Page:A general history of the pyrates, from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time (1724).djvu/215

 Weather, and the Slaves are at each End; and yet even this, methinks, is better than the pecious Liberty a Man has for himelf and his Heirs to work in a Coal Mine.

The Negroes are, mot of them, thro’ the Care of their Patroons, Chritians, at leat nominal, but excepting to ome few, they adhere till to many illy Pagan Cutoms in their Mournings and Rejoycings, and in ome Meaure, powerful Majority has introduced them with the Vulgar of the Mulatto and Portugueze Race.

If a Peron die in that Colour, the Relations and Friends of him meet at the Houe, where the Corpe is laid out decently on the Ground and covered (all except the Face) with a Sheet; they it round it, crying and howling dreadfully, not unlike what our Countrymen are aid to do in Ireland: This Mourning lats for eight Days and Nights, but not equally intene, for as the Friends, who compoe the Chorus, go out and in, are weary, and unequally affected, the Tone leens daily, and the Intervals of Grief are longer.

In Rejoycings and Fetivals they are equally ridiculous; thee are commonly made on ome Friend’s Ecape from Shipwreck, or other Danger: They meet in a large Room of the Houe, with a Strum Strum, to which one of the Company, perhaps, ings wofully; the ret tanding round the Room cloe to the Petitions, take it in their Turns (one or two at a time) to tep round, called Dancing, the whole clapping their Hands continually, and hooping out every Minute Abeo, which ignify no more, than, how do you. And this foolih Mirth will continue three or four Days together at a Houe, and perhaps twelve or ixteen Hours at a time.

The Portugueze, tho’ eminently abtemious and temperate in all other Things, are unbounded in their Luts;