_In the press, by the same Author, complete in One Volume_, AN ENGLISH TRAGEDY: A PLAY, IN FIVE ACTS. MARY STUART. TRANSLATED FROM SCHILLER. A PLAY, IN FIVE ACTS. MLLE. DE BELLISLE. TRANSLATED FROM DUMAS. A PLAY, IN FIVE ACTS. JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE ON A GEORGIAN PLANTATION 1838-1839. By FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. * * * * * SLAVERY THE CHIEF CORNER STONE. 'This stone (Slavery), which was rejected by the first builders, is becomethe chief stone of the corner in our new edifice. '--_Speech of_ ALEXANDERH. STEPHENS _Vice-president of the Confederate States; deliveredMarch 21, 1861. _ * * * * * 1863 TO ELIZABETH DWIGHT SEDGWICK THIS JOURNAL, ORIGINALLY KEPT FOR HER, IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. PREFACE. The following diary was kept in the winter and spring of 1838-9, on anestate consisting of rice and cotton plantations, in the islands at theentrance of the Altamaha, on the coast of Georgia. The slaves in whom I then had an unfortunate interest were sold some yearsago. The islands themselves are at present in the power of the Northerntroops. The record contained in the following pages is a picture ofconditions of human existence which I hope and believe have passed away. LONDON: _January 16, 1863. _ JOURNAL. Philadelphia: December 1838. My Dear E----. I return you Mr. ----'s letter. I do not think it answersany of the questions debated in our last conversation at allsatisfactorily: the _right_ one man has to enslave another, he has not thehardihood to assert; but in the reasons he adduces to defend that act ofinjustice, the contradictory statements he makes appear to me to refuteeach other. He says, that to the continental European protesting againstthe abstract iniquity of slavery, his answer would be, 'the slaves areinfinitely better off than half the continental peasantry. ' To theEnglishman, 'they are happy compared with the miserable Irish. ' Butsupposing that this answered the question of original injustice, which itdoes not, it is not a true reply. Though the negroes are fed, clothed, andhoused, and though the Irish peasant is starved, naked, and roofless, thebare name of freeman--the lordship over his own person, the power tochoose and will--are blessings beyond food, raiment, or shelter;possessing which, the want of every comfort of life is yet more tolerablethan their fullest enjoyment without them. Ask the thousands of raggeddestitutes who yearly land upon these shores to seek the means ofexistence--ask the friendless, penniless foreign emigrant, if he will giveup his present misery, his future uncertainty, his doubtful and difficultstruggle for life, at once, for the secure, and as it is called, fortunatedependance of the slave: the indignation with which he would spurn theoffer will prove that he possesses one good beyond all others, and thathis birthright as a man is more precious to him yet than the mess ofpottage for which he is told to exchange it because he is starving. Of course the reverse alternative cannot be offered to the slaves, forat the very word the riches of those who own them would make themselveswings and flee away. But I do not admit the comparison between yourslaves and even the lowest class of European free labourers, for theformer are _allowed_ the exercise of no faculties but those which theyenjoy in common with the brutes that perish. The just comparison isbetween the slaves and the useful animals to whose level your lawsreduce them; and I will acknowledge that the slaves of a kind owner maybe as well cared for, and as happy, as the dogs and horses of a mercifulmaster; but the latter condition--i. E. That of happiness--must againdepend upon the complete perfection of their moral and mentaldegradation. Mr. ----, in his letter, maintains that they _are_ aninferior race, and, compared with the whites, '_animals_, incapable ofmental culture and moral improvement:' to this I can only reply, that ifthey are incapable of profiting by instruction, I do not see thenecessity for laws inflicting heavy penalties on those who offer it tothem. If they really are brutish, witless, dull, and devoid of capacityfor progress, where lies the _danger_ which is constantly insisted uponof offering them that of which they are incapable. We have no lawsforbidding us to teach our dogs and horses as much as they cancomprehend; nobody is fined or imprisoned for reasoning upon knowledge, and liberty, to the beasts of the field, for they are incapable of suchtruths. But these themes are forbidden to slaves, not because theycannot, but because they can and would seize on them withavidity--receive them gladly, comprehend them quickly; and the masters'power over them would be annihilated at once and for ever. But I havemore frequently heard, not that they were incapable of receivinginstruction, but something much nearer the truth--that knowledge onlymakes them miserable: the moment they are in any degree enlightened, they become unhappy. In the letter I return to you Mr. ---- says thatthe very slightest amount of education, merely teaching them to read, 'impairs their value as slaves, for it instantly destroys theircontentedness, and since you do not contemplate changing theircondition, it is surely doing them an ill service to destroy theiracquiescence in it;' but this is a very different ground of argumentfrom the other. The discontent they evince upon the mere dawn of anadvance in intelligence proves not only that they can acquire butcombine ideas, a process to which it is very difficult to assign alimit; and there indeed the whole question lies, and there and nowhereelse the shoe really pinches. A slave is ignorant; he eats, drinks, sleeps, labours, and is happy. He learns to read; he feels, thinks, reflects, and becomes miserable. He discovers himself to be one of adebased and degraded race, deprived of the elementary rights which Godhas granted to all men alike; every action is controlled, every wordnoted; he may not stir beyond his appointed bounds, to the right hand orto the left, at his own will, but at the will of another he may be sentmiles and miles of weary journeying--tethered, yoked, collared, andfettered--away from whatever he may know as home, severed from all thoseties of blood and affection which he alone of all human, of all livingcreatures on the face of the earth may neither enjoy in peace nor defendwhen they are outraged. If he is well treated, if his master betolerably humane or even understand his own interest tolerably, this isprobably _all_ he may have to endure: it is only to the consciousness ofthese evils that knowledge and reflection awaken him. But how is it ifhis master be severe, harsh, cruel--or even only careless--leaving hiscreatures to the delegated dominion of some overseer, or agent, whoselove of power, or other evil dispositions, are checked by noconsiderations of personal interest? Imagination shrinks from thepossible result of such a state of things; nor must you, or Mr. ----, tell me that the horrors thus suggested exist only in imagination. TheSouthern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales andpersonal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery thatit would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace--the handcuff, the lash--the tearing away of childrenfrom parents, of husbands from wives--the weary trudging in droves alongthe common highways, the labour of body, the despair of mind, thesickness of heart--these are the realities which belong to the system, and form the rule, rather than the exception, in the slave's experience. And this system exists here in this country of your's, which boastsitself the asylum of the oppressed, the home of freedom, the one placein all the world where all men may find enfranchisement from allthraldoms of mind, soul, or body--the land elect of liberty. Mr. ---- lays great stress, as a proof of the natural inferiority of theblacks, on the little comparative progress they have made in those Stateswhere they enjoy their freedom, and the fact that, whatever quickness ofparts they may exhibit while very young, on attaining maturity theyinvariably sink again into inferiority, or at least mediocrity, andindolence. But surely there are other causes to account for this besidesnatural deficiency, which must, I think, be obvious to any unprejudicedperson observing the condition of the free blacks in your Northerncommunities. If, in the early portion of their life, they escape thecontempt and derision of their white associates--if the blessedunconsciousness and ignorance of childhood keeps them for a few yearsunaware of the conventional proscription under which their whole race isplaced (and it is difficult to walk your streets, and mark the tone ofinsolent superiority assumed by even the gutter-urchins over their duskycotemporaries, and imagine this possible)--as soon as they acquire thefirst rudiments of knowledge, as soon as they begin to grow up and passfrom infancy to youth, as soon as they cast the first observing glanceupon the world by which they are surrounded, and the society of which, they are members, they must become conscious that they are marked as theHebrew lepers of old, and are condemned to sit, like those unfortunates, without the gates of every human and social sympathy. From their own sablecolour, a pall falls over the whole of God's universe to them, and theyfind themselves stamped with a badge of infamy of Nature's own devising, at sight of which all natural kindliness of man to man seems to recoilfrom them. They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs; debarred fromall fellowship save with their own despised race--scorned by the lowestwhite ruffian in your streets, not tolerated as companions even by theforeign menials in your kitchen. They are free certainly, but they arealso degraded, rejected, the offscum and the offscouring of the very dregsof your society; they are free from the chain, the whip, the enforced taskand unpaid toil of slavery; but they are not the less under a ban. Theirkinship with slaves for ever bars them from a full share of the freeman'sinheritance of equal rights, and equal consideration and respect. Allhands are extended to thrust them out, all fingers point at their duskyskin, all tongues--the most vulgar, as well as the self-styled mostrefined--have learnt to turn the very name of their race into an insultand a reproach. How, in the name of all that is natural, probable, possible, should the spirit and energy of any human creature supportitself under such an accumulation of injustice and obloquy? Where shallany mass of men be found with power of character and mind sufficient tobear up against such a weight of prejudice? Why, if one individual rarelygifted by heaven were to raise himself out of such a slough of despond, hewould be a miracle; and what would be his reward? Would he be admitted toan equal share in your political rights?--would he ever be allowed tocross the threshold of your doors?--would any of you give your daughter tohis son, or your son to his daughter?--would you, in any one particular, admit him to the footing of equality which any man with a white skin wouldclaim, whose ability and worth had so raised him from the lower degrees ofthe social scale. You would turn from such propositions with abhorrence, and the servants in your kitchen and stable--the ignorant and boorishrefuse of foreign populations, in whose countries no such prejudiceexists, imbibing it with the very air they breathe here--would shrink fromeating at the same table with such a man, or holding out the hand ofcommon fellowship to him. Under the species of social proscription inwhich the blacks in your Northern cities exist, if they preserved energyof mind, enterprise of spirit, or any of the best attributes and powers offree men, they would prove themselves, instead of the lowest and least ofhuman races, the highest and first, not only of all that do exist, but ofall that ever have existed; for they alone would seek and cultivateknowledge, goodness, truth, science, art, refinement, and all improvement, purely for the sake of their own excellence, and without one of thoseincentives of honour, power, and fortune, which are found to be the chief, too often the only, inducements which lead white men to the pursuit of thesame objects. You know very well dear E----, that in speaking of the free blacks of theNorth I here state nothing but what is true and of daily experience. Onlylast week I heard, in this very town of Philadelphia, of a family ofstrict probity and honour, highly principled, intelligent, well-educated, and accomplished, and (to speak the world's language) respectable in everyway--i. E. _rich_. Upon an English lady's stating it to be her intention tovisit these persons when she came to Philadelphia, she was told that ifshe did nobody else would visit _her_; and she probably would excite amalevolent feeling, which might find vent in some violent demonstrationagainst this family. All that I have now said of course bears only uponthe condition of the free coloured population of the North, with which Iam familiar enough to speak confidently of it. As for the slaves, andtheir capacity for progress, I can say nothing, for I have never beenamong them to judge what faculties their unhappy social position leaves tothem unimpaired. But it seems to me, that no experiment on a sufficientlylarge scale can have been tried for a sufficient length of time todetermine the question of their incurable inferiority. Physiologists saythat three successive generations appear to be necessary to produce aneffectual change of constitution (bodily and mental), be it for health ordisease. There are positive physical defects which produce positive mentalones; the diseases of the muscular and nervous systems descend from fatherto son. Upon the agency of one corporal power how much that is notcorporal depends; from generation to generation internal disease andexternal deformity, vices, virtues, talents, and deficiencies aretransmitted, and by the action of the same law it must be long indeedbefore the offspring of slaves--creatures begotten of a race debased anddegraded to the lowest degree, themselves born in slavery, and whoseprogenitors have eaten the bread and drawn the breath of slavery foryears--can be measured, with any show of justice, by even the leastfavoured descendants of European nations, whose qualities have been forcenturies developing themselves under the beneficent influence of freedom, and the progress it inspires. I am rather surprised at the outbreak of violent disgust which Mr. ----indulges in on the subject of amalgamation; as that formed no part ofour discussion, and seems to me a curious subject for abstract argument. Ishould think the intermarrying between blacks and whites a matter to be aslittle insisted upon if repugnant, as prevented if agreeable to themajority of the two races. At the same time, I cannot help beingastonished at the furious and ungoverned execration which all reference tothe possibility of a fusion of the races draws down upon those who suggestit; because nobody pretends to deny that, throughout the South, a largeproportion of the population is the offspring of white men and colouredwomen. In New Orleans, a class of unhappy females exists whose mingledblood does not prevent their being remarkable for their beauty, and withwhom no man, no _gentleman_, in that city shrinks from associating; andwhile the slaveowners of the Southern States insist vehemently upon themental and physical inferiority of the blacks, they are benevolently doingtheir best, in one way at least, to raise and improve the degraded race, and the bastard population which forms so ominous an element in the socialsafety of their cities certainly exhibit in their forms and features thebenefit they derive from their white progenitors. It is hard to conceivethat some mental improvement does not accompany this physical change. Already the finer forms of the European races are cast in these duskymoulds: the outward configuration can hardly thus improve withoutcorresponding progress in the inward capacities. The white man's blood andbones have begotten this bronze race, and bequeathed to it in some degreequalities, tendencies, capabilities, such as are the inheritance of thehighest order of human animals. Mr. ---- (and many others) speaks as ifthere were a natural repugnance in all whites to any alliance with theblack race; and yet it is notorious, that almost every Southern planterhas a family more or less numerous of illegitimate coloured children. Mostcertainly, few people would like to assert that such connections areformed because it is the _interest_ of these planters to increase thenumber of their human property, and that they add to their revenue by theclosest intimacy with creatures that they loathe, in order to reckonamong their wealth the children of their body. Surely that is a monstrousand unnatural supposition, and utterly unworthy of belief. That suchconnections exist commonly, is a sufficient proof that they are notabhorrent to nature; but it seems, indeed, as if marriage (and notconcubinage) was the horrible enormity which cannot be tolerated, andagainst which, moreover, it has been deemed expedient to enact laws. Nowit appears very evident that there is no law in the white man's naturewhich prevents him from making a coloured woman the mother of hischildren, but there _is_ a law on his statute books forbidding him to makeher his wife; and if we are to admit the theory that the mixing of theraces is a monstrosity, it seems almost as curious that laws should beenacted to prevent men marrying women towards whom they have an invinciblenatural repugnance, as that education should by law be prohibited tocreatures incapable of receiving it. As for the exhortation with whichMr. ---- closes his letter, that I will not 'go down to my husband'splantation prejudiced against what I am to find there, ' I know not wellhow to answer it. Assuredly I _am_ going prejudiced against slavery, for Iam an Englishwoman, in whom the absence of such a prejudice would bedisgraceful. Nevertheless, I go prepared to find many mitigations in thepractice to the general injustice and cruelty of the system--much kindnesson the part of the masters, much content on that of the slaves; and I feelvery sure that you may rely upon the carefulness of my observation, andthe accuracy of my report, of every detail of the working of the thingthat comes under my notice; and certainly, on the plantation to which I amgoing, it will be more likely that I should some things extenuate, thanset down aught in malice. Yours ever faithfully. * * * * * Darien, Georgia. Dear E----. Minuteness of detail, and fidelity in the account of my dailydoings, will hardly, I fear, render my letters very interesting to younow; but cut off as I am here from all the usual resources and amusementsof civilised existence, I shall find but little to communicate to you thatis not furnished by my observations on the novel appearance of externalnature, and the moral and physical condition of Mr. ----'s people. Thelatter subject is, I know, one sufficiently interesting in itself to you, and I shall not scruple to impart all the reflections which may occur tome relative to their state during my stay here, where enquiry into theirmode of existence will form my chief occupation, and, necessarily also, the staple commodity of my letters. I purpose, while I reside here, keeping a sort of journal, such as Monk Lewis wrote during his visit tohis West India plantations. I wish I had any prospect of rendering mydiary as interesting and amusing to you as his was to me. In taking my first walk on the island, I directed my steps towards therice mill, a large building on the banks of the river, within a few yardsof the house we occupy. Is it not rather curious that Miss Martineaushould have mentioned the erection of a steam mill for threshing ricesomewhere in the vicinity of Charleston as a singular novelty, likely toform an era in Southern agriculture, and to produce the most desirablechanges in the system of labour by which it is carried on? Now, on thisestate alone, there are three threshing mills--one worked by steam, one bythe tide, and one by horses; there are two private steam mills onplantations adjacent to ours, and a public one at Savannah, where theplanters who have none on their own estates are in the habit of sendingtheir rice to be threshed at a certain percentage; these have all been inoperation for some years, and I therefore am at a loss to understand whatmade her hail the erection of the one at Charleston as likely to producesuch immediate and happy results. By the bye--of the misstatements, orrather mistakes, for they are such, in her books, with regard to certainfacts--her only disadvantage in acquiring information was not by any meansthat natural infirmity on which the periodical press, both here and inEngland, has commented with so much brutality. She had the misfortune topossess, too, that unsuspecting reliance upon the truth of others whichthey are apt to feel who themselves hold truth most sacred: and this wasa sore disadvantage to her in a country where I have heard it myselfrepeatedly asserted--and, what is more, much gloried in--that she waspurposely misled by the persons to whom she addressed her enquiries, whodid not scruple to disgrace themselves by imposing in the grossest mannerupon her credulity and anxiety to obtain information. It is a knowledge ofthis very shameful proceeding, which has made me most especially anxiousto avoid _fact hunting_. I might fill my letters to you with accountsreceived from others, but as I am aware of the risk which I run in sodoing, I shall furnish you with no details but those which come under myown immediate observation. To return to the rice mill: it is worked by asteam-engine of thirty horse power, and besides threshing great part ofour own rice, is kept constantly employed by the neighbouring planters, who send their grain to it in preference to the more distant mill atSavannah, paying, of course, the same percentage, which makes it a veryprofitable addition to the estate. Immediately opposite to this buildingis a small shed, which they call the cook's shop, and where the dailyallowance of rice and corn grits of the people is boiled and distributedto them by an old woman, whose special business this is. There are foursettlements or villages (or, as the negroes call them, camps) on theisland, consisting of from ten to twenty houses, and to each settlement isannexed a cook's shop with capacious cauldrons, and the oldest wife ofthe settlement for officiating priestess. Pursuing my walk along theriver's bank, upon an artificial dyke, sufficiently high and broad toprotect the fields from inundation by the ordinary rising of the tide--forthe whole island is below high water mark--I passed the blacksmith's andcooper's shops. At the first all the common iron implements of husbandryor household use for the estate are made, and at the latter all the ricebarrels necessary for the crop, besides tubs and buckets large and smallfor the use of the people, and cedar tubs of noble dimensions andexceedingly neat workmanship, for our own household purposes. Thefragrance of these when they are first made, as well as their ample size, renders them preferable as dressing-room furniture, in my opinion, to allthe china foot-tubs that ever came out of Staffordshire. After this I gotout of the vicinity of the settlement, and pursued my way along a narrowdyke--the river on one hand, and on the other a slimy, poisonous-lookingswamp, all rattling with sedges of enormous height, in which one mightlose one's way as effectually as in a forest of oaks. Beyond this, the lowrice-fields, all clothed in their rugged stubble, divided by dykes intomonotonous squares, a species of prospect by no means beautiful to themere lover of the picturesque. The only thing that I met with to attractmy attention was a most beautiful species of ivy, the leaf longer and moregraceful than that of the common English creeper, glittering with thehighest varnish, delicately veined, and of a rich brown green, growing inprofuse garlands from branch to branch of some stunted evergreen busheswhich border the dyke, and which the people call salt-water bush. My walksare rather circumscribed, inasmuch as the dykes are the only promenades. On all sides of these lie either the marshy rice-fields, the brimmingriver, or the swampy patches of yet unreclaimed forest, where the hugecypress trees and exquisite evergreen undergrowth spring up from astagnant sweltering pool, that effectually forbids the foot of theexplorer. As I skirted one of these thickets to-day, I stood still to admire thebeauty of the shrubbery. Every shade of green, every variety of form, every degree of varnish, and all in full leaf and beauty in the very depthof winter. The stunted dark-coloured oak; the magnolia bay (like our ownculinary and fragrant bay), which grows to a very great size; the wildmyrtle, a beautiful and profuse shrub, rising to a height of six, eight, and ten feet, and branching on all sides in luxuriant tufted fullness;most beautiful of all, that pride of the South, the magnolia grandiflora, whose lustrous dark green perfect foliage would alone render it an objectof admiration, without the queenly blossom whose colour, size, and perfumeare unrivalled in the whole vegetable kingdom. This last magnificentcreature grows to the size of a forest tree in these swamps, but seldomadorns a high or dry soil, or suffers itself to be successfullytransplanted. Under all these the spiked palmetto forms an impenetrablecovert, and from glittering graceful branch to branch hang garlands ofevergreen creepers, on which the mocking-birds are swinging and singingeven now; while I, bethinking me of the pinching cold that is at this hourtyrannising over your region, look round on this strange scene--on thesegreen woods, this unfettered river, and sunny sky--and feel very much likeone in another planet from yourself. The profusion of birds here is one thing that strikes me as curious, coming from the vicinity of Philadelphia, where even the robin redbreast, held sacred by the humanity of all other Christian people, is not safefrom the _gunning_ prowess of the unlicensed sportsmen of your freecountry. The negroes (of course) are not allowed the use of firearms, andtheir very simply constructed traps do not do much havoc among thefeathered hordes that haunt their rice-fields. Their case is rather a hardone, as partridges, snipes, and the most delicious wild ducks abound here, and their allowance of rice and Indian meal would not be the worse forsuch additions. No day passes that I do not, in the course of my walk, putup a number of the land birds, and startle from among the gigantic sedgesthe long-necked water-fowl by dozens. It arouses the killing propensity inme most dreadfully, and I really entertain serious thoughts of learning touse a gun, for the mere pleasure of destroying these pretty birds as theywhirr from their secret coverts close beside my path. How strong aninstinct of animal _humanity_ this is, and how strange if one be morestrange than another. Reflection rebukes it almost instantaneously, andyet for the life of me I cannot help wishing I had a fowling-piecewhenever I put up a covey of these creatures; though I suppose, if onewere brought bleeding and maimed to me, I should begin to cry, and be verypathetic, after the fashion of Jacques. However, one must live, you know;and here our living consists very mainly of wild ducks, wild geese, wildturkeys, and venison. Nor, perhaps, can one imagine the universal doomovertaking a creature with less misery than in the case of the bird who, in the very moment of his triumphant soaring, is brought dead to theground. I should like to bargain for such a finis myself, amazingly, Iknow; and have always thought that the death I should prefer would be tobreak my neck off the back of my horse at a full gallop on a fine day. Ofcourse a bad shot should be hung--a man who shatters his birds' wings andlegs; if I undertook the trade, I would learn of some Southern duellist, and always shoot my bird through the head or heart--as an expert murdererknows how. Besides these birds of which we make our prey, there are othersthat prey upon their own fraternity. Hawks of every sort and size wheeltheir steady rounds above the rice-fields; and the great turkeybuzzards--those most unsightly carrion birds--spread their broad blackwings, and soar over the river like so many mock eagles. I do not knowthat I ever saw any winged creature of so forbidding an aspect as thesesame turkey buzzards; their heavy flight, their awkward gait, theirbald-looking head and neck, and their devotion to every species of fouland detestable food, render them almost abhorrent to me. They abound inthe South, and in Charleston are held in especial veneration for theirscavenger-like propensities, killing one of them being, I believe, afineable offence by the city police regulations. Among the Brobdignagiansedges that in some parts of the island fringe the Altamaha, thenightshade (apparently the same as the European creeper) weaves a perfectmatting of its poisonous garlands, and my remembrance of its prevalence inthe woods and hedges of England did not reconcile me to its appearancehere. How much of this is mere association I cannot tell; but whether thewild duck makes its nest under its green arches, or the alligators andsnakes of the Altamaha have their secret bowers there, it is anevil-looking weed, and I shall have every leaf of it cleared away. I must inform you of a curious conversation which took place between mylittle girl and the woman who performs for us the offices of chambermaidhere--of course one of Mr. ----'s slaves. What suggested it to the child, or whence indeed she gathered her information, I know not; but childrenare made of eyes and ears, and nothing, however minute, escapes theirmicroscopic observation. She suddenly began addressing this woman. 'Mary, some persons are free and some are not (the woman made no reply). I am afree person (of a little more than three years old). I say, I am a freeperson, Mary--do you know that?' 'Yes, missis. ' 'Some persons are free andsome are not--do you know that, Mary?' 'Yes, missis, _here_, ' was thereply; 'I know it is so here, in this world. ' Here my child's white nurse, my dear Margery, who had hitherto been silent, interfered, saying, 'Oh, then you think it will not always be so?' 