farce does not 
take place. 
The girl thus married takes the name of thç husband, and 
does the honours of his house ; the children who proceed from 
such an union, bear the name of their father. Whence it hap- 
pens that at Isle St. Louis and Goree we meet with several 
mulatto families which have French and English names. A 
woman thinks herself honoured by partaking of the couch 
of a \^hite man, and is true, submissive, and grateful to the 
utmost extent ; in short, she uses every art to merit his kindness 
and love. 
If the husband embark to cross the sea, the disconsolate wife 
accompanies him to the shore, and sometimes follows him by 
swimming after the ship as far as her strength will allow ; when 
obliged to return, she gathers up the sand on which the im- 
pression of his last footsteps remain, and wrapping it in a piece 
of cotton, places it at the foot of her bed. 
Music and dancing have the most powerful attractions for 
the Negroes, insomuch, that they walk and work in cadence ; 
they sing as they go to battle ; and though the sound of their in- 
struments is monotonous and melancholy, yet this music is the 
greatest pleasure which they experience, and ihey foilov/ it with 
a sort of frenzy. 
Both sexes are clothed with cotton, which they manufacture 
themselves. The men wear trowsers, which come half way down 
their legs, and a loose tunic resembling a surplice. The head 
and feet are naked. The dress of the women consists of two 
pieces of cotton, six feet long by three wide; one of which goes 
round their loins, and falls to the ancle, as a sort of petticoat; 
the other negligently covers the breast and shoulders. The dres- 
es of the slaves, both male and female, are the same as have 
been already described : indeed, there is little difference in the 
