claimed, Dear me! if we are spared to return to England, I wonder if we shall recover our understandings.'

Experience will suggest almost to every one, instances wherein long illness, especially in those who had a right to the services of others, has had the effect of corrupting a temper naturally amiable.

SECTION V.

Condition of Women in Savage States.

The general history of uncivilized nations presents a picture of frequent and terrible sufferings from the recurrence of famine, and the atrocities of war. When men are compelled to hard labour to supply their own necessities; when forced to endure every species of suffering which the cruelty of the enemy, the accidents of the chase, or the inclemency of the skies can inflict, the attention of each individual is soon confined to his own sensations, and women are easily converted to drudges and slaves. They are reduced to the severest toils, and such as are considered beneath the dignity of the men, who soon learn to regard them as their natural servants. In the narrative given by John Hunter of his captivity among the Osages, a work, the authenticity of which is, I believe, no longer questioned, he states that the Indians regard women as an inferior order of beings, whom the great Spirit has given them for menials, and accordingly employ them as they please without scruple.

Hunter had been taken prisoner when so young,

as to regard the Indian woman who had brought him up, as his mother, and to have lost all recollection of his own parents. With the Indians he had been perfectly happy. It was after he had been recovered by his countrymen, at the age apparently of nineteen or twenty years, that his reflection was called for the first time to the condition of women, by the different footing upon which he saw them placed among civilized people. Notwithstanding the horrid atrocities in war, practised by this tribe in common with others, it is impossible to contemplate the picture he draws of their kindness, courtesy, and mutual good faith, and think them a cruel and hateful people. It affords on the contrary, a strong proof, that a great deal of amiable and tender feeling is no security to women against degradation and oppression.

The vice proceeds more from pride and selfishness than from positive cruelty. Selfishness may cease to be very active when men have no sufferings so continuous, as to concentrate their thoughts on themselves; but pride, when once it has been roused, is scarcely ever allayed. Need we refer to a stronger proof of this, than the unconquerable scorn the Americans feel for the free blacks; or require a stronger comment on the effects of that sentiment, than their treatment of them, and of their slaves? It is certain

"No living creatures," says Denham, “can be worse treated than an Arab's wife and his horse*."

"At Bornou, the women are so degraded that a wife never dare approach, or speak to her husband, except on her knees, or to any other man, except with her head covered, and in the same humble posturet." At Kouka, the Sheik, who had the reputation of being a mild good man, suddenly seized sixty women whom he suspected of misconduct, though apparently on mere rumour; five of them he had publicly hung in the market, and four flogged with such severity, that two died. It must be confessed, this measure excited general indignation; one hundred of the best families left the place, where they declared no one could live, when slight and unproved surmises could expose the victims to such severity‡.

There is a particular class of female slaves brought to Kouka, whose features, naturally coarse, are so disfigured by the large stud in the under lip, (which has been already noticed,) that the traders from Tripoli or Fezzan will not purchase them. "These poor creatures," continues he, "who are generally of a strong make and patient under their sufferings, are put to guard the crops and collect the harvest, because of the danger attending those offices, and which renders it inexpedient to employ more valuable creatures. A year seldom passes, without several of them being snatched by the wolves, who, crouching under cover of the ripening corn, spring on their prey and carry

it off."

* DENHAM and CLAPPERTON; Introduction. plemental Chapter on Bornou.

+ Ibid. SupIbid.

There is great diversity of character among the various nations by whom Africa is peopled; especially as regards harshness and cruelty. In many parts slaves are far better treated than they usually are by Europeans. There, the women are not subject to any greater hardship than being reduced to slavery, but that infliction is nearly universal among Mahometans; they are brought to market for sale, and examined like beasts of burden. That natural gaiety, which seems inherent in Africans, and the gentle treatment they receive when they spend their captivity in Central Africa, prevent them from testifying much horror, when purchased to be taken to the coast. It is a moving sight to those who know the sufferings which await them, to observe them on their march, laughing, singing, and apparently happier than their owners. "It is a common practice with merchants, to induce one slave to persuade his companions, that on arriving at Tripoli they will be free, and clothed in red, a colour all negroes are passionately fond of; by which means, they are induced to submit quietly, until they are too far from their homes to render escape possible, except at the risk of starvation. If the hundreds, nay thousands of skeletons, which whiten in the blast, between this place and Moorzuk, did not of themselves tell a tale replete with woe, the difference of all the slaves here, where they are fed tolerably, and the state in which they usually arrive in Fezzan, would but too clearly prove the acuteness of the sufferings which commence their leaving the Negro country *."

• DENHAM and CLAPPERTON.

on

This picture shows what human beings can be guilty of, towards those who have no escape from their power.

That utter degradation which prohibits a woman from approaching a man, except kneeling, prevails over a great part of Africa.

Park, in his Travels, observes, that among the Moors, women always seemed to be considered an inferior animal, and treated very little better than slaves: he says, that abject submission was considered their indispensable duty.

In describing the South American Indians, Commodore Byron says:-" The men exercise a most despotic authority over their wives, whom they consider in the same light as they do any other part of their property, and dispose of them accordingly. Even their common treatment of them is cruel; for though the toil and hazard of procuring food lies entirely with the women, yet they are not suffered to touch any part of it themselves, till the husband is satisfied, and then he assigns to them their portion, which is generally very scanty, and such as he has no stomach for himself."

We sometimes meet with accounts of people, in whom barbarism and stupidity seem to have united to reduce human nature to its worst condition. Their ferocity is such, as to prevent them from taking pride in anything but the power of inflicting suffering upon others. The condition of the women is there truly dreadful.

In Collins's New South Wales, the author describes a people so savage, there was no appearance