'Me hope not, missis. ' I amafraid, E----, this woman actually imagines that there will be no slavesin Heaven; isn't that preposterous now? when by the account of most of theSoutherners slavery itself must be Heaven, or something uncommonly likeit. Oh, if you could imagine how this title 'Missis, ' addressed to me andto my children, shocks all my feelings! Several times I have exclaimed, 'For God's sake do not call me that!' and only been awakened, by thestupid amazement of the poor creatures I was addressing, to the perfectuselessness of my thus expostulating with them; once or twice indeed Ihave done more--I have explained to them, and they appeared to comprehendme well, that I had no ownership over them, for that I held such ownershipsinful, and that, though I was the wife of the man who pretends to ownthem, I was in truth no more their mistress than they were mine. Some ofthem I know understood me, more of them did not. Our servants--those who have been selected to wait upon us in thehouse--consist of a man, who is quite a tolerable cook (I believe this isa natural gift with them, as with Frenchmen); a dairywoman, who churns forus; a laundrywoman; her daughter, our housemaid, the aforesaid Mary; andtwo young lads of from fifteen to twenty, who wait upon us in the capacityof footmen. As, however, the latter are perfectly filthy in their personsand clothes--their faces, hands, and naked feet being literally encrustedwith dirt--their attendance at our meals is not, as you may suppose, particularly agreeable to me, and I dispense with it as often as possible. Mary, too, is so intolerably offensive in her person that it is impossibleto endure her proximity, and the consequence is that, amongst Mr. ----'sslaves, I wait upon myself more than I have ever done in my life before. About this same personal offensiveness, the Southerners you know insistthat it is inherent with the race, and it is one of their most cogentreasons for keeping them as slaves. But as this very disagreeablepeculiarity does not prevent Southern women from hanging their infants atthe breasts of negresses, nor almost every planter's wife and daughterfrom having one or more little pet blacks sleeping like puppy dogs intheir very bedchamber, nor almost every planter from admitting one orseveral of his female slaves to the still closer intimacy of his bed--itseems to me that this objection to doing them right is not very valid. Icannot imagine that they would smell much worse if they were free, or comein much closer contact with the delicate organs of their white, fellowcountrymen; indeed, inasmuch as good deeds are spoken of as having a sweetsavour before God, it might be supposed that the freeing of the blacksmight prove rather an odoriferous process than the contrary. However thismay be, I must tell you that this potent reason for enslaving a whole raceof people is no more potent with me than most of the others adduced tosupport the system, inasmuch as, from observation and some experience, Iam strongly inclined to believe that peculiar ignorance of the laws ofhealth and the habits of decent cleanliness are the real and only causesof this disagreeable characteristic of the race--thorough ablutions andchange of linen, when tried, having been perfectly successful in removingall such objections; and if ever you have come into anything likeneighbourly proximity with a low Irishman or woman, I think you will allowthat the same causes produce very nearly the same effects. The stench inan Irish, Scotch, Italian, or French hovel are quite as intolerable as anyI ever found in our negro houses, and the filth and vermin which aboundabout the clothes and persons of the lower peasantry of any of thosecountries as abominable as the same conditions in the black population ofthe United States. A total absence of self-respect begets these hatefulphysical results, and in proportion as moral influences are remote, physical evils will abound. Well-being, freedom, and industry induceself-respect, self-respect induces cleanliness and personal attention, sothat slavery is answerable for all the evils that exhibit themselves whereit exists--from lying, thieving, and adultery, to dirty houses, raggedclothes, and foul smells. But to return to our Ganymedes. One of them--the eldest son of ourlaundrywoman, and Mary's brother, a boy of the name of Aleck(Alexander)--is uncommonly bright and intelligent; he performs all theoffices of a well-instructed waiter with great efficiency, and anywhereout of slave land would be able to earn fourteen or fifteen dollars amonth for himself; he is remarkably good tempered and well disposed. Theother poor boy is so stupid that he appears sullen from absolute darknessof intellect; instead of being a little lower than the angels, he isscarcely a little higher than the brutes, and to this condition arereduced the majority of his kind by the institutions under which theylive. I should tell you that Aleck's parents and kindred have always beenabout the house of the overseer, and in daily habits of intercourse withhim and his wife; and wherever this is the case the effect of involuntaryeducation is evident in the improved intelligence of the degraded race. In a conversation which Mr. ---- had this evening with Mr. O----, theoverseer, the latter mentioned that two of our carpenters had in theirleisure time made a boat, which they had disposed of to some neighbouringplanter for sixty dollars. Now, E----, I have no intention of telling you a one-sided story, orconcealing from you what are cited as the advantages which these poorpeople possess; you, who know that no indulgence is worth simple justice, either to him who gives or him who receives, will not thence conclude thattheir situation thus mitigated is, therefore, what it should be. On thismatter of the sixty dollars earned by Mr. ----'s two men much stress waslaid by him and his overseer. I look at it thus: if these men wereindustrious enough out of their scanty leisure to earn sixty dollars, howmuch more of remuneration, of comfort, of improvement might they not haveachieved were the price of their daily labour duly paid them, instead ofbeing unjustly withheld to support an idle young man and his idlefamily--i. E. Myself and my children. And here it may be well to inform you that the slaves on this plantationare divided into field hands and mechanics or artisans. The former, thegreat majority, are the more stupid and brutish of the tribe; the others, who are regularly taught their trades, are not only exceedingly expert atthem, but exhibit a greater general activity of intellect, which mustnecessarily result from even a partial degree of cultivation. There arehere a gang (for that is the honourable term) of coopers, of blacksmiths, of bricklayers, of carpenters--all well acquainted with their peculiartrades. The latter constructed the wash-hand stands, clothes presses, sofas, tables, &c, with which our house is furnished, and they are veryneat pieces of workmanship--neither veneered or polished indeed, nor ofvery costly materials, but of the white pine wood planed as smooth asmarble--a species of furniture not very luxurious perhaps, but all thebetter adapted therefore to the house itself, which is certainly rathermore devoid of the conveniences and adornments of modern existence thananything I ever took up my abode in before. It consists of three smallrooms, and three still smaller, which would be more appropriatelydesignated as closets, a wooden recess by way of pantry, and a kitchendetached from the dwelling--a mere wooden outhouse, with no floor but thebare earth, and for furniture a congregation of filthy negroes, who loungein and out of it like hungry hounds at all hours of the day and night, picking up such scraps of food as they can find about, which they discusssquatting down upon their hams, in which interesting position andoccupation I generally find a number of them whenever I have sufficienthardihood to venture within those precincts, the sight of which and itstenants is enough to slacken the appetite of the hungriest hunter thatever lost all nice regards in the mere animal desire for food. Of ourthree apartments, one is our sitting, eating, and _living_ room, and issixteen feet by fifteen. The walls are plastered indeed, but neitherpainted nor papered; it is divided from our bed-room (a similarly elegantand comfortable chamber) by a dingy wooden partition covered all over withhooks, pegs, and nails, to which hats, caps, keys, &c. &c. , are suspendedin graceful irregularity. The doors open by wooden latches, raised bymeans of small bits of packthread--I imagine, the same primitive order offastening celebrated in the touching chronicle of Red Riding Hood; howthey shut I will not pretend to describe, as the shutting of a door is aprocess of extremely rare occurrence throughout the whole Southerncountry. The third room, a chamber with sloping ceiling, immediately overour sitting-room and under the roof, is appropriated to the nurse and mytwo babies. Of the closets, one is Mr. ---- the overseer's bed-room, theother his office or place of business; and the third, adjoining ourbed-room, and opening immediately out of doors, is Mr. ----'s dressingroom and cabinet d'affaires, where he gives audiences to the negroes, redresses grievances, distributes red woollen caps (a singulargratification to a slave), shaves himself, and performs the other officesof his toilet. Such being our abode, I think you will allow there islittle danger of my being dazzled by the luxurious splendours of aSouthern slave residence. Our sole mode of summoning our attendants is bya packthread bell-rope suspended in the sitting-room. From the bed-roomswe have to raise the windows and our voices, and bring them by power oflungs, or help ourselves--which, I thank God, was never yet a hardship tome. I mentioned to you just now that two of the carpenters had made a boat intheir leisure time. I must explain this to you, and this will involve themention of another of Miss Martineau's mistakes with regard to slavelabour, at least in many parts of the Southern States. She mentions thaton one estate of which she knew, the proprietor had made the experiment, and very successfully, of appointing to each of his slaves a certain taskto be performed in the day, which once accomplished, no matter how early, the rest of the four and twenty hours were allowed to the labourer toemploy as he pleased. She mentions this as a single experiment, andrejoices over it as a decided amelioration in the condition of the slave, and one deserving of general adoption. But in the part of Georgia wherethis estate is situated, the custom of task labour is universal, and itprevails, I believe, throughout Georgia, South Carolina, and parts ofNorth Carolina; in other parts of the latter State, however--as I wasinformed by our overseer, who is a native of that State--the estates aresmall, rather deserving the name of farms, and the labourers are muchupon the same footing as the labouring men at the North, working fromsunrise to sunset in the fields with the farmer and his sons, and comingin with them to their meals, which they take immediately after the rest ofthe family. In Louisiana and the new South-western Slave States, Ibelieve, task labour does not prevail; but it is in those that thecondition of the poor human cattle is most deplorable, as you know it wasthere that the humane calculation was not only made, but openly andunhesitatingly avowed, that the planters found it upon the whole theirmost profitable plan to work off (kill with labour) their whole number ofslaves about once in seven years, and renew the whole stock. By the bye, the Jewish institution of slavery is much insisted upon by the Southernupholders of the system; perhaps this is their notion of the Jewishjubilee, when the slaves were by Moses' strict enactment to be all setfree. Well, this task system is pursued on this estate; and thus it isthat the two carpenters were enabled to make the boat they sold for sixtydollars. These tasks, of course, profess to be graduated according to thesex, age, and strength of the labourer; but in many instances this is notthe case, as I think you will agree when I tell you that on Mr. ----'sfirst visit to his estates he found that the men and the women wholaboured in the fields had the same task to perform. This was a nobleadmission of female equality, was it not?--and thus it had been on theestate for many years past. Mr. ----, of course, altered the distributionof the work, diminishing the quantity done by the women. I had a most ludicrous visit this morning from the midwife of theestate--rather an important personage both to master and slave, as to herunassisted skill and science the ushering of all the young negroes intotheir existence of bondage is entrusted. I heard a great deal ofconversation in the dressing-room adjoining mine, while performing my owntoilet, and presently Mr. ---- opened my room-door, ushering in a dirtyfat good-humoured looking old negress, saying, 'The midwife, Rose, wantsto make your acquaintance. ' 'Oh massa!' shrieked out the old creature in aparoxysm of admiration, 'where you get this lilly alablaster baby!' For amoment I looked round to see if she was speaking of my baby; but no, mydear, this superlative apostrophe was elicited by the fairness of _myskin_--so much for degrees of comparison. Now, I suppose that if I choseto walk arm in arm with the dingiest mulatto through the streets ofPhiladelphia, nobody could possibly tell by my complexion that I was nothis sister, so that the mere quality of mistress must have had a mostmiraculous effect upon my skin in the eyes of poor Rose. But this speciesof outrageous flattery is as usual with these people as with the lowIrish, and arises from the ignorant desire, common to both the races, ofpropitiating at all costs the fellow-creature who is to them as aProvidence--or rather, I should say, a fate--for 't is a heathen and noChristian relationship. Soon after this visit, I was summoned into thewooden porch or piazza of the house, to see a poor woman who desired tospeak to me. This was none other than the tall emaciated-looking negresswho, on the day of our arrival, had embraced me and my nurse with suchirresistible zeal. She appeared very ill to-day, and presently unfolded tome a most distressing history of bodily afflictions. She was the mother ofa very large family, and complained to me that, what with child-bearingand hard field labour, her back was almost broken in two. With an almostsavage vehemence of gesticulation she suddenly tore up her scantyclothing, and exhibited a spectacle with which I was inconceivably shockedand sickened. The facts, without any of her corroborating statements, boretolerable witness to the hardships of her existence. I promised to attendto her ailments and give her proper remedies; but these are naturalresults, inevitable and irremediable ones, of improper treatment of thefemale frame--and though there may be alleviation, there cannot be anycure when once the beautiful and wonderful structure has been thus madethe victim of ignorance, folly, and wickedness. After the departure of this poor woman, I walked down the settlementtowards the infirmary or hospital, calling in at one or two of the housesalong the row. These cabins consist of one room about twelve feet byfifteen, with a couple of closets smaller and closer than the state-roomsof a ship, divided off from the main room and each other by rough woodenpartitions in which the inhabitants sleep. They have almost all of them arude bedstead, with the grey moss of the forests for mattress, and filthy, pestilential-looking blankets, for covering. Two families (sometimes eightand ten in number) reside in one of these huts, which are mere woodenframes pinned, as it were, to the earth by a brick chimney outside, whoseenormous aperture within pours down a flood of air, but littlecounteracted by the miserable spark of fire, which hardly sends anattenuated thread of lingering smoke up its huge throat. A wide ditch runsimmediately at the back of these dwellings, which is filled and emptieddaily by the tide. Attached to each hovel is a small scrap of ground for agarden, which, however, is for the most part untended and uncultivated. Such of these dwellings as I visited to-day were filthy and wretched inthe extreme, and exhibited that most deplorable consequence of ignoranceand an abject condition, the inability of the inhabitants to secure andimprove even such pitiful comfort as might yet be achieved by them. Instead of the order, neatness, and ingenuity which might convert eventhese miserable hovels into tolerable residences, there was the careless, reckless, filthy indolence which even the brutes do not exhibit in theirlairs and nests, and which seemed incapable of applying to the uses ofexistence the few miserable means of comfort yet within their reach. Firewood and shavings lay littered about the floors, while the half-nakedchildren were cowering round two or three smouldering cinders. The mosswith which the chinks and crannies of their ill-protecting dwellings mighthave been stuffed, was trailing in dirt and dust about the ground, whilethe back-door of the huts, opening upon a most unsightly ditch, was leftwide open for the fowls and ducks, which they are allowed to raise, totravel in and out, increasing the filth of the cabin, by what they broughtand left in every direction. In the midst of the floor, or squatting roundthe cold hearth, would be four or five little children from four to tenyears old, the latter all with babies in their arms, the care of theinfants being taken from the mothers (who are driven a-field as soon asthey recover from child labour), and devolved upon these poor littlenurses, as they are called, whose business it is to watch the infant, andcarry it to its mother whenever it may require nourishment. To thesehardly human little beings, I addressed my remonstrances about the filth, cold, and unnecessary wretchedness of their room, bidding the elder boysand girls kindle up the fire, sweep the floor, and expel the poultry. Fora long time my very words seemed unintelligible to them, till when I beganto sweep and make up the fire, &c. , they first fell to laughing, and thenimitating me. The encrustations of dirt on their hands, feet, and faces, were my next object of attack, and the stupid negro practice (by the bye, but a short time since nearly universal in enlightened Europe), of keepingthe babies with their feet bare, and their heads, already well capped bynature with their woolly hair, wrapped in half-a-dozen hot filthycoverings. Thus I travelled down the 'street, ' in every dwellingendeavouring to awaken a new perception, that of cleanliness, sighing, asI went, over the futility of my own exertions, for how can slaves beimproved? Nathless, thought I, let what can be done; for it may be, that, the two being incompatible, improvement may yet expel slavery--and so itmight, and surely would, if, instead of beginning at the end, I could butbegin at the beginning of my task. If the mind and soul were awakened, instead of mere physical good attempted, the physical good would result, and the great curse vanish away; but my hands are tied fast, and thiscorner of the work is all that I may do. Yet it cannot be but, from mywords and actions, some revelations should reach these poor people; andgoing in and out amongst them perpetually, I shall teach, and they learninvoluntarily a thousand things of deepest import. They must learn, andwho can tell the fruit of that knowledge alone, that there are beings inthe world, even with skins of a different colour from their own, who havesympathy for their misfortunes, love for their virtues, and respect fortheir common nature--but oh! my heart is full almost to bursting, as Iwalk among these most poor creatures. The infirmary is a large two-story building, terminating the broadorange-planted space between the two rows of houses which form the firstsettlement; it is built of white washed wood, and contains fourlarge-sized rooms. But how shall I describe to you the spectacle which waspresented to me, on my entering the first of these? But half thecasements, of which there were six, were glazed, and these were obscuredwith dirt, almost as much as the other windowless ones were darkened bythe dingy shutters, which the shivering inmates had fastened to, in orderto protect themselves from the cold. In the enormous chimney glimmered thepowerless embers of a few sticks of wood, round which, however, as many ofthe sick women as could approach, were cowering; some on wooden settles, most of them on the ground, excluding those who were too ill to rise; andthese last poor wretches lay prostrate on the floor, without bed, mattress, or pillow, buried in tattered and filthy blankets, which, huddled round them as they lay strewed about, left hardly space to moveupon the floor. And here, in their hour of sickness and suffering, laythose whose health and strength are spent in unrequited labour forus--those who, perhaps even yesterday, were being urged onto their unpaidtask--those whose husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, were even at thathour sweating over the earth, whose produce was to buy for us all theluxuries which health can revel in, all the comforts which can alleviatesickness. I stood in the midst of them, perfectly unable to speak, thetears pouring from my eyes at this sad spectacle of their misery, myselfand my emotion alike strange and incomprehensible to them. Here lay womenexpecting every hour the terrors and agonies of child-birth, others whohad just brought their doomed offspring into the world, others who weregroaning over the anguish and bitter disappointment of miscarriages--herelay some burning with fever, others chilled with cold and aching withrheumatism, upon the hard cold ground, the draughts and dampness of theatmosphere increasing their sufferings, and dirt, noise, and stench, andevery aggravation of which sickness is capable, combined in theircondition--here they lay like brute beasts, absorbed in physicalsuffering; unvisited by any of those Divine influences which may ennoblethe dispensations of pain and illness, forsaken, as it seemed to me, ofall good; and yet, O God, Thou surely hadst not forsaken them! Now, praytake notice, that this is the hospital of an estate, where the owners aresupposed to be humane, the overseer efficient and kind, and the negroes, remarkably well cared for and comfortable. As soon as I recovered from mydismay, I addressed old Rose, the midwife, who had charge of this room, bidding her open the shutters of such windows as were glazed, and let inthe light. I next proceeded to make up the fire, but upon my lifting a logfor that purpose, there was one universal outcry of horror, and old Rose, attempting to snatch it from me, exclaimed, 'Let alone, missis--letbe--what for you lift wood--you have nigger enough, missis, to do it!' Ihereupon had to explain to them my view of the purposes for which handsand arms were appended to our bodies, and forthwith began making Rose tidyup the miserable apartment, removing all the filth and rubbish from thefloor that could be removed, folding up in piles the blankets of thepatients who were not using them, and placing, in rather more shelteredand comfortable positions, those who were unable to rise. It was all thatI could do, and having enforced upon them all my earnest desire that theyshould keep their room swept, and as tidy as possible, I passed on to theother room on the ground floor, and to the two above, one of which isappropriated to the use of the men who are ill. They were all in the samedeplorable condition, the upper rooms being rather the more miserable, inasmuch as none of the windows were glazed at all, and they had, therefore, only the alternative of utter darkness, or killing draughts ofair, from the unsheltered casements. In all, filth, disorder and miseryabounded; the floor was the only bed, and scanty begrimed rags of blanketsthe only covering. I left this refuge for Mr. ----'s sick dependants, withmy clothes covered with dust, and full of vermin, and with a heart heavyenough, as you will well believe. My morning's work had fatigued me not alittle, and I was glad to return to the house, where I gave vent to myindignation and regret at the scene I had just witnessed, to Mr. ---- andhis overseer, who, here, is a member of our family. The latter told methat the condition of the hospital had appeared to him, from his firstentering upon his situation (only within the last year), to require areform, and that he had proposed it to the former manager, Mr. K----, andMr. ----'s brother, who is part proprietor of the estate, but receiving noencouragement from them, had supposed that it was a matter of indifferenceto the owners, and had left it in the condition in which he had found it, in which condition it has been for the last nineteen years and upwards. This new overseer of ours has lived fourteen years with an old Scotchgentleman, who owns an estate adjoining Mr. ----'s, on the island of St. Simons, upon which estate, from everything I can gather, and from what Iknow of the proprietor's character, the slaves are probably treated withas much humanity as is consistent with slavery at all, and where themanagement and comfort of the hospital, in particular, had been mostcarefully and judiciously attended to. With regard to the indifference ofour former manager upon the subject of the accommodation for the sick, hewas an excellent overseer, _videlicet_, the estate returned a full incomeunder his management, and such men have nothing to do with sickslaves--they are tools, to be mended only if they can be made availableagain, --if not, to be flung by as useless, without further expense ofmoney, time, or trouble. I am learning to row here, for, circumscribed as my walks necessarily are, impossible as it is to resort to my favourite exercise on horseback uponthese narrow dykes, I must do something to prevent my blood fromstagnating; and this broad brimming river, and the beautiful light canoeswhich lie moored, at the steps, are very inviting persuaders to thisspecies of exercise. My first attempt was confined to pulling an oaracross the stream, for which I rejoiced in sundry aches and painsaltogether novel, letting alone a delightful row of blisters on each of myhands. I forgot to tell you that in the hospital were several sick babies, whosemothers were permitted to suspend their field labour, in order to nursethem. Upon addressing some remonstrances to one of these, who, besideshaving a sick child, was ill herself, about the horribly dirty conditionof her baby, she assured me that it was impossible for them to keep theirchildren clean, that they went out to work at daybreak, and did not gettheir tasks done till evening, and that then they were too tired and wornout to do anything but throw themselves down and sleep. This statement ofhers I mentioned on my return from the hospital, and the overseerappeared extremely annoyed by it, and assured me repeatedly that it wasnot true. In the evening Mr. ----, who had been over to Darien, mentioned that oneof the storekeepers there had told him that, in the course of a few years, he had paid the negroes of this estate several thousand dollars for moss, which is a very profitable article of traffic with them--they collect itfrom the trees, dry and pick it, and then sell it to the people in Darienfor mattresses, sofas, and all sorts of stuffing purposes, --which, in myopinion, it answers better than any other material whatever that I amacquainted with, being as light as horse hair, as springy and elastic, anda great deal less harsh and rigid. It is now bed-time, dear E----, and Idoubt not it has been sleepy time with you over this letter, long ere youcame thus far. There is a preliminary to my repose, however, in thisagreeable residence, which I rather dread, namely, the hunting for, ordiscovering without hunting, in fine relief upon the white-washed walls ofmy bed-room, a most hideous and detestable species of _reptile_, calledcentipedes, which come out of the cracks and crevices of the walls, andfill my very heart with dismay. They are from an inch to two inches long, and appear to have not a hundred, but a thousand legs. I cannot ascertainvery certainly from the negroes whether they sting or not, but they lookexceedingly as if they might, and I visit my babies every night, in fearand tremblings lest I should find one or more of these hateful creaturesmounting guard over them. Good night; you are well to be free fromcentipedes--better to be free from slaves. * * * * * Dear E----. This morning I paid my second visit to the infirmary, andfound there had been some faint attempt at sweeping and cleaning, incompliance with my entreaties. The poor woman Harriet, however, whosestatement, with regard to the impossibility of their attending properly totheir children, had been so vehemently denied by the overseer, was cryingbitterly. I asked her what ailed her, when, more by signs and dumb showthan words, she and old Rose informed me that Mr. O---- had flogged herthat morning, for having told me that the women had not time to keep theirchildren clean. It is part of the regular duty of every overseer to visitthe infirmary at least once a day, which he generally does in the morning, and Mr. O----'s visit had preceded mine but a short time only, or I mighthave been edified by seeing a man horsewhip a woman. I again and againmade her repeat her story, and she again and again affirmed that she hadbeen flogged for what she told me, none of the whole company in the roomdenying it, or contradicting her. I left the room, because I was sodisgusted and indignant, that I could hardly restrain my feelings, and toexpress them could have produced no single good result. In the next ward, stretched upon the ground, apparently either asleep or so overcome withsickness as to be incapable of moving, lay an immense woman, --her stature, as she cumbered the earth, must have been, I should think, five feet sevenor eight, and her bulk enormous. She was wrapped in filthy rags, and laywith her face on the floor. As I approached, and stooped to see what ailedher, she suddenly threw out her arms, and, seized with violentconvulsions, rolled over and over upon the floor, beating her headviolently upon the ground, and throwing her enormous limbs about in ahorrible manner. Immediately upon the occurrence of this fit, four or fivewomen threw themselves literally upon her, and held her down by mainforce; they even proceeded to bind her legs and arms together, to preventher dashing herself about; but this violent coercion and tight bandagingseemed to me, in my profound ignorance, more likely to increase herillness, by impeding her breathing, and the circulation of her blood, andI bade them desist, and unfasten all the strings and ligatures, not onlythat they had put round her limbs, but which, by tightening her clothesround her body, caused any obstruction. How much I wished that, instead ofmusic and dancing and such stuff, I had learned something of sickness andhealth, of the conditions and liabilities of the human body, that I mighthave known how to assist this poor creature, and to direct her ignorantand helpless nurses! The fit presently subsided, and was succeeded by themost deplorable prostration and weakness of nerves, the tears streamingdown the poor woman's cheeks in showers, without, however, her uttering asingle word, though she moaned incessantly. After bathing her forehead, hands, and chest with vinegar, we raised her up, and I sent to the housefor a chair with a back (there was no such thing in the hospital, ) and wecontrived to place her in it. I have seldom seen finer women than thispoor creature and her younger sister, an immense strapping lass, calledChloe--tall, straight, and extremely well made--who was assisting hersister, and whom I had remarked, for the extreme delight and merrimentwhich my cleansing propensities seemed to give her, on my last visit tothe hospital. She was here taking care of a sick baby, and helping tonurse her sister Molly, who, it seems, is subject to those fits, aboutwhich I spoke to our physician here--an intelligent man, residing inDarien, who visits the estate whenever medical assistance is required. Heseemed to attribute them to nervous disorder, brought on by frequent childbearing. This woman is young, I suppose at the outside not thirty, and hersister informed me that she had had ten children--ten children, E----!Fits and hard labour in the fields, unpaid labour, labour exacted withstripes--how do you fancy that? I wonder if my mere narration can makeyour blood boil, as the facts did mine? Among the patients in this roomwas a young girl, apparently from fourteen to fifteen, whose hands andfeet were literally rotting away piecemeal, from the effect of a horribledisease, to which the negroes are subject here, and I believe in the WestIndies, and when it attacks the joints of the toes and fingers, the piecesabsolutely decay and come off, leaving the limb a maimed and horriblestump! I believe no cure is known for this disgusting malady, which seemsconfined to these poor creatures. Another disease, of which theycomplained much, and which, of course, I was utterly incapable ofaccounting for, was a species of lock-jaw, to which their babies veryfrequently fall victims, in the first or second week after their birth, refusing the breast, and the mouth gradually losing the power of openingitself. The horrible diseased state of head, common among their babies, isa mere result of filth and confinement, and therefore, though I neveranywhere saw such distressing and disgusting objects as some of these poorlittle woolly skulls presented, the cause was sufficiently obvious. Pleurisy, or a tendency to it, seems very common among them; alsoperi-pneumonia, or inflammation of the lungs, which is terribly prevalent, and generally fatal. Rheumatism is almost universal; and as it proceedsfrom exposure, and want of knowledge and care, attacks indiscriminatelythe young and old. A great number of the women are victims to falling ofthe womb and weakness in the spine; but these are necessary results oftheir laborious existence, and do not belong either to climate orconstitution. I have ingeniously contrived to introduce bribery, corruption, andpauperism, all in a breath, upon this island, which, until my advent, wasas innocent of these pollutions, I suppose, as Prospero's isle of refuge. Wishing, however, to appeal to some perception, perhaps a little less dimin their minds than the abstract loveliness of cleanliness, I haveproclaimed to all the little baby nurses, that I will give a cent to everylittle boy or girl whose baby's face shall be clean, and one to everyindividual with clean face and hands of their own. My appeal was fullycomprehended by the majority, it seems, for this morning I was surrounded, as soon as I came out, by a swarm of children carrying their littlecharges on their backs and in their arms, the shining, and, in manyinstances, wet faces and hands of the latter, bearing ample testimony tothe ablutions which had been inflicted upon them. How they will curse meand the copper cause of all their woes, in their baby bosoms! Do you knowthat little as grown negroes are admirable for their personal beauty (inmy opinion, at least), the black babies of a year or two old are verypretty; they have for the most part beautiful eyes and eyelashes, thepearly perfect teeth, which they retain after their other juvenile graceshave left them; their skins are all (I mean of blacks generally)infinitely finer and softer than the skins of white people. Perhaps youare not aware that among the white race the _finest grained_ skinsgenerally belong to persons of dark complexion. This, as a characteristicof the black race, I think might be accepted as some compensation for thecoarse woolly hair. The nose and mouth, which are so peculiarlydispleasing in their conformation in the face of a negro man or woman, being the features least developed in a baby's countenance, do not atfirst present the ugliness which they assume as they become more marked;and when the very unusual operation of washing has been performed, theblood shines through the fine texture of the skin, giving life andrichness to the dingy colour, and displaying a species of beauty which Ithink scarcely any body who observed it would fail to acknowledge. I haveseen many babies on this plantation, who were quite as pretty as whitechildren, and this very day stooped to kiss a little sleeping creature, that lay on its mother's knees in the infirmary--as beautiful a specimenof a sleeping infant as I ever saw. The caress excited the irrepressibledelight of all the women present--poor creatures! who seemed to forgetthat I was a woman, and had children myself, and bore a woman's and amother's heart towards them and theirs; but, indeed, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey could not have achieved more popularity by his performances inthat line than I, by this exhibition of feeling; and had the question beenmy election, I am very sure nobody else would have had a chance of a votethrough the island. But wisely is it said, that use is second nature; andthe contempt and neglect to which these poor people are used, make thecommonest expression of human sympathy appear a boon and graciouscondescension. While I am speaking of the negro countenance, there isanother beauty which is not at all unfrequent among those I see here--afinely shaped oval face--and those who know (as all painters andsculptors, all who understand beauty do) how much expression there is inthe outline of the head, and how very rare it is to see a well-formedface, will be apt to consider this a higher matter than any colouring ofwhich, indeed, the red and white one so often admired is by no means themost rich, picturesque, or expressive. At first the dark colour confoundedall features to my eye, and I could hardly tell one face from another. Becoming, however, accustomed to the complexion, I now perceive all thevariety among these black countenances that there is among our own race, and as much difference in features and in expression as among the samenumber of whites. There is another peculiarity which I have remarked amongthe women here--very considerable beauty in the make of the hands; theirfeet are very generally ill made, which must be a natural, and not anacquired defect, as they seldom injure their feet by wearing shoes. Thefigures of some of the women are handsome, and their carriage, from theabsence of any confining or tightening clothing, and the habit they haveof balancing great weights on their heads, erect and good. At the upper end of the row of houses, and nearest to our overseer'sresidence, is the hut of the head driver. Let me explain, by the way, hisoffice. The negroes, as I before told you, are divided into troops organgs, as they are called; at the head of each gang is a driver, whostands over them, whip in hand, while they perform their daily task, whorenders an account of each individual slave and his work every evening tothe overseer, and receives from him directions for their next day's tasks. Each driver is allowed to inflict a dozen lashes upon