When blood attests even slaves for freedom die?
On cruel gibbets, high disclos’d they rest,
And scarce one groan escapes one bloated breast.
Here sable Cæsars[16] feel the Christian rod,
There Afric Platos, tortur’d hope a God,
While jetty Brutus for his country sighs,
And sooty Cato with his freedom dies!”
Having dined with Colonel Fourgeoud on the 8th of March, when we celebrated the Prince of Orange’s birthday, while Mr. Reyndorp gave a treat to all the soldiers, he acquainted me that the rangers were now alone encamped at the Wana Creek; that the pestilential spot Devil’s Harwar was at last entirely forsaken; and that the two lately [[211]]raised companies of sable volunteers had taken a few prisoners, and killed others on the Wanica path, behind Paramaribo. I was at this time a good deal better, but still, not being quite recovered, he who had formerly treated me so severely, now even insisted on my staying some longer time at Paramaribo: nay, gave me an offer to return to Europe, which I absolutely refused; in short, about the middle of the month, I was as well as ever I was in my life. At this time Colonel Fourgeoud and myself were daily visitors of the ladies, in whose company no man could behave better, while I could often not avoid disgust; indeed so languid were many in their looks, and so unrestrained were some in their conversation, that a Mrs. N—— even asked me, sans ceremonie, to supply the place of her husband; while she might as well have asked me to drink, for a relish, a tumbler of salts.
On the 17th, however, my eyes were better feasted, when, going to dine with Colonel Texier of the Society troops, I first took a walk in the orange grove and the governor’s gardens; here, peeping through the foliage, I soon discovered two most elegant female figures after bathing, the one a fine young Samboo, the other a blooming Quaderoon, which last was so very fair complexioned, that she might have passed for a native of Greece, while the roses that glowed in her cheek were equal to those that blossomed in the shrubbery[17]. They were walking [[212]]hand in hand, and conversing with smiles near a flowery bank that adorned the side of a crystal brook, in which they plunged the instant they heard me rustling amongst the verdure, like two mermaids:
“Then to the flood they rush’d; the parted flood