A valedictory growl, and a resumption of the leopard, gave token of the wizard's departure, and closed the evening's entertainments.
If the ease with which a man is amused, surprised, or deluded, is a fair measure of intellectual grade, I fear that African minds will take a very moderate rank in the scale of humanity. The task of self-civilization, which resembles the self-filtering of water, has done but little for Ethiopia in the ages that have passed simultaneously over her people and the progressive races of other lands. It remains to be seen what the _infused_ civilization of Christianity and Islamism will effect among these benighted nations. JESUS, MAHOMET, and the FETICHE, will, perhaps, long continue to be their types of distinctive separation.
The Esperanza's capture made it absolutely necessary that I should visit Cuba, so that, when the Feliz was preparing to depart, I began to put my factory and affairs in such order as would enable me to embark in her and leave me master of myself for a considerable time. I may as well record the fact here that the unlucky Esperanza was sent to Sierra Leone, where she was, of course, condemned as a slaver, while the officers and crew were despatched by order of the Admiralty, in irons, to _Lisbon_, where a tribunal condemned them to the galleys for five years. I understand they were subsequently released by the clemency of Don Pedro de Braganza when he arrived from Brazil.
Every thing was ready for our departure. My rice was stored and about to be sent on board; when, about three o'clock in the morning of the 25th of May, 1828, the voice of my servant roused me from pleasant dreams, to fly for life! I sprang from the cot with a bound to the door, where the flickering of a bright flame, reflected through the thick, misty air, gave token of fire. The roof of my house was in a blaze, and one hundred and fifty kegs of powder were close at hand beneath a thatch! They could not be removed, and a single spark from the frail and tinder-like materials might send the whole in an instant to the skies.
A rapid discharge from a double-barrelled gun brought my people to the spot with alacrity, and enabled me to rescue the two hundred and twenty slaves stowed in the _barracoon_, and march them to a neighboring wood, where they would be secure under a guard. In my haste to rescue the slaves I forgot to warn my body-servant of his peril from the powder. The faithful boy made several trips to the dwelling to save my personal effects, and after removing every thing he had strength to carry, returned to unchain the bloodhound that always slept beside my couch in Africa. But the dog was as ignorant of his danger as the youth. _He knew no friend but myself_, and tearing the hand that was exposed to save him, he forced his rescuer to fly. And well was it he did so. Within a minute, a tremendous blast shook the earth, _and the prediction of the Matacan wizard was accomplished_! Not even the red coals of my dwelling smouldered on the earth. Every thing was swept as by the breath of a whirlwind. My terrified boy, bleeding at nose and ears, was rescued from the ruins of a shallow well in which he fortunately fell. The bamboo sheds, barracoons, and hovels,--the _adobe_ dwelling and the comfortable garden--could all spring up again in a short time, as if by enchantment,--but my rich stuffs, my cottons, my provisions, my arms, my ammunition, my capital, were dust.