ope, and Africa could
scrape together. Candide, in his raptures, cut Cunegonde's name on the
trees. The second day two of their sheep plunged into a morass, where
they and their burdens were lost; two more died of fatigue a few days
after; seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert; and others
subsequently fell down precipices. At length, after travelling a hundred
days, only two sheep remained. Said Candide to Cacambo:

"My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there
is nothing solid but virtue, and the happiness of seeing Cunegonde once
more."

"I grant all you say," said Cacambo, "but we have still two sheep
remaining, with more treasure than the King of Spain will ever have; and
I see a town which I take to be Surinam, belonging to the Dutch. We are
at the end of all our troubles, and at the beginning of happiness."

As they drew near the town, they saw a negro stretched upon the ground,
with only one moiety of his clothes, that is, of his blue linen drawers;
the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand.

"Good God!" said Candide in Dutch, "what art thou doing there, friend,
in that shocking condition?"

"I am waiting for my master, Mynheer Vanderdendur, the famous merchant,"
answered the negro.

"Was it Mynheer Vanderdendur," said Candide, "that treated thee thus?"

"Yes, sir," said the negro, "it is the custom. They give us a pair of
linen drawers for our whole garment twice a year. When we work at the
sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the
hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases
have happened to me. This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe.
Yet when my mother sold me for ten patagons[20] on the coast of Guinea,
she said to me: 'My dear child, bless our fetiches, adore them for ever;
they will make thee live happily; thou hast the honour of being the
slave of our lords, the whites, which is making the fortune of thy
father and mother.' Alas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes;
this I know, that they have not made mine. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots
are a thousand times less wretched than I. The Dutch fetiches, who have
converted me, declare every Sunday that we are all of us children of
Adam--blacks as well as whites. I am not a genealogist, but if these
preachers tell truth, we are all second cousins. Now, you must agree,
that it is impossible to treat one's relations in a more barbarous
m