Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/262

Rh Southern States. I should at this moment be ready to call it their good fortune, that is to say, if at this moment they would take hold upon the misfortune, the curse, and convert it into a blessing. And there is no doubt but that they might do so. Charcoal, it is said, is the mother of the diamond. The states of the south possess in slavery the charcoal of a jewel; what do I say? of a diadem of jewels worthy of a new Queen of the South, more beautiful than she who came to Solomon!

Since I have seen in Cuba the negroes in their savage, original state, seen their dances, heard their songs, and am able to compare them with what they are at the best in the United States, there remains no longer a doubt in my mind as to the beneficial influence of Anglo-American culture on the negro, or of the great mission which America is called upon to accomplish with regard to the African race, precisely through the people who, having enslaved, they ought now, in a two-fold sense, to emancipate. The sour crab is not more unlike our noble, bright, Astrachan apple, than is the song of the wild African to the song of the Christian negro in the United States, whether it be hymns that he sings or gay negro songs that he has himself composed. And this comparison holds good through his whole being and world. There is a vast, vast difference, between the screeching improvisation of the negroes in Cuba, and the inspired and inspiring preaching of the Saviour, and his affluence of light and joy, which I have heard extemporised in South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and Louisiana. And low and sensual is that lawless life, and intoxication of the senses in those wild negro-dances, and those noisy festivities to the beat of the drum, compared with that life, and that spiritual intoxication in song and prayer, and religious joy, which is seen and heard at the religious festivals of the negro people here. Hard, and wild, and empty, is the expression in the glances of the former, compared with that