her; but she had confidently expected to her. All the land which Je ed three or four hundred more, of whom, however, not above twenty at last arrived. This society soon spread over the three districts, which it was to occupy; but was not sufficiently numerous to replenish the fourth part of each. The enchantment, however, had already been broken by Jemima's absence, and with it had also vanished their zeal for peopling this new land of pro mise. "We saw Jemima, and attended her meeting, which is held in her own house. We found there about thirty persons, men, women, and children. Jemima stood at the door of her bed chamber on a carpet, with an arm-chair behind her. She had on a white morning-gown, and a waistcoat, such as men wear, and a petticoat of the same colour. Her black hair was cut short, carefully combed, and divided behind into three ringlets; she wore a stock, and a white silk cravat, which was tied about her neck with affected negli gence. In point of delivery, she preached with more ease than any other quaker I have yet heard, but the subject matter of her discourse was an eternal repetition of the same topics-death, sin, and repentance.. She is said to be about forty years of age, but she did not appear to be more than thirty. She is of middle stature, well-made, of a florid countenance, and has fine teeth, and, beautiful eyes. Her action is studied; she aims at simplicity, but there is somewhat pedantic in her manner. to her chamber we found her friend, Rachel Miller, a young woman of about twenty-eight or thirty years of age, her follower and admirer, who is entirely devote mima possesses is purchased in the name of Rachel Miller, an advantage which she owes to her influence over her adherents, and to her dexterity in captivating their affections. "Jemima, or the Friend (as she is called by way of eminence), inculcates, as her leading tenet, poverty, and resignation of all earthly posse sions. If you talk to her of her house, she always calls it the house which I inhabit. This house, however, though built only of the trunks of trees, is extremely pretty and commodious. Her room is exquisitely neat; and resembles more the boudoir of a fine lady, than the cell of a nun. It contains a looking-glass, a clock, an arm-chair, a good bed, a warming-pan, and a silver saucer. Her garden is kept in good order; her spring-house * is full of milk, cheese, butter, butcher's-ineat and game. Her hypocrisy may be traced in all her discourses, actions, and conduct, and even in the very manner in which she manages her countenance. She seldom speaks, without quoting the Bible, or introducing a serious sentence about death, and the necessity of making our peace with God. Whatever does not belong to her own sect, is with her an object of distaste and stedfast aversion. She sows dissension in families, to deprive the lawful heir of his right of inheritance, in order to appropriate it to herself; and all this she does under the ane and by the agency of her companion, who receives all the presents brought by the faithful, and preserves them for her reverend friend, who, being wholly absorbed in her communion with Christ, whose prophetess she is, would ab These are small offices or detached houses in America, in which butter, milk, and fresh meat are generally kept. They are called spring-houses, because a stream of Hesh water is always running through them?” solutely ་ solutely forget the supply of her bodily wants, if she were not well taken care of. The number of her votaries has, of late, much decreased. Many of the families, who followed her to Jerusalem, are no longer the dupes of her self-interested policy. Some still keep up the outward appearance of attachment to her; while others have openly disclaimed their connexion with Jemima. Such however as still continue her adherents appear to be entirely devoted to her. With these she passes for a prophetess, an indescribable being; she is not Je. mima Wilkinson, but a spirit of a peculiar name, which remains a profound secret to all, who are not true believers; she is the friend, the all-friend. Six or seven girls of different ages, but all young and handsome, wait upon her, with surprising emulation, to enjoy the peculiar satisfaction of being permitted to approach this celestial being. Her fields and her garden, are ploughed and dug by the friends, who neglect their own business to take care of her's; and the all friend is so condescending, as not to refuse their services; she comforts them with a kind word now and then, makes inquiries after and provides for their health and welfare, and has the art of effectually captivating their affections, the more perhaps because she knows how to keep her votaries at a respectful distance. "When the service was over, Jemima invited us to dinner. The hope of watching her more narrowly induced us to accept the invitation; but we did not then know, that it forms a part of the character she acts, never to eat with any one. She soon left us; and locking herself up with her female friend, sat down, without other company, to an excellent