Windham County Democrat. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1836-1853, 1853-09-28

mean, of the sort which is paid to women in this
part of the earth. Generally, females are not be-
lieved to possess souls they have no moral mo-
tives to virtue, no family or feminine pride, and
are expected to do wrong if they can. From wo-
men in such position what can be expected
Sultan Ennoor, of the UNEMPLOYED kingdom of A.
heer, told Richardson his ideas on this subject
"The opinion of his highness of women don't fiat
ter the ladies he recommended us never to listen
to the advice of our wives if we did we should
be lost. The women were very well to fetch wa
ter, pound ghaseb and cook the supper, but for
nothing else. He never himself paid any aten-
ton to what they said: they were awful takers"
so much for the old savage. However, women in
bonds are not likely to be the best representatives
of their sex.
Happy is it for the poor slave-girls otstheir
march over the Sahara, that they have light
hearts, They sing touching and plaintivs songs,
laden with memories of home, with thdlghts of
former joys with recollectons of the fields and
huts where they spent their happy youth, and so
they beguile their way. As soon as ne place of
encampment is reached, they arrang everything
and light fires first for their masters and then for
themselves The cold of the desrt is bitter at
night, and the poor creatures are almost naked.
Their rations of food are then served to them !;
and too often the barley meal and water which
mong ten of the famished and squalid slaves
They may have been on foot fourteen hours
they may be still hungry, thirsty, weary; yet as
the evening deepens, they rise one by one to the
Dance and trip uponth sand till the moon grows
pale. They beat their uncOuth drums, and the
young slaves fly round often in very modest and
graceful measures, though often, too, in figures of
quite another character. A peculiar hopping step
is much in practice among them, and tits by no
means an uninteresting circumstance that we can
trace many Of the favorite negro dances II Amer
lea to their origin in the deserts of the Sahara.-
They have even preserved many of the most sim
guar of the movements and evolutions, as well as
many native airs so that the spirit of Africa is
breahed again in the sugarcanes and cotton-fields
of Alabama and South Carolina. In sucA testiy-
tiles the unhappy creatures fall into forgetfuness
of their lot, and seem as though lost by al ndif-
ference, which, however, lasts only while tie mer-
riment goes on. See them next morning, setting
out with unwilling steps, their heads bent, their
eyes downcast and dull their faces marked with
sorrow, and all the illusion of the moonlit revelry
passes away, and slavery becomes again as cheer
less and desolate thing as the Sahara itself.
And so the caravan tolls along, now winding in
irregular files along the plain, now crawling up
mountain, now bivouacking near well, and on
the green fields of an oasis As it goes, some of
the victims fail in strength, and sink and perish
on the road. The very aged especially leave their
bonds in this way half way between their former
dwelling places and the termination of the journey
of bondage. 1t seems .gratuitous cruelty on
the part of the slave-hunters to disturb lettering
old men & women, who have nothing left on earth
but to die, and who, if they actually brought
to market, would not sell for more than one Shii-
Ing so feeble and useless are they. When they
expire hole is dug, or rather scratched in the
sand, and they are thrown in, and loose stone is
placed over them. Numbers of such graves mark
the four great caravan tracks, from the kingdom
of the Sahara to the northern coast. Many little
mounds, too, the resting places of children who
have died on the road the earth is followed for
them the moment they have ceased to breathe,
even before; and no mother, no friend can ever
visit the sacred place again. An undistinguisha-
BILE mound remains for a while upon the spot but
the desert is soon subdued to its level, and every
sign of their existence is gone