Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/229

Rh I was told that these words were so insignificant, so completely nothings, that it was not worth while to attend to them. It may be that they frequently are so; but that this is not always the case, I know from many accounts which I have heard, and from many negro songs in the Slave States of America. The faculty of the African for improvisation is a distinguishing feature of his life and temperament, and may, as we know, become the utterance of a higher degree of simple beauty in soul and action.

When the celebrated English traveller, Mungo Park, as he himself relates in the account of his travels, had lost his way in the African deserts, and was driven with abhorrence from the village where he had hoped to find a night's lodging, he seated himself under a tree, alone, hungry, wearied, dejected, with no other prospect before him than a miserable death, because a tempest threatened, and wild beasts roared around. Then came towards him in the twilight, a woman returning from the field; she saw him, and had compassion upon him, took up the horse's saddle and bridle—for his horse had been stolen—and bade the unhappy traveller follow her.

She led him to her hut; lighted her lamp, spread out a mat upon the floor, and bade him rest upon it through the night. She then brought out a fine fish, which she roasted for him upon the coals, and gave it him for his supper.

During a great part of the night she spun cotton with other women in the hut, and as they spun they sang songs to enliven themselves, one of which was evidently improvised for the occasion. One woman sang it first alone; afterwards the others joined in chorus. The air was soft and melancholy; the words were the following:—

“The storm raged, and the rain fell; the poor white man, weak and weary, sate beneath our tree. He has no mother to carry milk to him; no wife to grind his corn!