other difficulties, was compelled doubt happy town, the inhabitants of to stop a day at a small village, which were torn by unrelenting savages from that native spot, so dear to all mancalled Kussaye, which was left kind. Even the strongest ties of nature however on the 9th of May, and riven asunder, and all this to gratify the on the tenth it passed the ruins of brutal desires of some neighbouring what had a year before been a tyrant, or to enrich a set of savages, who beautiful town, surrounded by are daily exposed to a similar fate thema plain bearing the marks of cul- selves, at least as long as they can find tivation, but which had been des-people ready to purchase their unnatural booty." The last town in Woolli, is "Sandsanding, small but beautifully situated on an eminence, surrounded by high grounds, through the valleys of which winds a branch of the Gambia, now nearly dry; its banks are covered with cane, acacias, and mimosas, which afforded an agreeable shel troyed by the people of Bondoo in a plundering excursion, and its inhabitants either killed or made slaves," a fate, major Gray remarks, but too common in this country, where the strongest party always finds an excuse for making war on the weaker, not unfrequently carrying off whole towns of miserable inoffensive beings, without either any previous intimation of their hostile inten-ter from the intense heat of the tions, or indeed any cause given sun." A little beyond this place to those wretched objects, of their major Gray "discharged corporal avaricious encroachments. On all Hallop, a native of Woolli, who such occasions the only object is had been sold as a slave, when money as they call it, and in this very young, and liberated by some of the British cruisers on they succeed by selling their unthe coast. He had met his mofortunate fellow-creatures, and, what is still more unnatural, their ther at Madina, and now bidding compatriots, to slave-dealers." "A multitude of ideas, bringing with them the conviction of how much Eng lishmen, and indeed all civilized nations, are favoured by Divine Providence, in enjoying freedom and security against such unwarranted and barbarous practices, rushed on my mind, as we surveyed the silent and awful remains of some human bodies which lay outside the walls of this once respectable and no a cordial farewell to his companions, returned to gladden the heart of one, who no doubt looked upon her son, as though risen from the dead." Major Gray observed at Sabee, a small village in the Bondoo. Country, through which runs a small stream, called by the natives Neerico, that on the banks of this stream a "sort of tobacco was cultivated, which the inhabitants next to impossible for a stranger manufacture into snuff. They also to form a conception. We concultivate a larger kind, more re-clude our extracts for the present sembling the American tobacco in with an account of Boolibany. size and colour: this bears a white blossom, and when dried is used in smoking." The manner in which rice and corn are produced in this country, is thus described: "Little trouble is indeed necessary in this country for the purpose of cultivation; the ground is merely cleared of the old corn stalks, and such weeds and young wood as have sprung up during the dry weather; all which are burnt, and the ashes strewed on the surface. Small holes are then made in the ground, distant from each other about a foot or eighteen inches, and two or three grains of corn dropped into each, which is filled by pushing a portion of the earth and the ashes before mentioned into it. In this state it remains, until it arrives at about two feet above the surface, when the ground between is hoed up and cleared of weeds, a process which takes place as often as the growth of the weeds renders it necessary, and which in this country, where vegetation is so rapidly going on during the rains, grow apace." Major Gray encountered many difficulties as he proceeded on his march for Boolibany, the capital of Bondoo, owing to the indisposition of his companions, the loss of animals, and especially from the incessant efforts of the natives, to deprive him of every thing upon which he depended for a subsistence. Of their importunity, duplicity, and falshood, he thinks it "Boolibany, the capital of Bondoo, stands in an extensive plain at the foot of a range of rocky hills, which are distant from it about a quarter of a mile east : to the west, the dry bed of a considerable torrent winds along the plain, and, in the season of the rains, conducts the water, which descends in a thousand streams from the hills, to the Falune and Senegal. "Here is the residence of the king, or Almamy, but it is by no means so large a town as we expected to see in the capital of so thickly inhabited a country. The number of souls does not exceed fifteen or eighteen hundred; the greater number are either the relatives, slaves, tradesmen, or followers of Almamy, or those of the royal family. "The town is surrounded by a strong clay wall, ten feet high and eighteen inches thick ;* this is pierced with loopholes, and is so constructed that, at short intervals, projecting angles are thrown out, which enable the besieged to defend the front of the wall by a flanking fire, and answers all the purposes of defence, where nothing but small arms is made use of. "The gates, of which there are five and some of the intermediate parts of the wall, are surmounted by small embattled turrets, nine or ten feet square; those are likewise pierced with loop-holes, and give to the place a better fortified appearance than any town we had before seen. "Within these outer walls, at the west *It was, when we saw it, in bad repair, not having been rebuilt since it was partly destroyed by the Kartan army in 1817. end of the town, and surrounded by stronger and higher ones of the same materials and form, are the palaces of Almamy, his son Saada, and his nephew Moosa Yoro Malick, all joining each other, but having no internal communi: cation. "The mosque, by no means a good one, stands in an open space in the southwest end of the town. It was in very bad repair, being nearly destitute of thatch. It is a large oblong clay building lying east and west, the walls about nine feet high, and the roof, which is composed of rough timber, is supported in the centre by three strong forked stakes, about eighteen feet high. The ends of this roof extend five or six feet roofed; others are