any refractory slavein the field, and at the time of the offence; they may not, however, extend the chastisement, and if it is found ineffectual, their remedy liesin reporting the unmanageable individual either to the head driver or theoverseer; the former of whom has power to inflict three dozen lashes athis own discretion, and the latter as many as he himself sees fit, withinthe number of fifty; which limit, however, I must tell you, is anarbitrary one on this plantation, appointed by the founder of the estate, Major ----, Mr. ----'s grandfather, many of whose regulations, indeed Ibelieve most of them, are still observed in the government of theplantation. Limits of this sort, however, to the power of either driver, head driver, or overseer, may or may not exist elsewhere; they are, to acertain degree, a check upon the power of these individuals; but in theabsence of the master, the overseer may confine himself within the limitor not, as he chooses--and as for the master himself, where is his limit?He may, if he likes, flog a slave to death, for the laws which pretendthat he may not are a mere pretence--inasmuch as the testimony of a blackis never taken against a white; and upon this plantation of ours, and athousand more, the overseer is the _only_ white man, so whence should comethe testimony to any crime of his? With regard to the oft-repeatedstatement, that it is not the owner's interest to destroy his humanproperty, it answers nothing--the instances in which men, to gratify theimmediate impulse of passion, sacrifice not only their eternal, but theirevident, palpable, positive worldly interest, are infinite. Nothing iscommoner than for a man under the transient influence of anger todisregard his worldly advantage; and the black slave, whose preservationis indeed supposed to be his owner's interest, may be, will be, and isoccasionally sacrificed to the blind impulse of passion. To return to our head driver, or, as he is familiarly called, head man, Frank--he is second in authority only to the overseer, and exercises rulealike over the drivers and the gangs, in the absence of the sovereignwhite man from the estate, which happens whenever Mr. O---- visits theother two plantations at Woodville and St. Simons. He is sole master andgovernor of the island, appoints the work, pronounces punishments, givespermission to the men to leave the island (without it they never may doso), and exercises all functions of undisputed mastery over his fellowslaves, for you will observe that all this while he is just as much aslave as any of the rest. Trustworthy, upright, intelligent, he may beflogged to-morrow if Mr. O---- or Mr. ---- so please it, and sold the nextday like a cart horse, at the will of the latter. Besides his variousother responsibilities, he has the key of all the stores, and gives outthe people's rations weekly; nor is it only the people's provisions thatare put under his charge--meat, which is only given out to themoccasionally, and provisions for the use of the family are also entrustedto his care. Thus you see, among these _inferior_ creatures, their ownmasters yet look to find, surviving all their best efforts to destroythem--good sense, honesty, self-denial, and all the qualities, mental andmoral, that make one man worthy to be trusted by another. From theimperceptible, but inevitable effect of the sympathies and influences ofhuman creatures towards and over each other, Frank's intelligence hasbecome uncommonly developed by intimate communion in the discharge of hisduty with the former overseer, a very intelligent man, who has only justleft the estate, after managing it for nineteen years; the effect of thisintercourse, and of the trust and responsibility laid upon the man, arethat he is clear-headed, well judging, active, intelligent, extremely wellmannered, and, being respected, he respects himself. He is as ignorant asthe rest of the slaves; but he is always clean and tidy in his person, with a courteousness of demeanour far removed from servility, and exhibitsa strong instance of the intolerable and wicked injustice of the systemunder which he lives, having advanced thus far towards improvement, inspite of all the bars it puts to progress; and here being arrested, not bywant of energy, want of sense, or any want of his own, but by being heldas another man's property, who can only thus hold him by forbidding himfurther improvement. When I see that man, who keeps himself a good dealaloof from the rest, in his leisure hours looking, with a countenance ofdeep thought, as I did to-day, over the broad river, which is to him as aprison wall, to the fields and forest beyond, not one inch or branch ofwhich his utmost industry can conquer as his own, or acquire and leave anindependent heritage to his children, I marvel what the thoughts of such aman may be. I was in his house to-day, and the same superiority incleanliness, comfort, and propriety exhibited itself in his dwelling, asin his own personal appearance, and that of his wife--a most active, trustworthy, excellent woman, daughter of the oldest, and probably mosthighly respected of all Mr. ----'s slaves. To the excellent conduct ofthis woman, and indeed every member of her family, both the present andthe last overseer bear unqualified testimony. As I was returning towards the house, after my long morning's lounge, aman rushed out of the blacksmith's shop, and catching me by the skirt ofmy gown, poured forth a torrent of self-gratulations on having at lengthfound the 'right missis. ' They have no idea, of course, of a white personperforming any of the offices of a servant, and as throughout the wholeSouthern country the owner's children are nursed and tended, and sometimes_suckled_ by their slaves (I wonder how this inferior milk agrees with thelordly _white_ babies?) the appearance of M---- with my two children hadimmediately suggested the idea that she must be the missis. Many of thepoor negroes flocked to her, paying their profound homage under thisimpression; and when she explained to them that she was not their owner'swife, the confusion in their minds seemed very great--Heaven only knowswhether they did not conclude that they had two mistresses, and Mr. ----two wives; for the privileged race must seem, in their eyes, to have suchabsolute masterdom on earth, that perhaps they thought polygamy might beone of the sovereign white men's numerous indulgences. The ecstacy of theblacksmith on discovering the 'right missis' at last was very funny, andwas expressed with such extraordinary grimaces, contortions, andgesticulations, that I thought I should have died of laughing at thisrapturous identification of my most melancholy relation to the poorfellow. Having at length extricated myself from the group which forms round mewhenever I stop but for a few minutes, I pursued my voyage of discovery bypeeping into the kitchen garden. I dared do no more; the aspect of theplace would have rejoiced the very soul of Solomon's sluggard of old--afew cabbages and weeds innumerable filled the neglected looking enclosure, and I ventured no further than the entrance into its most uninvitingprecincts. You are to understand that upon this swamp island of ours wehave quite a large stock of cattle, cows, sheep, pigs, and poultry in themost enormous and inconvenient abundance. The cows are pretty miserablyoff for pasture, the banks and pathways of the dykes being their onlygrazing ground, which the sheep perambulate also, in earnest search of anibble of fresh herbage; both the cows and sheep are fed with rice flourin great abundance, and are pretty often carried down for change of airand more sufficient grazing to Hampton, Mr. ----'s estate, on the islandof St. Simons, fifteen miles from this place, further down the river--orrather, indeed, I should say in the sea, for 'tis salt water all round, and one end of the island has a noble beach open to the vast Atlantic. Thepigs thrive admirably here, and attain very great perfection of size andflavour; the rice flour, upon which they are chiefly fed, tending to makethem very delicate. As for the poultry, it being one of the few privilegesof the poor blacks to raise as many as they can, their abundance isliterally a nuisance--ducks, fowls, pigeons, turkeys (the two latterspecies, by the bye, are exclusively the master's property), cluck, scream, gabble, gobble, crow, cackle, fight, fly, and flutter in alldirections, and to their immense concourse, and the perfect freedom withwhich they intrude themselves even into the piazza of the house, thepantry, and kitchen, I partly attribute the swarms of fleas, and otherstill less agreeable vermin, with which we are most horribly pestered. My walk lay to-day along the bank of a canal, which has been dug throughnearly the whole length of the island, to render more direct and easy thetransportation of the rice from one end of the estate to another, or fromthe various distant fields to the principal mill at Settlement No. 1. Itis of considerable width and depth, and opens by various locks into theriver. It has, unfortunately, no trees on its banks, but a good footpathrenders it, in spite of that deficiency, about the best walk on theisland. I passed again to-day one of those beautiful evergreen thickets, which I described to you in my last letter; it is called a reserve, and iskept uncleared and uncultivated in its natural swampy condition, to allowof the people's procuring their firewood from it. I cannot get accustomed, so as to be indifferent to this exquisite natural ornamental growth, andthink, as I contemplate the various and beautiful foliage of these waterywoods, how many of our finest English parks and gardens owe their chiefestadornments to plantations of these shrubs, procured at immense cost, reared with infinite pains and care, which are here basking in thewinter's sunshine, waiting to be cut down for firewood! These littlegroves are peopled with wild pigeons and birds, which they designate hereas blackbirds. These sometimes rise from the rice fields with a whirr ofmultitudinous wings, that is almost startling, and positively overshadowthe ground beneath like a cloud. I had a conversation that interested me a good deal, during my walkto-day, with my peculiar slave Jack. This lad, whom Mr. ---- has appointedto attend me in my roamings about the island, and rowing expeditions onthe river, is the son of the last head driver, a man of very extraordinaryintelligence and faithfulness--such, at least, is the account given of himby his employers (in the burial-ground of the negroes is a stone dedicatedto his memory, a mark of distinction accorded by his masters, which hisson never failed to point out to me, when we passed that way). Jackappears to inherit his quickness of apprehension; his questions, likethose of an intelligent child, are absolutely inexhaustible; his curiosityabout all things beyond this island, the prison-house of his existence, is perfectly intense; his countenance is very pleasing, mild, and nototherwise than thoughtful; he is, in common with the rest of them, astupendous flatterer, and, like the rest of them, also seems devoid ofphysical and moral courage. To-day, in the midst of his torrent ofenquiries about places and things, I suddenly asked him if he would liketo be free. A gleam of light absolutely shot over his whole countenance, like the vivid and instantaneous lightning--he stammered, hesitated, became excessively confused, and at length replied--'Free, missis? whatfor me wish to be free? Oh! no, missis, me no wish to be free, if massaonly let we keep pig. ' The fear of offending, by uttering that forbiddenwish--the dread of admitting, by its expression, the slightest discontentwith his present situation--the desire to conciliate my favour, even atthe expense of strangling the intense natural longing that absolutelyglowed in his every feature--it was a sad spectacle, and I repented myquestion. As for the pitiful request which he reiterated several timesadding, 'No, missis, me no want to be free--me work till me die for missisand massa, ' with increased emphasis; it amounted only to this, that thenegroes once were, but no longer are, permitted to keep pigs. The increaseof filth and foul smells, consequent upon their being raised, is, ofcourse, very great; and, moreover, Mr. ---- told me, when I preferred poorJack's request to him, that their allowance was no more than would sufficetheir own necessity, and that they had not the means of feeding theanimals. With a little good management they might very easily obtain them, however; their little 'kail-yard' alone would suffice to it, and the porkand bacon would prove a most welcome addition to their farinaceous diet. You perceive at once (or if you could have seen the boy's face, you wouldhave perceived at once), that his situation was no mystery to him, thathis value to Mr. ----, and, as he supposed, to me, was perfectly wellknown to him, and that he comprehended immediately that his expressingeven the desire to be free, might be construed by me into an offence, andsought by eager protestations of his delighted acquiescence in slavery, toconceal his soul's natural yearning, lest I should resent it. 'T was a sadpassage between us, and sent me home full of the most painful thoughts. Itold Mr. ----, with much indignation, of poor Harriet's flogging, andrepresented that if the people were to be chastised for anything they saidto me, I must leave the place, as I could not but hear their complaints, and endeavour, by all my miserable limited means, to better theircondition while I was here. He said he would ask Mr. O---- about it, assuring me, at the same time, that it was impossible to believe a singleword any of these people said. At dinner, accordingly, the enquiry wasmade as to the cause of her punishment, and Mr. O---- then said it was notat all for what she had told me, that he had flogged her, but for havinganswered him impertinently, that he had ordered her into the field, whereupon she had said she was ill and could not work, that he retorted heknew better, and bade her get up and go to work; she replied, 'Very well, I'll go, but I shall just come back again!' meaning, that when in thefield, she would be unable to work, and obliged, to return to thehospital. 'For this reply, ' Mr. O---- said, 'I gave her a good lashing; itwas her business to have gone into the field without answering me, andthen we should have soon seen whether she could work or not; I gave it toChloe too, for some such impudence. ' I give you the words of theconversation, which was prolonged to a great length, the overseercomplaining of sham sicknesses of the slaves, and detailing the mostdisgusting struggle which is going on the whole time, on the one hand toinflict, and on the other, to evade oppression and injustice. With thissauce I ate my dinner, and truly it tasted bitter. Towards sunset I went on the river to take my rowing lesson. A darlinglittle canoe which carries two oars and a steersman, and rejoices in theappropriate title of the 'Dolphin, ' is my especial vessel; and with Jack'shelp and instructions, I contrived this evening to row upwards of half amile, coasting the reed-crowned edge of the island to another very largerice mill, the enormous wheel of which is turned by the tide. A small bankof mud and sand covered with reedy coarse grass divides the river into twoarms on this side of the island; the deep channel is on the outside ofthis bank, and as we rowed home this evening, the tide having fallen, wescraped sand almost the whole way. Mr. ----'s domain, it seems to me, willpresently fill up this shallow stream, and join itself to theabove-mentioned mud-bank. The whole course of this most noble river isfull of shoals, banks, mud, and sand-bars, and the navigation, which isdifficult to those who know it well, is utterly baffling to theinexperienced. The fact is, that the two elements are so fused hereabouts, that there are hardly such things as earth or water proper; that whichstyles itself the former, is a fat, muddy, slimy sponge, that, floatinghalf under the turbid river, looks yet saturated with the thick waveswhich every now and then reclaim their late dominion, and cover it almostentirely; the water, again, cloudy and yellow, like pea-soup, seems but asolution of such islands, rolling turbid and thick with alluvium, which itboth gathers and deposits as it sweeps along with a swollen, smoothrapidity, that almost deceives the eye. Amphibious creatures, alligators, serpents, and wild fowl, haunt these yet but half-formed regions, whereland and water are of the consistency of hasty-pudding--the one seemingtoo unstable to walk on, the other almost too thick to float in. But then, the sky, if no human chisel ever yet cut breath, neither did any human penever write light; if it did, mine should spread out before you theunspeakable glories of these southern heavens, the saffron brightness ofmorning, the blue intense brilliancy of noon, the golden splendour and therosy softness of sunset. Italy and Claude Lorraine may go hang themselvestogether! Heaven itself does not seem brighter or more beautiful to theimagination, than these surpassing pageants of fiery rays, and piled-upbeds of orange, golden clouds, with edges too bright to look on, scatteredwreaths of faintest rosy bloom, amber streaks and pale green lakesbetween, and amid sky all mingled blue and rose tints, a spectacle to makeone fall over the boat's side, with one's head broken off, with lookingadoringly upwards, but which, on paper, means nothing. At six o'clock our little canoe grazed the steps at the landing. Thesewere covered with young women, and boys, and girls, drawing water fortheir various household purposes. A very small cedar pail--a piggin, asthey termed it--serves to scoop up the river water, and having, by thismeans, filled a large bucket, they transfer this to their heads, and thusladen, march home with the purifying element--what to do with it, I cannotimagine, for evidence of its ever having been introduced into theirdwellings, I saw none. As I ascended the stairs, they surrounded me withshrieks and yells of joy, uttering exclamations of delight and amazementat my rowing. Considering that they dig, delve, carry burthens, andperform many more athletic exercises than pulling a light oar, I wasrather amused at this; but it was the singular fact of seeing a whitewoman stretch her sinews in any toilsome exercise which astounded them, accustomed as they are to see both men and women of the privileged skineschew the slightest shadow of labour, as a thing not only painful butdegrading. They will learn another lesson from me, however, whose idea ofHeaven was pronounced by a friend of mine, to whom I once communicated it, to be 'devilish hard work'! It was only just six o'clock, and these womenhad all done their tasks. I exhorted them to go home and wash theirchildren, and clean their houses and themselves, which they professedthemselves ready to do, but said they had no soap. Then began a chorus ofmingled requests for soap, for summer clothing, and a variety of things, which, if 'Missis only give we, we be so clean for ever!' This request for summer clothing, by the by, I think a very reasonableone. The allowance of clothes made yearly to each slave by the presentregulations of the estate, is a certain number of yards of flannel, and asmuch more of what they call plains--an extremely stout, thick, heavywoollen cloth, of a dark grey or blue colour, which resembles the speciesof carpet we call drugget. This, and two pair of shoes, is the regularration of clothing; but these plains would be intolerable to any butnegroes, even in winter, in this climate, and are intolerable to them inthe summer. A far better arrangement, in my opinion, would be to increasetheir allowance of flannel and under clothing, and give them dark chintzesinstead of these thick carpets, which are very often the only coveringthey wear at all. I did not impart all this to my petitioners, butdisengaging myself from them, for they held my hands and clothes, Iconjured them to offer us some encouragement to better their condition, bybettering it as much as they could themselves, --enforced the virtue ofwashing themselves and all belonging to them, and at length made good myretreat. As there is no particular reason why such a letter as this shouldever come to an end, I had better spare you for the present. You shallhave a faithful journal, I promise you, henceforward, as hitherto, fromyour's ever. * * * * * Dear E----. We had a species of fish this morning for our breakfast, whichdeserves more glory than I can bestow upon it. Had I been the ingeniousman who wrote a poem upon fish, the white mullet of the Altamaha shouldhave been at least my heroine's cousin. 'Tis the heavenliest creature thatgoes upon fins. I took a long walk this morning to Settlement No. 3, thethird village on the island. My way lay along the side of the canal, beyond which, and only divided from it by a raised narrow causeway, rolledthe brimming river with its girdle of glittering evergreens, while on myother hand a deep trench marked the line of the rice fields. It reallyseemed as if the increase of merely a shower of rain might join all thesewaters together, and lay the island under its original covering again. Ivisited the people and houses here. I found nothing in any respectdifferent from what I have described to you at Settlement No. 1. Duringthe course of my walk, I startled from its repose in one of therice-fields, a huge blue heron. You must have seen, as I often have, thesecreatures stuffed in museums; but 't is another matter, and far morecurious, to meet them stalking on their stilts of legs over a rice-field, and then on your near approach, see them spread their wide heavy wings, and throw themselves upon the air, with their long shanks flying afterthem in a most grotesque and laughable manner. They fly as if they did notknow how to do it very well; but standing still, their height (betweenfour and five feet) and peculiar colour, a dusky, greyish blue, with blackabout the head, render their appearance very beautiful and striking. In the afternoon, I and Jack rowed ourselves over to Darien. It isSaturday--the day of the week on which the slaves from the island arepermitted to come over to the town, to purchase such things as they mayrequire and can afford, and to dispose, to the best advantage, of theirpoultry, moss, and eggs. I met many of them paddling themselves singlyin their slight canoes, scooped out of the trunk of a tree, and partiesof three and four rowing boats of their own building, laden with theirpurchases, singing, laughing, talking, and apparently enjoying theirholiday to the utmost. They all hailed me with shouts of delight, as Ipulled past them, and many were the injunctions bawled after Jack, to'mind and take good care of Missis!' We returned home through the gloryof a sunset all amber-coloured and rosy, and found that one of theslaves, a young lad for whom Mr. ---- has a particular regard, wasdangerously ill. Dr. H---- was sent for; and there is every probabilitythat he, Mr. ----and Mr. O---- will be up all night with the poorfellow. I shall write more to-morrow. To-day being Sunday, dear E----, alarge boat full of Mr. ----'s people from Hampton came up, to go tochurch at Darien, and to pay their respects to their master, and seetheir new 'Missis. ' The same scene was acted over again that occurred onour first arrival. A crowd clustered round the house door, to whom I andmy babies were produced, and with every individual of whom we had toshake hands some half-a-dozen times. They brought us up presents of eggs(their only wealth), beseeching us to take them, and one young lad, theson of head-man Frank, had a beautiful pair of chickens, which heoffered most earnestly to S----. We took one of them, not to mortify thepoor fellow, and a green ribbon being tied round its leg, it became asacred fowl, 'little missis's chicken. ' By the by, this young man had solight a complexion, and such regular straight features, that, had I seenhim anywhere else, I should have taken him for a southern European, or, perhaps, in favour of his tatters, a gipsy; but certainly it never wouldhave occurred to me that he was the son of negro parents. I observedthis to Mr. ----, who merely replied, 'He is the son of head-man Frankand his wife Betty, and they are both black enough, as you see. ' Theexpressions of devotion and delight of these poor people are the mostfervent you can imagine. One of them, speaking to me of Mr. ----, andsaying that they had heard that he had not been well, added, 'Oh! wehear so, missis, and we not know what to do. Oh! missis, massa sick, allhim people _broken_!' Dr. H---- came again to-day to see the poor sick boy, who is doing muchbetter, and bidding fair to recover. He entertained me with an account ofthe Darien society, its aristocracies and democracies, its littlegrandeurs and smaller pettinesses, its circles higher and lower, itssocial jealousies, fine invisible lines of demarcation, imperceptibleshades of different respectability, and delicate divisions of genteel, genteeler, genteelest. 'For me, ' added the worthy doctor, 'I cannot wellenter into the spirit of these nice distinctions; it suits neither mytaste nor my interest, and my house is, perhaps, the only one in Darien, where you would find all these opposite and contending elementscombined. ' The doctor is connected with the aristocracy of the place, and, like a wise man, remembers, notwithstanding, that those who are not, arequite as liable to be ill, and call in medical assistance, as those whoare. He is a shrewd, intelligent man, with an excellent knowledge of hisprofession, much kindness of heart, and apparent cheerful good temper. Ihave already severely tried the latter, by the unequivocal expression ofmy opinions on the subject of slavery, and, though I perceived that itrequired all his self-command to listen with anything like patience to myhighly incendiary and inflammatory doctrines, he yet did so, and though hewas, I have no doubt, perfectly horror-stricken at the discovery, lostnothing of his courtesy or good-humour. By the by, I must tell you, thatat an early period of the conversation, upon my saying, 'I put all otherconsiderations out of the question, and first propose to you the injusticeof the system alone, ' 'Oh!' replied my friend, the Doctor, 'if you put itupon that ground, you _stump_ the question at once; I have nothing to sayto that whatever, but, ' and then followed the usual train ofpleadings--happiness, tenderness, care, indulgence, &c. , &c. , &c. --all thesubstitutes that may or may not be put in the place of _justice_, andwhich these slaveholders attempt to persuade others, and perhapsthemselves, effectually supply its want. After church hours the peoplecame back from Darien. They are only permitted to go to Darien to churchonce a month. On the intermediate Sundays they assemble in the house ofLondon, Mr. ----'s head cooper, an excellent and pious man, who, Heavenalone knows how, has obtained some little knowledge of reading, and whoreads prayers and the Bible to his fellow slaves, and addresses them withextemporaneous exhortations. I have the greatest desire to attend one ofthese religious meetings, but fear to put the people under any, theslightest restraint. However, I shall see, by and by, how they feel aboutit themselves. You have heard, of course, many and contradictory statements as to thedegree of religious instruction afforded to the negroes of the South, andtheir opportunities of worship, &c. Until the late abolition movement, thespiritual interests of the slaves were about as little regarded as theirphysical necessities. The outcry which has been raised with threefoldforce within the last few years against the whole system, has induced itsupholders and defenders to adopt, as measures of personal extenuation, some appearance of religious instruction (such as it is), and somepretence at physical indulgences (such as they are), bestowed apparentlyvoluntarily upon their dependants. At Darien, a church is appropriated tothe especial use of the slaves, who are almost all of them Baptists here;and a gentleman officiates in it (of course white), who, I understand, isvery zealous in the cause of their spiritual well-being. He, like mostSouthern men, clergy or others, jump the present life in their charitiesto the slaves, and go on to furnish them with all requisite conveniencesfor the next. There were a short time ago two free black preachers in thisneighbourhood, but they have lately been ejected from the place. I couldnot clearly learn, but one may possibly imagine, upon what grounds. I do not think that a residence on a slave plantation is likely to bepeculiarly advantageous to a child like my eldest. I was observing herto-day among her swarthy worshippers, for they follow her as such, andsaw, with dismay, the universal eagerness with which they sprang to obeyher little gestures of command. She said something about a swing, and inless than five minutes head-man Frank had erected it for her, and adozen young slaves were ready to swing little 'missis. ' ----, think oflearning to rule despotically your fellow creatures before the firstlesson of self-government has been well spelt over! It makes me tremble;but I shall find a remedy, or remove myself and the child from thismisery and ruin. You cannot conceive anything more grotesque than the Sunday trim of thepoor people; their ideality, as Mr. Combe would say, being, I shouldthink, twice as big as any rational bump in their head. Their Sabbathtoilet really presents the most ludicrous combination of incongruitiesthat you can conceive--frills, flounces, ribbands, combs stuck in theirwoolly heads, as if they held up any portion of the stiff and ungovernablehair, filthy finery, every colour in the rainbow, and the deepest possibleshades blended in fierce companionship round one dusky visage, headhandkerchiefs, that put one's very eyes out from a mile off, chintzes withsprawling patterns, that might be seen if the clouds were printed withthem--beads, bugles, flaring sashes, and above all, little fancifulaprons, which finish these incongruous toilets with a sort of airy grace, which I assure you is perfectly indescribable. One young man, the eldestson and heir of our washerwoman Hannah, came to pay his respects to me ina magnificent black satin waistcoat, shirt gills which absolutelyengulphed his black visage, and neither shoes nor stockings on his feet. Among our visitors from St. Simons to-day was Hannah's mother (it seems tome that there is not a girl of sixteen on the plantations but haschildren, nor a woman of thirty but has grandchildren). Old House Molly, as she is called, from the circumstance of her having been one of theslaves employed in domestic offices during Major ----'s residence on theisland, is one of the oldest and most respected slaves on the estate, andwas introduced to me by Mr. ---- with especial marks of attention andregard; she absolutely embraced him, and seemed unable sufficiently toexpress her ecstacy at seeing him again. Her dress, like that of herdaughter, and all the servants who have at any time been employed aboutthe family, bore witness to a far more improved taste than the half savageadornment of the other poor blacks, and upon my observing to her howagreeable her neat and cleanly appearance was to me, she replied, that herold master (Major ----) was extremely particular in this respect, and thatin his time all the house servants were obliged to be very nice andcareful about their persons. She named to me all her children, an immense tribe; and, by the by, E----, it has occurred to me that whereas the increase of this ill-fated race isfrequently adduced as a proof of their good treatment and well being, itreally and truly is no such thing, and springs from quite other causesthan the peace and plenty which a rapidly increasing population aresupposed to indicate. If you will reflect for a moment upon the overgrownfamilies of the half-starved Irish peasantry and English manufacturers, you will agree with me that these prolific shoots by no means necessarilyspring from a rich or healthy soil. Peace and plenty are certainly causesof human increase, and so is recklessness; and this, I take it, is theimpulse in the instance of the English manufacturer, the Irish peasant, and the negro slave. Indeed here it is more than recklessness, for thereare certain indirect premiums held out to obey the early commandment ofreplenishing the earth, which do not fail to have their full effect. Inthe first place, none of the cares, those noble cares, that holythoughtfulness which lifts the human above the brute parent, are everincurred here by either father or mother. The relation indeed resembles, as far as circumstances can possibly make it do so, the short-livedconnection between the animal and its young. The father, having neitherauthority, power, responsibility, or charge in his children, is of course, as among brutes, the least attached to his offspring; the mother, by thenatural law which renders the infant dependent on her for its first year'snourishment, is more so; but as neither of them is bound to educate or tosupport their children, all the unspeakable tenderness and solemnity, allthe rational, and all the spiritual grace and glory of the connection islost, and it becomes mere breeding, bearing, suckling, and there an end. But it is not only the absence of the conditions which God has affixed tothe relation, which tends to encourage the reckless increase of the race;they enjoy, by means of numerous children, certain positive advantages. Inthe first place, every woman who is pregnant, as soon as she chooses tomake the fact known to the overseer, is relieved of a certain portion ofher work in the field, which lightening of labour continues, of course, aslong as she is so burthened. On the birth of a child certain additions ofclothing and an additional weekly ration are bestowed on the family; andthese matters, small as they may seem, act as powerful inducements tocreatures who have none of the restraining influences actuating themwhich belong to the parental relation among all other people, whethercivilised or savage. Moreover, they have all of them a most distinct andperfect knowledge of their value to their owners as property; and a womanthinks, and not much amiss, that the more frequently she adds to thenumber of her master's live stock by bringing new slaves into the world, the more claims she will have upon his consideration and goodwill. Thiswas perfectly evident to me from the meritorious air with which the womenalways made haste to inform me of the number of children they had borne, and the frequent occasions on which the older slaves would direct myattention to their children, exclaiming, 'Look, missis! little niggers foryou and massa, plenty little niggers for you and little missis!' A veryagreeable