dinner; we did not get ours till after she had dined. When our dinner was over, and also another, which was served up after ours, the sanctuary opened again. And now Jemima appeared once more at the door of her room, and conversed with us, seated in an arm-chair. When strangers are with her, she never comes over the threshold of her bed-room; and when by herself, she is constantly engaged in deliberation how to improve the demesne of her friend. The house was, this day, very full. Our company consisted of exactly ten persons; after us dined another company of the same number; and as many dined in the kitchen. Our plates, as well as the table-linen, were perfectly clean and neat; our repast, although frugal, was yet better in quality than any, of which we had partaken, since our depar. ture from Philadelphia; it consisted of good fresh meat, with pudding, an excellent sallad, and a beverage of a peculiar yet charming flavour, with which we were plentifully supplied out of Jemima's apartment, where it was prepared. The devout guests observed, all this while, a profound silence; they either cast down their eyes, or lifted them up to heaven with a rapturous sigh; to me they appeared not unlike a party of the faithful, in the primitive ages, dining in a church. "The all-friend had by this time exchanged her former dress for that of a fine Indian lady, which, however, was cut out in the same fashion as the former. Her hair and evebrows had again been combed. She did not utter a syllable respecting our dinner; nor did she offer to make any apology for her absence. Constantly engaged in personating the part she hes assumed, she descanted in a sanctimonious, mystic tone, tone, on death, and on the hap. piness of having been an useful Sinstrument to others in the way of their salvation. She afterwards gave us a rhapsody of prophecies to read, ascribed to one Dr. Love, who was beheaded in Cromwell's times wherein she clearly discerned, according to her accounts, the *French revolution, the decline and downfall of popery, and the impending end of the world. Find ing, however, that this conversation was but ill adapted to engage our attention, she cut short her harangue at once. We had indeed 'already seen more than enough to estimate the character of this bid actress, whose pretended sanctity only inspired us with contempt and disgust, and who is altogether incapable of imposing upon any person of common understanding, unless those of the most simple minds, or downright enthusiasts. Her speeches are so strongly contradicted by the tenor of her actions; her whole conduct, her expense, compared with that of other families within a circumference of fifty miles; her way of living, and her dress, form such a striking contrast with her harangues on the subject of contemning earthly enjoy. ments; and the extreme assiduity, with which she is continually endeavouring to induce children, over whom she has any influence, to leave their parents, and form a part of her community; all those parti'culars so strongly militate against "the doctrine of peace and universal love, which she is incessantly preaching, that we were actually struck with abhorrence of her duplicity and hypocrisy, as soon as the first emotions of our curiosity subsided. "Her fraudulent conduct, indeed, has been discovered by so many persons, and so much has been said against it, that it is difficult to account for her having had any adherents at all, even for a short time. And yet she will probably retain a sufficient number, to, increase stili further her fortune, which is already considerable for the country in which she resides, and fully adequate to the only end which she now seems anxious to attain; namely, to live independent, in a decent, plentiful, and even elegant manner. There are so many weak-minded religionists, and Jemima is so particularly careful to select her disciples among persons who are either very old or very young, that her imposture, however gross and palpable to the discerning, may yet be carried on for some time with success, sufficient to answer her ultimate purpose. If her credit should sink too low, she would find herself constrained to transplant her holiness to some other region; and, in fact, she had, last year, barboured the design of removing her family and establishment, and of settling in Carlton Island, on the Lake of Ontario, where she would enjoy the satisfaction of living under the English government, which, by her account, has proffered her a grant of land." MANNERS OF NATIONS. DISPOSITION, MOR AL CHARACTER, MANNERS and HABITS of LIFE, OPINIONS, &c. of the MANDINGOES. [From TRAVELS in the Interior Districts of AFRICA, &c. by "TH HE Mandingoes, in particular, are a very gentle race; cheerful in their dispositions, inquisitive, credulous, simple, and fond of flattery. Perhaps, the most prominent defect in their character, was that insurmountable propensity, which the reader must have observed to prevail in all classes of them, to steal from me the few effects I was possessed of. For this part of their conduct, no complete justification