because the fidelity and affection resulting from a bond of union so early formed between master and servant, contributed so very much to the safety of individuals, as well as the general comfort of society, as will hereafter appear.

Chapter VIII

EDUCATION AND EARLY HABITS OF THE

TH

ALBANIANS

HE foundations both of friendship and still tenderer attachments were here laid very early by an institution which I always thought had been peculiar to Albany, till I found in Dr. Moore's View of Society on the Continent an account of a similar custom subsisting in Geneva. The children of the town were all divided into companies, as they called them, from five to six years of age, till they became marriageable. How those companies first originated, or what were their exact regulations, I cannot say; though I, belonging to none, occasionally mixed with several, yet always as a stranger, though I spoke their current language fluently. Every company contained as many boys as girls. But I do not know that there was any limited number; only this I recollect, that a boy and a girl of each company, who were older, cleverer, or had some other preeminence above the rest, were called heads of the company, and as such, obeyed by the others. Whether they were voted in, or attained their preeminence by a tacit acknowledgment of their superiority, I know not, but however it was

attained it was never disputed. The company of little children had also their heads. All the children of the same age were not in one company; there were at least three or four of equal ages, who had a strong rivalry with each other; and children of different ages in the same family, belonged to different companies. Wherever there is human nature there will be a degree of emulation, strife, and a desire to lessen others, that we may exalt ourselves. Dispassionate as my friends comparatively were, and bred up in the highest attainable candor and innocence, they regarded the company most in competition with their own with a degree of jealous animosity. Each company, at a certain time of the year, went in a body to gather a particular kind of berries, to the hills. It was a sort of annual festival, attended with religious punctuality. Every company had an uniform for this purpose; that is to say, very pretty light baskets made by the Indians, with lids and handles, which hung over the arm, and were adorned with various colors. One company would never allow the least degree of taste to the other in this instance; and was sure to vent its whole stock of spleen in decrying the rival baskets. Nor would they ever admit that the rival company gathered near so much fruit on these excursions as they did. The parents of these children seemed very much to encourage this manner of marshalling and dividing themselves. Every child was permitted to entertain the whole company

on its birth-day, and once besides, during winter and spring. The master and mistress of the family always were bound to go from home on these occasions, while some old domestic was left to attend and watch over them, with an ample provision of tea, chocolate, preserved and dried fruits, nuts, and cakes of various kinds, to which was added cider or a syllabub, for these young friends met at four, and did not part till nine or ten, and amused themselves with the utmost gaiety and freedom in any way their fancy dictated. I speak from hearsay ; for no person that does not belong to the company is ever admitted to these meetings: other children or young people visit occasionally and are civilly treated, but they admit of no intimacies beyond their company. The consequence of these exclusive and early intimacies was, that, grown up, it was reckoned a sort of apostasy to marry out of one's company. And indeed it did not often happen. The girls, from the example of their mothers, rather than any compulsion, became very early notable and industrious, being constantly employed in knitting stockings, and making clothes for the family and slaves; they even made all the boys' clothes. This was the more necessary, as all articles of clothing were extremely dear. Though all the necessaries of life, and some luxuries abounded, money, as yet, was a scarce commodity. This industry was the more to be admired, as children were here indulged to a degree that, in our vitiated state

of society, would have rendered them good for nothing. But there, where ambition, vanity, and the more turbulent passions were scarce awakened; where pride, founded on birth, or any external preeminence, was hardly known; and where the affections flourished fair and vigorous, unchecked by the thorns and thistles with which our minds are cursed in a more advanced state of refinement, affection restrained parents from keeping their children at a distance, and inflicting harsh punishments. But then they did not treat them like apes or parrots; by teaching them to talk with borrowed words and ideas, and afterwards gratifying their own vanity by exhibiting these premature wonders to company, or repeating their sayings. They were tenderly cherished, and early taught that they owed all their enjoyments to the divine source of beneficence, to whom they were finally accountable for their actions; for the rest they were very much left to nature, and permitted to range about at full liberty in their earliest covered in summer with some years, slight and cheap garb, which merely kept the sun from them, and in the winter with some warm habit, in which convenience only was consulted. Their dress of ceremony was never put on but when their company was assembled. They were extremely fond of their children; but luckily for the latter, never dreamed of being vain of their immature wit and parts, which accounts, in some measure for the great scarcity of coxcombs among them. The chil