104 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
heart to think of the miseries which the people of that 
island must, during a long course of years, have been 
enduring from this terrible cause. To judge from what I 
have seen of the natives—though well, I may say, elegantly 
shaped, they are not a people possessed of much muscular 
strength; and the temper of their minds perhaps some¬ 
what accords with the appearance of their bodily frames. 
Their dispositions, light and cheerful, with considerable 
intelligence, according to the extent of their means, must 
be ill adapted to the rugged horrors of an enslaved state. 
I cannot recall, without painful sensations, the sight of the 
poor wretches whom I have seen landed from the slave- 
ships at Mozambique and the Isle of France, weary, sickly, 
and wasted to shadows, driven along as the lowest descrip¬ 
tion of animals. These poor creatures had been dragged 
from their homes; snatched from those relations of life 
which their turn of mind enabled them, in a high degree, 
to enjoy; hurried on board of vessels insufferably crowded 
and heated, and brought under the lash of unfeeling task¬ 
masters, the most degraded and degrading of our species, 
As slavery is very indiscriminating, many had, no doubt, 
belonged to the better classes in their own country; but 
they were here all reduced to the same level of misery. 
It would be well if the potentates and ministers of those 
countries, which yet so stoutly, in effect, oppose themselves 
to the abolition of this hellish traffic, could be made to see 
such scenes as I have alluded to. If their hearts could 
relent, they would not remain insensible to the indescribable 
distress, of which, thousands, through their means, continue 
to be every year the unmerited victims ; they would surely 
join in the cry, which the voice of humanity, after the 
slumber of ages, has so powerfully and impressively raised, 
and give their aid in proscribing from the earth the com- 
