cied. The dove was dismissed in the morning, and did not return till the evening; so that, he had rested, &c. somewhere during the day. Though the olive preserves the verdure of its leaves even under water, yet this leaf was, probably, expanding itself afresh, since the waters had retired: it was not an old leaf, though in that case it would have shewed the decrease of the waters, otherwise the dove could not have got it, as he could not dive for it; but a young leaf; which also demonstrated the revival of the vegatative powers of nature. Was the tree which yielded this leaf growing? in its natural position? in its native bed? Or, was it some tree, which, after having been driven by the waters, had taken root amid the mud of the deluge on some clump of earth?

We ought to observe, that the Samaritan, and one Hebrew copy, reads leaves; the Syriac, Onkelos, and the Vulgate, read branch; perhaps the truth embraces both ideas, "a sprig of olive leaves," was what the dove brought to Noah, and hence the olive-branch has ever been among the forerunners of peace, and chief of those emblems by which a happy state of renovation, and restoration to prosperity, has been signified among mankind.

CHAPTER IX. VERSE 20.

The prophetic malediction of Noah has occasioned more than one witty sarcasm on the conduct of the great patriarch; and through him on the Holy Spirit, who spake by his mouth. “One would think the prophet to be drunk still, he curses the son not the father, the innocent not the transgressor," says a writer of name on this subject; it is, therefore, worth our while to use our endeavours in obtaining a fair understanding of this history and its references.

In the first place, as to the true reading of the passage: the name Canaan is not read in the Aldine edition of LXX, and in seven MSS. collated by Dr. Holmes, but Ham is made the subject of this curse. The Arabic version reads both names, "Ham the father of Canaan ;" the Greek of Venice places the curse of Canaan separately, after all. I must own, I think the words "the father of Canaan," in the Arabic version, have very much the air of a note, received into the text by way of explanation. Add to which, the testimony of the Indian records, which we have formerly seen attribute the guilt, and direct the punishment, to Ham only. The passage perhaps ought to stand thus, according to its sense:

Verse 22." And Ham [*] saw," &c.

24. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son [i.e. HAM] had done unto him, and he said,

"Cursed be Ham, [t]

A servant of servants shall he be."
But of his brethren he said,

"Blessed of [the Lord] my God be SHEM: He shall dwell in tents of STABILITY," [dignity.] †The father of Canaan.

The father of Canaan.

"May God enlarge the enlarger, [JAPHETH,] And Canaan shall be the slave of both."

That the passage is damaged I never doubted; but whether the foregoing be a fair representation of its ancient state I by no means affirm. I think, however, it shews what was text, and what notes; and if the last verse of the prophecy be correct, as read by the Greek of Venice, then it shews the propriety of the two foregoing notes, which point at Ham as the cause of the curse on Canaan; though that curse is postponed to the last : indeed, it was natural he should be included, if he was so unhappy as to have participated in the crime of his father, as the Jews affirm. At any rate we must vindicate the patriarch from omitting to punish Ham, for we have the testimony of the Indian Puranas, for his saying the very words which Moses puts into his lips, "Thou shalt be the servant of servants:" FRAGMENT, No. 19. Add to this, the concurrence of other Eastern accounts; for instance, in "the History of the World," translated from the Khelassut ul Akhbar of Khondemeer, [Asiatic Miscellany, printed at Calcutta, vol. i. p. 147.] speaking of Ham, he says, "Noah assigned to him the nations of Africa. The occasion of the colour of his sons was, that Noah being one day asleep discovered his nakedness, and Ham passed that way without covering him; on which account his descendants are born with black complexions, and the gift of prophecy was taken from them." Our present business is with Ham only, and we mean by uniting these testimonies to establish them all. 1st, Noah assigned Africa to Ham. 2dly, Whoever inhabits Africa becomes of a black complexion, from the nature of the country. 3dly, Whoever inhabits Africa, is liable to slavery, from the nature of the country; so that to mention Africa, is to include the ideas of blackness and slavery.

That the Africans are black from the nature of their country, is so notorious that it needs no proof; and it is equally to our purpose, whether this colour arises from excessive heat, from mineral exhalations, or from any other cause.

But it remains to be proved, that slavery is natural to Africa; and this arises from the little fertility of some parts of this country. Where, during a season of scarcity, parents sell their children and themselves for the sake of sustenance; in such a country, slavery seems to be a natural production of the climate. In support of this principle let us hear the accounts of Mungo Park, in his Travels in Africa.

