Before their conversion to Christianity, the Africans firmly believed that after death they would return to Africa, and there enjoy uninterrupted felicity. Under this idea, suicide was very frequent among them, particularly when they fell to the share of an austere and cruel master. But now this imagination is almost lost sight of: they are taught so to live, that, after death, they may inherit a better land than Africa: still I have met with some of the old people who seemed to entertain the opinion. A short time previous to emancipation, I remember talking with a negro who fostered this belief. He was rather a remarkable personage: when in the prime of manhood, he must have possessed great strength, if we may judge from height and breadth. His cheeks, arms, and back of his hands, were deeply tattooed with different devices; his complexion was of a clear black, and his countenance very intelligent; nor had he that remarkable flatness of nose and thickness of lips by which the natives of Guinea are so particularly distinguished. He told me he had been “long ’nough” in the West Indies, (which phrase I found, by inquiry, extended to about four and twenty years,) and that he was a prince in his own country—brother, I think I understood him, to the King of Benguela, or something he pronounced very much like it; that, during a war with a neighbouring tribe, he was taken prisoner, sold to some merchants at Calabar, from whom he was purchased, with several others, by the captain of a slaver, and brought to the West Indies. Several persons whom he knew were on board the same vessel, but that they all died, with the exception of one woman. I afterwards saw this female, who confirmed him in the report of being a great man among his countrymen, where, she said, she could not speak to him, from her inferior station in life. Poor fellow; aged, (for I suppose he must have been about seventy,) infirm, and miserable—brought from comparative affluence to poverty, from governing others, to be himself a slave;—the tear of pity would not be restrained. The circumstances under which I became acquainted with him excited also my sympathy. The estate had been, for a long time, robbed of its ground provisions, and to discover, if possible, the offenders, the owner had given orders not to distribute to the negroes their usual share of salt food, until the guilty parties confessed their crime. This poor old man came up to the “great house”[13] one morning to beg the owner’s lady to intercede with “his massa” for him, that he might have some herrings to eat with his potatoes; “For,” said he, “me ole now, missis—me want something to ’trengthen me; do, missis, beg massa gib me lilly salt provision.” His tremulous voice, as it broke upon my ear, called my attention to him, and thus caused the introduction.