CHAPTER VII.

LOVE AND MURDER.


I was once sent from Rio to Demerara, an English colony on the coast of
Brazil, with a cargo of blacks that we had freed. Then it was that I had
a good opportunity of studying the character of these people certainly
in their primitive state, and if ever men and women resembled wild
animals it was my swarthy charges. When I arrived at Demerara I handed
them over to their new masters, to whom they were apprenticed for seven
years, and from all I can understand they were, during their
apprenticeship, treated pretty much as slaves in every respect.

During the time I visited Demerara (and I fancy it is very slightly
changed now) it was one of the vilest holes in creation. It is built on
a low sandy point of land at the entrance of a great river, and is
almost the hottest place on the earth. Mosquitos in thousands of
millions; nothing for the natives to do but to cultivate sugar-canes
and to perspire. There were two crack regiments quartered at Demerara,
who, having to withstand the dreadful monotony of doing nothing, took I
fear to living rather too well; the consequence was that many a fine
fellow had been carried off by yellow fever. For my part, I took a
rather high flight in the way of pastime by falling (as I imagined)
desperately in love with the governor's daughter. The governor, I must
tell my readers, was a very great swell, a general, a K.C.B., &c., and