Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/341

 confess I could not help feeling sadly mortified when I found my presence shunned ns a pestilence.

"The native villages through when I passed on this excursion manifested the great comfort in which these Africans live throughout their prolific land, when unassailed by the desolating wars that are kept up for the slave-trade. It was the height of the dry season, when every thing was parched by the sun, yet I could trace the outlines of line plantations, gardens, and rice-fields. Every where I found abundance of peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava, while tasteful fences were garlanded with immense vines and flowers. Fowls, goats, sheep, and oxen stalked about in innumerable flocks, and from every domicil depended a paper, inscribed with a charm from the Koran to keep off thieves and witches.

"My walks through Tinibo were promoted by the constant efforts of my entertainers to shield me from intrusive curiosity. Whenever I sallied forth, two townsfolk in authority were sent forward to warn the public that the Furtoo desired to promenade without a mob at his heels. These lusty criers stationed themselves at the corners with an iron triangle, which they rattled to call attention to the king's command; and in a short time the highways were so clear of people, who feared a bastinado, that I found my loneliness rather disagreeable than otherwise. Every person I saw, shunned me. When I called the children or little girls, they fled from me. My reputation as a slaver in the villages, and the fear of a lash in the town, furnished me much more solitude than is generally agreeable to a sensitive traveler.

"Towards night-fall I left my companions, and wrapping myself closely in a Mandingo dress, stole away through by-ways to a brook which runs by the town walls. Thither the females resort at sunset to draw water; and choosing a screened situation where I would not be easily observed, I watched, for more than an hour the graceful children, girls, and women of Timbo as they performed this domestic task of eastern lands.

"I was particularly impressed by the general beauty of the sex, who, in many respects, resembled the Moor rather than the negro. Unaware of a stranger's presence, they came forth as usual in a simple dress which covers their body from waist to knee, and leaves the rest of the figure entirely naked. Group after group gathered together on the brink of the brook in the slanting sunlight and lengthening shadows of the plain. Some rested on their pitchers and water vessels; some chatted, or leaned on each other gracefully, listening to the chat of friends; some stooped to fill their jars; others lifted the brimming vessels to their sisters' shoulders, while others strode homeward singing, with their charged utensils poised on head or hand. Their slow, stately, swinging movement under the burden was grace that might be envied on a Spanish paseo. I do not think the forms of these Fullah girls, with their complexions of freshest bronze, are exceeded in symmetry by the women of any other country. There was a slender delicacy of limb, waist, neck, hand, foot, and bosom, which seemed to be the type that moulded every one of them. I saw none of the hanging breast; the flat, expanded nostrils; the swollen lips, and