with an outburst of nature's universal and unvaried language in the
shape of a light-hearted laugh. By and by, my attention became
directed, by an occasional shout of merriment, to a group of Seedies
clustered round a fire near me. Negroes in this country are much the
same as in other parts of the World--a happy, easily-contented race,
forgetful of the past, and careless of the future. After keeping up
their noisy confabulation for some time, they removed to a level spot
close to where I was lying: one of them squatted down on the ground,
and commenced singing to the music of a sort of tambourine, that he
beat with the flat of his hand; and the others at once formed a
circle, and commenced a rude dance, which had probably been brought
by themselves or their fathers from the shores of Eastern Africa. The
air was at first low and monotonous, the time seeming to be more
studied than any variation of the tune; but after some minutes a few
notes in a higher key were occasionally introduced, giving the music a
strangely wild and melancholy character. The dance consisted
principally of low jumps, each foot being alternately advanced in
strict time with the music. Sometimes the dancers joined hands; again
they would pass into one another's places, until they had made the
circuit of the ring; and every now and then, in going through these
movements, they would leap completely round, apparently without an
effort, but as a natural consequence of the momentum produced by the
celerity of their motions, and the weight of their huge bodies. The
whole affair was gone through in a serious and business-like manner,
unusual in the negro. How long I watched them I cannot say; but it
seemed to me as if they went on for hours without slackening the pace,
or moving one muscle of their countenances, until my eyes became heavy
with looking at them. At length, the figures appeared to grow dim, and
among them I thought I recognised faces of friends then many thousands
of miles from me, and forms that the earth had long before covered