chap, hi.] WEST INDIES. 287 
Africans, they are said to be highly susceptible of 
the passion of love. It has even been supposed 
that they are more subject to, and sensible of its 
impression, than the natives of colder climates. 
“ The negro (says Dr. Robertson) glows with all 
the warmth of desire natural to his climate.” “ The 
tender passion (says another writer) is the most ar¬ 
dent one in the breast of the enslaved African.—It 
is the only source of his joys, and his only solace in 
affliction.” Monsieur de Chanvalon (the historian of 
Martinico) expatiates on the same idea with great- 
eloquence.—“ Love, says he, the child of nature, 
to whom she intrusts her own preservation; whose 
progress no difficulties can retard, and who tri¬ 
umphs even in chains; that principle of life, as 
necessary to the harmony of the universe, as the 
air which we breathe, inspires and invigorates all 
the thoughts and purposes of the negro, and light¬ 
ens the yoke of his slavery. No perils can abate, 
nor impending punishments restrain, the ardour of 
his passion.—He leaves his master’s habitation, and 
traversing the wilderness by night, disregarding its 
noxious inhabitants, seeks a refuge from his sor¬ 
rows, in the bosom of his faithful and affectionate 
mistress.” 
All this however is the language of poetry and 
the visions of romance. The poor negro has no 
leisure in a state of slavery to indulge a passion, 
which, however descended, is nourished by idle¬ 
ness. If by love, is meant that tender attachment 
to one individual object, which, in civilized life, is 
