An Account of Jamaica, and Its Inhabitants

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Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1808 - 305 pages

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Page 159 - I never addressed myself, in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise.
Page 159 - In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden...
Page 159 - Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar, — if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so ; and to add to this virtue, so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that, if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and, if hungry, ate the coarse morsel, with a double relish.
Page 194 - The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Page 257 - ... may be swept off by its infatuation before the crime is detected ; for, strange as it may appear, so much do the negroes stand in awe of those obeah professors, so much do they dread their malice and their power, that, though knowing the havoc they have made, and are still making, they are afraid to discover them to the whites ; and others perhaps, are in league with them for sinister purposes of mischief and revenge. A negro under...
Page 282 - Troops continued to pour in from adjacent and distant posts ; and, as the few soldiers with the king refused to fire on those surrounding the palace, the people, though pitying the king, did not take up arms in his...
Page 159 - Not haughty, nor arrogant, nor supercilious, they are full of courtesy, and fond of society; more liable in general to err than man, but in general also more virtuous, and performing more good actions, than he. To a woman , whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself, in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer.
Page 262 - ... houses, and drink with them ; the distance between them appears to be annihilated for the moment, like the familiar footing on which the Roman slaves were with their masters at the feast of the Saturnalia...
Page 261 - ... have little time to devote to amusement, but such occasions as offer they eagerly embrace. Plays, as they call them, are their principal and favourite one. This is an assemblage of both sexes, dressed out for the occasion, who form a ring round a male and female dancer, who perform to the music of drums and the songs of the other females of the party, one alternately going over the song, while her companions repeat in chorus. Both the singers and dancers shew the exactest precision as to time...
Page 232 - ... but because the former is a greater rarity than the latter. They cannot afford to indulge themselves with a fowl or a duck, except upon particular occasions." " The common dress of the male slaves is an Osnaburgh or check frock, and a pair of Osnaburgh or sheeting trowsers, with a coarse hat. That of the women is an Osnaburgh or coarse linen shift, a petticoat made of various stuff, according to their taste and circumstances, and a handkerchief tied round their heads. Both men and women are also...

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