, 1873-08-06

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have had a local habitation, if not a home,
somewhere. | put the home in doubt, be-
cause that sacred word implies the pre-
sence of a wife, or at least of woman in
some capacity and l chance to know that
this interchangeable hunter had b0t a DESC
late hearth, wherever it might be, for | re-
member we'll q conversation / had with
him on this subject.
He was tel ing me something Of his his
tory, as we sat upon a fallen cotton tree.
Joe's language was the most extraordinary
patois | ever heard, and utterly impossible
to be rendered in mentioning that 'W0-
man was pronounced by him as 'wah'n,'
with a strong aspirate, I shall give not the
most curious example OF his utteranCe,
lie had been telling me how he was born,
no one knew where, in the interior OF All
RIGA that he was captured, he didn't know
why or by whom, and taken az a slave
down to the coast that he was there en-
parked, after an unknown time, aboard a
ship OF undiscovered nationality that the
ship was captured at sea, uuder circunl-
stances of which he had not been able to
get any explanation tba' in process OF
biitCJ Dy tNCIliS tIlLIiCIJ OuLSIQt HIS NOLlJAOi
or knowledge, he had been landed at a
spot which, sjace he left it, had been iden-
titled to him as Sierra Leone, or Sarah
Leh'n, as Joe preferred to call it; that
people had Ialkcd 10 him there (here Joe
evidently alluded to the missionaries
that he had been yery happy, hunting in
the woods and otherwise following his vo-
cation, poor savage, until u gentleman Of
an unknown nationality had taken posses
sion Of him for unknown purposes and by
unknown rights, and carried him TO SEQ
again, much to Joo'g horror for he had d
wild-beast memory Of anything that hal
been disagrceabIo or hurttul to him that
when a few days were passed, he was set
to do task wholly opposed to his instincts,
and was cruelty treated on failure: that,
once more, he was rescured by an Eng
lish captain, bless him Joe began to
know his friends and foes u lite now, al
ter an education Of kicks and oaths and
was landed, at his request, in one Of
the West India isles, whence he had found
his way to the mainland, where game is
plentiful.
This was Joe's story-confused mex
plCdDItJ u very CllIOS VI lJCluGuI UuiiILCtII-
BILE, but, IN truth, the most pathetic tale
eyer | heard. To me, sitting, as is my
won't from time to time, with the portrait
of this poor fellow in hand, the blood seems
suddenly to rise and boil at my heart,
thinking of the story. recall the broken
sentences in which he told 1.-THE ram
bling, muddlcd style; the down-trodden
attitude he unconsciousIy assumed, as me-
mory brought back those days Of uncom-
pretended suffering. 1t was, think, Joe's
utter inability to understand why, how,
where these Things happened to him,
which gave such Il terrible pathos to the
tale. He, made in Gods image, a man
most brave and true and kindly, has been
but1eted about the world, with no more
comprehension Of cause or reason than has
a dog nay, not so much, for he knew not
friends from foes. Untold, unreliable Sut-
fering and misery surround US on every
side; but c%ivilised beings understand their
woes, can explain them, and, if the chance
come, rise out of them Bur this poor ne
gro, forced from his home, from all with
whom he could communicate, thrust at
one fell instant from his barbarous quie-
tude beside some African river into our en-
lightened, civilized, horrible world, was as
utterly lost and d~umfoundered as though
he had died by violence and his soul had
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