the disinterested
charity, and tender solicitude, with which many of these poor heathens,
from the sovereign of Sego, to the poor women, who at different
times received me into their cottages, sympathized with my sufferings,
relieved my distress, and contributed to my safety. Perhaps this
acknowledgment is more particularly due to the female part of the
nation. Among the men, as the reader must have seen, my reception,
though generally kind, was sometimes otherwise. It varied according to
the tempers of those to whom I made application. Avarice in some, and
bigotry in others, had closed up the avenues to compassion; but I do not
recollect a single instance of hard-heartedness towards me in the women.
In all my wanderings and wretchedness, I found them uniformly kind and
compassionate; and I can truly say, as Mr. Ledyard has eloquently said
before me--'To a woman, I never addressed myself in the language of
decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer.
If I was hungry, or thirsty, wet, or ill, they did not hesitate, like
the men, to perform a generous action. In so free and so kind a manner,
did they contribute to my relief, that if I were thirsty, I drank the
sweeter draught; and if I were hungry, I ate the coarsest meal with a
double relish.'

"It is surely reasonable to suppose that the soft and amiable sympathy
of nature, thus spontaneously manifested to me in my distress, is
displayed by these poor people as occasion requires, much more strongly
toward those of their own nation and neighborhood. Maternal affection,
neither suppressed by the restraints, nor diverted by the solicitudes of
civilized life, is every where conspicuous among them, and creates
reciprocal tenderness in the child. 'Strike me,' said a negro to his
master, who spoke disrespectfully of his parent, 'but do not curse my
mother.' The same sentiment I found to prevail universally."

"I perceived, with great satisfaction, that the maternal solicitude
extended not only to the growth and security of the person, but also,
in a certain degree, to the improvement of the character; for one of the
first lessons, which the Mandingo women teach their children, is the
practice of truth. A poor unhappy mother, whose son had been murdered by
a Moorish banditti, found consolation in her deepest distress from the
reflection that her boy, in the whole course of his blameless life, had
never told a lie."

Adanson, who visited Senegal, i