bruised or boiled maize, or bread made of
cassava root, their clothing a single piece of linen. Upon the
commission of the most trivial offence, they were tied hands and
feet to a ladder, where the overseer approached with a whip like
a postilion's and gave them fifty, a hundred, and perhaps two
hundred lashes upon the back. Each stroke carried off its portion
of skin. The poor wretch was then untied, an iron collar with
three spikes put round his neck, and he was then sent back to his
task. Some of them were unable to sit down for a month after this
beating--a punishment inflicted with equal severity on women as
on men. In the evening, when they returned home, they were
obliged to pray for the prosperity of their masters, and wish
them a good night before they retired to rest. There was a law in
force in their favor called the _Code Noir_ or the Black Code,
which ordained that they should receive no more than thirty
lashes for any offence, that they should not work on Sundays,
that they should eat meat once a week, and have a new shirt every
year; but this was not observed."[13]

Soumerat, who visited the island during the period of slavery, speaks
of their treatment by their white masters in the following terms:

"I have known humane and compassionate masters who, instead of
maltreating them, tried to mitigate their servile condition, but
they are very few in number. The rest exercise over their Negroes
a cruel and revolting tyranny. The slave, after having labored
the whole day, sees himself obliged to search for his food in the
woods, and lives only on unwholesome roots. They die of misery
and bad treatment, without exciting the smallest feeling of pity,
and consequently they never let slip any opportunity of breaking
their chains in order to escape to the forests in search of
independence and misery."

So miserable indeed was their condition that they welcomed death as a
friend, and often committed crime in the hope of being executed.[14]
Conditions decidedly improved in Mauritius, however, after the British
took possession in 1814. The freedom of slaves was then agitated
throughout the civilized world. The British interfered with slavery
there in 1826, endeavoring to ease the burden of the bondmen. In 1829
the charter of the slave population was proclaimed. It provided for
the r