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 so kind a manner did they contribute to my relief, that if
I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, I ate the
coarsest morsel with a double relish."

It is surely reasonable to suppose 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 consanguinity. Accordingly the
maternal affection (neither suppressed by the restraints nor
diverted by the solicitudes of civilised life) is everywhere
conspicuous among them, and creates a correspondent return of
tenderness in the child. An illustration of this has been already
given. "Strike me," said my attendant, "but do not curse my
mother." The same sentiment I 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.

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