| Citation |
NYWJ.737.007
7 Mar 1737:11 (173)
Utopia, April 10.___
Mr.___ ____
It is with pleasure I send you these few lines; for as I
have been some weeks in this place, I have in some measure
been able to form a judgment of it.-- . . . [3 lines] This
morning I heard my landlord's black fellow very busy at
tuning of his banger, as he call'd it, and playing some of
his tunes; I, who am alwys delighted with music, be it never
so rustic, under a pretence of washing came into the
kitchen, and at last asked, what the meaning was of his
being so merry? He started up and with a blithsom
countenance answered, "Massa, to day holiday; Backerah no
work; Ningar no work; me no savy play banger; go yander, you
see Ningar play banger for true, dance too; you see sport to
day for true."---He continued, "Massa, you savy the field,
little way out a town, no houses there, grandy room for
dance there." Upon this I drest and went to the place, for
I had several times diverted my self with walking there. It
was no small amusement to me, to see the plain partly
covered with booths, and well crouded with whites, the
Negroes divided into companies, I suppose according to their
different nations, some dancing to the hollow sound of a
drum, made of the trunk of a hollow tree, othersome to the
grating rattling noise of pebles or shells in a small
basket, others plied the banger,and some knew how to joyn
the voice it.--The wariors were not idle, for I saw several
companies of the blacks, some exercising the cudgel, and
some of them small sticks in imitation of the short pike;
and some who had been unlucky enough to get a dram too much,
as I suppose, were got to loggerheads; all cursing and
swearing, and that in a Christian dialect, enough to raise
one's hair an end.--I leave it to you to judge whether all
these confused noises so near to one another didn't make a
__cord. . . [92 lines] I had almost forgot to to tell you
that I have been drove out of my quarters several times by
the confused noise of a horne, and the singing (or rather
howling) of some half drunk fellows; I am told that the
noise almost resembles the Indians Kintekaying. In short
time you may expect more from Yours, etc. [signed] The Spy.
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