it is not poisoned; and the same is done when any meat or drink is
presented, particularly to a stranger. We have serpents of different
kinds, some of which are esteemed ominous when they appear in our
houses, and these we never molest. I remember two of those ominous
snakes, each of which was as thick as the calf of a man's leg, and in
colour resembling a dolphin in the water, crept at different times
into my mother's night-house, where I always lay with her, and coiled
themselves into folds, and each time they crowed like a cock. I was
desired by some of our wise men to touch these, that I might be
interested in the good omens, which I did, for they were quite
harmless, and would tamely suffer themselves to be handled; and then
they were put into a large open earthen pan, and set on one side of
the highway. Some of our snakes, however, were poisonous: one of them
crossed the road one day when I was standing on it, and passed between
my feet without offering to touch me, to the great surprise of many
who saw it; and these incidents were accounted by the wise men, and
therefore by my mother and the rest of the people, as remarkable omens
in my favour.

Such is the imperfect sketch my memory has furnished me with of the
manners and customs of a people among whom I first drew my breath. And
here I cannot forbear suggesting what has long struck me very
forcibly, namely, the strong analogy which even by this sketch,
imperfect as it is, appears to prevail in the manners and customs of
my countrymen and those of the Jews, before they reached the Land of
Promise, and particularly the patriarchs while they were yet in that
pastoral state which is described in Genesis--an analogy, which alone
would induce me to think that the one people had sprung from the
other. Indeed this is the opinion of Dr. Gill, who, in his commentary
on Genesis, very ably deduces the pedigree of the Africans from Afer