the uncultivated hills and deferts. If one half the year was wrapped in frozen, barren winter, like other countries, they would not be allowed blanketting fufficient to fhield them from the cold; nor would their mafters, or their remorselefs deputies, allow them a fufficient quantity of food. When there is a fcarcity of provifions on a plantation, each negroe gets a weekly allowance of corn or flour, (two or three quarts) and five or fix herrings. Those who live in pairs together, as man and wife, are mutual helpmates to each other: the men build their huts, and affift to work their grounds; the wo. men prog for food, boil their pots at noon and night, loufe their heads, extract chiggers from their toes, and wash their frocks and trowfers. I fhall here fubmit the complaint of a negroe man, whofe helpmate had deferted him, to your perufal :

How wretched 's my time been of late!
How fevere and how bitter my woe!

I've no one to louse my rough pate,
Nor the chigger to pick from my toe:

For Quafhiba's gone to the town,
To fee fmarter beaumen than me;
Tho' I often compell'd her to own
How falfe and how fickle they be.

My fungee, alas! is unboil'd,

My hut is all cover'd with dirt;

I've no one to nurse my dear child,

Nor to wash the falt fweat from my shirt!

Then

Then join, fable swains, to bemoan
The hardships of poor Cufty's lot;
He fighs the whole night all alone,

In the day he's deprived of his pot.

He's depriv'd of his pot in the day,
And of love's fofter pleasure at night;
O! ye youths who give ear to my lay,
Know, Cufty's quite loft to delight!

QUASHIBA's RETURN.

Lo! Quafhiba's coming this way,
See her arm, how gracefully it fwings!
At her prefence all Nature feems gay;
To greet her the nightingale fings!

My fungee I now fhall get boil'd,

No more I'll repine at my lot; For fhe who my forrows beguil'd

Is return'd with good things for my pot.

Then I thoughtlessly bid her prepare
The herrings and green caliloo;
I forgot, for a while, all my care;
I forgot that she had not been true.

But when we deliciously dined,

And were stretch'd in the tamarind shade,

With anguish it came to my mind.

The price for the herrings fhe paid.

And my heart-strings were rent in twain,
And my breast did with jealousy burn;

I bid the dear nymph to explain
What she gave to Neptune in town.

"Dear Cufty," the gently replies,
"Come, be neither furly or gruff;"
And wantonly rolling her eyes,

She faid, "I did give him a

[The reft of the Paftoral was torn.]

The women, when pregnant, work in the fields. till a few days before they lie-in; (for work, if moderate, is ferviceable to child-bearing women) after they are brought-to-bed, the Overfeer fends each about a pound of falt beef, a little flour, a pint of rum, and about a pound of fugar, to comfort them; in a few days after they are obliged to turn out to cultivate the ground, and take their pickinnies (i. e. children) on their backs, to which they are tied with handkerchiefs; and when they are weary of their burthens, lay them on sheep-fkins in the field. There is commonly fome invalid women appointed to take care of the children, to guard them from fnakes and other vermin.

When working, though at the hardest labour, they are commonly finging; and though their fongs have neither rhime nor measure, yet many are witty and pathetic. I have often laughed heartily, and have been as often ftruck with deep melancholly at their fongs:-for instance, when finging of the Overfeer's barbarity to them:

Tink

Tink dere is a God in a top,

No use me ill, Obisfha !

Me no horse, me no mare, me no mule,
No ufe me ill, Obisfha.

Some masters and overfeers, of jealous, pimp ing difpofitions, flog, and otherwife ill treat their black wenches, when they chance to get black children. I have been often diverted, and laughed heartily, when a raw, infatuated gaukey, or a doating, debilitated debauchee has been difappointed, after all his endearing fondness and amorous exertions, with his foft, flobber-chop bundle, to get a black, inftead of an olive babe. I fhall annex the fong of a young woman

who was in this predicament:-it is in the negroe dialect, and is no lefs true than curious.

AIR. What care I for Mam or Dad.

Altho' a flave me is born and bred,
My fkin is black, not yellow :
I often fold my maidenhead
To many a handfome fellow.
My maffa keep me once, for true,
And gave me clothes, wid buffes:
Fine muslin coats, wid bitty, too,
To gain my fweet embraces.
When pickinniny him come black,
My massa starve and fum me;
He tear the coat from off my back,
And naked him did strip me.

Him turn me out into the field,
Wid hoe, the ground to clear-o;
Me take pickinniny on my back,
And work him te-me weary.

Him, Obissha, him de come one night,
And give me gown and buffes;
Him get one pickinniny, white!
Almost as white as miffefs.

Then miffefs fum me wid long fwitch,

And fay him da for massa ;

My maffa curfe her, "lying bitch!"
And tell her, "bufs my raffa!"

Me fum'd when me no condefcend
Me fum'd too if me do it;

Me no have no one for 'tand my friend,

So me am forc'd to do it.

Mc