I Often Thought I Must Be Dreaming When I Beheld These Poor Creatures, Whom I Had Pictured To Myself As Roaming Free Through Their Native Forests, Exercising Such Occupations In Shops And Rooms!

Yet they do not appear to feel it as much as might be supposed - they were always merry, and joking over their work.

Among the so-called educated class of the place, there are many who, in spite of all the proofs of mechanical skill, as well as general intelligence which the blacks often display, persist in asserting that they are so far inferior to the whites in mental power, that they can only be looked upon as a link between the monkey tribe and the human race. I allow that they are somewhat behind the whites in intellectual culture; but I believe that this is not because they are deficient in understanding, but because their education is totally neglected. No schools are erected for them, no instruction given them - in a word, not the least thing is done to develop the capabilities of their minds. As was the case in old despotic countries, their minds are purposely kept enchained; for, were they once to awake from their present condition, the consequences to the whites might be fearful. They are four times as numerous as the latter, and if they ever become conscious of this superiority, the whites might probably be placed in the position that the unhappy blacks have hitherto occupied.

But I am losing myself in conjectures and reasonings which may, perhaps, become the pen of a learned man, but certainly not mine, since I assuredly do not possess the necessary amount of education to decide upon such questions; my object is merely to give a plain description of what I have seen.

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Words from 10231 to 10528 of 187810