Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/118

( 93 ) them a small piece of land, and a day in the week to cultivate it, and from it they are obliged to derive a subsistence for themselves and families. The plantation negroes are entirely naked; but in the towns, their owners have more regard to decency.

On the importation of a cargo of negroes, they are christened previous to their sale; for this purpose, they are marched to a church-yard, and separated into as many groups, as there are different names to be given: the priest standing in the middle of each group, flourishes a broom dipped in holy-water over their heads, until they are all well sprinkled, and, at the same time, bawls out to them, what their name is to be. Most