Benign inquirer, thou shalt know, The gales that o'er the ocean stray, Her sorrowing voice, her kneeling pray'r. She cry'd aloud" My child! my child !” With screams of woe the air fhe rends! ZIMEO, A TALE. Continued from p. 31. THER HERE we met Matomba; he bathed me with his tears; he embraced his daughter, and approved of our marriage. Would you believe it, my friends,-the pleasure of rejoining Matomba, the pleasure of being the husband of Ellaroe, the charms of her love, the joy of seeing her Safe from such cruel distress, suspended in me all feeling of our misfortunes? I was ready to fall in love with bondage, Ellaroe was happy, and her father seemed reconciled to his fate. Yes, perhaps, I might have pardoned the monsters that had betrayed us; but Ellaroe and her father were sold to an inhabitant of Porto Bello, and I to a man of tion, who carried slaves to the Antilles. your na "It was then that I felt the extent of my misery; it was then that my natural disposition was changed; it was then I imbibed that passion for revenge, that thirst of blood, at which I myself shudder, when I think of Ellaroe, whose image alone is able to still my rage. "When our fate was determined, my wife and her fa ther threw themselves at the feet of the barbarians that separated us; even I prostrated myself before them.-Ineffectual abastment!—they did not even deign to listen to us.. As they were preparing to drag me away, my wife, with wildness in her eyes,, with outstretched arms, and shrieks that still rend my heart, rushed impetuously to embrace me. I disengaged myself from those who held me; I received Ellaroe in my arms; the infolded me-in hers, and instinctively, by a sort of mechanical 'impulse, we clasped: our hands together, and formed a chain round each other. Many cruel hands were employed, with vain efforts, to tear. as asunder. I felt that these efforts would, however, soon prove effectual; I was determined to rid myself of life; but how to leave in this dreadful world my dear Ellaroe! I was about to lose her for ever; I had every thing to dread; I had nothing to hope; my imaginations were desperate; the tears ran in streams over my face; I uttered nothing but frantic exclamations, or groans of despair, like the roaring of a lion, exhausted in unequal combat. My hands gradually loosened from the body of Ellaroe, and began to approach her neck. Merciful Orifsa! the whites extricated my wife from my furious embrace. She gave a loud shriek of despair, as we were separated; I saw her attempt to carry her hands towards her neck, to accomplish. my fatal design; fhe was prevented; fhe took her last look of me. Her eyes, her whole countenance, her attitude, the inarticulate accents that escaped her, all bespoke the extremities of grief and of love.. "I was dragged on board the vessel of your nation; I was pinioned, and placed in such a manner as to make any attempt upon my life impofsible; but they could not force me to take any sustenance. My new tyrants at first employed threats, at last they made me suffer torments, which. whites alone can invent; but I resisted all. A negro, born at Benin, who had been a slave for two years with my new master, had compassion on me. He told me that we were going to Jamaica, were I might easily recover my liberty; he talked to me of the wild negroes, and of the commonwealth they had formed in the center of the island; he told me that these negroes sometimes went on board English fhips, to make depredations on the Spanish islands; he made me unde nd, that in one of those cruises, Ellaroe and her father might be rescued. He awakened in my heart the ideas of vengeance and the hopes of love. I consented to live; but you now see for what I am already revenged, but I am not satisfied till I regain. the idols of my heart. If that cannot be, I renounce the light of the sun. My friends, take all my riches, and provide me a vefsel-" Here Zimeo was interrupted by the arrival of Francisco, supported by the young negro who had so suddenly retired upon the sight of his prince. No sooner had Zimeo per ceived them, than he flew to Francisco. 66 O, my father! O Matomba!" cried he, " is it you? do I indeed see you again? O Ellaroe!" "She lives," said Matomba; "the lives, fhe weeps your misfortunes, fhe belongs to this family." "Lead me, lead me,"—" See," interrupted Matomba, fhewing Wilmot's friend," there is the man who saved us." Zimeo embraced by turns, now Matomba, now Wilmot, and now his friend. Then with wild eagerness, “Lead " he cried, me,' 66 to my love." " Marianne, or rather Ellaroe, was approaching; the same negro who had met Matomba had gone in quest of her; fhe came trembling, lifting her hands and eyes to heaven; and with tears in her eyes, in a faint voice, she could hardly utter, "Zimeo! Zimeo!" She had put her child into the arms of the negro, and after the first transports and embraces were over, fhe presented the infant to her husband. "Zimeo! behold thy son for him alone have Matomba and I supported life." Zimeo took the child, and kissed him a thousand and a thousand times. He shall not be a slave," cried he;" the son of my Ellaroe shall not be a slave to the whites." "But for him" said fhe, "but for him, I fhould have quitted this world, in which I could not find the man whom my soul loved. The most tender discourses at last gave place to the sweetest carefses, which were only suspended to bestow these carefses on their child. But soon their gratitude to Wilmot and his friend engrofsed them wholly; and surely never did man, not even a negro, express this amiable sentiment so nobly and so well. 66 Zimeo, being informed that the English troops were on their march, made his retreat in good order. Ellaroe and Matomba melted into tears on quitting Wilmot. They would willingly have remained his slaves; they conjured him to follow them to the mountain. He promised to visit them there as soon as the peace should be concluded between the wild negroes and the colony. He kept his word, and went thither often, to contemplate the virtues, the love, and the friendship, of Zimeo, of Matomba, and of Ellaroe. A HINT TO TRADERS IN WOOD, AND MANUFACTURERS. Now that machinery has come so much into use in manufactures, it is of some importance to know how to find wood, that is well calculated for these purposes, and at a moderate expence. At present the only wood that can be used for fine machinery, is mahogany; but the price of that is so high, as in a great measure to preclude the use of it in large works. The ordinary woods of Europe, however, are so apt to shrink, or warp, or become wormeaten in a fhort time, that a machine made of mahogany goes so much truer, and by consequence more sweetly, and at a lefs expence for a moving power, that it is, perhaps, upon the whole, cheaper to employ that wood than any of them. I have often thought it strange that our carpenters fhould not have thought of employing larch wood for these purposes, as this is in all respects preferable to mahogany, and could be procured at less than one-fourth of the price. Larch timber, when cut into thin slices, is lefs apt to fhrink or warp than mahogany. Many of the paintings of Raphael Urban were painted upon larch wood, as we now paint upon canvas; and these have stood three hundred years without occasioning the smallest crack in the paintings; a thing that could not have happened with mahogany; nor is there the smallest mark of worm holes |