can be offered, because theft is a crime in their own estimation: and it must be observed, that they are not habitually and generally guilty of it towards each other. This, however, is an important circumstance in mitigation; and, before we pronounce them a more depraved people than any other, it were well to consider whether the lower order of people in any part of Europe would have acted, under similar circumstances, with greater honesty towards a stranger, than the negroes acted towards me. It must not be forgotten, that the laws of the country afforded me no protection; that every one was at liberty to rob me with impunity; and finally, that some part of my effects were of as great value, in the estimation of the negroes, as pearls and diamonds would have been in the eyes of a European. Let us suppose, a black merchant of Hindos tan to have found his way into the centre of England, with a box of jewels at his back; and that the laws of the kingdom afforded him no security; in such a case, the wonder would be, not that the stranger was robbed of any part of his riches, but that any part was left for a second depredator. Such, on sober reflection, is the judgment I have formed concerning the pilfering disposition of the Mandingo negroes towards myself. Notwithstanding I was so great a sufferer by it, I do not consider that their natural sense of justice was perverted or extinguished; it was overpowered only, for the moment, by the strength of a temptation which it required no common virtue to resist. "On the other hand, as some counterbalance to this depravity in their nature, allowing it to be such, it is impossible for me to forget the disinterested charity, and tender solicitude, with which many of these poor heathens (from the so vereign sanguinity. Accordingly, the maternal affection (neither suppressed by the restraints, nor diverted by the solicitudes of civilised fife) is every where conspicuous among them; and creates a correspondent return of tenderness in the child. An illustration of this has been given in p. 47. Strike me,' said my attendant, but do not curse my found universally to prevail, and observed in all parts of Africa, that the greatest affront which could be offered to a negro, was to reflect on her who gave him birth. vereign of Sego, to the poor women who received me at different times into their cottages, when I was perishing of hunger) sympathised with me in my sufferings; relieved my distresses; and contributed to my safety. This acknowledgment, however, is perhaps more particularly due to the female part of the nation. Among the men, as the reader must have seen, my recep-mother.' The same sentiment I tion, though generally kind, was sometimes otherwise. It varied according to the various tempers of those to whom I made application. The hardness of avarice in some, and the blindness of bigotry in others, had closed up the avenues to compassion: but I do not recollect a single instance of hard-heartedness towards me in the women. In all my wanderings and wretchedness, I found them uniformly kind and compassionate; and I can truly say, as my predecessor, Mr. Ledyard, has eloquently said before me: To a woman I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. If I was hungry, or thirsty, wet, or sick, they did not hesitate, ‹ like the men, to perform a generous action. In so free, and 6 so kind a manner did they contribute to my relief; that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, I eat the coarsest 'morsel with a double relish.' "It is surely reasonable to sup. pose, that the soft and amiable sympathy of nature, which was thus spontaneously manifested towards me, in my distress, is displayed by these poor people as occasion requires, much more strongly towards persons of their own nation and neighbourhood, and especially when the objects of their compassion are endeared to them by the ties of con "It is not strange, that this sense of filial duty and affection among the negroes should be less ardent towards the father than the mother. The system of polygamy, while it weakens the father's attachment, by dividing it among the children of different wives, concentrates all the mother's jealous tenderness to one point, the protection of her own offspring. I perceived, with great satisfaction, too, that the maternal solicitude extended not only to the growth and security of the person, but also, in a certain degree, to the improvement of the mind of the infant; for one of the first lessons, in which the Mandingo women instruct their children, is the practice of truth. The reader will probably recollect the case of the unhappy mother, whose son was murdered by the Moorish banditti, at Funingkedy, p. 102.-Her' only consolation, in her uttermost distress, was the reflection that the poor boy, in the course of his blame. less life, had never told a lie. Such testimony, from a fond mother, on such an occasion, must have operated powerfully on the youthful part of the surrounding spectators. It was at once a tribute of praise to the deceased, and a lesson to the living. D 2 "The |