"In this condition of life a great body of the negro inhabitants of Africa have continued FROM THE MOST EARLY PERIOD OF THEIR HISTORY; with this aggravation, that their children are born to no other inheritance," p. 287.

"Slaves are in proportion of three to one to the free men; they claim only food and clothing.

"Domestic, i.e. home-born slaves are treated with greater lenity than those bought with money. In time of FAMINE, the master may sell domestic slaves for provisions. Creditors of the master may seize them. "Regular markets are held for slaves, who are transferred from one dealer to another, to a very great distance. They are brought down in large caravans from the inland countries; many of which are unknown even by name to Europeans. There are two classes: 1st, Slaves by birth; 2dly, Freeborn, but become slaves. When Mansong, king of Bambara, took 900 prisoners, only 73 were free men, the rest were slaves. The causes of slavery are, 1st, war, public; 2dly, plundering, or stealing, which arises from hereditary feuds, maintained by one district against another: without notice given they plan schemes of vengeance, conduct them with secrecy, surprise in the night some unprotected village, and carry off the inhabitants, &c. before their neighbours can come to their assistance," p. 293. These are made slaves; retaliations make more slaves; and thus there is an endless concatenation of passions, all of which lead to the maintenance and propagation of slavery.

"Slaves are commonly secured by putting the right leg of one, and the left leg of another, into the same pair of fetters. By supporting the fetters with a string they can walk, though very slowly. Every four slaves are also fastened together by the necks, with a strong rope of twisted thongs; and in the night an additional pair of fetters is put on their hands, and sometimes a light iron chain is passed round their necks," p. 319.

The moors are the masters, or rather tyrants of the negroes; the negroes are little other than their slaves. "I have observed that the moors, in their complexions, resemble the mulattoes of the West Indies; but they have a something unpleasant in their aspect, which the mulattoes have not. I fancied that I discovered in the features of most of them, a disposition toward cruelty and low cunning; and I could never contemplate their physiognomy without feeling sensible uneasiness. From the staring wildness of their eyes, a stranger would immediately set them down as a nation of lunatics. The treachery and malevolence of their character, are manifested in the plundering excursions against the negro villages. Oftentimes, without the smallest provocation, and sometimes under the fairest professions of friendship, they will suddenly seize on the negroes' cattle, and even

on the inhabitants themselves. The negroes very seldom retaliate. The enterprising boldness of the moors, their knowledge of the country, and, above all the superior fleetness of their horses, make them such formidable enemies, that the petty negro states which border on the desert, are in continual terror while the moorish tribes are in the vicinity, and are too much awed to think of resistance," p. 159.

"The slaves are tied together by their necks with thongs of a bullock's hide, twisted like a rope; seven slaves upon a thong; and a man with a musket between every seven," p. 192.

Many of the slaves are but ill conditioned, a great number of them are women.

"The reader must bear in mind, that my observations apply chiefly to persons of free condition, who constitute, I suppose, not more than one fourth part of the inhabitants at large; THE OTHER THREE REDITARY SLAVERY; and are employed in cultivating the land, in the care of cattle, and in servile offices of all kinds, much in the same manner as the slaves in the West Indies. I was told, however, that the Mandingo master can neither deprive his slave of life, nor sell him to a stranger, without first calling a palaver on his conduct; i.e. bringing him to a public trial: but this degree of protection is extended only to the native or domestic slave. Captives taken in war, and those unfortunate victims who are condemned to slavery for crimes or insolvency, and, in short, all those unhappy people who are brought down from the interior countries for sale have no security whatever, but may be treated and disposed of in all respects as the owner thinks proper. It sometimes happens, indeed, when no ships are on the coast, that a humane and considerate master incorporates his purchased slaves among his domestics; and their offspring, at least, if not the parents, become entitled to all the privileges of the native class. Most of these unfortunate victims are brought to the coast in periodical caravans; many of them from very remote inland countries; for the language which they speak is not understood by the inhabitants of the maritime districts," p. 23.

FOURTHS ARE IN A STATE OF HOPELESS AND HE

At Wonda. "The scarcity of provisions was certainly felt at this time most severely by the poor people, as the following circumstance most painfully convinced me. Every evening, during my stay, I observed five or six women come to the Mansa's house, and receive each of them a certain quantity of corn. As I knew how valuable this article was at this juncture, I inquired of the Mansa, whether he maintained these poor women from pure bounty, or expected a return when the harvest should be gathered in? Observe that boy,' said he, pointing to a fine child about five years of age, his mother has sold him to me for forty days provision for herself and