pturous ardour; but suddenly
a feeling of shame strikes the minds of the young creatures with a
humiliating sense of their display, and amidst these plaudits they hastily
retire to the matrons, who are spectators of the scene, and hide their
blushes in their bosoms. So strongly implanted is this ingenuous and
amiable modesty in youth, which is frequently laid aside when engaged in
the vortex of pleasure, that it is one of the highest charms of beauty; and
wretches only, degraded by debauchery and systematic vice, are capable of
insulting this sentiment. A scrupulous regard to modesty and truth will not
permit me to pursue the description of these amusements farther than
observing, that they prepare them for a profound and tranquil sleep on
their mats, from whence they arise at the dawn of day cheerful and easy.
Thus infancy and youth are singularly happy, and mothers attend their
offspring with maternal feeling and delight; they are neither disturbed by
painful commands or restraint; and it is a picture of perfect happiness to
see these children of nature in sportive groups and infantine diversion.
This happy infancy and gay youth is peculiarly calculated to organise a
vigorous manhood, and a firm old age; and, I am persuaded, that these are
the physical causes why the Negro race are so muscular in body, and
procreative of their species. In some countries innoculation is practised;
but the small pox is not so common, or dreadful in its effects, in these
countries as in Europe. The greatest term of their lives may be computed at
from sixty to seventy years, it seldom or ever happening that life is
prolonged beyond that period in this part of Africa. They retain their
vigour, and enjoy a permanent and regular state of health until the last;
and I have observed a venerable chief of advanced years having the
possession of a dozen of young handsome wives, and the father of a young
progeny, whose legitimacy was never disputed or suspected. In Europe the
last stage of man is a daily anticipation of dissolution; but in Africa,
declining years are only insensible approaches to the termination of a
journey, the event of which he considers as the end of life, unconscious of
the future, but as a fatality equally attached to all the creation.

The picture I have endeavoured to delineate may serve to convey an idea to
the mind of the moral and physical state of Africa, which, undisturbed by
ferocious barbarism, fierce hostilities, and