Page:A Study in Colour - Augusta Zelia Fraser.pdf/43

32 most of them were more in the style of a chant, than what we should term a song.

One of them in particular haunted the Missus like a dream, for it seemed to her like a far-off echo of some long-forgotten tragedy, belonging to the old slavery days:
 * Jan was far away,
 * Floating on de sea,
 * Floating till de sea goes down.
 * She was a black piccaninny,
 * Jest from ober Guinea,
 * Only—two—months—old.


 * Oh! when dis chile was born,
 * It was a coloured chile,
 * Tie her to de rigger ob an oar,
 * An' feed her on bananas,
 * Feed her on potatoes,
 * Feed her till de sun goes down.


 * Hush! hush! baby!
 * Where is your pappy?
 * Ups an' down she goes.
 * Oh! I buy a lilly waggon,
 * To rock dis lilly woman,
 * Rock her till
 * de
 * sun
 * goes
 * down.

The half-savage air died away in a sort of wail, but what sorrows had originally inspired the quaint melody?—all past now and