apostrophe to me indeed, as you will believe. I have let this letter lie for a day or two, dear, E---- from press ofmore immediate avocations. I have nothing very particular to add to it. OnMonday evening I rowed over to Darien with Mr. ---- to fetch over thedoctor, who was coming to visit some of our people. As I sat waiting inthe boat for the return of the gentlemen, the sun went down, or ratherseemed to dissolve bodily into the glowing clouds, which appeared but afusion of the great orb of light; the stars twinkled out in therose-coloured sky, and the evening air, as it fanned the earth to sleep, was as soft as a summer's evening breeze in the north. A sort of dreamystillness seemed creeping over the world and into my spirit, as the canoejust tilted against the steps that led to the wharf, raised by the scarceperceptible heaving of the water. A melancholy, monotonous boat-hornsounded from a distance up the stream, and presently, floating slowly downwith the current, huge, shapeless, black relieved against the sky, cameone of those rough barges piled with cotton, called, hereabouts, Oconeboxes. The vessel itself is really nothing but a monstrous square box, made of rough planks, put together in the roughest manner possible toattain the necessary object of keeping the cotton dry. Upon this greattray are piled the swollen apoplectic looking cotton bags, to the heightof ten, twelve, and fourteen feet. This huge water-waggon floats lazilydown the river, from the upper country to Darien. They are flat bottomed, and, of course, draw little water. The stream from whence they are namedis an up country river, which, by its junction with the Ocmulgee, formsthe Altamaha. Here at least, you perceive the Indian names remain, andlong may they do so, for they seem to me to become the very character ofthe streams and mountains they indicate, and are indeed significant to thelearned in savage tongues, which is more than can be said of such titlesas Jones's Creek, Onion Creek, &c. These Ocone boxes are broken up atDarien, where the cotton is shipped either for the Savannah, Charlestonor Liverpool markets, and the timber, of which they are constructed, sold. We rowed the doctor over to see some of his patients on the island, andbefore his departure a most animated discussion took place upon thesubject of the President of the United States, his talents, qualifications, opinions, above all, his views with regard to the slavesystem. Mr. ----, who you know is no abolitionist, and is a very devotedVan Buren man, maintained with great warmth the President'sstraight-forwardness, and his evident and expressed intention ofprotecting the rights of the South. The doctor, on the other hand, quoteda certain speech of the President's, upon the question of abolishingslavery in the district of Columbia, which his fears interpreted into amere evasion of the matter, and an indication that, at some future period, he (Mr. Van Buren), might take a different view of the subject. I confess, for my own part, that if the doctor quoted the speech right, and if thePresident is not an honest man, and if I were a Southern slave holder, Ishould not feel altogether secure of Mr. Van Buren's present opinions orfuture conduct upon this subject. These three _ifs_, however, are materialpoints of consideration. Our friend the doctor inclined vehemently to Mr. Clay, as one on whom the slave holders could depend. Georgia, however, asa state, is perhaps the most democratic in the Union; though here, as wellas in other places, that you and I know of, a certain class, callingthemselves the first, and honestly believing themselves the best, settheir faces against the modern fashioned republicanism, professing, and, Ihave no doubt, with great sincerity, that their ideas of democracy arealtogether of a different kind. I went again to-day to the Infirmary, and was happy to perceive that therereally was an evident desire to conform to my instructions, and keep theplace in a better condition than formerly. Among the sick I found a poorwoman suffering dreadfully from the ear-ache. She had done nothing toalleviate her pain but apply some leaves, of what tree or plant I couldnot ascertain, and tie up her head in a variety of dirty cloths, till itwas as large as her whole body. I removed all these, and found one side ofher face and neck very much swollen, but so begrimed with filth that itwas really no very agreeable task to examine it. The first process, ofcourse, was washing, which, however, appeared to her so very unusual anoperation, that I had to perform it for her myself. Sweet oil andlaudanum, and raw cotton, being then applied to her ear and neck, sheprofessed herself much relieved, but I believe in my heart that the warmwater sponging had done her more good than anything else. I was sorry notto ascertain what leaves she had applied to her ear. These simple remediesresorted to by savages, and people as ignorant, are generally approved byexperience, and sometimes condescendingly adopted by science. I rememberonce, when Mr. ---- was suffering from a severe attack of inflammatoryrheumatism, Doctor C---- desired him to bind round his knee the leaves ofthe tulip-tree--poplar, I believe you call it--saying that he had learntthat remedy from the negroes in Virginia, and found it a most effectualone. My next agreeable office in the Infirmary this morning wassuperintending the washing of two little babies, whose mothers werenursing them with quite as much ignorance as zeal. Having ordered a largetub of water, I desired Rose to undress the little creatures and give thema warm bath; the mothers looked on in unutterable dismay, and one of them, just as her child was going to be put into the tub, threw into it all theclothes she had just taken off it, as she said, to break the unusual shockof the warm water. I immediately rescued them, not but what they werequite as much in want of washing as the baby, but it appeared, uponenquiry, that the woman had none others to dress the child in, when itshould have taken its bath; they were immediately wrung and hung by thefire to dry, and the poor little patients having undergone this noveloperation were taken out and given to their mothers. Anything, however, much more helpless and inefficient than these poor ignorant creatures youcannot conceive; they actually seemed incapable of drying or dressingtheir own babies, and I had to finish their toilet myself. As it is only avery few years since the most absurd and disgusting customs have becomeexploded among ourselves, you will not, of course, wonder that these poorpeople pin up the lower part of their infants, bodies, legs and all, inred flannel as soon as they are born, and keep them in the selfsameenvelope till it literally falls off. In the next room I found a woman lying on the floor in a fit of epilepsy, barking most violently. She seemed to excite no particular attention orcompassion; the women said she was subject to these fits, and took littleor no notice of her, as she lay barking like some enraged animal on theground. Again I stood in profound ignorance, sickening with the sight ofsuffering, which I knew not how to alleviate, and which seemed to exciteno commiseration, merely from the sad fact of its frequent occurrence. Returning to the house, I passed up the 'street. ' It was between eleveno'clock and noon, and the people were taking their first meal in the day. By the by, E----, how do you think Berkshire county farmers would relishlabouring hard all day upon _two meals_ of Indian corn or hominy? Such isthe regulation on this plantation, however, and I beg you to bear in mindthat the negroes on Mr. ----'s estate, are generally considered well off. They go to the fields at daybreak, carrying with them their allowance offood for the day, which towards noon, _and not till then_, they eat, cooking it over a fire, which they kindle as best they can, where they areworking. Their second meal in the day is at night, after their labour isover, having worked, at the _very least_, six hours without intermissionof rest or refreshment since their noon-day meal (properly so called, for'tis meal, and nothing else). Those that I passed to-day, sitting on theirdoorsteps, or on the ground round them eating, were the people employed atthe mill and threshing-floor. As these are near to the settlement, theyhad time to get their food from the cook-shop. Chairs, tables, plates, knives, forks, they had none; they sat, as I before said, on the earth ordoorsteps, and ate either out of their little cedar tubs, or an iron pot, some few with broken iron spoons, more with pieces of wood, and all thechildren with their fingers. A more complete sample of savage feeding, Inever beheld. At one of the doors I saw three young girls standing, whomight be between sixteen and seventeen years old; they had evidently doneeatings and were rudely playing and romping with each other, laughing andshouting like wild things. I went into the house, and such anotherspectacle of filthy disorder I never beheld. I then addressed the girlsmost solemnly, showing them that they were wasting in idle riot the timein which they might be rendering their abode decent, and told them that itwas a shame for any woman to live in so dirty a place, and so beastly acondition. They said they had seen buckree (white) women's houses just asdirty, and they could not be expected to be cleaner than white women. Ithen told them that the only difference between themselves and buckreewomen was, that the latter were generally better informed, and, for thatreason alone, it was more disgraceful to them to be disorderly and dirty. They seemed to listen to me attentively, and one of them exclaimed, withgreat satisfaction, that they saw I made no difference between them andwhite girls, and that they never had been so treated before. I do not knowanything which strikes me as a more melancholy illustration of thedegradation of these people, than the animal nature of their recreationsin their short seasons of respite from labour. You see them, boys andgirls, from the youngest age to seventeen and eighteen, rolling, tumbling, kicking, and wallowing in the dust, regardless alike of decency, andincapable of any more rational amusement; or, lolling, with half-closedeyes, like so many cats and dogs, against a wall, or upon a bank in thesun, dozing away their short leisure hour, until called to resume theirlabours in the field or the mill. After this description of the meals ofour labourers, you will, perhaps, be curious to know how it fares with ourhouse servants in this respect. Precisely in the same manner, as far asregards allowance, with the exception of what is left from our table, but, if possible, with even less comfort, in one respect, inasmuch as no timewhatever is set apart for their meals, which they snatch at any hour, andin any way that they can--generally, however, standing, or squatting ontheir hams round the kitchen fire. They have no sleeping-rooms in thehouse, but when their work is over, retire, like the rest, to theirhovels, the discomfort of which has to them all the addition of comparisonwith our mode of living. Now, in all establishments whatever, of coursesome disparity exists between the comforts of the drawing-room and bestbed-rooms, and the servant's hall and attics, but here it is no longer amatter of degree. The young woman who performs the office of lady's-maid, and the lads who wait upon us at table, have neither table to feed at norchair to sit down upon themselves. The boys sleep at night on the hearthby the kitchen fire, and the women upon a rough board bedstead, strewedwith a little tree moss. All this shows how very torpid the sense ofjustice is apt to lie in the breasts of those who have it not awakened bythe peremptory demands of others. In the north we could not hope to keep the worst and poorest servant fora single day in the wretched discomfort in which our negro servants areforced habitually to live. I received a visit this morning from some ofthe Darien people. Among them was a most interesting young person, fromwhose acquaintance, if I have any opportunity of cultivating it, Ipromise myself much pleasure. The ladies that I have seen since Icrossed the southern line, have all seemed to me extremely sickly intheir appearance--delicate in the refined term, but unfortunately sicklyin the truer one. They are languid in their deportment and speech, andseem to give themselves up, without an effort to counteract it, to theenervating effect of their warm climate. It is undoubtedly a mostrelaxing and unhealthy one, and therefore requires the more imperativelyto be met by energetic and invigorating habits both of body and mind. Ofthese, however, the southern ladies appear to have, at present, no verypositive idea. Doctor ---- told us to-day of a comical application whichhis negro man had made to him for the coat he was then wearing. I forgetwhether the fellow wanted the loan, or the absolute gift of it, but hisargument was (it might have been an Irishman's) that he knew his masterintended to give it to him by and by, and that he thought he might aswell let him have it at once, as keep him waiting any longer for it. This story the Doctor related with great glee, and it furnishes a verygood sample of what the Southerners are fond of exhibiting, the degreeof licence to which they capriciously permit their favourite slavesoccasionally to carry their familiarity. They seem to consider it as anundeniable proof of the general kindness with which their dependents aretreated. It is as good a proof of it as the maudlin tenderness of a finelady to her lap-dog is of her humane treatment of animals in general. Servants whose claims to respect are properly understood by themselvesand their employers, are not made pets, playthings, jesters, orcompanions of, and it is only the degradation of the many that admits ofthis favouritism to the few--a system of favouritism which, as it isperfectly consistent with the profoundest contempt and injustice, degrades the object of it quite as much, though it oppresses him less, than the cruelty practised upon his fellows. I had several of thesefavourite slaves presented to me, and one or two little negro children, who their owners assured me were quite pets. The only real service whichthis arbitrary goodwill did to the objects of it was quite involuntaryand unconscious on the part of their kind masters--I mean the inevitableimprovement in intelligence, which resulted to them from being moreconstantly admitted to the intercourse of the favoured white race. I must not forget to tell you of a magnificent bald-headed eagle whichMr. ---- called me to look at early this morning. I had never before seenalive one of these national types of yours, and stood entranced as thenoble creature swept, like a black cloud, over the river, his bald whitehead bent forward and shining in the sun, and his fierce eyes and beakdirected towards one of the beautiful wild ducks on the water, which hehad evidently marked for his prey. The poor little duck, who was notambitious of such a glorification, dived, and the eagle hovered above thespot. After a short interval, its victim rose to the surface severalyards nearer shore. The great king of birds stooped nearer, and again thewatery shield was interposed. This went on until the poor water-fowl, driven by excess of fear into unwonted boldness, rose, after repeatedlydiving, within a short distance of where we stood. The eagle, who, Ipresume, had read how we were to have dominion over the fowls of the air(bald-headed eagles included), hovered sulkily awhile over the river, andthen sailing slowly towards the woods on the opposite shore, alighted andfurled his great wings on a huge cypress limb, that stretched itself outagainst the blue sky, like the arm of a giant, for the giant bird toperch upon. I am amusing myself by attempting to beautify, in some sort, thisresidence of ours. Immediately at the back of it runs a ditch, about threefeet wide, which empties and fills twice a day with the tide. This lieslike a moat on two sides of the house. The opposite bank is a steep dyke, with a footpath along the top. One or two willows droop over this veryinteresting ditch, and I thought I would add to their company somemagnolias and myrtles, and so make a little evergreen plantation round thehouse. I went to the swamp reserves I have before mentioned to you, andchose some beautiful bushes--among others, a very fine young pine, atwhich our overseer and all the negroes expressed much contemptuoussurprise; for though the tree is beautiful, it is also common, and withthem, as with wiser folk 'tis 'nothing pleases but rare accidents. ' Inspite of their disparaging remarks, however, I persisted in having my pinetree planted; and I assure you it formed a very pleasing variety among thebroad smooth leaved evergreens about it. While forming my plantation I hada brand thrown into a bed of tall yellow sedges which screen the brimmingwaters of the noble river from our parlour window, and which I thereforewished removed. The small sample of a southern conflagration which ensuedwas very picturesque, the flames devouring the light growth, absolutelylicking it off the ground, while the curling smoke drew off in mistywreaths across the river. The heat was intense, and I thought howexceedingly and unpleasantly warm one must feel in the midst of such aforest burning, as Cooper describes. Having worked my appointed task inthe garden, I rowed over to Darien and back, the rosy sunset changingmeantime to starry evening, as beautiful as the first the sky ever wasarrayed in. I saw an advertisement this morning in the paper, which occasioned me muchthought. Mr. J---- C---- and a Mr. N----, two planters of thisneighbourhood, have contracted to dig a canal, called the Brunswick canal, and not having hands enough for the work, advertise at the same time fornegroes on hires and for Irish labourers. Now the Irishmen are to havetwenty dollars a month wages, and to be 'found' (to use the technicalphrase, ) which finding means abundant food, and the best accommodationswhich can be procured for them. The negroes are hired from their masters, who will be paid of course as high a price as they can obtain forthem--probably a very high one, as the demand for them is urgent--they, inthe meantime, receiving no wages, and nothing more than the miserablenegro fare of rice and corn grits. Of course the Irishmen and these slavesare not allowed to work together, but are kept at separate stations on thecanal. This is every way politic, for the low Irish seem to have the samesort of hatred of negroes which sects, differing but little in theirtenets, have for each other. The fact is, that a condition in their owncountry nearly similar, has made the poor Irish almost as degraded a classof beings as the negroes are here, and their insolence towards them, andhatred of them, are precisely in proportion to the resemblance betweenthem. This hiring out of negroes is a horrid aggravation of the miseriesof their condition, for, if on the plantations, and under the masters towhom they belong, their labour is severe, and their food inadequate, thinkwhat it must be when they are hired out for a stipulated sum to atemporary employer, who has not even the interest which it is pretended anowner may feel in the welfare of his slaves, but whose chief aim it mustnecessarily be to get as much out of them, and expend as little on them, as possible. Ponder this new form of iniquity, and believe me ever yourmost sincerely attached. * * * * * Dearest E----. After finishing my last letter to you, I went out into theclear starlight to breathe the delicious mildness of the air, and wassurprised to hear rising from one of the houses of the settlement a hymnsung apparently by a number of voices. The next morning I enquired themeaning of this, and was informed that those negroes on the plantation whowere members of the Church, were holding a prayer-meeting. There is animmensely strong devotional feeling among these poor people. The worst ofit is, that it is zeal without understanding, and profits them butlittle; yet light is light, even that poor portion that may streamthrough a key-hole, and I welcome this most ignorant profession ofreligion in Mr. ----'s dependents, as the herald of better and brighterthings for them. Some of the planters are entirely inimical to any suchproceedings, and neither allow their negroes to attend worship, or tocongregate together for religious purposes, and truly I think they arewise in their own generation. On other plantations, again, the same rigiddiscipline is not observed; and some planters and overseers go evenfarther than toleration; and encourage these devotional exercises andprofessions of religion, having actually discovered that a man may becomemore faithful and trustworthy even as a slave, who acknowledges thehigher influences of Christianity, no matter in how small a degree. Slave-holding clergymen, and certain piously inclined planters, undertake, accordingly, to enlighten these poor creatures upon these matters, with asafe understanding, however, of what truth is to be given to them, andwhat is not; how much they may learn to become better slaves, and howmuch they may not learn, lest they cease to be slaves at all. The processis a very ticklish one, and but for the northern public opinion, which isnow pressing the slaveholders close, I dare say would not be attempted atall. As it is, they are putting their own throats and their own souls injeopardy by this very endeavour to serve God and Mammon. The light thatthey are letting in between their fingers will presently strike themblind, and the mighty flood of truth which they are straining through asieve to the thirsty lips of their slaves, sweep them away like strawsfrom their cautious moorings, and overwhelm them in its great deeps, tothe waters of which man may in nowise say, thus far shall ye come and nofarther. The community I now speak of, the white population of Darien, should be a religious one, to judge by the number of Churches itmaintains. However, we know the old proverb, and, at that rate, it maynot be so godly after all. Mr. ---- and his brother have been called uponat various times to subscribe to them all; and I saw this morning a mostfervent appeal, extremely ill-spelled, from a gentleman living in theneighbourhood of the town, and whose slaves are notoriously ill-treated;reminding Mr. ---- of the precious souls of his human cattle, andrequesting a further donation for the Baptist Church, of which most ofthe people here are members. Now this man is known to be a hard master;his negro houses are sheds, not fit to stable beasts in, his slaves areragged, half-naked and miserable--yet he is urgent for their religiouscomforts, and writes to Mr. ---- about 'their souls, their precioussouls. ' He was over here a few days ago, and pressed me very much toattend his church. I told him I would not go to a church where the peoplewho worked for us were parted off from us, as if they had the pest, andwe should catch it of them. I asked him, for I was curious to know, howthey managed to administer the Sacrament to a mixed congregation? Hereplied, Oh! very easily; that the white portion of the assembly receivedit first, and the blacks afterwards. 'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. ' Oh, what a shockingmockery! However, they show their faith at all events, in the declarationthat God is no respecter of persons, since they do not pretend to excludefrom His table those whom they most certainly would not admit to theirown. I have as usual allowed this letter to lie by, dear E----, not in the hopeof the occurrence of any event--for that is hopeless--but until my dailyavocations allowed me leisure to resume it, and afforded me, at the sametime, matter wherewith to do so. I really never was so busy in all mylife, as I am here. I sit at the receipt of custom (involuntarily enough)from morning till night--no time, no place, affords me a respite from myinnumerable petitioners, and whether I be asleep or awake, reading, eating, or walking; in the kitchen, my bed-room, or the parlour, theyflock in with urgent entreaties, and pitiful stories, and my conscienceforbids my ever postponing their business for any other matter; for, withshame and grief of heart I say it, by their unpaid labour I live--theirnakedness clothes me, and their heavy toil maintains me in luxuriousidleness. Surely the least I can do is to hear these, my most injuredbenefactors; and, indeed, so intense in me is the sense of the injury theyreceive from me and mine, that I should scarce dare refuse them the veryclothes from my back, or food from my plate, if they asked me for it. Intaking my daily walk round the banks yesterday, I found that I was walkingover violet roots. The season is too little advanced for them to be inbloom, and I could not find out whether they were the fragrant violet ornot. Mr. ---- has been much gratified to-day by the arrival of Mr. K----, who, with his father, for nineteen years was the sole manager of theseestates, and discharged his laborious task with great ability andfidelity towards his employers. How far he understood his duties to theslaves, or whether indeed an overseer can, in the nature of things, acknowledge any duty to them, is another question. He is a remarkable manand is much respected for his integrity and honourable dealing byeverybody here. His activity and energy are wonderful, and the mere factof his having charge of for nineteen years, and personally governing, without any assistance whatever, seven hundred people scattered overthree large tracts of land, at a considerable distance from each other, certainly bespeaks efficiency and energy of a very uncommon order. Thecharacter I had heard of him from Mr. ---- had excited a great deal ofinterest in me, and I was very glad of this opportunity of seeing a manwho, for so many years, had been sovereign over the poor people here. Imet him walking on the banks with Mr. ----, as I returned from my ownramble, during which nothing occurred or appeared to interest me--except, by the by, my unexpectedly coming quite close to one of those magnificentscarlet birds which abound here, and which dart across your path, like awinged flame. Nothing can surpass the beauty of their plumage, and theirvoice is excellently melodious--they are lovely. My companions, when I do not request the attendance of my friend Jack, area couple of little terriers, who are endowed to perfection with theugliness and the intelligence of their race--they are of infinite serviceon the plantation, as, owing to the immense quantity of grain, and chaff, and such matters, rats and mice abound in the mills and storehouses. Icrossed the threshing floor to-day--a very large square, perfectly level, raised by artificial means, about half a foot from the ground, and coveredequally all over, so as to lie quite smooth, with some preparation of tar. It lies immediately between the house and the steam mill, and on it muchof the negroes' work is done--the first threshing is given to the rice, and other labours are carried on. As I walked across it to-day, passingthrough the busy groups, chiefly of women, that covered it, I cameopposite to one of the drivers, who held in his hand his whip, the odiousinsignia of his office. I took it from him; it was a short stick ofmoderate size, with a thick square leather thong attached to it. As I heldit in my hand, I did not utter a word; but I conclude, as is often thecase, my face spoke what my tongue did not, for the driver said, 'Oh!Missis, me use it for measure--me seldom strike nigger with it. ' For onemoment I thought I must carry the hateful implement into the house withme. An instant's reflection, however, served to show me how useless such aproceeding would be. The people are not mine, nor their drivers, nor theirwhips. I should but have impeded, for a few hours, the man's customaryoffice, and a new scourge would have been easily provided, and I shouldhave done nothing, perhaps worse than nothing. After dinner I had a most interesting conversation with Mr. K----. Amongother subjects, he gave me a lively and curious description of theYeomanry of Georgia--more properly termed pine-landers. Have you visionsnow of well-to-do farmers with comfortable homesteads, decent habits, industrious, intelligent, cheerful, and thrifty? Such, however, is not theYeomanry of Georgia. Labour being here the especial portion of slaves, itis thenceforth degraded, and considered unworthy of all but slaves. Nowhite man, therefore, of any class puts hand to work of any kind soever. This is an exceedingly dignified way of proving their gentility, for thelazy planters who prefer an idle life of semi-starvation and barbarism tothe degradation of doing anything themselves; but the effect on the poorerwhites of the country is terrible. I speak now of the scattered whitepopulation, who, too poor to possess land or slaves, and having no meansof living in the towns, squat (most appropriately is it so termed) eitheron other men's land or government districts--always here swamp or pinebarren--and claim masterdom over the place they invade, till ejected bythe rightful proprietors. These wretched creatures will not, for they arewhites (and labour belongs to blacks and slaves alone here), labour fortheir own subsistence. They are hardly protected from the weather by therude shelters they frame for themselves in the midst of these drearywoods. Their food is chiefly supplied by shooting the wild fowl andvenison, and stealing from the cultivated patches of the plantationsnearest at hand. Their clothes hang about them in filthy tatters, and thecombined squalor and fierceness of their appearance is really frightful. This population is the direct growth of slavery. The planters are loud intheir execrations of these miserable vagabonds; yet they do not see that, so long as labour is considered the disgraceful portion of slaves, thesefree men will hold it nobler to starve or steal than till the earth withnone but the despised blacks for fellow-labourers. The blacksthemselves--such is the infinite power of custom--acquiesce in thisnotion, and, as I have told you, consider it the lowest degradation in awhite to use any exertion. I wonder, considering the burthens they haveseen me lift, the digging, the planting, the rowing, and the walking I do, that they do not utterly contemn me, and indeed they seem lost inamazement at it. Talking of these pine-landers--gypsies, without any of the romanticassociations that belong to the latter people--led us to the origin ofsuch a population, slavery; and you may be sure I listened with infiniteinterest to the opinions of a man of uncommon shrewdness and sagacity, whowas born in the very bosom of it, and has passed his whole life amongslaves. If any one is competent to judge of its effects, such a man isthe one; and this was his verdict, 'I hate slavery with all my heart; Iconsider it an absolute curse wherever it exists. It will keep thosestates where it does exist fifty years behind the others in improvementand prosperity. ' Further on in the conversation, he made this mostremarkable observation, 'As for its being an irremediable evil--a thingnot to be helped or got rid of--that's all nonsense; for as soon as peoplebecome convinced that it is their interest to get rid of it, they willsoon find the means to do so, depend upon it. ' And undoubtedly this istrue. This is not an age, nor yours a country, where a large mass ofpeople will long endure what they perceive to be injurious to theirfortunes and advancement. Blind as people often are to their highest andtruest interests, your country folk have generally shown remarkableacuteness in finding out where their worldly progress suffered let orhindrance, and have removed it with laudable alacrity. Now, the fact isnot at all as we at the north are sometimes told, that the southernslaveholders deprecate the evils of slavery quite as much as we do; thatthey see all its miseries; that, moreover, they are most anxious to getrid of the whole thing, but want the means to do so, and submit mostunwillingly to a necessity from which they cannot extricate themselves. All this I thought might be true, before I went to the south, and oftenhas the charitable supposition checked the condemnation which wasindignantly rising to my lips against these murderers of their brethren'speace. A little reflection, however, even without personal observation, might have convinced me that this could not be the case. If the majorityof Southerners were satisfied that slavery was contrary to their worldlyfortunes, slavery would be at an end from that very moment; but the factis--and I have it not only from observation of my own, but from thedistinct statement of some of the most intelligent southern men that Ihave conversed with--the only obstacle to immediate abolition throughoutthe south is the immense value of the human property, and, to use thewords of a very distinguished Carolinian, who thus ended a long discussionwe had on the subject, 'I'll tell you why abolition is impossible: becauseevery healthy negro can fetch a thousand dollars in the Charleston marketat this moment. ' And this opinion, you see, tallies perfectly with thetestimony of Mr. K----. He went on to speak of several of the slaves on this estate, as personsquite remarkable for their fidelity and intelligence, instancing oldMolly, Ned the engineer, who has the superintendence of the steam-enginein the rice-mill, and head-man Frank, of whom indeed, he wound up theeulogium by saying, he had quite the principles of a white man--which Ithought most equivocal praise, but he did not intend it as such. As I wascomplaining to Mr. ---- of the terribly neglected condition of the dykes, which are in some parts so overgrown with gigantic briars that 'tisreally impossible to walk over them, and the trench on one hand, and riveron the other, afford one extremely disagreeable alternatives. Mr. K----cautioned me to be particularly on my guard not to step on the thorns ofthe orange tree. These, indeed, are formidable spikes, and he assured me, were peculiarly poisonous to the flesh. Some of the most painful andtedious wounds he had ever seen, he said, were incurred by the negroesrunning these large green thorns into their feet. This led him to speak of the glory and beauty of the orange trees on theisland, before a certain uncommonly severe winter, a few years ago, destroyed them all. For five miles round the banks grew a double row ofnoble orange trees, as large as our orchard apple trees, covered withgolden fruit, and silver flowers. It must have been a most magnificentspectacle, and Captain F----, too, told me, in speaking of it, that he hadbrought Basil Hall here in the season of the trees blossoming, and he hadsaid it was as well worth crossing the Atlantic to see that, as to see theNiagara. Of all these noble