"Very easily, sir, if weather remains favorable, - (O! I forgot there was no fear of bad weather) — and if Mr. Mitchelson keeps out of the way, so that I may keep Horner and his whip out of the way also till we have done. The family are all absent, you see; but I will step in with you while you rest yourself. I was surprised to find the ladies gone too when I arrived.'

"Mitchelson always takes them with him when he is absent for more than a few hours.'

"Alfred thought within himself that he should not have suspected the gentleman of being so very domestic.

"But come,' said Mr. Bruce, dismounting and fastening up his horse, show me the secrets of your management. What are these barrels, and whence comes this savoury smell?' "These barrels hold beef and pork, sir; and the savour is from the cooking in yonder hut.'

"And what is your allowance per man?'

"As much as he chooses to eat. We should get little work done if we gave each laborer weekly no more than two pounds of herrings and eight pounds of flour, with the vegetables they grow themselves.'

"The law pronounces that to be enough.'

"But what says the law of nature? You and I do no hard work; and could we keep ourselves sleek and strong on such a supply of food?'

66 6

Negroes do not want so much as whites.'

"That is a good reason for their having as much as they do want. Our people here are not troubled with indigestion, as far as I can perceive. What do you think of our warm jackets?"

"I cannot imagine how they can support the heat in such clothing. No wonder they throw them aside.'

66 6

They are only for morning and evening. The people scarcely seem to heed the morning fogs while they wear their woollens; and we make them put them on again when the sun

"Do you mean that they work after sunset of their own accord.'

"We have difficulty in making them leave off at nine o'clock. They like to sing to the moon as they work; and when they have done, they are not too tired for a dance. Father, you would more than pay for a double suit of clothing to your slaves by the improvement in their morning's work; and yet I believe you give them more than the law orders.'

"Yes. One hat, shirt, jacket, and trousers, cannot be

VOL. XIV.

N. S. VOL. IX. NO. II.

23

made to last a year; and the clothing that the slaves buy for themselves is more for ornament than warmth. I do not know how the overseer clothes them, but I have always desired that they should have whatever was necessary.'

"Alfred said to himself that the overseer's notions of what was necessary might not be the best rule to go by.

"Mr. Bruce meanwhile was looking alternately at two gangs of slaves at work after a rather different manner. He was standing on the confines of two estates; and, in a field at a little distance, a company of slaves was occupied as usual; that is, bending over the ground, but to all appearance scarcely moving, silent, listless, and dull. At hand, the whole gang, from Cassius down to the youngest and weakest, were as busy as bees, and from them came as cheerful a hum, though the nature of their work rather resembled the occupation of bea

vers.

“Task-work, with wages,' said Alfred, pointing to his own gang; eternal labor, without wages,' pointing to the other. It is not often that we have an example of the two systems before our eyes at the same moment. I need not put it to you which plan works the best." " pp. 94-99.

The dam, we scarcely need add, is finished in the twenty days.

One of the most striking scenes in this volume is the following. A hurricane occurs in crop-time. During the storm the slaves collect together for safety in an open space.

"Their black forms flitting in the mixed light, now in the glare of the lightning, and now in the rapid gleams which the full moon cast as the clouds were swept away for a moment, might have seemed to a stranger like imps of the storm collecting to give tidings of its ravages. Like such imps they spoke and acted.

"The mill is down!' cried one.

"No crop next year, for the canes are blown away!' shouted another.

"The hills are bare as a rock, cotton! Hurra!'

no coffee, no spice, no

"But our huts are gone our plantation grounds are buried,' cried the wailing voice of a woman.

"Hurra! for the white man's are gone too!' answered many mingled tones. Just then a burst of moonlight showed to each the exulting countenances of the rest, and there went up a shout, louder than thunder, - 'Hurra! hurra! how ugly is the land!'

"The sound was hushed, and the warring lights were quenched for a time by the deluge which poured down from the clouds. The slaves crouched together in the middle of the field, supporting one another as well as they could against the fury of the gusts which still blew, and of the tropical rains. An inquiry now went round, - where was Horner? It was his duty to be in the field as soon as the gong had sounded, but no one had seen him. There was a stern hope in every heart that his roof had fallen in and buried him and his whip together. It was not so, however.

