Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/343

 dancing, however, having been forbidden by the preachers, ceased immediately on our entering the tent. I saw merely a rocking movement of women who held each other by the hand in a circle, singing the while. In a fourth, a song of the spiritual Canaan was being sung excellently. In one tent we saw a fat negro-member walking about by himself and breathing hard; he was hoarse, and sighing he exclaimed to himself, “Oh! I wish I could hollo!” In some tents people were sitting around the fires, and here visits were received, greetings were made, and friendly, cheerful talk went on, whilst everywhere prevailed a quiet, earnest state of feeling, which we also experienced whenever we stopped to talk with the people. These black people have a something warm and kind about them which I like much. One can see that they are children of the warm sun. The state of feeling was considerably calmer in the camp of the whites. One saw families sitting at their covered tables eating and drinking.

At length we returned to our tent, where I lay upon the family bed with our good hostess and her thirteen-year old daughter, and slept indifferently; yet, thanks to some small white globules of my Downing-medicine, I rested nevertheless, and became calm in the hot feverish night.

At sunrise I heard something which resembled the humming of an enormous wasp caught in a spider's web. It was a larum which gave the sign for the general rising. At half-past five I was dressed and out. The hymns of the negroes, which had continued through the night, were still to be heard on all sides. The sun shone powerfully—the air was oppressive. People were cooking and having breakfast by the fires, and a crowd already began to assemble on the benches under the tabernacle. At seven o'clock the morning sermon and worship commenced. I had observed that the preachers