trees nothing now remains but the roots, whichbear witness to their size, and some young sprouts shooting up, affordingsome hope that, in the course of years, the island may wear its bridalgarland again. One huge stump close to the door is all that remains of anenormous tree that overtopped the house, from the upper windows of whichoranges have been gathered from off its branches, and which, one year, bore the incredible number of 8, 542 oranges. Mr. K---- assured me of thisas a positive fact, of which he had at the time made the entry in hisjournal, considering such a crop from a single tree well worthy of record. Mr. ---- was called out this evening to listen to a complaint of overwork, from a gang of pregnant women. I did not stay to listen to thedetails of their petition, for I am unable to command myself on suchoccasions, and Mr. ---- seemed positively degraded in my eyes, as he stoodenforcing upon these women the necessity of their fulfilling theirappointed tasks. How honorable he would have appeared to me begrimed withthe sweat and soil of the coarsest manual labour, to what he then seemed, setting forth to these wretched, ignorant women, as a duty, their unpaidexacted labour! I turned away in bitter disgust. I hope this sojourn amongMr. ----'s slaves may not lessen my respect for him, but I fear it; forthe details of slave holding are so unmanly, letting alone every otherconsideration, that I know not how anyone, with the spirit of a man, cancondescend to them. I have been out again on the river, rowing. I find nothing new. Swampscrowned with perfect evergreens are the only land (that's Irish!) abouthere, and, of course, turn which way I will, the natural features of riverand shore are the same. I do not weary of these most exquisite waterywoods, but you will of my mention of them, I fear. Adieu. * * * * * Dearest E----. Since I last wrote to you I have been actually engaged inreceiving and returning visits; for even to this _ultima thule_ of allcivilisation do these polite usages extend. I have been called upon byseveral families residing in and about Darien, and rowed over in due formto acknowledge the honour. How shall I describe Darien to you? Theabomination of desolation is but a poor type of its forlorn appearance, as, half buried in sand, its straggling, tumble-down wooden houses peerover the muddy bank of the thick slimy river. The whole town lies in a bedof sand--side walks, or mid walks, there be none distinct from each other;at every step I took my feet were ankle deep in the soil, and I had causeto rejoice that I was booted for the occasion. Our worthy doctor, whoselady I was going to visit, did nothing but regret that I had not allowedhim to provide me a carriage, though the distance between his house andthe landing is not a quarter of a mile. The magnitude of the exertionseemed to fill him with amazement, and he over and over again repeated howimpossible it would be to prevail on any of the ladies there to take sucha walk. The houses seemed scattered about here and there, apparentlywithout any design, and looked, for the most part, either unfinished orruinous. One feature of the scene alone recalled the villages of NewEngland--the magnificent oaks, which seemed to add to the meanness andinsignificance of the human dwellings they overshadowed by their enormoussize and grotesque forms. They reminded me of the elms of Newhaven andStockbridge. They are quite as large, and more picturesque, from theirsombre foliage and the infinite variety of their forms--a beauty wantingin the New England elm, which invariably rises and spreads in a way which, though the most graceful in the world, at length palls on the capricioushuman eye, which seeks, above all other beauties, variety. Our doctor'swife is a New England woman; how can she live here? She had the fair eyesand hair and fresh complexion of your part of the country, and its dearlybeloved snuffle, which seemed actually dearly beloved when I heard it downhere. She gave me some violets and narcissus, already blossomingprofusely--in January--and expressed, like her husband, a thousand regretsat my having walked so far. A transaction of the most amusing nature occurred to-day with regard tothe resources of the Darien Bank, and the mode of carrying on business inthat liberal and enlightened institution, the funds of which I shouldthink quite incalculable--impalpable, certainly, they appeared by ourexperience this morning. The river, as we came home, was covered with Ocone boxes. It is well forthem they are so shallow-bottomed, for we rasped sand all the way homethrough the cut, and in the shallows of the river. I have been over the rice-mill, under the guidance of the overseer andhead-man Frank, and have been made acquainted with the whole process ofthreshing the rice, which is extremely curious; and here I may againmention another statement of Miss Martineau's, which I am told is, and Ishould suppose from what I see here must be, a mistake. She states thatthe chaff of the husks of the rice is used as a manure for the fields;whereas the people have to-day assured me that it is of so hard, stony, and untractable a nature, as to be literally good for nothing. Here I knowit is thrown away by cart-loads into the river, where its only use appearsto be to act like ground bait, and attract a vast quantity of small fishto its vicinity. The number of hands employed in this threshing-mill isvery considerable, and the whole establishment, comprising the fires andboilers and machinery of a powerful steam engine, are all under negrosuperintendence and direction. After this survey, I occupied myself withmy infant plantation of evergreens round the dyke, in the midst of whichinteresting pursuit I was interrupted by a visit from Mr. B----, aneighbouring planter, who came to transact some business with Mr. ----about rice which he had sent to our mill to have threshed, and the priceto be paid for such threshing. The negroes have presented a petitionto-day that they may be allowed to have a ball in honour of our arrival, which demand has been acceded to, and furious preparations are being seton foot. On visiting the Infirmary to-day, I was extremely pleased with theincreased cleanliness and order observable in all the rooms. Two littlefilthy children, however, seemed to be still under the _ancien régime_ ofnon-ablution; but upon my saying to the old nurse Molly, in whose wardthey were, 'Why, Molly, I don't believe you have bathed those childrento-day, ' she answered, with infinite dignity, 'Missis no b'lieve me washum piccaninny! and yet she tress me wid all um niggar when 'em sick. ' Theinjured innocence and lofty conscious integrity of this speech silencedand abashed me; and yet I can't help it, but I don't believe to thispresent hour that those children had had any experience of water, at leastnot washing water, since they first came into the world. I rowed over to Darien again, to make some purchases, yesterday; andenquiring the price of various articles, could not but wonder to findthem at least three times as dear as in your northern villages. Theprofits of these southern shopkeepers (who, for the most part, arethoroughbred Yankees, with the true Yankee propensity to trade, no matteron how dirty a counter, or in what manner of wares) are enormous. Theprices they ask for everything, from coloured calicoes for negro dressesto pianofortes (one of which, for curiosity sake, I enquired the valueof), are fabulous, and such as none but the laziest and most recklesspeople in the world would consent to afford. On our return we found thewater in the cut so extremely low that we were obliged to push the boatthrough it, and did not accomplish it without difficulty. The banks ofthis canal, when they are thus laid bare, present a singular appearanceenough, --two walls of solid mud, through which matted, twisted, twined, and tangled, like the natural veins of wood, runs an everlasting net ofindestructible roots, the thousand toes of huge cypress feet. The treeshave been cut down long ago from the soil, but these fangs remain in theearth without decaying for an incredible space of time. This longendurance of immersion is one of the valuable properties of these cypressroots; but though excellent binding stuff for the sides of a canal, theymust be pernicious growth in any land used for cultivation that requiresdeep tillage. On entering the Altamaha, we found the tide so low that wewere much obstructed by the sand banks, which, but for their constantshifting, would presently take entire possession of this noble stream, and render it utterly impassable from shore to shore, as it already is inseveral parts of the channel at certain seasons of the tide. On landing, I was seized hold of by a hideous old negress, named Sinda, who had cometo pay me a visit, and of whom Mr. ---- told me a strange anecdote. Shepassed at one time for a prophetess among her fellow slaves on theplantation, and had acquired such an ascendancy over them that, havinggiven out, after the fashion of Mr. Miller, that the world was to come toan end at a certain time, and that not a very remote one, the belief inher assertion took such possession of the people on the estate, that theyrefused to work; and the rice and cotton fields were threatened with anindefinite fallow, in consequence of this strike on the part of thecultivators. Mr. K----, who was then overseer of the property, perceivedthe impossibility of arguing, remonstrating, or even flogging this solemnpanic out of the minds of the slaves. The great final emancipation whichthey believed at hand had stripped even the lash of its prevailingauthority, and the terrors of an overseer for once were as nothing, inthe terrible expectation of the advent of the universal Judge of men. They were utterly impracticable--so, like a very shrewd man as he was, heacquiesced in their determination not to work; but he expressed to themhis belief that Sinda was mistaken, and he warned her that if, at theappointed time, it proved so, she would be severely punished. I do notknow whether he confided to the slaves what he thought likely to be theresult if she was in the right; but poor Sinda was in the wrong. Her dayof judgement came indeed, and a severe one it proved, for Mr. K---- hadher tremendously flogged, and her end of things ended much like Mr. Miller's; but whereas he escaped unhanged, in spite of his atrociouspractices upon the fanaticism and credulity of his country people, thespirit of false prophecy was mercilessly scourged out of her, and thefaith of her people of course reverted from her to the omnipotent lashagain. Think what a dream that must have been while it lasted, for thoseinfinitely oppressed people, --freedom without entering it by the grimgate of death, brought down to them at once by the second coming ofChrist, whose first advent has left them yet so far from it! Farewell; itmakes me giddy to think of having been a slave while that delusionlasted, and after it vanished. * * * * * Dearest E----. I received early this morning a visit from a young negro, called Morris, who came to request permission to be baptised. The master'sleave is necessary for this ceremony of acceptance into the bosom of theChristian Church; so all that can be said is, that it is to be hoped therite itself may _not_ be indispensable for salvation, as if Mr. ---- hadthought proper to refuse Morris' petition, he must infallibly have beenlost, in spite of his own best wishes to the contrary. I could not, indiscoursing with him, perceive that he had any very distinct ideas of theadvantages he expected to derive from the ceremony; but perhaps theyappeared all the greater for being a little vague. I have seldom seen amore pleasing appearance than that of this young man; his figure was talland straight, and his face, which was of a perfect oval, rejoiced in thegrace, very unusual among his people, of a fine high forehead, and themuch more frequent one of a remarkably gentle and sweet expression. Hewas, however, jet black, and certainly did not owe these personaladvantages to any mixture in his blood. There is a certain African tribefrom which the West Indian slave market is chiefly recruited, who havethese same characteristic features, and do not at all present the ignobleand ugly negro type, so much more commonly seen here. They are a tall, powerful people, with remarkably fine figures, regular features, and asingularly warlike and fierce disposition, in which respect they alsodiffer from the race of negroes existing on the American plantations. I donot think Morris, however, could have belonged to this tribe, thoughperhaps Othello did, which would at once settle the difficulties of thosecommentators who, abiding by Iago's very disagreeable suggestions as tohis purely African appearance, are painfully compelled to forego themitigation of supposing him a Moor and not a negro. Did I ever tell you ofmy dining in Boston, at the H----'s, on my first visit to that city, andsitting by Mr. John Quincy Adams, who, talking to me about Desdemona, assured me, with a most serious expression of sincere disgust, that heconsidered all her misfortunes as a very just judgement upon her forhaving married a 'nigger?' I think if some ingenious American actor ofthe present day, bent upon realising Shakespeare's finest conceptions, with all the advantages of modern enlightenment, could contrive to slip inthat opprobrious title, with a true South-Carolinian anti-Abolitionistexpression, it might really be made quite a point for Iago, as, forinstance, in his first soliloquy--'I hate the nigger, ' given in properCharleston or Savannah fashion, I am sure would tell far better than 'Ihate the Moor. ' Only think, E----, what a very new order of interest thewhole tragedy might receive, acted throughout from this standpoint, as theGermans call it in this country, and called 'Amalgamation, or the BlackBridal. ' On their return from their walk this afternoon, the children brought homesome pieces of sugar-cane, of which a small quantity grows on the island. When I am most inclined to deplore the condition of the poor slaves onthese cotton and rice plantations, the far more intolerable existence andharder labour of those employed on the sugar estates occurs to me, sometimes producing the effect of a lower circle in Dante's 'Hell ofHorrors, ' opening beneath the one where he seems to have reached theclimax of infernal punishment. You may have seen this vegetable, and must, at any rate, I should think, be familiar with it by description. It is along green reed, like the stalk of the maize, or Indian corn, only itshoots up to a much more considerable height, and has a consistent pith, which, together with the rind itself, is extremely sweet. The principalpeculiarity of this growth, as perhaps you know, is that they are laidhorizontally in the earth when they are planted for propagation, and fromeach of the notches or joints of the recumbent cane a young shoot isproduced at the germinating season. A very curious and interesting circumstance to me just now in theneighbourhood is the projection of a canal, to be called the BrunswickCanal, which, by cutting through the lower part of the mainland, towardsthe southern extremity of Great St. Simon's Island, is contemplated as aprobable and powerful means of improving the prosperity of the town ofBrunswick, by bringing it into immediate communication with the Atlantic. The scheme, which I think I have mentioned to you before, is, I believe, chiefly patronised by your States' folk--Yankee enterprise and funds beingvery essential elements, it appears to me, in all southern projects andachievements. This speculation, however, from all I hear of thedifficulties of the undertaking, from the nature of the soil, and theimpossibility almost of obtaining efficient labour, is not very likely toarrive at any very satisfactory result; and, indeed, I find it hard toconceive how this part of Georgia can possibly produce a town which can beworth the digging of a canal, even to Yankee speculators. There is onefeature of the undertaking, however, which more than all the othersexcites my admiration, namely, that Irish labourers have been advertisedfor to work upon the canal, and the terms offered them are twenty dollarsa month per man and their board. Now these men will have for fellowlabourers negroes who not only will receive nothing at all for their work, but who will be hired by the contractors and directors of the works fromtheir masters, to whom they will hand over the price of their slaves'labour; while it will be the interest of the person hiring them not onlyto get as much work as possible out of them, but also to provide them aseconomically with food, combining the two praiseworthy endeavours exactlyin such judicious proportions as not to let them neutralize each other. You will observe that this case of a master hiring out his slaves toanother employer, from whom he receives their rightful wages, is a form ofslavery which, though extremely common, is very seldom adverted to inthose arguments for the system which are chiefly founded upon the master'spresumed regard for his human property. People who have ever let afavourite house to the temporary occupation of strangers, can form atolerable idea of the difference between one's own regard and care ofone's goods and chattels and that of the most conscientious tenant; andwhereas I have not yet observed that ownership is a very effectualprotection to the slaves against ill usage and neglect, I am quiteprepared to admit that it is a vastly better one than the temporaryinterest which a lessee can feel in the live stock he hires, out of whomit is his manifest interest to get as much, and into whom to put aslittle, as possible. Yet thousands of slaves throughout the southernstates are thus handed over by the masters who own them to masters who donot; and it does not require much demonstration to prove that their estateis not always the more gracious. Now you must not suppose that these sameIrish free labourers and negro slaves will be permitted to work togetherat this Brunswick Canal. They say that this would be utterly impossible;for why?--there would be tumults, and risings, and broken heads, andbloody bones, and all the natural results of Irish intercommunion withtheir fellow creatures, no doubt--perhaps even a little more riot andviolence than merely comports with their usual habits of Milesian goodfellowship; for, say the masters, the Irish hate the negroes more eventhan the Americans do, and there would be no bound to their murderousanimosity if they were brought in contact with them on the same portion ofthe works of the Brunswick Canal. Doubtless there is some truth inthis--the Irish labourers who might come hither, would be apt enough, according to a universal moral law, to visit upon others the injuries theyhad received from others. They have been oppressed enough themselves, tobe oppressive whenever they have a chance; and the despised and degradedcondition of the blacks, presenting to them a very ugly resemblance oftheir own home, circumstances naturally excite in them the exercise of thedisgust and contempt of which they themselves are very habitually theobjects; and that such circular distribution of wrongs may not only bepleasant, but have something like the air of retributive right to veryignorant folks, is not much to be wondered at. Certain is the fact, however, that the worst of all tyrants is the one who has been a slave;and for that matter (and I wonder if the southern slaveholders hear itwith the same ear that I do, and ponder it with the same mind?) thecommand of one slave to another is altogether the most uncompromisingutterance of insolent truculent despotism that it ever fell to my lot towitness or listen to. 'You nigger--I say, you black nigger, --you no hearme call you--what for you no run quick?' All this, dear E----, iscertainly reasonably in favour of division of labour on the BrunswickCanal; but the Irish are not only quarrelers, and rioters, and fighters, and drinkers, and despisers of niggers--they are a passionate, impulsive, warm-hearted, generous people, much given to powerful indignations, whichbreak out suddenly when they are not compelled to smouldersullenly--pestilent sympathisers too, and with a sufficient dose ofAmerican atmospheric air in their lungs, properly mixed with a rightproportion of ardent spirits, there is no saying but what they mightactually take to sympathy with the slaves, and I leave you to judge ofthe possible consequences. You perceive, I am sure, that they can by nomeans be allowed to work together on the Brunswick Canal. I have been taking my daily walk round the island, and visited the sugarmill and the threshing mill again. Mr. ---- has received another letter from Parson S---- upon the subject ofmore church building in Darien. It seems that there has been a verygeneral panic in this part of the slave states lately, occasioned by someinjudicious missionary preaching, which was pronounced to be of adecidedly abolitionist tendency. The offensive preachers, after sowing, God only knows what seed in this tremendous soil, where one grain ofknowledge may spring up a gigantic upas tree to the prosperity of its mostunfortunate possessors, were summarily and ignominiously expulsed; and nowsome short sighted, uncomfortable Christians in these parts, among othersthis said Parson S----, are possessed with the notion that something hadbetter be done to supply the want created by the cessation of thesedangerous exhortations, to which the negroes have listened, it seems, withcomplacency. Parson S---- seems to think that, having driven out twopreachers, it might be well to build one church where, at any rate, thenegroes might be exhorted in a safe and salutary manner, 'qui ne leurdonnerait point d'idées, ' as the French would say. Upon my word, E----, Iused to pity the slaves, and I do pity them with all my soul; but ohdear! oh dear! their case is a bed of roses to that of their owners, and Iwould go to the slave block in Charleston to-morrow cheerfully to bepurchased, if my only option was to go thither as a purchaser. I waslooking over this morning, with a most indescribable mixture of feelings, a pamphlet published in the south upon the subject of the religiousinstruction of the slaves; and the difficulty of the task undertaken bythese reconcilers of God and Mammon really seems to me nothing short ofpiteous. 'We must give our involuntary servants, ' (they seldom call themslaves, for it is an ugly word in an American mouth, you know, ) 'Christianenlightenment, ' say they; and where shall they begin? 'Whatsoever ye wouldthat men should do unto you, do ye also unto them?' No--but, 'Servants, obey your masters;' and there, I think, they naturally come to a fullstop. This pamphlet forcibly suggested to me the necessity for a slavechurch catechism, and also, indeed, if it were possible, a slave Bible. Ifthese heaven-blinded negro enlighteners persist in their pernicious planof making Christians of their cattle, something of the sort must be done, or they will infallibly cut their own throats with this two-edged sword oftruth, to which they should in no wise have laid their hand, and wouldnot, doubtless, but that it is now thrust at them so threateningly thatthey have no choice. Again and again, how much I do pity them! I have been walking to another cluster of negro huts, known as NumberTwo, and here we took a boat and rowed across the broad brimming Altamahato a place called Woodville, on a part of the estate named Hammersmith, though why that very thriving suburb of the great city of London shouldhave been selected as the name of the lonely plank house in the midst ofthe pine woods which here enjoys that title I cannot conceive, unless itwas suggested by the contrast. This settlement is on the mainland, andconsists apparently merely of this house, (to which the overseer retireswhen the poisonous malaria of the rice plantations compels him to withdrawfrom it, ) and a few deplorably miserable hovels, which appeared to me tobe chiefly occupied by the most decrepid and infirm samples of humanity itwas ever my melancholy lot to behold. The air of this pine barren is salubrious compared with that of the riceislands, and here some of the oldest slaves who will not die yet, andcannot work any more, are sent, to go, as it were, out of the way. Remoterecollections of former dealings with civilised human beings, in the shapeof masters and overseers, seemed to me to be the only idea not purelyidiotic in the minds of the poor old tottering creatures that gathered tostare with dim and blear eyes at me and my children. There were two very aged women, who had seen different, and to their fadedrecollections better, times, who spoke to me of Mr. ----'s grandfather, and of the early days of the plantation, when they were young and strong, and worked as their children and grandchildren were now working, neitherfor love nor yet for money. One of these old crones, a hideous, withered, wrinkled piece of womanhood, said that she had worked as long as herstrength had lasted, and that then she had still been worth her keep, for, said she, 'Missus, tho' we no able to work, we make little niggers formassa. ' Her joy at seeing her present owner was unbounded, and she keptclapping her horny hands together and exclaiming, 'while there is lifethere is hope; we seen massa before we die. ' These demonstrations ofregard were followed up by piteous complaints of hunger and rheumatism, and their usual requests for pittances of food and clothing, to which weresponded by promises of additions in both kinds; and I was extricatingmyself as well as I could from my petitioners, with the assurance that Iwould come by-and-bye and visit them again, when I felt my dress suddenlyfeebly jerked, and a shrill cracked voice on the other side of meexclaimed, 'Missus, no go yet--no go away yet; you no see me, missus, whenyou come by-and-bye; but, ' added the voice in a sort of wail, which seemedto me as if the thought was full of misery, 'you see many, many of myoffspring. ' These melancholy words, particularly the rather unusual one atthe end of the address, struck me very much. They were uttered by acreature which _was_ a woman, but looked like a crooked ill-built figureset up in a field to scare crows, with a face infinitely more like a mereanimal's than any human countenance I ever beheld, and with that peculiarwild restless look of indefinite and, at the same time, intense sadnessthat is so remarkable in the countenance of some monkeys. It was almostwith an effort that I commanded myself so as not to withdraw my dress fromthe yellow crumpled filthy claws that griped it, and it was not at lastwithout the authoritative voice of the overseer that the poor creaturereleased her hold of me. We returned home certainly in the very strangest vehicle that evercivilised gentlewoman travelled in--a huge sort of cart, made only of someloose boards, on which I lay supporting myself against one of the fourposts which indicated the sides of my carriage; six horned creatures, cowsor bulls, drew this singular equipage, and a yelping, howling, screaming, leaping company of half-naked negroes ran all round them, goading themwith sharp sticks, frantically seizing hold of their tails, and incitingthem by every conceivable and inconceivable encouragement to quick motion:thus, like one of the ancient Merovingian monarchs, I was dragged throughthe deep sand from the settlement back to the river, where we reembarkedfor the island. As we crossed the broad flood, whose turbid waters always look swollen asif by a series of freshets, a flight of birds sprang from the low swamp wewere approaching, and literally, as it rose in the air, cast a shadowlike that of a cloud, which might be said, with but little exaggeration, to darken the sun for a few seconds. How well I remember my poor auntWhitelock describing such phenomena as of frequent occurrence in America, and the scornful incredulity with which we heard without accepting theselegends of her Western experience! how little I then thought that I shouldhave to cry peccavi to her memory from the bottom of such ruts, and underthe shadow of such flights of winged creatures as she used to describefrom the muddy ways of Pennsylvania and the muddy waters of Georgia! The vegetation is already in an active state of demonstration, sproutinginto lovely pale green and vivid red-brown buds and leaflets, though 'tisyet early in January. After our return home we had a visit from Mr. C----, one of ourneighbours, an intelligent and humane man, to whose account of thequalities and characteristics of the slaves, as he had observed andexperienced them, I listened with great interest. The Brunswick Canal wasagain the subject of conversation, and again the impossibility of allowingthe negroes and Irish to work in proximity was stated, and admitted as anindisputable fact. It strikes me with amazement to hear the hopeless doomof incapacity for progress pronounced upon these wretched slaves, when inmy own country the very same order of language is perpetually applied tothese very Irish, here spoken of as a sort of race of demigods, by negrocomparison. And it is most true that in Ireland nothing can be moresavage, brutish, filthy, idle, and incorrigibly and hopelessly helplessand incapable, than the Irish appear; and yet, transplanted to yournorthern states, freed from the evil influences which surround them athome, they and their children become industrious, thrifty, willing tolearn, able to improve, and forming, in the course of two generations, amost valuable accession to your labouring population. How is it that itnever occurs to these emphatical denouncers of the whole negro race thatthe Irish at home are esteemed much as they esteem their slaves, and thatthe sentence pronounced against their whole country by one of the greatestmen of our age, an Irishman, was precisely, that nothing could save, redeem, or regenerate Ireland unless, as a preparatory measure, the islandwere submerged and all its inhabitants drowned off? I have had several women at the house to-day asking for advice and helpfor their sick children: they all came from No. 2, as they call it, thatis, the settlement or cluster of negro huts nearest to the main one, wherewe may be said to reside. In the afternoon I went thither, and found agreat many of the little children ailing; there had been an unusualmortality among them at this particular settlement this winter. In onemiserable hut I heard that the baby was just dead; it was one of thirteen, many of whom had been, like itself, mercifully removed from the life ofdegradation and misery to which their birth appointed them: and whetherit was the frequent repetition of similar losses, or an instinctiveconsciousness that death was indeed better than life for such children astheirs, I know not, but the father and mother, and old Rose, the nurse, who was their little baby's grandmother, all seemed apathetic, andapparently indifferent to the event. The mother merely repeated over andover again, 'I've lost a many, they all goes so;' and the father, withoutword or comment, went out to his enforced labour. As I left the cabin, rejoicing for them at the deliverance out of slaveryof their poor child, I found myself suddenly surrounded by a swarm ofyoung ragamuffins in every stage of partial nudity, clamouring from out oftheir filthy remnants of rags for donations of scarlet ribbon for theball, which was to take place that evening. The melancholy scene I hadjust witnessed, and the still sadder reflection it had given rise to, hadquite driven all thoughts of the approaching festivity from my mind; butthe sudden demand for these graceful luxuries by Mr. ----'s half-nakeddependants reminded me of the grotesque mask which life wears on one ofits mysterious faces; and with as much sympathy for rejoicing as my latesympathy for sorrow had left me capable of, I procured the desiredornaments. I have considerable fellow-feeling for the passion for allshades of red, which prevails among these dusky fellow-creatures ofmine--a savage propensity for that same colour in all its modificationsbeing a tendency of my own. At our own settlement (No. 1) I found everything in a high fever ofpreparation for the ball. A huge boat had just arrived from the cottonplantation at St. Simons, laden with the youth and beauty of that portionof the estate who had been invited to join the party; and the greetingsamong the arrivers and welcomers, and the heaven-defying combinations ofcolour in the gala attire of both, surpass all my powers of description. The ball, to which of course we went, took place in one of the rooms ofthe Infirmary. As the room had, fortunately, but few occupants, they wereremoved to another apartment, and, without any very tender considerationfor their not very remote, though invisible, sufferings, the dancingcommenced, and was continued. Oh, my dear E----! I have seen Jim Crow--theveritable James: all the contortions, and springs, and flings, and kicks, and capers you have been beguiled into accepting as indicative of him arespurious, faint, feeble, impotent--in a word, pale northern reproductionsof that ineffable black conception. It is impossible for words to describethe things these people did with their bodies, and, above all, with theirfaces, the whites of their eyes, and the whites of their teeth, andcertain outlines which either naturally and by the grace of heaven, or bythe practice of some peculiar artistic dexterity, they bring intoprominent and most ludicrous display. The languishing elegance of some, the painstaking laboriousness of others, above all, the feats of a certainenthusiastic banjo-player, who seemed to me to thump his instrument withevery part of his body at once, at last so utterly overcame any attempt atdecorous gravity on my part that I was obliged to secede; and, consideringwhat the atmosphere was that we inhaled during the exhibition, it is onlywonderful to me that we were not made ill by the double effort not tolaugh, and, if possible, not to breathe. * * * * * Monday, 20th. My Dearest E----. A rather longer interval than usual has elapsed since Ilast wrote to you, but I must beg you to excuse it. I have had more than ausual amount of small daily occupations to fill my time; and, as a mereenumeration of these would not be very interesting to you, I will tell youa story which has just formed an admirable illustration for my observationof all the miseries of which this accursed system of slavery is the cause, even under the best and most humane administration of its laws and usages. Pray note it, my dear friend, for you will find, in the absence of allvoluntary or even conscious cruelty on the part of the master, the bestpossible comment on a state of things which, without the slightest desireto injure and oppress, produces such intolerable results of injury andoppression. We have, as a