Having Been
Destitute Of Cash, And Consequently Of Rum For Some
Time, He Acknowledged His State Of Health
Remarkable; And He Was A Model Of Strength And
Manly Development.
All the other negroes were
dwarfish-looking specimens, while their hair was
so very short that it gave them the appearance
of being bald.
When the canoe was taken out of the
storehouse to be put into the canal, these half-naked,
ebony-skinned creatures swarmed about it like
bees. Not a trace of white blood could be
detected in them. Each tried to put a finger upon
the boat. They seemed to regard it as a Fetich;
and, I believe, had it been placed upon an end
they would have bowed down and paid their
African devotions to it. Only the oldest ones
could speak English well enough to be
understood. The youths chattered in African tongue,
and wore talismans about their necks. They
were, to say the least, verging on barbarism.
The experience gathered among the blacks of
other lands impressed me with the well-founded
belief, that in more than one place in the south
would the African Fetich be set up and
worshipped before long, unless the church bestirs
herself to look well to her home missions.
In all my travels, outside of the cities, in the
south it has not been my good fortune to find an
educated white man preaching to negroes, yet
everywhere the poor blacks gather in the
log-cabin, or rudely constructed church, to listen to
ignorant preachers of their own color.
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