His first best country ever is at home.”
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No sooner do these wretched strangers begin to flag at their labour, than whips, cow-skins, bamboos, ropes, fetters, and chains are introduced, until they are ready to sink under accumulated oppression. With some masters their tasks can never be performed, as they must toil on, day and night, even Sundays not excepted. I recollect a strong young negro, called Marquis, who had a wife he loved, with two fine children; he laboured hard, and generally finished his task of digging a trench of five hundred feet by four o’clock in the afternoon, that he might have some time to cultivate his little garden, and go to fish or fowl to support his beloved family: hard did Marquis strive to earn this additional pittance, when his humane master, apprized of his industry, for his encouragement informed him, that if he could delve five hundred feet by four o’clock, he could certainly finish six hundred before sun-set; and this task the unfortunate young man was condemned from that day ever since to perform.
In Surinam the slaves are kept nearly naked, and their daily food consists of little more than a few yams and plantains; perhaps twice a year they may receive a scanty allowance of salt-fish, with a few leaves of tobacco, which they call sweety-muffo, and this is all: but what is peculiarly provoking to them is, that if a negro and his wife have ever so great an attachment for each other, the woman, if handsome, must yield to the loathsome embrace of an adulterous and licentious manager, or see her husband cut to pieces for endeavouring to prevent it. [[274]]This, in frequent instances, has driven them to distraction, and been the cause of many murders.
It is in consequence of these complicated evils, that so many also destroy themselves by suicide, run away to the woods to join their countrymen in rebellion, or if they stay, grow sad and spiritless, and languish under diseases, the effects of bad usage; such as the lota, which is a white scorbutic spot that externally covers the body. The crassy-crassy, or itch, which with us comes from poorness of diet, is of course very common with them. The yaws, a most disagreeable disorder, by many compared to the venereal disease, which renders the patient a shocking spectacle, all covered over with yellow ulcers. To this last-mentioned loathsome malady most negroes are subject, yet but only once in their lives, in which, and being very infectious, it resembles the small-pox: indeed if a fly which has been feeding upon the diseased (and they are generally covered with them) lights upon the slightest scratch on a healthy person, it communicates this dreadful disorder, which always confines him for several months. The most general cure for the yaws in Surinam, is salivation and spare diet, with continual exercise to promote perspiration; and, during this process, the poor wretches absolutely look like decayed carcases.
Still more dreadful is the boassy, or leprosy, which is deemed incurable: the face and limbs in this complaint swell, and the whole body is covered with scales and ulcers; the breath stinks, the hair falls off, the fingers and [[275]]toes become putrid, and drop away joint after joint. The worst of which is, that though the disease is hopeless, the unhappy sufferer may linger sometimes for many years. The lepers are naturally lascivious, and the disease being infectious, they are of necessity separated from all society, and condemned to a perpetual exile in some remote corner of the plantations.
The clabba-yaws, or tubboes, is also a very troublesome and tedious disorder; it occasions painful sores about the feet, mostly in the soles, between the skin and the flesh. The usual remedy in this case is, to burn out the morbid part with a red-hot iron, or cut it out with a lancet; and then the warm juice of roasted limes is introduced into the wound, though with great pain yet with great success.
The African negroes are also subject to many species of worms, both extraneous and internal, owing to the wading much in stagnated waters, and to the crudity of their diet. Of the former species is the Guinea or tape-worm, which breeds between the skin and the flesh, and is sometimes two yards in length, of a shining silvery colour, and not thicker than the second string of a bass-viol. It occasions dangerous and painful swellings where-ever it inserts itself, which is mostly about the legs. The method of cure, is to seize the head of the worm when it appears above the skin, and extract it by winding it gently round a stick or card; this operation cannot be performed with too much caution, for if it breaks, the [[276]]loss of the limb, or even of life itself, is frequently the fatal consequence. Some are infested with seven or eight of these worms at a time.
Besides these dreadful calamities, peculiar to themselves, the negroes are subject to every complaint common to the Europeans; who, in their turn, are not exempt in Guiana from the afflicting and dangerous distempers I have just described.
It is therefore not to be wondered at if many of the plantations are crouded with miserable objects, left under the care of the dressy negro or black surgeon only, whose whole skill consists in administering a dose of salts, or spreading a plaister. As to the numbers who are excoriated from their neck to their heel, by constant whipping, they may cure themselves, or do their work without a skin, if they think proper.