Part 28

"The vengeful causes and the deed forgot."

All travellers agree in the facile ductility and inertia-like amiability of the native African character.--BREWSTER on Africa.

"The merry numbers of his crisp-haired crew."

The negro race is, perhaps, the most prolific of all the human species. Their infancy and youth are singularly happy. The parents are passionately fond of their children.--GOLDBURY'S Travels.

"Strike me," said my attendant, "but do not curse my mother." The same sentiment I found universally to prevail.

Some of the first lessons in which the Mandings women instruct their children is the practice of truth. It was the only consolation for a negro mother, whose son had been murdered by the Moors, that "the boy had never told a lie."--PARK'S Travels.

"With all the father sees each form retire, A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire."

"Or led the combat, bold without a plan, An artless savage, but a fearless man." CAMPBELL.

"Till lured by wealth the hardy Portuguese, Sought the green waters of his Eastern seas, And venturous nations more excursive grown, Pierced his glad coast from radiant zone to zone."

Vasquez de Gama, a Portuguese nobleman, was the first to discover a maritime passage to the Indies; unless, perhaps, we credit the improbable achievement of the Phoenicians, related by Herodotus as occurring, 604 B.C.

De Gama doubled the cape in 1498, explored the eastern shores as far as Melinda, in Zanguebar, and sailing thence arrived at Calcutta in May. This expedition, second to none in its results, save that of Columbus six years before, drew the attention of all Europe. Whole nations became actuated by the same enthusiasm, and private companies of merchants sent out whole fleets on voyages of discovery, scouring the entire coast from Cape Verd to Gaudfui, and discovering the Mascharenhas and most of the islands of the Ethiopean Archipelago.

"Cheats his own nature and now generous grown, Dispenses realms and empires not his own."

Charles V. granted a patent to one of his Flemish favorites, containing an exclusive right to import four thousand negroes!--Hist. Slavery.

The crime of having first recommended the importation of African slaves into America, is due to the Flemish nobility, who obtained a monopoly of four thousand negroes, which they sold to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats.--Life of Cardinal Ximenes.

They (the Genoese) were the first to bring into a regular form, that commerce for slaves, between Africa and America, which has since grown to such an amazing extent.--Robertson.

"Too warmly generous and dearly true, The simple black," &c.

It will remain an indelible reproach on the name of Europeans, that for more than three centuries their intercourse with the Africans has only tended to destroy their happiness and debase their character.--Edin. Ency.

"Now laughs the stranger at their anguished throes."

The arts of the slave-merchant have inflamed the hostility of their various tribes, and heightened their ferocity by sedulously increasing their wars.--Ibid.

"By specious creeds and sophists darkly taught."

Hamlet's advice to his offending mother;--

"Assume a virtue, tho' you have it not."

Adding hypocrisy to avowed unworthiness, was the acknowledged injunction of the church, wherever and whenever she participated in secular affairs, with a view of emolument. For a peculiar illustration of this favorite doctrine, see Clement VI.'s edict, when, in virtue of the right arrogated by the holy see to dispose of all countries belonging to the heathen, he erected (1344) the Canaries into a kingdom, and disposed of them to Lewis de la Corda, a prince of Castile.

"Or bolder still on fancy's fiery wing."

That I do not exaggerate the belle lettres and classical accomplishments of at least two of the "chattels" of the "peculiar institution," in the lines following the above, see "Poems written by Rosa and Maria," property of South Carolina, and published in 1834.

"Hear Loxian murmurs in Rhodolphe's caves."

Loxian is a name frequently given to Apollo by Greek writers and is met with, more than once, in the "Choephorae of Eschylus."--Campbell.

Euripides mentions it three times, and Sophocles twice, its euphony recommends it more than any other name of the fair-haired god.