A christening sometimes gives rise to another entertainment, although, of course, not so grand as a wedding or a ball; fruit, cakes, and wine forming the principal repast. The baby is very smartly dressed in a long white robe, smart cap or bonnet, and is carried in the arms of one who acts for the day as an attendant, with a parasol held over it to screen it from the sun’s rays, although at other times it is exposed to every change of temperature with scarcely anything to cover it. In former times, the negroes were generally known by the names of “Sambo,” “Pompey,” “Quashy,” “Quasheba,” &c., &c., but those days have long ago passed. The “march of intellect” has marched into the West Indies, and we now have “Arabella Christiana,” “Adeline Floretta,” “Rosalind Monimia,” &c., for the girls; and “Augustus Henry,” “Alonzo Frederick,” “Octavius Edward,” and similar _high-sounding_ names for the boys. “What’s in a name?” is a query. I think a great deal; but really it is perfectly ridiculous to hear such aristocratic appellations applied to your servants. The parents are not always satisfied with even two names, but are unconscionable enough to add a _third_. To hear them accosted by these lengthy names brings to recollection “Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs,” whom Goldsmith has immortalized.
[31] A large bird mentioned in the travels of Sinbad the Sailor, a tale in the “Arabian Nights.”
[32] A chest made of cedar, for the purpose of containing their wearing apparel, is looked upon by the negroes as quite indispensable; and consequently, there are but few among them who do not lay by part of their earnings, that they may be enabled to procure one.
[33] It may be necessary to remark, that the word _buckra_, in the negro tongue, signifies “a white person;” but as the smart people I have been describing imitate in everything _fairer brethren_, they are ironically termed “black buckras.”
Negroes: Further sentences upon “dress”—Sunday transformations— The black cook and his metamorphosis—Christmas waits—Negro houses—The mode of building upon estates—Town negro houses— Architecture—The mode of moving houses.
I have in so many places made reference to the style of dress adopted by the negroes, that to bring it under a particular head may be deemed superfluous. And yet I cannot let it pass without saying something more upon this subject.