d there signs of
development. My grandfather's grandmother was seized by an evil Dutch
trader two centuries ago; and coming to the valleys of the Hudson and
Housatonic, black, little, and lithe, she shivered and shrank in the
harsh north winds, looked longingly at the hills, and often crooned a
heathen melody to the child between her knees, thus:

Do ba-na co-ba, ge-ne me, ge-ne me!
Do ba-na co-ba, ge-ne me, ge-ne me!
Ben d' nu-li, nu-li, nu-li, ben d' le.

The child sang it to his children and they to their children's
children, and so two hundred years it has travelled down to us and we
sing it to our children, knowing as little as our fathers what its
words may mean, but knowing well the meaning of its music.

This was primitive African music; it may be seen in larger form in the
strange chant which heralds "The Coming of John":

"You may bury me in the East,
You may bury me in the West,
But I'll hear the trumpet sound in that morning,"

--the voice of exile.

Ten master songs, more or less, one may pluck from the forest of
melody-songs of undoubted Negro origin and wide popular currency, and
songs peculiarly characteristic of the slave. One of these I have just
mentioned. Another whose strains begin this book is "Nobody knows the
trouble I've seen." When, struck with a sudden poverty, the United
States refused to fulfill its promises of land to the freedmen, a
brigadier-general went down to the Sea Islands to carry the news. An
old woman on the outskirts of the throng began singing this song; all
the mass joined with her, swaying. And the soldier wept.

The third song is the cradle-song of death which all men know,-"Swing
low, sweet chariot,"--whose bars begin the life story of "Alexander
Crummell." Then there is the song of many waters, "Roll, Jordan,
roll," a mighty chorus with minor cadences. There were many songs of
the fugitive like that which opens "The Wings of Atalanta," and the
more familiar "Been a-listening." The seventh is the song of the End
and the Beginning--"My Lord, what a mourning! when the stars begin to
fall"; a strain of this is placed before "The Dawn of Freedom." The
song of groping--"My way's cloudy"--begins "The Meaning of Progress";
the ninth is the song of this chapter--"Wrestlin' Jacob, the day is
a-breaking,"--a paean of hopeful strife. The last master song is the
song of songs--"Steal away,"--sprung from "The Faith of the Fathers."

There are many ot