Page images
PDF
EPUB

nance, a sort of sullenness that I had never before observed. My first and most natural surmise was, that his black hue and woolly curls had drawn upon him some disagreeable sneers, or some uncourteous behaviour from an ignorant mob, and I was about to enquire when he drily told me, that I had deceived him in telling him that in the land to which I was to convey him, there were no such things as task-masters or cat-o-ninetails; and without allowing me any time to ask for an explanation, he added in one breath-" Oh, massa, me will go back to the other country. If they have here the inhumanity thus to beat poor babes of their own flesh and blood, what will they not do to a negro stranger? To be sure Domingo would not flinch from their lashes, if, by receiving them, he could save the little innocents: but me fear very much that the cruel men would flog me, and not give a blow less to the babes." I suffered him to vent the whole stock of his sensibility, which had its source in nature itself, and when he had exhausted it, I exerted all the strength of my eloquence to make him comprehend the motives of this apparent cruelty. He listened to me with signs of impatience, and his concluding sentence was: "Massa talks mighty well, but Domingo cannot see the necessity of flogging and beating poor little creatures that have not the strength to bear the blows like negro slaves." The matter upon investigation turned out thus during his ramble, Domingo heard some most pitiful cries and shrieks issue from a house which he was passing; naturally curious, he approached the window, and saw that these cries were caused by a man administering a severe correction to a child.

The next day, having some business that called me early from home, I went out followed by my black attendant. It was still dark, and one of those wintry mornings in which the severity of the season, far from being modified by a clear sky, was, on the contrary, increased by wind and snow. There were as yet but few houses open, and the majority of passengers we met were children of almost every age, warmly clad it is true, but all shivering with cold, and more inclined to weep than to exhibit the natural cheerfulness of

youth. Domingo at first appeared to pay but little attention to this circumstance, and habit had rendered it familiar to me. At last, however, the lamentation of one of these little creatures, rather louder than those of the rest, caught my companion's ears: running eagerly towards the sufferer, he enquired what was the cause of his sorrows, and what business he had to be in the streets so early and in such weather? To which questions he received for answers the monosyllables, "cold" and "school." Feeling himself the effects of the first, and unable to apply the only remedy, to wit, warmth ! he returned immediately to me, and asked the meaning of the second. I told him that by a school was meant a place where children were taught many useful things, such as reading, writing, arithmetic, &c.

[ocr errors]

Domingo. So, massa, if I understand you right, a school is a place where these little things are sent to be made clever when they become men."

Self. "Just so."

Dom. "From which I must conclude that in this fine country you set no value on a man unless he be clever. Then, massa, me not clever, and will return to yon country, where a negro like me is valued, not on account of his cleverness, but on account of his usefulness as a man."

Self. "I never meant to tell you that in this country the value of a man is absolutely estimated by his clever ness; no, many a one who is not clever may be more useful, and perhaps more estimable, than very clever

ones."

you;

Dom. " Massa, massa, me not believe for if it were as you tell me, would you run the risk of destroying the little man by sending him out at so early an hour, in such weather, perhaps without his breakfast, and that for the sole purpose of making him clever? The most cruel of our task-masters in yon country would not thus expose the life of poor negro children merely for the sake of making them clever men." In vain did I attempt to give him an idea of the immense benefits derived from learning; in vain did I endeavour to hammer into his head that the man who could read, write, cast accounts, and talk Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, how

ever crippled, and however sickly, was infinitely more useful to society than thousands, nay, than millions, of those ignorant wretches who can neither read nor write, although they can till the ground, fight our battles, plough the deep, and perform many other such trifling things: that therefore the lives of thousands of children sacrificed at the shrine of learning, were more than counterbalanced by a single literary meteor, however transient be its brightness. Domingo answered nothing to this fine rhetoric of mine; but a shaking of the head significantly expressed his opinion on the whole.

In order to give an additional weight to my arguments, I resolved to introduce Domingo into some of our nurseries of youth. Accordingly, the next day I took him with me to a school, (I beg pardon, I ought to have said academy) where the very first rudiments of learning are taught; we were ushered very civilly into a room, in which we found at least fifty children, I might say more properly, babes, the oldest not appearing more than six or seven years old, the whole snugly cooped together, very nearly like pickled herrings in a barrel. And very lucky it was, for the weather was exceedingly cold, and there was very little fire in the grate, notwithstanding which the room felt so comfortable and warm, that, had it not been for certain effluvia, not of the most grateful nature to the olfactory nerves, that embalmed the atmosphere, I could have forgotten there both winter and its severity. But this last circumstance compelled me, however reluctantly, to take an abrupt congé, after having enjoyed the inexpressible pleasure of hearing three or four pretty little interesting parrots going through that part of their primer that had taken the strongest hold of their infantine memory.

