Page:Olney Hymns - 1840.djvu/12

 my disappointment; and though the table was covered with dishes, she refused to give me any more. My distress has been so great as to compel me to go by night and pull up roots in the plantation, (though at the risk of being punished as a thief,) which I have eaten raw upon the spot, for fear of discovery. The roots I speak of are very wholesome food when boiled, but as unfit to be eaten raw as a potato. The consequence of this diet which after the first experiment I always expected and seldom missed was the same as if I had taken tartar emetic; so that I have often returned as empty as I went; yet necessity urged me to the trial several times. I have sometimes been relieved by strangers, nay, even by the slaves in the chain, who secretly brought me victuals (for they durst not be seen to do it,) from their own slender pittance.

His master also, instigated by her unnatural antipathy, proved as merciless as his mistress. On a coasting voyage, being suspected of theft from the stores,— "almost the only crime I could not justly be charged with," as he himself testifies, he says :

"The charge was believed, and I was condemned without evidence. From that time he used me very hardly. Whenever he left the vessel, I was locked up on deck, with a pint of rice for my day's allowance, and if he staid longer, I had no relief till his return.— When fowls were killed for his own use, I seldom was allowed any part but the entrails, to bait my hooks with; and at what we call slack water, that is, about the changing of the tides, when the current was still, I used generally to fish, (for at other times it was not practicable,) and I often succeeded. If I saw a fish on my hook, my joy was little less than any other person may have found in the accomplishment of the scheme which he had most at heart. Such a fish,