sort of under nursemaid and assistant of my dear M----, whose white complexion, as I wrote you, occasioned such indignation to mysouthern fellow-travellers, and such extreme perplexity to the poor slaveson our arrival here, a much more orthodox servant for these parts, a youngwoman named Psyche, but commonly called Sack, not a very gracefulabbreviation of the divine heathen appellation: she cannot be much overtwenty, has a very pretty figure, a graceful gentle deportment, and a facewhich, but for its colour (she is a dingy mulatto), would be pretty, andis extremely pleasing, from the perfect sweetness of its expression; sheis always serious, not to say sad and silent, and has altogether an air ofmelancholy and timidity, that has frequently struck me very much, andwould have made me think some special anxiety or sorrow must occasion it, but that God knows the whole condition of these wretched people naturallyproduces such a deportment, and there is no necessity to seek for specialor peculiar causes to account for it. Just in proportion as I have foundthe slaves on this plantation intelligent and advanced beyond the generalbrutish level of the majority, I have observed this pathetic expression ofcountenance in them, a mixture of sadness and fear, the involuntaryexhibition of the two feelings, which I suppose must be the predominantexperience of their whole lives, regret and apprehension, not the lessheavy, either of them, for being, in some degree, vague and indefinite--asense of incalculable past loss and injury, and a dread of incalculablefuture loss and injury. I have never questioned Psyche as to her sadness, because, in the firstplace, as I tell you, it appears to me most natural, and is observable inall the slaves, whose superior natural or acquired intelligence allows oftheir filling situations of trust or service about the house and family;and, though I cannot and will not refuse to hear any and every tale ofsuffering which these unfortunates bring to me, I am anxious to spare bothmyself and them the pain of vain appeals to me for redress and help, which, alas! it is too often utterly out of my power to give them. It isuseless, and indeed worse than useless, that they should see my impotentindignation and unavailing pity, and hear expressions of compassion forthem, and horror at their condition, which might only prove incentives toa hopeless resistance on their part to a system, under the hideous weightof whose oppression any individual or partial revolt must be annihilatedand ground into the dust. Therefore, as I tell you, I asked Psyche noquestions, but, to my great astonishment, the other day M---- asked me ifI knew to whom Psyche belonged, as the poor woman had enquired of her withmuch hesitation and anguish if she could tell her who owned her and herchildren. She has two nice little children under six years old, whom shekeeps as clean and tidy, and who are sad and as silent, as herself. Myastonishment at this question was, as you will readily believe, not small, and I forthwith sought out Psyche for an explanation. She was thrown intoextreme perturbation at finding that her question had been referred to me, and it was some time before I could sufficiently reassure her to be ableto comprehend, in the midst of her reiterated entreaties for pardon, andhopes that she had not offended me, that she did not know herself whoowned her. She was, at one time, the property of Mr. K----, the formeroverseer, of whom I have already spoken to you, and who has just beenpaying Mr. ---- a visit. He, like several of his predecessors in themanagement, has contrived to make a fortune upon it (though it yearlydecreases in value to the owners, but this is the inevitable course ofthings in the southern states), and has purchased a plantation of his ownin Alabama, I believe, or one of the south-western states. Whether shestill belonged to Mr. K---- or not she did not know, and entreated me ifshe did to endeavour to persuade Mr. ---- to buy her. Now, you must knowthat this poor woman is the wife of one of Mr. B----'s slaves, a fine, intelligent, active, excellent young man, whose whole family are amongsome of the very best specimens of character and capacity on the estate. Iwas so astonished at the (to me) extraordinary state of things revealed bypoor Sack's petition, that I could only tell her that I had supposed allthe negroes on the plantation were Mr. ----'s property, but that I wouldcertainly enquire, and find out for her if I could to whom she belonged, and if I could, endeavour to get Mr. ---- to purchase her, if she reallywas not his. Now, E----, just conceive for one moment the state of mind of this woman, believing herself to belong to a man who, in a few days, was going downto one of those abhorred and dreaded south-western states, and who wouldthen compel her, with her poor little children, to leave her husband andthe only home she had ever known, and all the ties of affection, relationship, and association of her former life, to follow him thither, in all human probability never again to behold any living creature thatshe had seen before; and this was so completely a matter of course thatit was not even thought necessary to apprise her positively of the fact, and the only thing that interposed between her and this most miserablefate was the faint hope that Mr. ---- _might have_ purchased her and herchildren. But if he had, if this great deliverance had been vouchsafed toher, the knowledge of it was not thought necessary; and with this deadlydread at her heart she was living day after day, waiting upon me andseeing me, with my husband beside me, and my children in my arms inblessed security, safe from all separation but the one reserved in God'sgreat providence for all His creatures. Do you think I wondered any moreat the woe-begone expression of her countenance, or do you think it waseasy for me to restrain within prudent and proper limits the expressionof my feelings at such a state of things? And she had gone on from day today enduring this agony, till I suppose its own intolerable pressure andM----'s sweet countenance and gentle sympathising voice and manner hadconstrained her to lay down this great burden of sorrow at our feet. Idid not see Mr. ---- until the evening; but in the meantime, meeting Mr. O----, the overseer, with whom, as I believe I have already told you, weare living here, I asked him about Psyche, and who was her proprietor, when to my infinite surprise he told me that _he_ had bought her and herchildren from Mr. K----, who had offered them to him, saying that theywould be rather troublesome to him than otherwise down where he wasgoing; 'and so, ' said Mr. O----, 'as I had no objection to investing alittle money that way, I bought them. ' With a heart much lightened I flewto tell poor Psyche the news, so that at any rate she might be relievedfrom the dread of any immediate separation from her husband. You canimagine better than I can tell you what her sensations were; but shestill renewed her prayer that I would, if possible, induce Mr. ---- topurchase her, and I promised to do so. Early the next morning, while I was still dressing, I was suddenlystartled by hearing voices in loud tones in Mr. ----'s dressing-room, which adjoins my bed-room, and the noise increasing until there was anabsolute cry of despair uttered by some man. I could restrain myself nolonger, but opened the door of communication, and saw Joe, the young man, poor Psyche's husband, raving almost in a state of frenzy, and in a voicebroken with sobs and almost inarticulate with passion, reiterating hisdetermination never to leave this plantation, never to go to Alabama, never to leave his old father and mother, his poor wife and children, anddashing his hat, which he was wringing like a cloth in his hands, upon theground, he declared he would kill himself if he was compelled to followMr. K----. I glanced from the poor wretch to Mr. ----, who was standing, leaning against a table with his arms folded, occasionally uttering a fewwords of counsel to his slave to be quiet and not fret, and not make afuss about what there was no help for. I retreated immediately from thehorrid scene, breathless with surprise and dismay, and stood for some timein my own room, with my heart and temples throbbing to such a degree thatI could hardly support myself. As soon as I recovered myself I againsought Mr. O----, and enquired of him if he knew the cause of poor Joe'sdistress. He then told me that Mr. ----, who is highly pleased with Mr. K----'s past administration of his property, wished, on his departure forhis newly-acquired slave plantation, to give him some token of hissatisfaction, and _had made him a present_ of the man Joe, who had justreceived the intelligence that he was to go down to Alabama with his newowner the next day, leaving father, mother, wife, and children behind. Youwill not wonder that the man required a little judicious soothing undersuch circumstances, and you will also, I hope, admire the humanity of thesale of his wife and children by the owner who was going to take him toAlabama, because _they_ would be incumbrances rather than otherwise downthere. If Mr. K---- did not do this after he knew that the man was his, then Mr. ---- gave him to be carried down to the South after his wife andchildren were sold to remain in Georgia. I do not know which was the realtransaction, for I have not had the heart to ask; but you will easilyimagine which of the two cases I prefer believing. When I saw Mr. ---- after this most wretched story became known to me inall its details, I appealed to him for his own soul's sake not to commitso great a cruelty. Poor Joe's agony while remonstrating with his masterwas hardly greater than mine while arguing with him upon this bitterpiece of inhumanity--how I cried, and how I adjured, and how all my senseof justice and of mercy and of pity for the poor wretch, and ofwretchedness at finding myself implicated in such a state of things, broke in torrents of words from my lips and tears from my eyes! God knowssuch a sorrow at seeing anyone I belonged to commit such an act wasindeed a new and terrible experience to me, and it seemed to me that Iwas imploring Mr. ---- to save himself, more than to spare thesewretches. He gave me no answer whatever, and I have since thought thatthe intemperate vehemence of my entreaties and expostulations perhapsdeserved that he should leave me as he did without one single word ofreply; and miserable enough I remained. Towards evening, as I was sittingalone, my children having gone to bed, Mr. O---- came into the room. Ihad but one subject in my mind; I had not been able to eat for it. Icould hardly sit still for the nervous distress which every thought ofthese poor people filled me with. As he sat down looking over someaccounts, I said to him, 'Have you seen Joe this afternoon, Mr. O----?'(I give you our conversation as it took place. ) 'Yes, ma'am; he is agreat deal happier than he was this morning. ' 'Why, how is that?' asked Ieagerly. 'Oh, he is not going to Alabama. Mr. K---- heard that he hadkicked up a fuss about it (being in despair at being torn from one's wifeand children is called _kicking up a fuss_; this is a sample of overseerappreciation of human feelings), and said that if the fellow wasn'twilling to go with him, he did not wish to be bothered with any niggersdown there who were to be troublesome, so he might stay behind. ' 'Anddoes Psyche know this?' 'Yes, ma'am, I suppose so. ' I drew a long breath;and whereas my needle had stumbled through the stuff I was sewing for anhour before, as if my fingers could not guide it, the regularity andrapidity of its evolutions were now quite edifying. The man was for thepresent safe, and I remained silently pondering his deliverance and thewhole proceeding, and the conduct of everyone engaged in it, and aboveall Mr. ----'s share in the transaction, and I think for the first timealmost a sense of horrible personal responsibility and implication tookhold of my mind, and I felt the weight of an unimagined guilt upon myconscience; and yet God knows this feeling of self-condemnation is verygratuitous on my part, since when I married Mr. ---- I knew nothing ofthese dreadful possessions of his, and even if I had, I should have beenmuch puzzled to have formed any idea of the state of things in which Inow find myself plunged, together with those whose well-doing is as vitalto me almost as my own. With these agreeable reflections I went to bed. Mr. ---- said not a wordto me upon the subject of these poor people all the next day, and in themeantime I became very impatient of this reserve on his part, because Iwas dying to prefer my request that he would purchase Psyche and herchildren, and so prevent any future separation between her and herhusband, as I supposed he would not again attempt to make a present ofJoe, at least to anyone who did not wish to be _bothered_ with his wifeand children. In the evening I was again with Mr. O---- alone in thestrange bare wooden-walled sort of shanty which is our sitting-room, andrevolving in my mind the means of rescuing Psyche from her miserablesuspense, a long chain of all my possessions, in the shape of bracelets, necklaces, brooches, ear-rings, &c. , wound in glittering processionthrough my brain, with many hypothetical calculations of the value ofeach separate ornament, and the very doubtful probability of the amountof the whole being equal to the price of this poor creature and herchildren; and then the great power and privilege I had foregone ofearning money by my own labour occurred to me; and I think, for the firsttime in my life, my past profession assumed an aspect that arrested mythoughts most seriously. For the last four years of my life that precededmy marriage, I literally coined money; and never until this moment, Ithink, did I reflect on the great means of good, to myself and others, that I so gladly agreed to give up for ever, for a maintenance by theunpaid labour of slaves--people toiling not only unpaid, but under thebitter conditions the bare contemplation of which was then wringing myheart. You will not wonder that, when in the midst of such cogitations Isuddenly accosted Mr. O----, it was to this effect. 'Mr. O----, I have aparticular favour to beg of you. Promise me that you will never sellPsyche and her children without first letting me know of your intentionto do so, and giving me the option of buying them. ' Mr. O---- is aremarkably deliberate man, and squints, so that, when he has taken alittle time in directing his eyes to you, you are still unpleasantlyunaware of any result in which you are concerned; he laid down a book hewas reading, and directed his head and one of his eyes towards me andanswered, 'Dear me, ma'am, I am very sorry--I have sold them. ' My workfell down on the ground, and my mouth opened wide, but I could utter nosound, I was so dismayed and surprised; and he deliberately proceeded: 'Ididn't know, ma'am, you see, at all, that you entertained any idea ofmaking an investment of that nature; for I'm sure, if I had, I wouldwillingly have sold the woman to you; but I sold her and her childrenthis morning to Mr. ----. ' My dear E----, though ---- had resented myunmeasured upbraidings, you see they had not been without some goodeffect, and though he had, perhaps justly, punished my violent outbreakof indignation about the miserable scene I witnessed by not telling me ofhis humane purpose, he had bought these poor creatures, and so, I trust, secured them from any such misery in future. I jumped up and left Mr. O---- still speaking, and ran to find Mr. ----, to thank him for what hehad done, and with that will now bid you good bye. Think, E----, how itfares with slaves on plantations where there is no crazy Englishwoman toweep and entreat and implore and upbraid for them, and no master willingto listen to such appeals. Dear E----. There is one privilege which I enjoy here which I think fewcockneyesses have ever had experience of, that of hearing my ownextemporaneous praises chaunted bard-fashion by our negroes, in rhymes asrude and to measures as simple as ever any illustrious female of the daysof King Brian Boroihme listened to. Rowing yesterday evening through abeautiful sunset into a more beautiful moonrise, my two sable boatmenentertained themselves and me with alternate strophe and anti-strophe ofpoetical description of my personal attractions, in which my 'wire waist'recurred repeatedly, to my intense amusement. This is a charm for thepossession of which M---- (my white nursemaid) is also invariablycelebrated; and I suppose that the fine round natural proportions of theuncompressed waists of the sable beauties of these regions appear lesssymmetrical to eyes accustomed to them than our stay-cased figures, since'nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. ' Occasionally I am celebrated inthese rowing chants as 'Massa's darling, ' and S---- comes in for endlessglorification on account of the brilliant beauty of her complexion; theother day, however, our poets made a diversion from the personal to themoral qualities of their small mistress, and after the usual tribute toher roses and lilies came the following rather significant couplet:-- Little Missis Sally, That's a ruling lady. At which all the white teeth simultaneously lightened from the blackvisages, while the subject of this equivocal commendation sat withinfantine solemnity (the profoundest, I think, that the human countenanceis capable of), surveying her sable dependants with imperturbable gravity. Yesterday morning I amused myself with an exercise of a talent I oncepossessed, but have so neglected that my performance might almost becalled an experiment. I cut out a dress for one of the women. My educationin France--where, in some important respects, I think girls are bettertrained than with us--had sent me home to England, at sixteen, an adept inthe female mystery of needlework. Not only owing to the Saturday'sdiscipline of clothes mending by all the classes--while l'Abbé Millot'shistory (of blessed, boring memory) was being read aloud, to prevent 'vainbabblings, ' and ensure wholesome mental occupation the while--was I anexpert patcher and mender, darner and piecer (darning and marking were myspecialities), but the white cotton embroidery of which every French womanhas always a piece under her hand _pour les momens perdus_, which are thusanything but _perdus_, was as familiar to us as to the Irish cottagers ofthe present day, and cutting out and making my dresses was among the moreadvanced branches of _the_ female accomplishment to which I attained. [1]The luxury of a lady's maid of my own, indulged in ever since the days ofmy 'coming out, ' has naturally enough caused my right hand to forget itscunning, and regret and shame at having lost any useful lore in my lifemade me accede, for my own sake, to the request of one of ourmultitudinous Dianas and innumerable Chloes to cut out dresses for each ofthem, especially as they (wonderful to relate) declared themselves able tostitch them if I would do the cutting. Since I have been on the plantationI have already spent considerable time in what the French call'confectioning' baby bundles, i. E. The rough and very simple tinyhabiliments of coarse cotton and scarlet flannel which form a baby'slayette here, and of which I have run up some scores; but my present taskwas far more difficult. Chloe was an ordinary mortal negress enough, butDiana might have been the Huntress of the Woods herself, done into theAfrican type. Tall, large, straight, well-made, profoundly serious, shestood like a bronze statue, while I, mounted on a stool, (the only way inwhich I could attain to the noble shoulders and bust of my lay figure), pinned and measured, and cut and shaped, under the superintendence ofM----, and had the satisfaction of seeing the fine proportions of my blackgoddess quite becomingly clothed in a high tight fitting body of thegayest chintz, which she really contrived to put together quitecreditably. [Footnote 1: Some of our great English ladies are, I know, exquisiteneedlewomen; but I do not think, in spite of these exceptional examples, that young English ladies of the higher classes are much skilled in thisrespect at the present day; and as for the democratic daughters ofAmerica, who for many reasons might be supposed likely to be well up insuch housewifely lore, they are for the most part so ignorant of it that Ihave heard the most eloquent preacher of the city of New York advert totheir incapacity in this respect, as an impediment to their assistance ofthe poor; and ascribe to the fact that the daughters of his ownparishioners did not know how to sew, the impossibility of their givingthe most valuable species of help to the women of the needier classes, whose condition could hardly be more effectually improved than byacquiring such useful knowledge. I have known young American school girls, duly instructed in the nature of the parallaxes of the stars, but, as arule, they do not know how to darn their stockings. Les Dames du SacréCoeur do better for their high-born and well-bred pupils than this. ] I was so elated with my own part of this performance that I then andthere determined to put into execution a plan I had long formed ofendowing the little boat in which I take what the French call my walks onthe water, with cushions for the back and seat of the benches usuallyoccupied by myself and Mr. ----; so putting on my large straw hat, andplucking up a paper of pins, scissors, and my brown holland, I walked tothe steps, and jumping into the little canoe, began piecing, andmeasuring, and cutting the cushions, which were to be stuffed with thetree moss by some of the people who understand making a rough kind ofmattress. My inanimate subject, however, proved far more troublesome tofit than my living lay figure, for the little cockle-shell ducked, anddived, and rocked, and tipped, and curtseyed, and tilted, as I kneltfirst on one side and then on the other fitting her, till I was almostin despair; however, I got a sort of pattern at last, and by dint of somepertinacious efforts--which, in their incompleteness, did not escape somesarcastic remarks from Mr. ---- on the capabilities of 'women of genius'applied to common-place objects--the matter was accomplished, and thelittle Dolphin rejoiced in very tidy back and seat cushions, covered withbrown holland, and bound with green serge. My ambition then began tocontemplate an awning, but the boat being of the nature of acanoe--though not a real one, inasmuch as it is not made of a singlelog--does not admit of supports for such an edifice. I had rather a fright the other day in that same small craft, into which Ihad taken S----, with the intention of paddling myself a little way downthe river and back. I used to row tolerably well, and was very fond of it, and frequently here take an oar, when the men are rowing me in the longboat, as some sort of equivalent for my riding, of which, of course, I amentirely deprived on this little dykeland of ours; but paddling is aperfectly different process, and one that I was very anxious to achieve. My first strokes answered the purpose of sending the boat off from shore, and for a few minutes I got on pretty well; but presently I got tired ofshifting the paddle from side to side, a manoeuvre which I accomplishedvery clumsily and slowly, and yet, with all my precautions, not withoutmaking the boat tip perilously. The immense breadth and volume of theriver suddenly seized my eyes and imagination as it were, and I began tofancy that if I got into the middle of the stream I should not be able topaddle myself back against it--which, indeed, might very well have provedthe case. Then I became nervous, and paddled all on one side, by whichmeans, of course, I only turned the boat round. S---- began to fidgetabout, getting up from where I had placed her, and terrifying me with herunsteady motions and the rocking of the canoe. I was now very muchfrightened, and saw that I _must_ get back to shore before I became morehelpless than I was beginning to feel; so laying S---- down in the bottomof the boat as a preliminary precaution, I said to her with infiniteemphasis, 'Now lie still there, and don't stir, or you'll be drowned, ' towhich, with her clear grey eyes fixed on me, and no sign whatever ofemotion, she replied deliberately, 'I shall lie still here, and won'tstir, for I should not like to be drowned, ' which, for an atom not fouryears old, was rather philosophical. Then I looked about me, and of coursehaving drifted, set steadily to work and paddled home, with my heart in mymouth almost till we grazed the steps, and I got my precious freight safeon shore again, since which I have taken no more paddling lessons withoutmy slave and master, Jack. We have had a death among the people since I last wrote to you. A veryvaluable slave called Shadrach was seized with a disease which isfrequent, and very apt to be fatal here--peri-pneumonia; and in spite ofall that could be done to save him, sank rapidly, and died after an acuteillness of only three days. The doctor came repeatedly from Darien, andthe last night of the poor fellow's life ---- himself watched with him. Isuppose the general low diet of the negroes must produce some want ofstamina in them; certainly, either from natural constitution or the effectof their habits of existence, or both, it is astonishing how much lesspower of resistance to disease they seem to possess than we do. If theyare ill, the vital energy seems to sink immediately. This ricecultivation, too, although it does not affect them as it would whites--towhom, indeed, residence on the rice plantation after a certain season isimpossible--is still, to a certain degree, deleterious even to thenegroes. The proportion of sick is always greater here than on the cottonplantation, and the invalids of this place are not unfrequently sent downto St. Simon's to recover their strength, under the more favourableinfluences of the sea air and dry sandy soil of Hampton Point. Yesterday afternoon the tepid warmth of the air and glassy stillness ofthe river seemed to me highly suggestive of fishing, and I determined, nothaving yet discovered what I could catch with what in these unknownwaters, to try a little innocent paste bait--a mystery his initiation intowhich caused Jack much wonderment. The only hooks I had with me, however, had been bought in Darien--made, I should think, at the North expresslyfor this market; and so villanously bad were they that, after trying themand my patience a reasonable time, I gave up the attempt and took a lessonin paddling instead. Amongst other items Jack told me of his own fishingexperience was, that he had more than once caught those most excellentcreatures Altamaha shad by the fish themselves leaping out of the waterand _landing_, as Jack expressed it, to escape from the porpoises, whichcome in large schools up the river to a considerable distance, occasioning, evidently, much emotion in the bosoms of the legitimateinhabitants of these muddy waters. Coasting the island on our return homewe found a trap, which the last time we examined it was tenanted by acreature called a mink, now occupied by an otter. The poor beast did notseem pleased with his predicament; but the trap had been set by one of thedrivers, and, of course, Jack would not have meddled with it except uponmy express order, which, in spite of some pangs of pity for the otter, Idid not like to give him, as in the extremely few resources of eitherprofit or pleasure possessed by the slaves I could not tell at all whatmight be the value of an otter to his captor. Yesterday evening the burial of the poor man Shadrach took place. I hadbeen applied to for a sufficient quantity of cotton cloth to make awinding-sheet for him, and just as the twilight was thickening intodarkness I went with Mr. ---- to the cottage of one of the slaves whom Imay have mentioned to you before--a cooper of the name of London, the headof the religious party of the inhabitants of the island, a methodistpreacher of no small intelligence and influence among the people--who wasto perform the burial service. The coffin was laid on trestles in front ofthe cooper's cottage, and a large assemblage of the people had gatheredround, many of the men carrying pine-wood torches, the fitful glare ofwhich glanced over the strange assembly, where every pair of largewhite-rimmed eyes turned upon ---- and myself; we two poor creatures onthis more solemn occasion, as well as on every other when these peopleencounter us, being the objects of admiration and wonderment, on whichtheir gaze is immovably riveted. Presently the whole congregation upliftedtheir voices in a hymn, the first high wailing notes of which--sung all inunison, in the midst of these unwonted surroundings--sent a thrill throughall my nerves. When the chant ceased, cooper London began a prayer, andall the people knelt down in the sand, as I did also. Mr. ---- aloneremained standing in the presence of the dead man, and of the living Godto whom his slaves were now appealing. I cannot tell you how profoundlythe whole ceremony, if such it could be called, affected me, and there wasnothing in the simple and pathetic supplication of the poor black artisanto check or interfere with the solemn influences of the whole scene. Itwas a sort of conventional methodist prayer, and probably quite asconventional as all the rest was the closing invocation of God's blessingupon their master, their mistress, and our children; but this fairlyovercame my composure, and I began to cry very bitterly; for these sameindividuals, whose implication in the state of things in the midst ofwhich we are living, seemed to me as legitimate a cause for tears as forprayers. When the prayer was concluded we all rose, and the coffin beingtaken up, proceeded to the people's burial-ground, when London read aloudportions of the funeral service from the prayer-book--I presume theAmerican episcopal version of our Church service, for what he readappeared to be merely a selection from what was perfectly familiar to me;but whether he himself extracted what he uttered I did not enquire. IndeedI was too much absorbed in the whole scene, and the many mingled emotionsit excited of awe and pity, and an indescribable sensation of wonder atfinding myself on this slave soil, surrounded by MY slaves, among whomagain I knelt while the words proclaiming to the living and the dead theeverlasting covenant of freedom, 'I am the resurrection and the life, 'sounded over the prostrate throng, and mingled with the heavy flowing ofthe vast river sweeping, not far from where we stood, through the darknessby which we were now encompassed (beyond the immediate circle of ourtorch-bearers). There was something painful to me in ----'s standingwhile we all knelt on the earth, for though in any church in Philadelphiahe would have stood during the praying of any minister, here I wished hewould have knelt, to have given his slaves some token of his beliefthat--at least in the sight of that Master to whom we were addressing ourworship--all men are equal. The service ended with a short address fromLondon upon the subject of Lazarus, and the confirmation which the storyof his resurrection afforded our hopes. The words were simple and rustic, and of course uttered in the peculiar sort of jargon which is the habitualnegro speech; but there was nothing in the slightest degree incongruous orgrotesque in the matter or manner, and the exhortations not to steal, orlie, or neglect to work well for massa, with which the glorious hope ofimmortality was blended in the poor slave preacher's closing address, wasa moral adaptation, as wholesome as it was touching, of the greatChristian theory to the capacities and consciences of his hearers. Whenthe coffin was lowered the grave was found to be partially filled withwater--naturally enough, for the whole island is a mere swamp, off whichthe Altamaha is only kept from sweeping by the high dykes all round it. This seemed to shock and distress the people, and for the first timeduring the whole ceremony there were sounds of crying and exclamations ofgrief heard among them. Their chief expression of sorrow, however, whenMr. ---- and myself bade them good night at the conclusion of theservice, was on account of my crying, which appeared to affect them verymuch, many of them mingling with their 'Farewell, good night, massa andmissis, ' affectionate exclamations of 'God bless you, missis; don't cry!''Lor, missis, don't you cry so!' Mr. ---- declined the assistance of anyof the torch-bearers home, and bade them all go quietly to their quarters;and as soon as they had dispersed, and we had got beyond the fitful andunequal glaring of the torches, we found the shining of the stars in thedeep blue lovely night sky quite sufficient to light our way along thedykes. I could not speak to ----, but continued to cry as we walkedsilently home; and whatever his cogitations were, they did not take theunusual form with him of wordy demonstration, and so we returned from oneof the most striking religious ceremonies at which I ever assisted. Arrived at the door of the house we perceived that we had been followedthe whole way by the naked noiseless feet of a poor half-witted creature, a female idiot, whose mental incapacity, of course, in no respect unfitsher for the life of toil, little more intellectual than that of any beastof burthen, which is her allotted portion here. Some small gratificationwas given to her, and she departed gibbering and muttering in high glee. Think, E----, of that man London--who, in spite of all the bitter barriersin his way, has learnt to read, has read his Bible, teaches it to hisunfortunate fellows, and is used by his owner and his owner's agents, forall these causes, as an effectual influence for good over the slaves ofwhom he is himself the despised and injured companion. Like them, subjectto the driver's lash; like them, the helpless creature of his master'sdespotic will, without a right or a hope in this dreary world. But thoughthe light he has attained must show him the terrible aspects of his fatehidden by blessed ignorance from his companions, it reveals to him alsoother rights, and other hopes--another world, another life--towards whichhe leads, according to the grace vouchsafed him, his poor fellow-slaves. How can we keep this man in such a condition? How is such a cruel sin ofinjustice to be answered? Mr. ----, of course, sees and feels none of thisas I do, and I should think must regret that he ever brought me here, tohave my abhorrence of the theory of slavery deepened, and strengthenedevery hour of my life, by what I see of its practice. This morning I went over to Darien upon the very female errands ofreturning visits and shopping. In one respect (assuredly in none other)our life here resembles existence in Venice; we can never leave home forany