to the Devilish Incantations of the Obeah man,--to mingle in
ceremonies most hideous and abominable, and of which perhaps that of
swearing eternal Hatred to the White Race over a calabash that is made
out of the skull of a new-born Babe, and filled with Dirt, Rum, and
Blood mixed together, is perchance the least horrid. And yet I don't
think the unhappy creatures are by nature either treacherous, malicious,
or cruel. 'Tis only when the fit seizes them. Like the Elephants, the
idea suddenly comes over them that they are wronged--that 'tis the White
Man who has wrought them all these evils, and that they are bound to
Trample him to bleeding mud without more ado. But 'tis all done in a
capricious cobweb-headed manner; and on the morrow they are as quiet and
good-tempered as may be. Then, just as suddenly, will come over them a
fit of despondency, or dark, dull, brooding Melancholy. If they are at
sea, they will cast themselves into the waves and swim right toward the
sharks, whose jaws are yawning to devour them. If they are on dry land,
they will, for days together, refuse all food, or worse still, go
dirt-eating, stuffing themselves with clay till they have the _mal
d'estomac_, and so die: this _mal_, of which our English stomach-ache
gives no valid translation (which must prove my excuse for placing here
a foreign word), being, with the Yaws, their most frequent and fatal
complaint. Of a less perplexing nature also are their fits of the Sulks,
when, for more than a week at a time, they will remain wholly mute and
intractably obstinate, folding their arms or squatting on their hams,
and refusing either to move or speak, whatsoever threats may be uttered
or enforced against them, and setting no more store by the deep
furrowing cuts of the Cowhide whip (that will make marks in a deal
board, if well laid on, the which I have often seen) than by the
buzzings of a Shambles Fly. They had many ways of treating these fits of
the sulks, in my time all of them cruel, and none of them successful.
One was, to set the poor wretches in the stocks, or the bilboes, rubbing
chillies into the eyes to keep them from going to sleep. Another was a
dose of the Fire-cane, as it was called, which was just a long paddle,
or slender oar, pierced with holes at the broadest part, with the which
the patient being belaboured, a blister on the fish rose to each hole of
the Paddle. A curious method, and one much followed; but the Negroes
sulked all the