round, having the walls of the same material as the former, but are covered with a conical roof, formed of poles and thatched with long dry grass; the third and last are entirely composed of wood and dry grass, in the form of a half square. The doors of all are inconveniently low, particularly the latter, which is rendered the more time, as door, window, and chimney. unpleasant by its serving, at the same "Those of Almamy, his son, nephew and some of the princes, display the same variety of form, and, with the exception of being larger, are equally in. convenient. The interior of each of these palaces may contain about an English acre, divided, by low clay walls, into several small courts, in some of which are the chambers of their wives and con-, over the walls, on which it rests, and is devotion. thirteen feet high, and are lined, nearly "The town is divided by streets, or more properly lanes, which are very narrow, dirty and irregular. The outside of the walls too, in consequence of the want of public places of conve★ience, is nothing but a continued heap of filth, which emits, particularly during the rains, an overpowering and unplea-side walls which rises above the roofs, sant effluvia. in form of parapets, they can do much against an attacking enemy." (To be Continued.) "The huts or houses are of different forms: some, entirely composed of clay and rough timber, are square and flat From the Boston Recorder. FROM A CORRESPONDENT IN VIRGINIA. Colonization Society. MESSRS. EDITORS,-You will on the subject of Slavery and the confer a favour on some of your subscribers, by giving a place in "The General Assembly of the the Recorder and Telegraph to Presbyterian Church, convened the following resolution of the in Philadelphia, June, 1818, havGeneral Assembly of the Presbying taken into consideration the terian Church, adopted in 1818, subject of SLAVERY, think proper to make known their sentiments ways exposed often take place in upon it to the churches and peo-fact, and in their very worst ple under their care. degree and form; and where all of them do not take place, as we rejoice to say that in many instances, through the influence of the principles of humanity and religion on the minds of masters, they do not-still the slave is deprived of his natural right, degraded as a human being, and exposed to the danger of passing into the hands of a master who may inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which inhumanity and avarice may suggest. We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another, as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbour as ourselves; and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the Gospel of Christ, which enjoin, that "all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Slavery creates a paradox in the moral system-it exhibits rational, accountable, and immortal beings, in such circumstances as scarcely to leave them the power of moral action. It exhibits them as dependent on the will of others, whether they shall receive religious instruction; whether they shall know and worship the true God; whether they shall enjoy the ordinances of the Gospel; whether they shall perform the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends; whether unwearied endeavours, to correct they shall preserve their chastity the errors of former times, and as and purity, or regard the dictates speedily as possible to efface this of justice or humanity. Such are blot on our holy religion, and to some of the consequences of obtain the complete abolition of slavery-consequences not imagi-slavery throughout Christendom, nary-but which connect them and if possible throughout the selves with its very existence.world. From this view of the consequences resulting from the practice into which Christian people have most inconsistently fallen, of enslaving a portion of their brethren of mankind, (for "God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth;") it is manifestly the duty of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day, when the inconsistency of slavery, both with the dictates of humanity and religion, has been demonstrated, and is generally seen and acknowledged, to use their honest, earnest and The evils to which the slave is al- We rejoice that the church to ting them in such a manner as love and practice of slavery, or a pretence for not using efforts that are lawful and practicable, to extinguish the evil. which we belong, commenced, as early as any other in this country, the good work of endeavouring to put an end to slavery, and that in the same work, many of its members have ever since been, and now are, among the most active, vigorous, and efficient laborers. We do, indeed, tenderly sympathize with those portions of our church and our country, where the evil of slavery has been entailed upon them; where a great, and the most virtuous part of the community abhor slavery, and wish its exter-against making it a cover for the mination, as sincerely as any others; but where the number of slaves, their ignorance, and their vicious habits generally, render an immediate and universal emanci- And we, at the same time, expation inconsistent, alike, with hort others to forbear harsh centhe safety and happiness of the sures, and uncharitable reflections master and the slave. With on their brethren, who unhappithose who are thus circumstanced,ly live among slaves, whom they we repeat that we tenderly sym-cannot immediately set free; but pathize. At the same time, we earnestly exhort them to continue, and if possible, to increase their exertions to effect a total abolition of slavery. We exhort them to suffer no greater delay to take Having thus expressed our place in this most interesting con- views of slavery, and of the duty cern, than a regard to the pub-indispensably incumbent on all lic welfare truly and indispensa-Christians to labor for its combly demands. plete extinction, we proceed to As our country has inflicted a recommend (and we do it with most grievous injury on the un-all the earnestness and solemnity momentous subject happy Africans, by bringing them which this into slavery, we cannot, indeed, demands) a particular attention urge that we should add a second to the following points: injury to the first, by emancipa who, at the same time, are really using all their influence, and all their endeavours, to bring them into a state of freedom, as soon as a door for it can be safely opened. |