"After a while, the roaring of water was heard very near, and some of the blacks separated from the rest to see in what direction the irregular torrents which usually attend a hurricane were taking their course. There was a strip of low ground between the sloping field where the negroes were collected and the opposite hill, and through the middle of this ground a river rushed along where a river had never been seen before. A tree was still standing here and there in the midst of the foaming waters, and what had a few minutes ago been a hillock with a few shrubs growing out of it, was now an island. The negroes thought they heard a shout from this island, and then supposed it must be fancy; but when the cloudy rack was swept away and allowed the moon to look down for a moment, they saw that some one was certainly there, clinging to the shrubs, and in imminent peril of being carried away if the stream should continue to rise. It was Horner, who was making his way to the field when the waters overtook him in the low ground, and drove him to the hillock to seek a safety which was likely to be short enough. The waters rose every moment and though the distance was not above thirty feet from the hillock to the sloping bank on which the negroes had now ranged themselves to watch his fate, the waves dashed through in so furious a current that he did not dare to commit himself to them. He called, he shouted, he screamed for help, his agony growing more intense, as inch after inch, foot after foot, of his little shore disappeared. The negroes answered his shouts very punctually; but whether the impatience of peril prompted the thought, or an evil conscience, or whether it were really so, the shouts seemed to him to have more of triumph than sympathy in them; and cruel as would have been his situation had all the world been looking on with a desire to help, it was dreadfully aggravated by the belief that the wretches whom he had so utterly despised were watching his struggles, and standing with folded arms to see how he would help himself when there was none to help him. He

turned and looked to the other shore; but it was far too distant to be reached. If he was to be saved, it must be by crossing the narrower gulley: and, at last, a means of doing so seemed to offer. Several trees had been carried past by the current; but they were all borne on headlong, and he had no means of arresting their course: but one came at length, a trunk of the largest growth, and therefore making its way more slowly than the rest. It tilted from time to time against the bank, and when it reached the island, fairly stuck at the very point where the stream was narrowest. With intense gratitude, — gratitude which two hours before he would have denied could ever be felt towards slaves, Horner saw the negroes cluster about the root of the tree to hold it firm in its position. Its branchy head seemed to him to be secure, and the only question now was, whether he could keep his hold on this bridge, while the torrent rose over it, as if in fury at having its course delayed. He could but try, for it was his only chance. The beginning of his adventure would be the most perilous, on account of the boughs over and through which he must make his way. Slowly, fearfully, but firmly he accomplished this, and the next glimpse of moonlight showed him astride on the bare trunk, clinging with knees and arms, and creeping forward as he battled with the spray. The slaves were no less intent. Not a word was spoken, not one let go, and even the women would have a hold. A black cloud hid the moon just when Horner seemed within reach of the bank; and what happened in that dark moment,

whether it was the force of the stream, or the strength of the temptation, no lips were ever known to utter; but the event was that the massy trunk heaved once over, the unhappy wretch lost his grasp, and was carried down at the instant he thought himself secure. Horrid yells once more arose from the perishing man, and from the blacks now dispersed along the bank to see the last of him.

"He is not gone yet,' was the cry of one; 'he climbed yon tree as if he had been a water-rat.'

"There let him sit if the wind will let him,' cried another. 'That he should have been carried straight to a tree after all!'

"Stand fast! here comes the gale again!' shouted a third. "The gale came. The tree in which Horner had found refuge bowed, cracked, but before it fell, the wretch was blown from it like a flake of foam, and swallowed up finally in the surge beneath. This was clearly seen by a passing gleam. "Hurra! hurra!' was the cry once more. 'God sent the wind. It was God that murdered him, not we.'

"When the planters were sufficiently recovered to exchange letters of condolence. Mr. Mitchelson wrote thus to Mr. Bruce. You have probably heard that my overseer, poor Horner, was lost from the waters being out when he was making his way to the field where his duty called him. We all lament him much; but your son will be glad to hear (pray tell him when you write) that my slaves are conducting themselves as well as if still under the charge of him we have lost. I am persuaded they would have risked their own lives to save his, if it had been possible. But, as they say, it was God's will that he should perish !' - pp. 152-158.

We intend, at some future time, when more of the Illustrations are before the public, to examine more at length Miss Martineau's general merits as a writer, and to discuss some of the principles of political economy which she supports.

Natker

ART. V. The Evidences of Christianity in their External Division, exhibited in a Course of Lectures, delivered in Clinton Hall, in the Winter of 1831-2, under the appointment of the University of the City of New York. By CHARLES P. M'ILVAINE, D. D., Rector of St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn, Professor of the Evidences of Revealed Religion and of Sacred Antiquities in the University of the City of New York. New York. G. & C. &. H. Carvill. 1832. 1832. 8vo. 8vo. pp. 565.

THESE Lectures do not profess to be the result of original investigations, nor are they elaborate treatises in any respect, nor can they be said to be recommended by a peculiarly felicitous method or style. Considered, however, as popular discourses hastily prepared, they present, as well as might be expected, the common arguments in the common order with the common applications, and were listened to, doubtless, with attention and profit by "a class of many hundreds, from among the most intelligent in the community, and composed, to a considerable extent, of the members of the New York Young Men's Society for Intellectual and Moral Improvement," before which they are said, in the