IN THE YEARS 1838 AND 1839. 341 But in the night the misery of the slaves reached its very climax. In the month of January, when the changes of temperature are ordinarily very perceptible, and the thermometer generally falls below 4° Reaumur (41° Fahrenheit), the cold is felt as severely as when at 4° or 5° below 0° of Reaumur (23° to 20, 75° Fahrenheit), in the northern parts of Germany. Imagine, now, the poor negroes in a state of absolute nudity, without the means of covering themselves, and debilitated by hunger and fatigue, when some idea may be formed of the sufferings they had to endure ; fires were certainly lighted, but the scanty supply of wood rendered it impossible to defend these poor MTetches from the effects of cold. The shrieks and sobs of the children, the cries of the wounded, and the groans of the sick, were perfectly horrifying, and in the morning an infant was once found dead and stiff with the cold at its mother's breast. It is true that the negroes have no covering in their omti villages beyond a girdle or a piece of linen passed round their loins, but then they lie at night in their huts, or cover themselves with the skins of animals, none of which they can find on their march. Those who wore the sheba could not sleep at night for pain, as it so severely compresses the neck that it impedes every movement, and thus not one man was free from suffering. A woman far advanced in pregnancy was delivered in the night without assistance. I gave the poor mother a shirt, in which