by grain and water, till we saw deserted villages, the people
affi swept off by slavery, with grain standing by running
streams, but no birds. A red-throated black weaver-bird
comes in flocks a little later, wearing a long train of magnificent,
plumes, which seem to be greatly in his way when
working for his dinner among the long grass. A goatsucker
o r night jar (Uometomis vexillarius), only ten inches long
from head to tail, also attracts the eye in November by a
couple of feathers twenty-six inches long in the middle of
each wing,, the ninth and tenth from the outside. They
give' a slow wavy motion to the wings, and evidently retard
his flight, for at other times he flies so quick that no boy
qould hit him with a stone. The natives can kill a hare by
throwing a club, and make good running shots, but no one:
ever struck a night jar in common dress, though in the
evening twilight they settle close to one’s feet. What may
be; the object of the flight of the male bird being retarded
we cannot tell. The males alone possess these, feathers, and
only for a time.
I t appears: strange to have Christmas come in such a
cheerful bright season as th is ; one can hardly recognise
i t in. summer dress, with singing birds, springing corn, and
flowery plains, instead of in the winter robes of bygone days,
when the keen bracing air, and ground clad in' a mantle of
snow, , made the cozy fireside meeting-place of families'doubly
comfortable. The associations of early days spent in a
Northern clime dispose us to view other lands with rather
contracted notions, and, like the Esquimaux who were
brought to. Europe, to look cheerlessly at this sunny portion
of our fair world, which is unhealthy only because the exuberant
fertility with which the Maker has endowed it to
yield abundant food for man and. beast, is allowed to run
to waste. In reference to it, and its inhabitants, it was
long ago remarked, that in Africa everything was contrary;
«wool grows on the heads of men, and hair on the backs of
sheep.” In feeble imitation of this dogma let us add, that the
men often wear their hair long, the women scarcely ever.
Where there are cattle, the women till the land, plant the
corn, and build the huts. The men stay at home to sew, spin,
weave, and talk, and milk the cows. The men seem to pay
a dowry for their wives instead of getting one with them.
The mountaineers of Europe are reckoned hospitable, generous,
and brave. Those of this part of Africa are feeble,
spiritless, and cowardly, even when contrasted with their
own countrymen on the plains. Some Europeans aver that
Africans and themselves are descended from monkeys. Some
Africans believe that souls at death pass into the bodies of
apes. Most writers believe the blacks to be savages, nearly
all blacks believe the whites to be cannibals. The nursery
hobgoblin of the one is black, of the other white. Without
going further on with these unwise comparisons, we must
smile at the heaps of nonsense which have been written
about the negro intellect. When for greater effect we employ
broken English, and use silly phrases as if translations
of remarks, which, ten to one, were never made,
we have unconsciously caricatured ourselves and not the'
negroes ; for it is a curious feet that Europeans almost
invariably begin to speak with natives- by adding the letters
e and o to their words « Givee me corne, me givee you bis-
cuito;, or “ Looko, looko, me wante beero muche.” Our
sailors began thus, though they had never seen blacks
before. I t seemed an innate idea that they could thus suit
English to a people who all speak a beautiful language,
and have no vulgar patois.. Owing to the difference of
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