the Estate of some other Planter; for I
had friends and to spare among the white Overseers and Bookkeepers; and
although the Gentry--that is to say, the Enriched Adventurers, who
deemed themselves such--were of course too High and Mighty to associate
with one of my Mean Station, I was at no loss for companions among those
of my own degree. So bent upon a frolic, and being by this time a good
Rider and a capital shot, I joined a band of wild young Slips like
myself, to go up the country hunting the miserable Negroes that had
Marooned, as it was called. These Maroons were runaway slaves who had
bid a sudden good-by to bolts and shackles, whips and rods, and shown
their Tyrants a clean pair of heels, finding their covert in the dense
jungles that covered the mountain slopes, where they lived on the wild
animals and birds they could shoot or snare, and sometimes making
descents to the nearest plantations, thence to carry off cattle, ponies,
or pigs, or whatever else they could lay their felonious hands upon.
These were the Blacks again, you will say, with a vengeance, and at many
Thousand Miles' distance from Charlwood Chase: but those poor varlets of
Deerstealers in England never dreamt of taking Human Life, save when
defending their own, in a fair stand-up Fight; whereas the Maroons had
no such scruples, and spared neither age, nor sex, nor Degree--that had
a white skin--in their bloodthirsty frenzy. The Savage Indians in the
American plantations, who will swoop down on some peaceful English
settlement, slaying, scalping, and Burning up men, women, and
children,--with other Horrors and Outrages not to be described in decent
terms,--are just on a par with these black Maroons. Now and again would
be found among them some Household Runaways, or Field Hands born into
slavery on the Plantations,--and these were most useful in acting as
spies or scouts; but as a rule the Head Men and Boldest Villains among
the Maroons were Savage Negroes, just fresh from Africa, on whom the
bonds of servitude had sate but for a short time, and who in the jungle
were as much at Home as though they were in their native wilds again. Of
great stature, of prodigious strength, amazing Agility, and astounding
natural cunning, these creatures were as ferocious as Wild Baboons that
had lived among civilized mankind just long enough to learn the Art of
firing off a Gun and wielding a cutlass, instead of brandishing a
Tree-branch or heaving a Cocoa-nut. Th