It is to be remarked that Miss E. commenced instructing after the abolition; before that event the idea of such an employment would have been rejected as degrading.
At ten o'clock on Sabbath morning, we drove to the chapel of the parish, which is a mile and a half from Lear's. It contains seats for five hundred persons. The body of the house is appropriated to the apprentices. There were upwards of four hundred persons, mostly apprentices, present, and a more quiet and attentive congregation we have seldom seen. The people were neatly dressed. A great number of the men wore black or blue cloth. The females were generally dressed in white. The choir was composed entirely of blacks, and sung with characteristic excellence.
There was so much intelligence in the countenances of the people, that we could scarcely believe we were looking on a congregation of lately emancipated slaves.
We returned to Lear's. Mr. C. noticed the change which has taken place in the observance of the Sabbath since emancipation. Formerly the smoke would be often seen at this time of day pouring from the chimneys of the boiling-houses; but such a sight has not been seen since slavery disappeared.
Sunday used to be the day for the negroes to work on their grounds; now it is a rare thing for them to do so. Sunday markets also prevailed throughout the island, until the abolition of slavery.
Mr. C. continued to speak of slavery. "I sometimes wonder," said he, "at myself, when I think how long I was connected with slavery; but self-interest and custom blinded me to its enormities." Taking a short walk towards sunset, we found ourselves on the margin of a beautiful pond, in which myriads of small gold fishes were disporting--now circling about in rapid evolutions, and anon leaping above the surface, and displaying their brilliant sides in the rays of the setting sun. When we had watched for some moments their happy gambols, Mr. C. turned around and broke a twig from a bush that stood behind us; "there is a bush," said he, "which has committed many a murder." On requesting him to explain, he said, that the root of it was a most deadly poison, and that the slave women used to make a decoction of it and give to their infants to destroy them; many a child had been murdered in this way. Mothers would kill their children, rather than see them grow up to be slaves. "Ah," he continued, in a solemn tone, pausing a moment and looking at us in a most earnest manner, "I could write a book about the evils of slavery. I could write a book about these things."
What a volume of blackness and blood![[A]]
[Footnote [A]: We are here reminded of a fact stated by Mr. C. on another occasion. He said, that he once attended at the death of a planter who had been noted for his severity to his slaves. It was the most horrid scene he ever witnessed. For hours before his death he was in the extremest agony, and the only words which he uttered were, "Africa. O Africa!" These words he repeated every few minutes, till he died. And such a ghastly countenance, such distortions of the muscles, such a hellish glare of the eye, and such convulsions of the body--it made him shudder to think of them.]
When we arose on Monday morning, the daylight has scarcely broken. On looking out of the window, we saw the mill slowly moving in the wind, and the field gang were going out to their daily work. Surely, we thought, this does not look much like the laziness and insubordination of freed negroes. After dressing, we walked down to the mill, to have some conversation with the people. They all bade us a cordial "good mornin'." The tender of the mill was an old man, whose despised locks were gray and thin, and on whose brow the hands of time and sorrow had written many effaceless lines. He appeared hale and cheerful, and answered our questions in distinct intelligible language. We asked him how they were all getting along under the new system. "Very well, massa," said he, "very well, thank God. All peaceable and good." "Do you like the apprenticeship better then slavery?" "Great deal better, massa; we is doing well now." "You like the apprenticeship as well as freedom, don't you?" "O no me massa, freedom till better."
"What will you do when you are entirely free?"