Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/156

Rh black slaves. In the Slave States of America no idea can be formed of the peculiar beauty of form of the African negro—especially those of certain tribes. The native slaves there are a weaker and gentler race. The wild raven has been tamed.

Many of the slaves also who are brought to Cuba have been princes and chiefs of their tribes, and such of their race as have accompanied them into slavery, on the plantations always show them respect and obedience. A very young man, a prince of the Luccomées, with several of his nation, was taken to a plantation on which, from some cause or other, he was condemned to be flogged, and the others, as is customary in such cases, to witness the punishment. When the young prince laid himself down on the ground to receive the lashes, his attendants did the same likewise, requesting to be allowed to share his punishment. This affecting instance of loyalty produced merely the coarse assurance, “That they should not fail of their full share of the whip when opportunity offered!”

This occurrence did not take place on this plantation.

There is more use made of machinery in this sugar-mill than in that at Ariadne. Instead of fixed troughs by which the sugar-cane is conveyed by human hands to and from the mill-stones, there are here carriages to convey the cane worked by machinery, and which run on many wheels in a long row, one after the other, from one door of the sugar-mill to the other, and it is merely at the entrance-gate that the cane is loaded by human hands.

And now you must have had enough of sugar-cane: but before I leave the bohea I must say a few words about the government of its population. This rests, after the master, upon an overseer who is called the majoral, and below him is a contra-majoral, who sometimes is a negro. On large plantations, such as this, there are many white under-majorals. The condition of the slaves and the prevailing state of feeling amongst them on a plantation