The World of Waters, Or, A Peaceful Progress O'er the Unpathed Sea

by Mrs. David Osborne

GRANDY. "What fearful arrogance and presumption! It sufficiently testifies their direful state of ignorance, which ignorance, I trust to hear, will soon be effectually removed; for there are now missionary establishments on this coast, which, since the year 1834, have been progressing. At first, the ministers were much dispirited, owing to the evil effects of the climate on the European constitution, for after a year or two they were cut off by death; and, in order to continue the mission, other pious men and their wives were obliged to be sent out. Again, these died; but yet the work prospered; and now, blessed be God! the few whose lives have been spared, are enabled to report that many natives have turned unto the Lord their God. Every Sabbath morning, public worship is celebrated in the chapel at Cape Coast Town, when the beautiful liturgy of our Church is read; and the decorum which is observed by the natives, who read the responses, appears in striking opposition to the wild irrational service which they formerly offered at the temple of their fetish."

MRS. WILTON. "The unconverted believe in a Supreme Being; but they have a curious tradition respecting the creation, which has prevailed among them from the earliest period of their history. They believe that, in the beginning of the world, God, having created three white and three black men, with an equal number of women of each color, resolved, in order that they might be left without cause of complaint, to allow them to fix their own destiny, by giving them the choice of good and evil. A large box or calabash was placed upon the ground, together with a sealed paper or letter. The black men had the first choice, and took the calabash, expecting that it contained all that was desirable; but, upon opening it, they found only a piece of gold, some iron, and several other metals of which they did not know the use. The white men opened the paper, and it told them everything. All this is supposed to have happened in Africa, in which country it is believed God left the blacks, with the choice which their avarice had prompted them to make, under the care of inferior or subordinate deities; but conducted the whites to the water-side, where he communicated with them every night, and taught them to build a small vessel, which carried them to another country, from whence, after a long period, they returned with various kinds of merchandise to barter with the blacks, whose perverse choice of gold in preference to the knowledge of letters had doomed them to inferiority."

MR. STANLEY. "Affairs would have been better ordered for the blacks, had they allowed the ladies to have a voice in the selection; but they never had a good opinion of the fair sex, and they are no wiser at the present day as many of their customs sufficiently testify.—A peculiar provision is made in Ashantee with reference to the female sex. One of the king's sisters is constituted the governess of the empire, or queen over the females, and all are said to be placed under her control and direction: but whatever may be the nature and object of the training to which she subjects them, it is certain that it is not intended to make the wife the rational companion and confidential friend of her husband; for if an Ashantee wife is detected in listening to a conversation of her husband, her curiosity is sure to cost her an ear; and if she betray a secret with which she has by any means become acquainted, her incensed husband punishes her by cutting off her upper lip. The sight of women who have suffered such inflictions, is common even in the present day.'"

MR. BARRAUD. "These are the cruelties of a barbarous people, but they are not horrified at deeds of blood; indeed, such is the union of barbarism and magnificence in this African country, that on a court day there is invariably in immediate attendance upon the king the royal chief executioner, a man of gigantic size, bearing a massive gold hatchet, and having exhibited before him the execution stool, clotted with human blood and partly covered with a caul of fat!"

MRS. WILTON. "That is done, no doubt, from policy, to inure his courtiers to scenes of horror, in hopes of rendering them callous to human suffering and courageous in the field of battle. Ah, well! we have heard enough of them: let us now visit some other country."

DORA. "Liberia is the next station and much more desirable; for the climate is better than most other parts of the coast, the soil fruitful, and the inland population quiet and inoffensive, and more inclined to industry than their neighbors."

GRANDY. "There is a thriving missionary establishment at Liberia, which I hope will before long exert its benign influence over the Bowchee people, who are located some few miles distant. They are a miserable race, entirely devoid of feeling; the gentle appeals of nature are unknown to them; parental tenderness dwells not in their bosoms, for they will sell their children as slaves to the greatest strangers in the world, with no more remorse of conscience than if they had been common articles of merchandise. I will tell you a story of a Bowchee mother:—'A travelling slave-dealer passing through the place had purchased several of their children of both sexes, from the inhabitants, and amongst others an old woman had an only daughter, whom she parted with for a necklace of beads. The unhappy girl, who was about thirteen or fourteen years of age, on being dragged away from the threshold of her parent's hut, clung distractedly around the knees of her unfeeling mother, and looking up wistfully in her face burst into a flood of tears, exclaiming with passionate vehemence:—"O mother! do not sell me; what will become of me? what will become of yourself in your old age if you send me from you? who will fetch you corn and milk? who will pity you when you die? Have I been unkind to you? O mother! do not sell your only daughter. I will take you in my arms when you are feeble and carry you under the shade of trees. I will repay the kindness you showed me in my infant years. When you are weary, I will fan you to sleep; and whilst you are sleeping, I will drive away flies from you. I will attend on you when you are in pain; and when you die, I will shed rivers of sorrow over your grave. O mother! dear mother! do not push me away from you; do not sell your only daughter to be the slave of a stranger!" Her tears were useless—her remonstrances vain. The unnatural parent, shaking the beads in the face of her only child, thrust her from her embraces; and the slave-dealer drove the agonized girl from the place of her nativity.'"

EMMA. "Oh! how very shocking! Poor girl! how dreadful to have such cruel, relentless parents. Oh dear! I hope the work of the missionaries will be blessed, and that God will soften the hard hearts of those savage and mercenary people."

CHARLES. "Between Liberia and Sierra Leone are Sherboro' Bay and Yawry Bay. Sierra Leone, or 'Mountains of the Lioness,' is so unhealthy that we should not live long if we went there."

MRS. WILTON. "You are right, Charles. It was established as a colony in 1787, for the express purpose of laboring to civilize the Africans. All the cargoes of the recaptured slavers are taken there, and every comfort and convenience afforded to the unfortunate negroes. But it is so extremely unhealthy that Europeans can scarcely carry out their plans, and death mows them down in the midst of their usefulness."