rt if they are refused. I joined the party, and proceeded
with them to a neighboring church. When we entered we ranged ourselves
on each side of a platform which stood near the choir, on which was laid
an open coffin, covered with pink silk and gold borders. The funeral
service was chanted by a choir of priests, one of whom was a negro, a
large comely man, whose jet-black visage formed a strong and striking
contrast to his white vestments. He seemed to perform his part with a
decorum and sense of solemnity, which I did not observe in his brethren.
After scattering flowers on the coffin, and fumigating it with incense,
they retired, the procession dispersed, and we returned on board.

"I had been but a few hours on shore for the first time, and I saw an
African negro under four aspects of society; and it appeared to me, that
in every one, his character depended on the state in which he was
placed, and the estimation in which he was held. As a despised slave,
he was far lower than other animals of burden that surrounded him; more
miserable in his look, more revolting in his nakedness, more distorted
in his person, and apparently more deficient in intellect, than the
horses and mules that passed him by. Advanced to the grade of a soldier,
he was clean and neat in his person, amenable to discipline, expert at
his exercises, and showed the port and bearing of a white man similarly
placed. As a citizen, he was remarkable for the respectability of his
appearance, and the decorum of his manners in the rank assigned him; and
as a priest, standing in the house of God, appointed to instruct society
on their most important interests, and in a grade in which moral and
intellectual fitness is required, and a certain degree of superiority
is expected, he seemed even more devout in his impressions, and more
correct in his manners, than his white associates. I came, therefore,
to the irresistible conclusion in my mind, that color was an accident
affecting the surface of a man, and having no more to do with his
qualities than his clothes--that God had equally created an African in
the image of his person, and equally given him an immortal soul; and
that a European had no pretext but his own cupidity, for impiously
thrusting his fellow-man from that rank in the creation which the
Almighty had assigned him, and degrading him below the lot of the brute
beasts that perish."

The honorable A. H. Everett, in his able work on the political situ