356 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
chase food, or rations. This last petition was not more suc- 
cessful than the former. We were abandoned to our unhap- 
py fate, whilst more than twenty persons, who had never done 
any service to the government, received, gratis, rations every 
day from the magazines of the colony. "Very well!" said 
my father to me when he found he Avas refused that assistance 
which M. Schmaltz had ordered to the other unfortunate per- 
sons in the colony, " let the governor be happy if he can, I 
will not envy his felicity. Behold, my child, behold this 
roof of thatch which covers us: see these hurdles of reeds 
which molder into dust, this bed of rushes, my body already 
impaired by-years, and my children weeping around me for 
bread! You see a perfect picture of poverty! Nevertheless, 
there are yet beings upon the earth more unfortunate than we 
are !" — " Alas I" said I to him, " our misery is great; but I 
can support it, and even greater, VA'ithout complaining, if I 
saw you exposed to less harassing cares. All your children 
are young, and of a good constitution ; we can endure mis- 
fortune, and even habituate ourselves to it ; but we have 
cause to fear that the want of wholesome and sufficient food 
will make you fall, and then we shall be deprived of the only 
stay we have upon earth." — " O my dear child," cried my fa- 
ther, " you have penetrated into the secrets of my soul, you 
know all my fears, and I will no longer endeavor to conceal 
the sorrow which has weighed for a longtime upon my heart. 
However, my death may perhaps be a blessing to my family ; 
my bitter enemies will then doubtless cease to persecute 
you." — " My father," replied I, " break not my heart ; how 
can you, forgetting your children, their tender affection, the 
assistance which you ought to give them, and which they have 
a right to expect from you, wish us to believe your death will 
be a benefit to us ?" He was moved with these words, and 
his tears flowed in abundance ; then, pressing me to his bo- 
som, he cried, " No, no, my dear children, I will not die, but 
will live to procure for you an existence more comfortable 
tlsan that you have experienced since we came to Senegal. 
From this moment I break every tie which binds me to the 
government of this colony ; I will go and procure for you a 
new abode in the interior of the country of the negroes ; yes, 
my dear children, we will find more humanity among the sa- 
vage hordes that live in our neighborhood, than among the 
greater part of these Europeans who compose the adminis- 
tration of this colony." In fact, some time after, my father 
obtained from the negro prince of the province of Cayor, a 
