?6 
HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
and those whom he finds in it most willingly share their meal with him. Nor is it 
their custom to ask from whence he comes, or whither he is going. 
Such are the qualifications and manners with which they arrive at the Isle of 
France. They are all disembarked with no clothing of any kind, but a strip of 
linen round their loins. The men are placed on one side of the beach, and the 
women with their children on the other. The planters then examine them, and 
make their purchases accordingly. Brothers, sisters, friends, and lovers, are now 
separated, and are led away to the respective plantations to which they are destined. 
Sometimes, in the paroxysms of their despair, they imagine that the white people are 
preparing to eat them, that they make red wine of their blood, and gunpowder of 
their bones. 
Their manner of life is as follows .* at day-break, the smacking of a whip is the 
signal that calls them to their work: and they then proceed to the plantation, where 
they labour in a state of almost entire nakedness, and in the heat of the sun. Their 
nourishment is ground maize boiled in water, or loaves of the manioc; and a small 
piece of cloth is their only covering. For the least act of negligence, they are tied 
hand and foot to a ladder, when the overseer gives them a certain number of strokes 
on their back, with a long whip; and with a three-pointed collar clasped round their 
necks, they are brought back to their work. It is not necessary to describe the 
severity with which these punishments are sometimes inflicted. On their return to 
their habitations in the evening, they are compelled to pray to God for the prospe¬ 
rity of their masters. 
There is a subsisting law in favour of slaves, called the Code Noir; which ordains 
that they shall receive no more than thirty strokes at each chastisement; that they 
shall not work on Sundays; that meat shall be given them every week, and shirts 
every year; but this law is not observed. 
The Negroes are naturally of a lively disposition, but their state of slavery soon 
renders them melancholy. Love alone seems to allay their pain : they exert them¬ 
selves to the utmost in order to obtain a wife; and, if they can choose for themselves, 
they always prefer those who are advanced into a state of womanhood, who, they 
say, make the best soup. They immediately give them all they possess; and if 
their wives live in another plantation, they will undertake the most difficult and 
dangerous journies to see them. On such occasiohs they fear neither fatigue nor 
punishment. Parties of them sometimes meet in the middle of the night, when they 
