Page:A general history of the pyrates, from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time (1724).djvu/214

 again, they proceed in like manner, and are at Cape Lopez in October, at Angola in November, &c.

The Manner of living among the Portugueze here is, with the utmot Frugality and Temperance, even to Penury and Starving; a familiar Intance of Proof is, in the Voracity of their Dogs, who finding uch clean Cupboards at home, are wild in a manner with Hunger, and tare up the Graves of the Dead for Food, as I have often een: They themelves are lean with Covetounes, and that Chritian Vertue, which is often the Reult of it, Selfdenyal; and would train up their Cattle in the ame way, could they fetch as much Money, or had not they their Proviion more immediately of Providence. The bet of them (excepting the Governor now and then) neither pay nor receive any Viits of Ecapade or Recreation; they meet and it down at each others Doors in the Street every Evening, and as few of them, in o mall an Iland, can have their Plantations at any greater Ditance, than that they may ee it every Day if they will, o the Subject of their Talk is motly how Affairs went there, with their Negroes, or their Ground, and then part with one another innocently, but empty.

The Negroes have yet no hard Duty with them, they are rather Happy in Slavery; for as their Food is chiefly Vegetables, that could no way ele be expended, there is no Murmurs bred on that account; and as their Buines is Dometick, either in the Services of the Houe, or in Gardening, Sowing, or Planting, they have no more than what every Man would prefer for Health and Pleaure; the hardet of their Work is the Carriage of their Pateroons, or their Wives, to and from the Plantations; this they do in Hammocks (call’d at Whydah, Serpentines) lung cros a Pole, with a Cloath over, to creen the Peron, o carried, from Sun and Rh