purpose or in any direction but by boat--not, indeed, by gondola, butthe sharp cut, well made, light craft in which we take our walks on thewater is a very agreeable species of conveyance. One of my visits thismorning was to a certain Miss ----, whose rather grandiloquent name andvery striking style of beauty exceedingly well became the daughter of anex-governor of Georgia. As for the residence of this princess, it was likeall the planters' residences that I have seen, and such as a well-to-doEnglish farmer would certainly not inhabit. Occasional marks of formerelegance or splendour survive sometimes in the size of the rooms, sometimes in a little carved wood-work about the mantelpieces orwainscoatings of these mansions; but all things have a Castle Rackrent airof neglect, and dreary careless untidiness, with which the dirtybare-footed negro servants are in excellent keeping. Occasionally a hugepair of dazzling shirt gills, out of which a black visage grins as out ofsome vast white paper cornet, adorns the sable footman of theestablishment, but unfortunately without at all necessarily indicating anydownward prolongation of the garment; and the perfect tulip bed of a headhandkerchief with which the female attendants of these 'great families'love to bedizen themselves, frequently stands them instead of every othermost indispensable article of female attire. As for my shopping, the goods or rather 'bads, ' at which I used togrumble, in your village emporium at Lenox, are what may be termed 'firstrate, ' both in excellence and elegance, compared with the vile products ofevery sort which we wretched southerners are expected to accept as theconveniences of life in exchange for current coin of the realm. I regretto say, moreover, that all these infamous articles are Yankeemade--expressly for this market, where every species of _thing_ (to usethe most general term I can think of), from list shoes to pianofortes, isprocured from the North--almost always New England, utterly worthless ofits kind, and dearer than the most perfect specimens of the same articleswould be anywhere else. The incredible variety and ludicrous combinationsof goods to be met with in one of these southern shops beats the stock ofyour village omnium-gatherum hollow to be sure, one class of articles, andthat probably the most in demand here, is not sold over any counter inMassachussetts--cow-hides, and man-traps, of which a large assortmententers necessarily into the furniture of every southern shop. In passing to-day along the deep sand road, calling itself the street ofDarien, my notice was attracted by an extremely handsome andintelligent-looking poodle, standing by a little wizen-lookingknife-grinder, whose features were evidently European, though he wasnearly as black as a negro who, strange to say, was discoursing with himin very tolerable French. The impulse of curiosity led me to accost theman at the grindstone, when his companion immediately made off. Theitinerant artisan was from Aix in Provence; think of wandering thence toDarien in Georgia! I asked him about the negro who was talking to him; hesaid he knew nothing of him, but that he was a slave belonging tosomebody in the town. And upon my expressing surprise at his having lefthis own beautiful and pleasant country for this dreary distant region, heanswered, with a shrug and a smile, 'Oui, madame, c'est vrai; c'est unjoli pays, mais dans ce pays-là, quand un homme n'a rien, c'est rien pourtoujours. ' A property which many no doubt have come hither, like thelittle French knife-grinder, to increase, without succeeding in thestruggle much better than he appeared to have done. * * * * * Dear E----, Having made a fresh and, as I thought, more promising purchaseof fishing-tackle, Jack and I betook ourselves to the river, and succeededin securing some immense cat-fish, of which, to tell you the truth, I ammost horribly afraid when I have caught them. The dexterity necessary fortaking them off the hook so as to avoid the spikes on their backs, and thespikes on each side of their gills, the former having to be pressed down, and the two others pressed up, before you can get any purchase on theslimy beast (for it is smooth skinned and without scales, to add to thedifficulty)--these conditions, I say, make the catching of cat-fishquestionable sport. Then too, they hiss, and spit, and swear at one, andare altogether devilish in their aspect and demeanour; nor are they goodfor food, except, as Jack with much humility said this morning, forcoloured folks--'Good for coloured folks, missis; me 'spect not goodenough for white people. ' That 'spect, meaning _ex_pect, has sometimes apossible meaning of _sus_pect, which would give the sentence in which itoccurs a very humorous turn, and I always take the benefit of thatinterpretation. After exhausting the charms of our occupation, findingthat cat-fish were likely to be our principal haul, I left the river andwent my rounds to the hospitals. On my way I encountered two batches ofsmall black fry, Hannah's children and poor Psyche's children, lookingreally as neat and tidy as children of the bettermost class of artisansamong ourselves. These people are so quick and so imitative that it wouldbe the easiest thing in the world to improve their physical condition byappealing to their emulative propensities. Their passion for what is_genteel_ might be used most advantageously in the same direction; andindeed, I think it would be difficult to find people who offered such afair purchase by so many of their characteristics to the hand of thereformer. Returning from the hospital I was accosted by poor old Teresa, thewretched negress who had complained to me so grievously of her back beingbroken by hard work and child-bearing. She was in a dreadful state ofexcitement, which she partly presently communicated to me, because shesaid Mr. O---- had ordered her to be flogged for having complained to meas she did. It seems to me that I have come down here to be tortured, forthis punishing these wretched creatures for crying out to me for help isreally converting me into a source of increased misery to them. It isalmost more than I can endure to hear these horrid stories of lashingsinflicted because I have been invoked; and though I dare say Mr. ----, thanks to my passionate appeals to him, gives me little credit forprudence or self-command, I have some, and I exercise it too when I listento such tales as these with my teeth set fast and my lips closed. WhateverI may do to the master, I hold my tongue to the slaves, and I wonder how Ido it. In the afternoon I rowed with Mr. ---- to another island in the broadwaters of the Altamaha, called Tunno's Island, to return the visit of acertain Dr. T----, the proprietor of the island, named after him, as ourrice swamp is after Major ----. I here saw growing in the open air themost beautiful gardinias I ever beheld; the branches were as high and asthick as the largest clumps of Kalmia, that grow in your woods, butwhereas the tough, stringy, fibrous branches of these gives them astraggling appearance, these magnificent masses of dark shiny glossy greenleaves were quite compact; and I cannot conceive anything lovelier or moredelightful than they would be starred all over with their thick-leavedcream-white odoriferous blossoms. In the course of our visit a discussion arose as to the credibility of anynegro assertion, though, indeed, that could hardly be called a discussionthat was simply a chorus of assenting opinions. No negro was to bebelieved on any occasion or any subject. No doubt they are habitual liars, for they are slaves, but there are some thrice honourable exceptions who, being slaves, are yet not liars; and certainly the vice results much morefrom the circumstances in which they are placed than from any naturaltendency to untruth in their case. The truth is that they are alwaysconsidered as false and deceitful, and it is very seldom that any specialinvestigation of the facts of any particular case is resorted to in theirbehalf. They are always prejudged on their supposed generalcharacteristics, and never judged after the fact on the merit of anyspecial instance. A question which was discussed in the real sense of the term, was that ofploughing the land instead of having it turned with the spade or hoe. Ilistened to this with great interest, for Jack and I had had some talkupon this subject, which began in his ardently expressed wish that massawould allow his land to be ploughed, and his despairing conclusion that henever would, ''cause horses more costly to keep than coloured folks, ' andploughing, therefore, dearer than hoeing or digging. I had ventured tosuggest to Mr. ----- the possibility of ploughing some of the fields onthe island, and his reply was that the whole land was too moist and toomuch interrupted with the huge masses of the Cypress yam roots, whichwould turn the share of any plough. Yet there is land belonging to ourneighbour Mr. G----, on the other side of the river, where the conditionsof the soil must be precisely the same, and yet which is being ploughedbefore our faces. On Mr. ----'s adjacent plantation the plough is alsoused extensively and successfully. On my return to our own island I visited another of the hospitals, and thesettlements to which it belonged. The condition of these places and oftheir inhabitants is, of course, the same all over the plantation, and ifI were to describe them I should but weary you with a repetition ofidentical phenomena: filthy, wretched, almost naked, always bare-leggedand bare-footed children; negligent, ignorant, wretched mothers, whoseapparent indifference to the plight of their offspring, and utterincapacity to alter it, are the inevitable result of their slavery. It ishopeless to attempt to reform their habits or improve their conditionwhile the women are condemned to field labour; nor is it possible tooverestimate the bad moral effect of the system as regards the womenentailing this enforced separation from their children and neglect of allthe cares and duties of mother, nurse, and even house-wife, which are allmerged in the mere physical toil of a human hoeing machine. It seems to metoo--but upon this point I cannot, of course, judge as well as the personsaccustomed to and acquainted with the physical capacities of theirslaves--that the labour is not judiciously distributed in many cases; atleast, not as far as the women are concerned. It is true that everyable-bodied woman is made the most of in being driven a-field as long asunder all and any circumstances she is able to wield a hoe; but on theother hand, stout, hale, hearty girls and boys, of from eight to twelveand older, are allowed to lounge about filthy and idle, with no pretenceof an occupation but what they call 'tend baby, ' i. E. See to the life andlimbs of the little slave infants, to whose mothers, working in distantfields, they carry them during the day to be suckled, and for the rest ofthe time leave them to crawl and kick in the filthy cabins or on thebroiling sand which surrounds them, in which industry, excellent enoughfor the poor babies, these big lazy youths and lasses emulate them. Again, I find many women who have borne from five to ten children rated asworkers, precisely as young women in the prime of their strength who havehad none; this seems a cruel carelessness. To be sure, while the women arepregnant their task is diminished, and this is one of the many indirectinducements held out to reckless propagation, which has a sort of premiumoffered to it in the consideration of less work and more food, counterbalanced by none of the sacred responsibilities which hallow andennoble the relation of parent and child; in short, as their lives are forthe most part those of mere animals, their increase is literally mereanimal breeding, to which every encouragement is given, for it adds tothe master's live stock, and the value of his estate. * * * * * Dear E----. To-day, I have the pleasure of announcing to you a variety ofimprovements about to be made in the infirmary of the island. There is tobe a third story--a mere loft indeed--added to the buildings, but byaffording more room for the least distressing cases of sickness to bedrafted off into, it will leave the ground-floor and room above itcomparatively free for the most miserable of these unfortunates. To myunspeakable satisfaction these destitute apartments are to be furnishedwith bedsteads, mattresses, pillows, and blankets; and I feel a littlecomforted for the many heart-aches my life here inflicts upon me: at leastsome of my twinges will have wrought this poor alleviation of theirwretchedness for the slaves, when prostrated by disease or pain. I had hardly time to return from the hospital home this morning before oneof the most tremendous storms I ever saw burst over the island. Yournorthern hills, with their solemn pine woods, and fresh streams and lakes, telling of a cold rather than a warm climate, always seem to me as ifundergoing some strange and unnatural visitation, when one of your heavysummer thunder-storms bursts over them. Snow and frost, hail and, aboveall, wind, trailing rain clouds and brilliant northern lights, are yourappropriate sky phenomena; here, thunder and lightning seem as if theymight have been invented. Even in winter (remember, we are now inFebruary) they appear neither astonishing nor unseasonable, and I shouldthink in summer (but Heaven defend me from ever making good mysupposition) lightning must be as familiar to these sweltering lands andslimy waters as sunlight itself. The afternoon cleared off most beautifully, and Jack and I went out on theriver to catch what might be caught. Jack's joyful excitement was extremeat my announcing to him the fact that Mr. ---- had consented to tryploughing on some of the driest portions of the island instead of the slowand laborious process of hoeing the fields; this is a disinterestedexultation on his part, for at any rate as long as I am here, he willcertainly be nothing but 'my boy Jack, ' and I should think after mydeparture will never be degraded to the rank of a field-hand or commonlabourer. Indeed the delicacy of his health, to which his slight slenderfigure and languid face bear witness, and which was one reason of hisappointment to the eminence of being 'my slave, ' would, I should think, prevent the poor fellow's ever being a very robust or useful workinganimal. On my return from the river I had a long and painful conversation withMr. ---- upon the subject of the flogging which had been inflicted on thewretched Teresa. These discussions are terrible: they throw me intoperfect agonies of distress for the slaves, whose position is utterlyhopeless; for myself, whose intervention in their behalf sometimes seemsto me worse than useless; for Mr. ----, whose share in this horriblesystem fills me by turns with indignation and pity. But, after all, whatcan he do? how can he help it all? Moreover, born and bred in America, how should he care or wish to help it? and of course he does not; and Iam in despair that he does not: et voilà, it is a happy and hopefulplight for us both. He maintained that there had been neither hardshipnor injustice in the case of Teresa's flogging; and that, moreover, shehad not been flogged at all for complaining to me, but simply because herallotted task was not done at the appointed time. Of course this was theresult of her having come to appeal to me, instead of going to herlabour; and as she knew perfectly well the penalty she was incurring, hemaintained that there was neither hardship nor injustice in the case; thewhole thing was a regularly established law, with which all the slaveswere perfectly well acquainted; and this case was no exception whatever. The circumstance of my being on the island could not of course be allowedto overthrow the whole system of discipline established to secure thelabour and obedience of the slaves; and if they chose to try experimentsas to that fact, they and I must take the consequences. At the end of theday, the driver of the gang to which Teresa belongs reported her worknot done, and Mr. O---- ordered him to give her the usual number ofstripes; which order the driver of course obeyed, without knowing howTeresa had employed her time instead of hoeing. But Mr. O---- knew wellenough, for the wretched woman told me that she had herself told him sheshould appeal to me about her weakness and suffering and inability to dothe work exacted from her. He did not, however, think proper to exceed in her punishment the usualnumber of stripes allotted to the non-performance of the appointed dailytask, and Mr. ---- pronounced the whole transaction perfectly satisfactoryand _en règle_. The common drivers are limited in their powers ofchastisement, not being allowed to administer more than a certain numberof lashes to their fellow slaves. Head man Frank, as he is called, hasalone the privilege of exceeding this limit; and the overseer's latitudeof infliction is only curtailed by the necessity of avoiding injury tolife or limb. The master's irresponsible power has no such bound. When Iwas thus silenced on the particular case under discussion, I resorted inmy distress and indignation to the abstract question, as I never canrefrain from doing; and to Mr. ----'s assertion of the justice of poorTeresa's punishment, I retorted the manifest injustice of unpaid andenforced labour; the brutal inhumanity of allowing a man to strip andlash a woman, the mother of ten children; to exact from her toil which wasto maintain in luxury two idle young men, the owners of the plantation. Isaid I thought female labour of the sort exacted from these slaves, andcorporal chastisement such as they endure, must be abhorrent to any manlyor humane man. Mr. ---- said he thought it was _disagreeable_, and left meto my reflections with that concession. My letter has been interrupted forthe last three days; by nothing special, however. My occupations andinterests here of course know no change; but Mr. ---- has been anxious fora little while past that we should go down to St. Simon's, the cottonplantation. We shall suffer less from the heat, which I am beginning to findoppressive on this swamp island; and he himself wished to visit that partof his property, whither he had not yet been since our arrival in Georgia. So the day before yesterday he departed to make the necessary arrangementsfor our removal thither; and my time in the meanwhile has been taken up infitting him out for his departure. In the morning Jack and I took our usual paddle, and having the tackle onboard, tried fishing. I was absorbed in many sad and seriousconsiderations, and wonderful to relate (for you know ---- how keen anangler I am), had lost all consciousness of my occupation, until after Iknow not how long a time elapsing without the shadow of a nibble, I wasrecalled to a most ludicrous perception of my ill-success by Jack'ssudden observation, 'Missis, fishing berry good fun when um fish bite. 'This settled the fishing for that morning, and I let Jack paddle me downthe broad turbid stream, endeavouring to answer in the most comprehensiblemanner to his keen but utterly undeveloped intellects the innumerablequestions with which he plied me about Philadelphia, about England, aboutthe Atlantic, &c. He dilated much upon the charms of St. Simon's, to whichhe appeared very glad that we were going; and among other items ofdescription mentioned, what I was very glad to hear, that it was abeautiful place for riding, and that I should be able to indulge to myheart's content in my favourite exercise, from which I have, of course, been utterly debarred in this small dykeland of ours. He insinuated morethan once his hope and desire that he might be allowed to accompany me, but as I knew nothing at all about his capacity for equestrian exercises, or any of the arrangements that might or might not interfere with such aplan, I was discreetly silent, and took no notice of his most comicallyturned hints on the subject. In our row we started a quantity of wildduck, and he told me that there was a great deal of game at St. Simon's, but that the people did not contrive to catch much, though they laid trapsconstantly for it. Of course their possessing firearms is quite out ofthe question; but this abundance of what must be to them such especiallydesirable prey, makes the fact a great hardship. I almost wonder theydon't learn to shoot like savages with bows and arrows, but these would beweapons, and equally forbidden them. In the afternoon I saw Mr. ---- off for St. Simon's; it is fifteen mileslower down the river, and a large island at the very mouth of theAltamaha. The boat he went in was a large, broad, rather heavy, though well-builtcraft, by no means as swift or elegant as the narrow eight-oared long boatin which he generally takes his walks on the water, but well adapted forthe traffic between the two plantations, where it serves the purpose of asort of omnibus or stage-coach for the transfer of the people from one tothe other, and of a baggage waggon or cart for the conveyance of all sortsof household goods, chattels, and necessaries. Mr. ---- sat in the middleof a perfect chaos of such freight; and as the boat pushed off, and thesteersman took her into the stream, the men at the oars set up a chorus, which they continued to chaunt in unison with each other, and in time withtheir stroke, till the voices and oars were heard no more from thedistance. I believe I have mentioned to you before the peculiarcharacteristics of this veritable negro minstrelsy--how they all sing inunison, having never, it appears, attempted or heard anything likepart-singing. Their voices seem oftener tenor than any other quality, andthe tune and time they keep something quite wonderful; such truth ofintonation and accent would make almost any music agreeable. That which Ihave heard these people sing is often plaintive and pretty, but almostalways has some resemblance to tunes with which they must have becomeacquainted through the instrumentality of white men; their overseers ormasters whistling Scotch or Irish airs, of which they have produced by earthese _rifacciamenti_. The note for note reproduction of 'Ah! vousdirai-je, maman?' in one of the most popular of the so-called Negromelodies with which all America and England are familiar, is an example ofthis very transparent plagiarism; and the tune with which Mr. ----'srowers started him down the Altamaha, as I stood at the steps to see himoff, was a very distinct descendant of 'Coming through the Rye. ' Thewords, however, were astonishingly primitive, especially the first line, which, when it burst from their eight throats in high unison, sent me intofits of laughter. Jenny shake her toe at me, Jenny gone away; Jenny shake her toe at me, Jenny gone away. Hurrah! Miss Susy, oh! Jenny gone away; Hurrah! Miss Susy, oh! Jenny gone away. What the obnoxious Jenny meant by shaking her toe, whether defiance ormere departure, I never could ascertain, but her going away was anunmistakable subject of satisfaction; and the pause made on the last 'oh!'before the final announcement of her departure, had really a good deal ofdramatic and musical effect. Except the extemporaneous chaunts in ourhonour, of which I have written to you before, I have never heard thenegroes on Mr. ----'s plantation sing any words that could be said to haveany sense. To one, an extremely pretty, plaintive, and original air, therewas but one line, which was repeated with a sort of wailing chorus-- Oh! my massa told me, there's no grass in Georgia. Upon enquiring the meaning of which, I was told it was supposed to be thelamentation of a slave from one of the more northerly states, Virginia orCarolina, where the labour of hoeing the weeds, or grass as they call it, is not nearly so severe as here, in the rice and cotton lands of Georgia. Another very pretty and pathetic tune began with words that seemed topromise something sentimental-- Fare you well, and good-bye, oh, oh! I'm goin' away to leave you, oh, oh! but immediately went off into nonsense verses about gentlemen in theparlour drinking wine and cordial, and ladies in the drawing-room drinkingtea and coffee, &c. I have heard that many of the masters and overseers onthese plantations prohibit melancholy tunes or words, and encouragenothing but cheerful music and senseless words, deprecating the effect ofsadder strains upon the slaves, whose peculiar musical sensibility mightbe expected to make them especially excitable by any songs of a plaintivecharacter, and having any reference to their particular hardships. If itis true, I think it a judicious precaution enough--these poor slaves arejust the sort of people over whom a popular musical appeal to theirfeelings and passions would have an immense power. In the evening, Mr. ----'s departure left me to the pleasures of anuninterrupted _tête-à-tête_ with his crosseyed overseer, and Iendeavoured, as I generally do, to atone by my conversibleness andcivility for the additional trouble which, no doubt, all my outlandishways and notions are causing the worthy man. So suggestive (to use thenew-fangled jargon about books) a woman as myself is, I suspect, anintolerable nuisance in these parts; and poor Mr. O---- cannot very welldesire Mr. ---- to send me away, however much he may wish that he would;so that figuratively, as well as literally, I fear the worthy master _mevoit d'un mauvais oeil_, as the French say. I asked him several questionsabout some of the slaves who had managed to learn to read, and by whatmeans they had been able to do so. As teaching them is strictly prohibitedby the laws, they who instructed them, and such of them as acquired theknowledge, must have been not a little determined and persevering. Thiswas my view of the case, of course, and of course it was not theoverseer's. I asked him if many of Mr. ----'s slaves could read. He said'No; very few, he was happy to say, but those few were just so many toomany. ' 'Why, had he observed any insubordination in those who did?' And Ireminded him of Cooper London, the methodist preacher, whose performanceof the burial service had struck me so much some time ago--to whoseexemplary conduct and character there is but one concurrent testimony allover the plantation. No; he had no special complaint to bring against thelettered members of his subject community, but he spoke by anticipation. Every step they take towards intelligence and enlightenment lessens theprobability of their acquiescing in their condition. Their condition isnot to be changed--ergo, they had better not learn to read; a verysuccinct and satisfactory argument as far as it goes, no doubt, and one towhich I had not a word to reply, at any rate, to Mr. O----, as I did notfeel called upon to discuss the abstract justice or equity of the matterwith him; indeed he, to a certain degree, gave up that part of theposition, starting with 'I don't say whether it's right or wrong;' and inall conversations that I have had with the southerners upon thesesubjects, whether out of civility to what may be supposed to be anEnglishwoman's prejudices, or a forlorn respect to their own convictions, the question of the fundamental wrong of slavery is generally admitted, orat any rate certainly never denied. That part of the subject is summarilydismissed, and all its other aspects vindicated, excused, and even lauded, with untiring eloquence. Of course, of the abstract question I could judgebefore I came here, but I confess I had not the remotest idea howabsolutely my observation of every detail of the system, as a practicaliniquity, would go to confirm my opinion of its abomination. Mr. O----went on to condemn and utterly denounce all the preaching and teaching andmoral instruction upon religious subjects, which people in the south, pressed upon by northern opinion, are endeavouring to give their slaves. The kinder and the more cowardly masters are anxious to evade the chargeof keeping their negroes in brutish ignorance, and so they crumble whatthey suppose and hope may prove a little harmless, religiousenlightenment, which, mixed up with much religious authority on thesubject of submission and fidelity to masters, they trust their slaves mayswallow without its doing them any harm--i. E. , that they may be betterChristians and better slaves--and so, indeed, no doubt they are; but it isa very dangerous experiment, and from Mr. O----'s point of view I quiteagree with him. The letting out of water, or the letting in of light, ininfinitesimal quantities, is not always easy. The half-wicked of the earthare the leaks through which wickedness is eventually swamped; compromisesforerun absolute surrender in most matters, and fools and cowards are, insuch cases, the instruments of Providence for their own defeat. Mr. O----stated unequivocally his opinion that free labour would be more profitableon the plantations than the work of slaves, which, being compulsory, wasof the worst possible quality and the smallest possible quantity; then thecharge of them before and after they are able to work is onerous, the costof feeding and clothing them very considerable, and upon the whole he, asouthern overseer, pronounced himself decidedly in favour of free labour, upon grounds of expediency. Having at the beginning of our conversationdeclined discussing the moral aspect of slavery, evidently not thinkingthat position tenable, I thought I had every right to consider Mr. ----'sslave-driver a decided abolitionist. I had been anxious to enlist his sympathies on behalf of my extremedesire, to have some sort of garden, but did not succeed in inspiring himwith my enthusiasm on the subject; he said there was but one garden thathe knew of in the whole neighbourhood of Darien, and that was ourneighbour, old Mr. C----'s, a Scotchman on St. Simon's. I remembered thesplendid gardinias on Tunno's Island, and referred to them as a proof ofthe material for ornamental gardening. He laughed, and said rice andcotton crops were the ornamental gardening principally admired by theplanters, and that, to the best of his belief, there was not anotherdecent kitchen or flower garden in the State, but the one he hadmentioned. The next day after this conversation, I walked with my horticulturalzeal much damped, and wandered along the dyke by the broad river, looking at some pretty peach trees in blossom, and thinking what a curseof utter stagnation this slavery produces, and how intolerable to me alife passed within its stifling influence would be. Think of peach treesin blossom in the middle of February! It does seem cruel, with such asun and soil, to be told that a garden is worth nobody's while here;however, Mr. O---- said that he believed the wife of the former overseerhad made a 'sort of a garden' at St. Simon's. We shall see 'what sort'it turns out to be. While I was standing on the dyke, ruminating abovethe river, I saw a beautiful white bird of the crane species alight notfar from me. I do not think a little knowledge of natural history woulddiminish the surprise and admiration with which I regard the, to me, unwonted specimens of animal existence that I encounter every day, andof which I do not even know the names. Ignorance is an odious thing. Thebirds here are especially beautiful, I think. I saw one the other day, of what species of course I do not know, of a warm and rich brown, witha scarlet hood and crest--a lovely creature, about the size of yournorthern robin, but more elegantly shaped. This morning, instead of my usual visit to the infirmary, I went to lookat the work and workers in the threshing mill--all was going on activelyand orderly under the superintendence of head-man Frank, with whom, and avery sagacious clever fellow, who manages the steam power of the mill, and is honourably distinguished as Engineer Ned, I had a small chat. There is one among various drawbacks to the comfort and pleasure of ourintercourse with these coloured 'men and brethren, ' at least in theirslave condition, which certainly exercises my fortitude not alittle, --the swarms of fleas that cohabit with these sable dependants ofours are--well--incredible; moreover they are by no means the only ormost objectionable companions one borrows from them, and I never go tothe infirmary, where I not unfrequently am requested to look at verydirty limbs and bodies in very dirty draperies, without coming away witha strong inclination to throw myself into the water, and my clothes intothe fire, which last would be expensive. I do not suppose that thesehateful consequences of dirt and disorder are worse here than among thepoor and neglected human creatures who swarm in the lower parts ofEuropean cities; but my call to visit them has never been such as thatwhich constrains me to go daily among these poor people, and although onone or two occasions I have penetrated into fearfully foul and filthyabodes of misery in London, I have never rendered the same personalservices to their inhabitants that I do to Mr. ----'s slaves, and sohave not incurred the same amount of entomological inconvenience. After leaving the mill, I prolonged my walk, and came, for the first time, upon one of the 'gangs, ' as they are called, in full field work. Upon myappearance and approach there was a momentary suspension of labour, andthe usual chorus of screams and ejaculations of welcome, affection, andinfinite desires for infinite small indulgences. I was afraid to stoptheir work, not feeling at all sure that urging a conversation with mewould be accepted as any excuse for an uncompleted task, or avert thefatal infliction of the usual award of stripes; so I hurried off and leftthem to their hoeing. On my way home I was encountered by London, our Methodist preacher, whoaccosted me with a request for a prayer-book and Bible, and expressed hisregret at hearing that we were so soon going to St. Simon's. I promisedhim his holy books, and asked him how he had learned to read, but found itimpossible to get him to tell me. I wonder if he thought he should beputting his teacher, whoever he was, in danger of the penalty of the lawagainst instructing the slaves, if he told me who he was; it wasimpossible to make him do so, so that, besides his other good qualities, he appears to have that most unusual one of all in an uneducatedperson--discretion. He certainly is a most remarkable man. After parting with him, I was assailed by a small gang of children, clamouring for the indulgence of some meat, which they besought me togive them. Animal food is only allowed to certain of the harder workingmen, hedgers and ditchers, and to them only occasionally, and in verymoderate rations. My small cannibals clamoured round me for flesh, as if Ihad had a butcher's cart in my pocket, till I began to laugh and then torun, and away they came, like a pack of little black wolves, at my heels, shrieking, 'Missis, you gib me piece meat, missis, you gib me meat, ' tillI got home. At the door I found another