During the period of my disease, I had little consciousness, and I have but faint remembrances of what passed. In the lucid intervals which visited me, I could always perceive some one of the kind family watching at my bedside, ready and prompt to attend to all my wants and wishes. For the space of three weeks, I remained in a critical condition, apparently hovering upon the narrow line between life and death. Owing, however, to the prescriptions of a black physician, who attended upon me with great care, and the affectionate nursing of my friends, aided by my elastic constitution, the disease was at last conquered, and I began to revive from my prostrate condition. I was, indeed, wasted to a shadow, and when the fever left me, I could not lift my arm from the bed, nor turn my head upon the pillow. During this period of excessive weakness, I was as tenderly treated, as if I had been an infant, and the heir of the house. Somebody was always at my bedside to wet my parched lips with lemonade, to bathe my forehead, or aid me to change my position. The rough, burly master of the hovel, when called upon to lift me from my bed, seemed to have a new sense of gentleness infused into his clumsy hands and arms. Under these kindly auspices, when once my disease had left me, I gradually acquired strength, and, in the space of a fortnight was able to totter to the door. I was led out by the two women, and, as I gazed around upon the uncouth scene, the ragged, irregular tenements, and the half-naked inhabitants, it still seemed as though I was breathing the air, and gazing on the landscapes of a sort of paradise. Such was the cheering influence of that sense of returning health, which flowed through my youthful veins. I now began to make some acquaintances among the people; their language was Dutch, with a mixture of negro and Indian gibberish. Of this, I understood nothing, except the names of a few familiar objects, which I gradually learned. At length, however, I met with a woman, who had been a servant in an English family, and could converse in the English tongue. From her I learned the history of this curious settlement. It seems to have sprung up from the slaves that escaped from their masters at Paramaribo, and the plantations along the Surinam. These were hunted by the white people, and shot down like wild animals, or, if captured, were subjected to the most cruel punishments, and the rigors of slavery were rendered still more severe. The number of these fugitives constantly increased. For a time, indeed, they wandered in the forests, often alone, and reduced to a state of wildness, like the native animals of the woods.