Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/96

 dancing blood at their gay hearts be cold for a moment, while he explained to them the only picture in his habitation, the tearing of the forty and two children, who mocked at the bald-headed prophet. The furious deportment of the two she-bears, the various attitudes of torture and death in which the victims appeared, and the solemn enunciation of that old, grey-headed man, made this part of the bible better understood than others by the breathless listeners, and impressed on their minds the turpitude of reviling age and piety, more than the formal instruction of the pulpit. Sometimes he would indulge them with the story of his captivity, and many a little bosom would beat indignantly, and tears would gush from many a fair eye, at hearing that he was a child like themselves, when he was torn from his native land to be made a slave. His narrative, when divested of its vernacular, ran thus:—

"I was born in that part of Africa, which lies between the Rivers Gambia and Senegal. The king of our tribe possessed a small territory, about fifty miles from the western coast. The dwelling of my parents was on a branch of the river Senegal. Its humble roof was overshadowed by lofty palm-trees, and near it grew yams, and plantains for our food. Orange trees, and shaddocks were abundant there, and the pine-apple might be seen, thrusting forth its head like a young cabbage, wherever we trod. There was war, at the time I was captured, between our king, and the chief of a neighbouring nation. It was begun, in order to obtain prisoners to sell to the