During our stay in this cradle of learning, I often cast a look on my attendant, but I never could meet his eyes, which were the whole time rivetted on the children with an inexpressible expression" of every sensation which belongs to the bright side of human nature. It was not the look of the fond mother watching with tender solicitude over the cradle of her little darling; it was not the look of compassion at the sight of suffering hu

manity; it was not the look of the benevolent philanthropist, when he witnesses wanton acts of cruelty or injustice; but a compound, a mixture of all three. When again in the street he did not come up to me, but staid behind, and looked down like one in deep reflection. My rapping at another door roused him out of his reverie, and he followed me into a school-room, whose dimensions were indeed considerably greater than those of the former one, but which contained a far greater number of living creatures from seven to fifteen or sixteen years of age. I apologized for my intrusion, on the score of having something to communicate to one of the boys, the son of a friend of mine residing in the country. On going up to the head master, to beg leave to take out the boy for a few minutes, we saw one of the under ushers, or perhaps a servant, with a bunch of birch twigs in his hand, with which he had been administering manual correction to four of the the boys, who were still crying lamentably, whilst the countenance of two other bystanders seemed to portend the same fate *.

(To be concluded in our next.)

C. D. E.

* I was in hope, and fully intended to conclude my lucubrations in the present number, but my subject seems to extend under my pen beyond what I expected; so that, however unwillingly, I must again submit my ideas to the reader in the next. It will be a kind of post obit, or posthumous intrusion on my friends at home, which, recalling me to their mind, will, perhaps, draw forth an ejaculation for him who will then most probably be the sport of wind and

waves.

SPECIMENS

OF THE SIMILARITY AND CONNECTION OF LANGUAGES.

THE word sack is nearly the same in most languages: pu, sac, Hebrew; axxos, Greek; saccus, Latin; rac, Saxon; sack, Gælic; sack, Welsh; sacco, Italian; saco, Spanish; sac, French; sack, Dutch; sakk, Islandic.

Bishop, in Irish is easbog; Welsh, esgob, 'Erioxoños, Greek; episcopus, Latin; evêque, French; obispo,

Spanish; bispo, Portuguese; vescovo, Italian; Biscop, Saxon; bischop, Danish; pispok, Hungarian; bischof, German.

The word sugar has undergone little variation through a variety of languages; thus, raxxάpov, Greek; saccharum, Latin; zuccaro, Italian; azucar, Spanish; açucar, Portuguese; sucre, French; sucker, Danish; sowgr, Welsh; zukker, German; shekar, Persian.

The word wine has suffered little mutation, either in ancient or modern language, iin, Hebrew; ČIVOY, Greck; vinum, Latin; fin, Irish; wiin, Danish; gevin, Welsh; wein, Teutonic; vinho, Portuguese; vino, Italian; vin, French; þin, Saxon.

From the Persian word juvan, young, &c. is perhaps taken the Latin juvenis; Italian, giovane; French, jeune; English, juvenile, &c. &c.

Min, Saxon; mein, Teutonic; my, mine, English; min, Persian

The term for death, is, in many languages, strikingly similar: mors, Latin; marew, Celtic (to die); mord, Islandic; mort, French; morte, Italian; μopos, Greek (Fate); , muth, Hebrew; mortality, mortal, English. It is curious to observe, that morai, or moray, in the Otaheitan language, signifies a sepulchre.

Our English word turban, or turband, is probably derived from the Persian, doolbend, what encompasses the head or body. The word is a compound, dool signifying a wheel, rotation, &c. and binden, to bind; turbante, Italian; turbante, Spanish; turban, French, &c.

The English numeral two runs nearly parallel with the other European, and some of the ancient languages: do, Irish; duy, Welsh; duw, Greek; duo, Latin; due, Italian; dos, Spanish; deur, French; toe, Danish; dwa, Polish, twa, Russian; twee, Dutch; twa, Swedish; zuo, Teutonic; tpa or tpy, Saxon; doo-o, Malayan (as spoken on the western coast of Sumatra); dho, Bengalee.

The English word room, i. e. an apartment in a house, has a tolerably near parallel, in the Swedish word rum or ruum; and also in the Malay rooma, a

*See Richardson's Dictionary.

« PreviousContinue »