Weather, and the Slaves are at each End; and yet even this, methinks, is better than the ſpecious Liberty a Man has for himſelf and his Heirs to work in a Coal Mine.
The Negroes are, moſt of them, thro’ the Care of their Patroons, Chriſtians, at leaſt nominal, but excepting to ſome few, they adhere ſtill to many ſilly Pagan Cuſtoms in their Mournings and Rejoycings, and in ſome Meaſure, powerful Majority has introduced them with the Vulgar of the Mulatto and Portugueze Race.
If a Perſon die in that Colour, the Relations and Friends of him meet at the Houſe, where the Corpſe is laid out decently on the Ground and covered (all except the Face) with a Sheet; they ſit round it, crying and howling dreadfully, not unlike what our Countrymen are ſaid to do in Ireland: This Mourning laſts for eight Days and Nights, but not equally intenſe, for as the Friends, who compoſe the Chorus, go out and in, are weary, and unequally affected, the Tone leſſens daily, and the Intervals of Grief are longer.
In Rejoycings and Feſtivals they are equally ridiculous; theſe are commonly made on ſome Friend’s Eſcape from Shipwreck, or other Danger: They meet in a large Room of the Houſe, with a Strum Strum, to which one of the Company, perhaps, ſings wofully; the reſt ſtanding round the Room cloſe to the Petitions, take it in their Turns (one or two at a time) to ſtep round, called Dancing, the whole clapping their Hands continually, and hooping out every Minute Abeo, which ſignify no more, than, how do you. And this fooliſh Mirth will continue three or four Days together at a Houſe, and perhaps twelve or ſixteen Hours at a time.
The Portugueze, tho’ eminently abſtemious and temperate in all other Things, are unbounded in their
