My readers are not to suppose that the rest of the class acquitted themselves with as much ability as their leader, who, compared to them, was perfectly erudite; the others received a lash for every word, or nearly so. The boys were first disposed of, in order, I suppose, that they might have the full benefit of the applicant's muscles; while the poor girls had the additional pleasure of witnessing the castigation until their turn came; and that they were aware of what awaited them was evident, from their previous arrangement and disposition of dress, at the commencement of the entertainment. The girls accordingly came up one after another to say their Ave Maria, as more consonant to their sex; but I could scarcely contain my rage when the rascally cowskin was applied to them, or my laughter when, smarting under its lash, they exclaimed, "Benedicta Mulieribus," applying their little hands with immoderate pressure to the afflicted part. I could have found in my heart to have wrested the whip out of the hands of the young negro, and applied it with all my might to him, and his old villain of a master, and father of these poor children, as I soon found he was. My patience was almost gone when the second girl received a lash for her "Plena Gratia." She screamed, and danced, and lifted up her poor legs in agony, rubbing herself on her "_west_" side, as the Philadelphia ladies call it, with as much assiduity as if it had been one of those cases in which friction is prescribed by the faculty. But the climax was yet to come. A grand stage effect was to be produced before the falling of the curtain. The youngest girl was so defective in her lesson, that not one word of it could be extracted from her, even by the cowskin; nothing but piercing shrieks, enough to make my heart bleed, could the poor victim utter. Irritated at the child's want of capacity to repeat by rote what she could not understand, the old man darted from his seat, and struck her senseless to the ground. I could bear no more. My first impulse was to wrest the cowskin from the negro's hand, and revenge the poor bleeding child as she lay motionless on the ground; but a moment's reflection convinced me that such a step would only have brought down a double weight of punishment on the victims when I was gone; so, catching up my hat, I turned away with disgust, and walked slowly towards the town and bay of Port Praya, reflecting as I went along what pleasant ideas the poor creatures must entertain of religion, when the name of God and of the cowskin were invariably associated in their minds. I began to parody one of Watts's hymns-- "Lord! how delightful 'tis to see A whole assembly worship thee."