I Then Requested A Little Food By Way Of Charity, But Was Told
That He Had None To Spare.
Whilst I was examining the countenance of this
inhospitable old man, and endeavouring to find out the cause of
The
sullen discontent which was visible in his eye, he called to a slave who
was working in the corn-field at a little distance, and ordered him to
bring his hoe along with him. The Dooty then told him to dig a hole in
the ground, pointing to a spot at no great distance. The slave, with his
hoe, began to dig a pit in the earth; and the Dooty, who appeared to be a
man of a very fretful disposition, kept muttering and talking to himself
until the pit was almost finished, when he repeated _dankatoo_ (good for
nothing;) _jiankra lemen_ (a real plague;) which expressions I thought
could be applied to nobody but myself; and as the pit had very much the
appearance of a grave, I thought it prudent to mount my horse, and was
about to decamp, when the slave, who had before gone into the village, to
my surprise, returned with a corpse of a boy about nine or ten years of
age, quite naked. The Negro carried the body by a leg and an arm, and
threw it into the pit with a savage indifference, which I had never
before seen. As he covered the body with earth, the Dooty often expressed
himself, _naphula attiniata_ (money lost;) whence I concluded that the
boy had been one of his slaves.
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