petitioner, a young woman namedMaria, who brought a fine child in her arms, and demanded a present of apiece of flannel. Upon my asking her who her husband was, she replied, without much hesitation, that she did not possess any such appendage. Igave another look at her bonny baby, and went into the house to get theflannel for her. I afterwards heard from Mr. ---- that she and two othergirls of her age, about seventeen, were the only instances on the islandof women with illegitimate children. After I had been in the house a little while, I was summoned out again toreceive the petition of certain poor women in the family-way to have theirwork lightened. I was, of course, obliged to tell them that I could notinterfere in the matter, that their master was away, and that, when hecame back, they must present their request to him: they said they hadalready begged 'massa, ' and he had refused, and they thought, perhaps, if'missis' begged 'massa' for them, he would lighten their task. Poor'missis, ' poor 'massa, ' poor woman, that I am to have such prayersaddressed to me! I had to tell them, that if they had already spoken totheir master, I was afraid my doing so would be of no use, but that whenhe came back I would try; so, choking with crying, I turned away fromthem, and re-entered the house, to the chorus of 'Oh, thank you, missis!God bless you, missis!' E----, I think an improvement might be made uponthat caricature published a short time ago, called the 'Chivalry of theSouth. ' I think an elegant young Carolinian, or Georgian gentleman, whipin hand, driving a gang of 'lusty women, ' as they are called here, wouldbe a pretty version of the 'Chivalry of the South'--a little coarse, I amafraid you will say. Oh! quite horribly coarse, but then so true--a greatmatter in works of art, which, now-a-days, appear to be thought excellentonly in proportion to their lack of ideal elevation. That would be asubject, and a treatment of it, which could not be accused of imaginativeexaggeration, at any rate. In the evening I mentioned the petitions of these poor women to Mr. O----, thinking that perhaps he had the power to lessen their tasks. He seemedevidently annoyed at their having appealed to me; said that their work wasnot a bit too much for them, and that constantly they were _shamming_themselves in the family-way, in order to obtain a diminution of theirlabour. Poor creatures! I suppose some of them do; but again, it must bea hard matter for those who do not, not to obtain the mitigation of theirtoil which their condition requires; for their assertion and theirevidence are never received--they can't be believed, even if they wereupon oath, say their white taskmasters; why? because they have never beentaught the obligations of an oath, to whom made, or wherefore binding; andthey are punished both directly and indirectly for their moral ignorance, as if it were a natural and incorrigible element of their character, instead of the inevitable result of their miserable position. The oath ofany and every scoundrelly fellow with a white skin is received, but notthat of such a man as Frank, Ned, old Jacob, or Cooper London. * * * * * Dearest E----. I think it right to begin this letter with an account of amost prosperous fishing expedition Jack and I achieved the other morning. It is true we still occasionally drew up huge cat-fish, with theirdetestable beards and spikes, but we also captivated some magnificentperch, and the Altamaha perch are worth one's while both to catch and toeat. On a visit I had to make on the mainland, the same day, I saw a tinystrip of garden ground, rescued from the sandy road, called the street, perfectly filled with hyacinths, double jonquils, and snowdrops, acharming nosegay for February 11. After leaving the boat on my returnhome, I encountered a curious creature walking all sideways, a small crossbetween a lobster and a crab. One of the negroes to whom I applied for itsdenomination informed me that it was a land crab, with which generaldescription of this very peculiar multipede you must be satisfied, for Ican tell you no more. I went a little further, as the nursery rhyme says, and met with a snake, and not being able to determine, at ignorant firstsight, whether it was a malignant serpent or not, I ingloriously took tomy heels, and came home on the full run. It is the first of theseexceedingly displeasing animals I have encountered here; but Jack, for myconsolation, tells me that they abound on St. Simon's, whither we aregoing--'rattlesnakes, and all kinds, ' says he, with an affluence ofpromise in his tone that is quite agreeable. Rattlesnakes will be quiteenough of a treat, without the vague horrors that may be comprised in theadditional 'all kinds. ' Jack's account of the game on St. Simon's isreally quite tantalising to me, who cannot carry a gun any more than if Iwere a slave. He says that partridges, woodcocks, snipe, and wild duckabound, so that, at any rate, our table ought to be well supplied. Hisaccount of the bears that are still to be found in the woods of themainland, is not so pleasant, though he says they do no harm to thepeople, if they are not meddled with, but that they steal the corn fromthe fields when it is ripe, and actually swim the river to commit theirdepredations on the islands. It seems difficult to believe this, lookingat this wide and heavy stream--though, to be sure, I did once see a younghorse swim across the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and Quebec; a feat ofnatation which much enlarged my belief in what quadrupeds may accomplishwhen they have no choice between swimming and sinking. You cannot imagine how great a triumph the virtue next to godliness ismaking under my auspices and a judicious system of small bribery. I canhardly stir now without being assailed with cries of 'Missis, missis memind chile, me bery clean, ' or the additional gratifying fact, 'and chiletoo, him bery clean. ' This virtue, however, if painful to the practisers, as no doubt it is, is expensive, too, to me, and I shall have to try somemoral influence equivalent in value to a cent current coin of the realm. What a poor chance, indeed, the poor abstract idea runs! however, it isreally a comfort to see the poor little woolly heads, now in mostinstances stripped of their additional filthy artificial envelopes. In my afternoon's row to-day I passed a huge dead alligator, lying half inand half out of the muddy slime of the river bank--a most hideous objectit was, and I was glad to turn my eyes to the beautiful surface of the midstream, all burnished with sunset glories, and broken with the vivaciousgambols of a school of porpoises. It is curious, I think, that thesecreatures should come fifteen miles from the sea to enliven the watersround our little rice swamp. While rowing this evening, I was led by my conversation with Jack to someof those reflections with which my mind is naturally incessantly filledhere, but which I am obliged to be very careful not to give any utteranceto. The testimony of no negro is received in a southern court of law, andthe reason commonly adduced for this is, that the state of ignorance inwhich the negroes are necessarily kept, renders them incapable ofcomprehending the obligations of an oath, and yet with an inconsistencywhich might be said to border on effrontery, these same people areadmitted to the most holy sacrament of the Church, and are certainlythereby supposed to be capable of assuming the highest Christianobligations, and the entire fulfilment of God's commandments--including, of course, the duty of speaking the truth at all times. As we were proceeding down the river, we met the flat, as it is called, a huge sort of clumsy boat, more like a raft than any other speciesof craft, coming up from St. Simon's with its usual swarthy freightof Mr. ----'s dependants from that place. I made Jack turn our canoe, because the universal outcries and exclamations very distinctly intimatedthat I should be expected to be at home to receive the homage of thiscargo of 'massa's people. ' No sooner, indeed, had I disembarked andreached the house, than a dark cloud of black life filled the piazzaand swarmed up the steps, and I had to shake hands, like a popularpresident, till my arm ached at the shoulder-joint. When this tribe had dispersed itself, a very old woman with a remarkablyintelligent, nice-looking young girl, came forward and claimed myattention. The old woman, who must, I think, by her appearance, have beennear seventy, had been one of the house servants on St. Simon's Island inMajor ----'s time, and retained a certain dignified courtesy andrespectfulness of manner which is by no means an uncommon attribute of thebetter class of slaves, whose intercourse with their masters, whiletending to expand their intelligence, cultivates, at the same time, thenatural turn for good manners which is, I think, a distinctive peculiarityof negroes, if not in the kingdom of Dahomey, certainly in the UnitedStates of America. If it can be for a moment attributed to the beneficentinfluence of slavery on their natures (and I think slaveowners are quitelikely to imagine so), it is curious enough that there is hardly any alloywhatever of cringing servility, or even humility, in the good manners ofthe blacks, but a rather courtly and affable condescension which, combinedwith their affection for, and misapplication of, long words, produces anexceedingly comical effect. Old-house Molly, after congratulating herself, with many thanks to heaven, for having spared her to see 'massa's' wifeand children, drew forward her young companion, and informed me she wasone of her numerous grandchildren. The damsel, ycleped Louisa, made rathera shame-faced obeisance, and her old grandmother went on to inform me thatshe had only lately been forgiven by the overseer for an attempt to runaway from the plantation. I enquired the cause of her desire to do so--a'thrashing' she had got for an unfinished task--'but lor, missis, 'explained the old woman, 'taint no use--what use nigger run away?--deswamp all round; dey get in dar, an dey starve to def, or de snakes eat emup--massa's nigger, dey don't neber run away;' and if the good lady'saccount of their prospects in doing so is correct (which, substitutingbiting for eating, on the part of the snakes, it undoubtedly is), one doesnot see exactly what particular merit the institution of slavery aspractised on Mr. ----'s plantation derives from the fact that his 'niggerdon't neber run away. ' After dismissing Molly and her grand-daughter, I was about to re-enter thehouse, when I was stopped by Betty, head-man Frank's wife, who came with apetition that she might be baptised. As usual with all requests involvinganything more than an immediate physical indulgence, I promised to referthe matter to Mr. ----, but expressed some surprise that Betty, now by nomeans a young woman, should have postponed a ceremony which the religiousamong the slaves are apt to attach much importance to. She told me shehad more than once applied for this permission to Massa K---- (the formeroverseer), but had never been able to obtain it, but that now she thoughtshe would ask 'de missis. '[2] [Footnote 2: Of this woman's life on the plantation, I subsequentlylearned the following circumstances:--She was the wife of head-man Frank, the most intelligent and trustworthy of Mr. ----'s slaves; the headdriver--second in command to the overseer, and indeed second to noneduring the pestilential season, when the rice swamps cannot with impunitybe inhabited by any white man, and when, therefore, the whole forceemployed in its cultivation on the island remains entirely under hisauthority and control. His wife--a tidy, trim, intelligent woman, with apretty figure, but a decidedly negro face--was taken from him by theoverseer left in charge of the plantation by the Messrs. ----, theall-efficient and all-satisfactory Mr. K----, and she had a son by him, whose straight features and diluted colour, no less than his troublesome, discontented and insubmissive disposition, bear witness to his Yankeedescent. I do not know how long Mr. K----'s occupation of Frank's wifecontinued, or how the latter endured the wrong done to him. When I visitedthe island, Betty was again living with her husband--a grave, sad, thoughtful-looking man, whose admirable moral and mental qualities wereextolled to me by no worse a judge of such matters than Mr. K---- himself, during the few days he spent with Mr. ----, while we were on theplantation. This outrage upon this man's rights was perfectly notoriousamong all the slaves; and his hopeful offspring, Renty, alluding veryunmistakably to his superior birth on one occasion when he applied forpermission to have a gun, observed that, though the people in general onthe plantation were not allowed firearms, he thought he might, _onaccount of his colour_, and added that he thought Mr. K---- might haveleft him his. This precious sample of the mode in which the vices of thewhites procure the intellectual progress of the blacks to their ownendangerment, was, as you will easily believe, a significant chapter to mein the black history of oppression which is laid before my eyes in thisplace. ] Yesterday afternoon I received a visit from the wife of our neighbour Dr. T----. As usual, she exclaimed at my good fortune in having a white womanwith my children when she saw M----, and, as usual, went on to expatiateon the utter impossibility of finding a trustworthy nurse anywhere in theSouth, to whom your children could be safely confided for a day or even anhour; as usual too, the causes of this unworthiness or incapacity for aconfidential servant's occupation were ignored, and the fact laid to thenatural defects of the negro race. I am sick and weary of this cruel andignorant folly. This afternoon I went out to refresh myself with a row onthe broad Altamaha and the conversation of my slave Jack, which is, Iassure you, by no means devoid of interest of various kinds, pathetic andhumorous. I do not know that Jack's scientific information is the mostvaluable in the world, and I sometimes marvel with perhaps unjustincredulity at the facts in natural history which he imparts to me; forinstance, to-day he told me as we rowed past certain mud islands, verylike children's mud puddings on a rather larger scale than usual, thatthey were inaccessible, and that it would be quite impossible to land onone of them even for the shortest time. Not understanding why people whodid not mind being up to their knees in mud should not land there if theypleased, I demurred to his assertion, when he followed it up by assuringme that there were what he called sand-sinks under the mud, and thatwhatever was placed on the surface would not only sink through the mud, but also into a mysterious quicksand of unknown depth and extent below it. This may be true, but sounds very strange, although I remember that thefrequent occurrence of large patches of quicksand was found to be one ofthe principal impediments in the way of the canal speculators atBrunswick. I did not, however, hear that these sinks, as Jack called them, were found below a thick stratum of heavy mud. In remonstrating with him upon the want of decent cleanliness generallyamong the people, and citing to him one among the many evils resultingfrom it, the intolerable quantity of fleas in all the houses, he met mefull with another fact in natural history which, if it be fact and notfiction, certainly gave him the best of the argument: he declared, withthe utmost vehemence, that the sand of the pine woods on the mainlandacross the river literally swarmed with fleas--that in the uninhabitedplaces the sand itself was full of them, and that so far from being aresult of human habitation, they were found in less numbers round thenegro huts on the mainland than in the lonely woods around them. The ploughing is at length fairly inaugurated, and there is a regularjubilee among the negroes thereat. After discoursing fluently on theimprovements likely to result from the measure, Jack wound up by saying hehad been afraid it would not be tried on account of the greater scarcity, and consequently greater value, of horses over men in these parts--amodest and slave-like conclusion. * * * * * Dearest E----. I walked up to-day, _February 14th_, to see that land ofpromise the ploughed field: it did not look to me anything like as heavysoil as the cold wet sour stiff clay I have seen turned up in some of theswampy fields round Lenox; and as for the cypress roots which were urgedas so serious an impediment, they are not much more frequent, andcertainly not as resisting, as the granite knees and elbows that stick outthrough the scanty covering of the said clay, which mother earth allowsherself as sole garment for her old bones in many a Berkshire patch ofcorn. After my survey, as I walked home, I came upon a gang of lustywomen, as the phrase is here for women in the family-way; they wereengaged in burning stubble, and I was nearly choked while receiving themultitudinous complaints and compliments with which they overwhelmed me. After leaving them, I wandered along the river side on the dyke homeward, rejoicing in the buds and green things putting forth their tender shootson every spray, in the early bees and even the less amiable wasps busy inthe sunshine with flowers--(weeds I suppose they should be called), already opening their sweet temptations to them, and giving the earth aspring aspect, such as it does not wear with you in Massachusetts tilllate in May. In the afternoon I took my accustomed row: there had been a tremendous ebbtide, the consequence of which was to lay bare portions of the banks whichI had not seen before. The cypress roots form a most extraordinary mass ofintertwined wood-work, so closely matted and joined together, that theseparate roots, in spite of their individual peculiarities, appeared onlylike divisions of a continuous body; they presented the appearance inseveral places of jagged pieces of splintered rock, with their huge teethpointing downward into the water. Their decay is so slow that theprotection they afford the soft spongy banks against the action of thewater, is likely to be prolonged until the gathering and deposit ofsuccessive layers of alluvium will remove them from the margin of whichthey are now most useful supports. On my return home, I was met by a child(as she seemed to me) carrying a baby, in whose behalf she begged me forsome clothes. On making some enquiry, I was amazed to find that the childwas her own: she said she was married and fourteen years old, she lookedmuch younger even than that, poor creature. Her mother, who came up whileI was talking to her, said she did not herself know the girl's age;--howhorridly brutish it all did seem, to be sure. The spring is already here with her hands full of flowers. I do not knowwho planted some straggling pyrus japonica near the house, but it isblessing my eyes with a hundred little flame-like buds, which willpresently burst into a blaze; there are clumps of narcissus roots sendingup sheaves of ivory blossoms, and I actually found a monthly rose in bloomon the sunny side of one of the dykes; what a delight they are in theslovenly desolation of this abode of mine! what a garden one might have onthe banks of these dykes, with the least amount of trouble and care! In the afternoon I rowed over to Darien, and there procuring the mostmiserable vehicle calling itself a carriage that I had ever seen (thedirtiest and shabbiest London hackney-coach were a chariot of splendourand ease to it), we drove some distance into the sandy wilderness thatsurrounds the little town, to pay a visit to some of the resident gentrywho had called upon us. The road was a deep wearisome sandy track, stretching wearisomely into the wearisome pine forest--a species ofwilderness more oppressive a thousand times to the senses and imaginationthan any extent of monotonous prairie, barren steppe, or boundless desertcan be; for the horizon there at least invites and detains the eye, suggesting beyond its limit possible change; the lights and shadows andenchanting colours of the sky afford some variety in their movement andchange, and the reflections of their tints; while in this hideous andapparently boundless pine barren, you are deprived alike of horizon beforeyou and heaven above you: nor sun nor star appears through the thickcovert, which, in the shabby dinginess of its dark blue-green expanse, looks like a gigantic cotton umbrella stretched immeasurably over you. Itis true that over that sandy soil a dark green cotton umbrella is a verywelcome protection from the sun, and when the wind makes music in the tallpine-tops and refreshment in the air beneath them. The comparison may seemungrateful enough: to-day, however, there was neither sound above normotion below, and the heat was perfectly stifling, as we ploughed our waythrough the resinous-smelling sand solitudes. From time to time a thicket of exquisite evergreen shrubs broke themonotonous lines of the countless pine shafts rising round us, and stillmore welcome were the golden garlands of the exquisite wild jasmine, hanging, drooping, trailing, clinging, climbing through the dreary forest, joining to the warm aromatic smell of the fir trees a delicious fragranceas of acres of heliotrope in bloom. I wonder if this delightful creatureis very difficult of cultivation out of its natural region; I neverremember to have seen it, at least not in blossom, in any collection ofplants in the Northern States or in Europe, where it certainly deserves anhonourable place for its grace, beauty, and fragrance. On our drive we passed occasionally a tattered man or woman, whose yellowmud complexion, straight features, and singularly sinister countenancebespoke an entirely different race from the negro population in the midstof which they lived. These are the so-called pine-landers of Georgia, Isuppose the most degraded race of human beings claiming an Anglo-Saxonorigin that can be found on the face of the earth, --filthy, lazy, ignorant, brutal, proud, penniless savages, without one of the noblerattributes which have been found occasionally allied to the vices ofsavage nature. They own no slaves, for they are almost without exceptionabjectly poor; they will not work, for that, as they conceive, wouldreduce them to an equality with the abhorred negroes; they squat, andsteal, and starve, on the outskirts of this lowest of all civilisedsocieties, and their countenances bear witness to the squalor of theircondition and the utter degradation of their natures. To the crime ofslavery, though they have no profitable part or lot in it, they arefiercely accessory, because it is the barrier that divides the black andwhite races, at the foot of which they lie wallowing in unspeakabledegradation, but immensely proud of the base freedom which still separatesthem from the lash-driven tillers of the soil. [3] [Footnote 3: Of such is the white family so wonderfully described in Mrs. Stowe's 'Dred'--whose only slave brings up the orphaned children of hismasters with such exquisitely grotesque and pathetic tenderness. From suchthe conscription which has fed the Southern army in the deplorable civilconflict now raging in America has drawn its rank and file. Better 'foodfor powder' the world could scarcely supply. Fierce and idle, with hardlyone of the necessities or amenities that belong to civilised existence, they are hardy endurers of hardship, and reckless to a savage degree ofthe value of life, whether their own or others. The soldier's pay, received or promised, exceeds in amount per month anything they everearned before per year, and the war they wage is one that enlists alltheir proud and ferocious instincts. It is against the Yankees--thenorthern sons of free soil, free toil and intelligence, the hatedabolitionists whose success would sweep away slavery and reduce thesouthern white men to work--no wonder they are ready to fight to the deathagainst this detestable alternative, especially as they look to victory asthe certain promotion of the refuse of the 'poor white' population of theSouth, of which they are one and all members, to the coveted dignity ofslaveholders. ] The house at which our call was paid was set down in the midst of the PineBarren with half-obliterated roads and paths round it, suggesting that itmight be visited and was inhabited. It was large and not unhandsome, though curiously dilapidated considering that people were actually livingin it; certain remnants of carving on the cornices and paint on the panelsbore witness to some former stage of existence less neglected anddeteriorated than the present. The old lady mistress of this most forlornabode amiably enquired if so much exercise did not fatigue me; at first Ithought she imagined I must have walked through the pine forest all theway from Darien, but she explained that she considered the drive quite aneffort; and it is by no means uncommon to hear people in America talk ofbeing dragged over bad roads in uneasy carriages as exercise, showing howvery little they know the meaning of the word, and how completely theyidentify it with the idea of mere painful fatigue, instead of pleasurableexertion. Returning home, my reflections ran much on the possible future destiny ofthese vast tracts of sandy soil. It seems to me that the ground capable ofsupporting the evergreen growth, the luxuriant gardenia bushes, the baymyrtle, the beautiful magnolia grandiflora, and the powerful and gnarledlive oaks, that find their sustenance in this earth and under this samesky as the fir trees, must be convertible into a prosperous habitation forother valuable vegetable growth that would add immensely to the wealth ofthe Southern States. The orange thrives and bears profusely along thispart of the sea-board of Georgia; and I cannot conceive that the olive, the mulberry, and the vine might not be acclimated and successfully andprofitably cultivated throughout the whole of this region, the swampylower lands alone remaining as rice plantations. The produce of thesealready exceeds in value that of the once gold-growing cotton-fields, andI cannot help believing that silk and wine and oil may, and will, hereafter, become, with the present solitary cotton crop, joint possessorsof all this now but half-reclaimed wilderness. The soil all round Sorrentois very nearly as light and dry and sandy as this, and vineyards and oliveorchards and cocooneries are part of the agricultural wealth there. Ourneighbour Mr. C---- has successfully cultivated the date-palm in hisgarden on the edge of the sea, at St. Simon's, and certainly the ilex, orange, and myrtle abounding here suggest natural affinities between theItalian soil and climate and this. I must tell you something funny which occurred yesterday at dinner, whichwill give you some idea of the strange mode in which we live. We have nownot unfrequently had mutton at table, the flavour of which is quiteexcellent, as indeed it well may be, for it is raised under all theconditions of the famous _Pré salé_ that the French gourmands especiallyprize, and which are reproduced on our side of the channel in the peculiarqualities of our best South Down. The mutton we have here grazes on theshort sweet grass at St. Simon's within sea-salt influence, and is some ofthe very best I have ever tasted, but it is invariably brought to table inlumps or chunks of no particular shape or size, and in which it is utterlyimpossible to recognise any part of the quadruped creature sheep withwhich my eyes have hitherto become acquainted. Eat it, one may and doesthankfully; name it, one could not by any possibility. Having submitted tothis for some time, I at length enquired why a decent usual Christianjoint of mutton--leg, shoulder, or saddle--was never brought to table: thereply was that the _carpenter_ always cut up the meat, and that he did notknow how to do it otherwise than by dividing it into so many thick squarepieces, and proceeding to chop it up on that principle; and theconsequence of this is that _four lumps_ or _chunks_ are all that a wholesheep ever furnishes to our table by this artistic and economical process. This morning I have been to the hospital to see a poor woman who has justenriched Mr. ---- by _borning_ him another slave. The poor littlepiccaninny, as they called it, was not one bit uglier than white babiesunder similarly novel circumstances, except in one particular, that it hada head of hair like a trunk, in spite of which I had all the pains in theworld in persuading its mother not to put a cap upon it. I bribed herfinally, by the promise of a pair of socks instead, with which I undertookto endow her child, and, moreover, actually prevailed upon her to foregothe usual swaddling and swathing process, and let her poor baby be dressedat its first entrance into life as I assured her both mine had been. On leaving the hospital I visited the huts all along the street, confiscating sundry refractory baby caps among shrieks and outcries, partly of laughter and partly of real ignorant alarm for the consequence. I think if this infatuation for hot head-dresses continues, I shall makeshaving the children's heads the only condition upon which they shall beallowed to wear caps. On Sunday morning I went over to Darien to church. Our people's church wasclosed, the minister having gone to officiate elsewhere. With laudableliberality I walked into the opposite church of a different, not to sayopposite sect: here I heard a sermon, the opening of which will, probably, edify you as it did me, viz. , that if a man was _just in all hisdealings_ he was apt to think he did all that could be required ofhim, --and no wide mistake either one might suppose. But is it notwonderful how such words can be spoken here, with the most absoluteunconsciousness of their tremendous bearing upon the existence of everyslaveholder who hears them? Certainly the use that is second nature hasmade the awful injustice in the daily practice of which these people live, a thing of which they are as little aware as you or I of the atmosphericair that we inhale each time we breathe. The bulk of the congregation inthis church was white. The negroes are, of course, not allowed to mix withtheir masters in the house of God, and there is no special place set apartfor them. Occasionally one or two are to be seen in the corners of thesinging gallery, but any more open pollution by them of their owners'church could not be tolerated. Mr. ----'s people have petitioned veryvehemently that he would build a church for them on the island. I doubt, however, his allowing them such a luxury as a place of worship all tothemselves. Such a privilege might not be well thought of by theneighbouring planters; indeed, it is almost what one might call awhity-brown idea, dangerous, demoralising, inflammatory, incendiary. Ishould not wonder if I should be suspected of being the chief corner-stoneof it, and yet I am not: it is an old hope and entreaty of these poorpeople, which am afraid they are not destined to see fulfilled. * * * * * Dearest E----. Passing the rice-mill this morning in my walk, I went in tolook at the machinery, the large steam mortars which shell the rice, andwhich work under the intelligent and reliable supervision of Engineer Ned. I was much surprised, in the course of conversation with him this morning, to find how much older a man he was than he appeared. Indeed his youthfulappearance had hitherto puzzled me much in accounting for his verysuperior intelligence and the important duties confided to him. He is, however, a man upwards of forty years old, although he looks ten yearsyounger. He attributed his own uncommonly youthful appearance to the factof his never having done what he called field work, or been exposed, asthe common gang negroes are, to the hardships of their all but brutishexistence. He said his former master had brought him up very kindly, andhe had learnt to tend the engines, and had never been put to any otherwork, but he said this was not the case with his poor wife. He wished shewas as well off as he was, but she had to work in the rice-fields and was'most broke in two' with labour and exposure and hard work while withchild, and hard work just directly after child-bearing; he said she couldhardly crawl, and he urged me very much to speak a kind word for her tomassa. She was almost all the time in hospital, and he thought she couldnot live long. Now, E----, here is another instance of the horrible injustice of thissystem of slavery. In my country or in yours, a man endowed withsufficient knowledge and capacity to be an engineer would, of course, bein the receipt of considerable wages; his wife would, together withhimself, reap the advantages of his ability, and share the well-being hislabour earned; he would be able to procure for her comfort in sickness orin health, and beyond the necessary household work, which the wives ofmost artisans are inured to, she would have no labour to encounter; incase of sickness even these would be alleviated by the assistance of somestout girl of all work, or kindly neighbour, and the tidy parlour or snugbed-room would be her retreat if unequal to the daily duties of her ownkitchen. Think of such a lot compared with that of the head engineer ofMr. ----'s plantation, whose sole wages are his coarse food and raimentand miserable hovel, and whose wife, covered with one filthy garment ofragged texture and dingy colour, bare-footed and bare-headed, is dailydriven a-field to labour with aching pain-racked joints, under the lash ofa driver, or lies languishing on the earthen floor of the dismalplantation hospital in a condition of utter physical destitution anddegradation such as the most miserable dwelling of the poorest inhabitantof your free Northern villages never beheld the like of. Think of therows of tidy tiny houses in the long suburbs of Boston and Philadelphia, inhabited by artisans of just the same grade as this poor Ned, with theirwhite doors and steps, their hydrants of inexhaustible fresh flowingwater, the innumerable appliances for decent comfort of their cheerfulrooms, the gay wardrobe of the wife, her cotton prints for daily use, hersilk for Sunday church-going; the careful comfort of the children'sclothing, the books and newspapers in the little parlour, the dailydistrict school, the weekly parish church: imagine if you can--but you arehappy that you cannot--the contrast between such an existence and that ofthe best mechanic on a Southern plantation. Did you ever read (but I am sure you never did, and no more did I), anepic poem on fresh-water fish? Well, such a one was once written, I haveforgotten by whom, but assuredly the heroine of it ought to have been theAltamaha shad--a delicate creature, so superior to the animal younortherners devour with greedy thankfulness when the spring sends backtheir finny drove to your colder waters, that one would not suppose thesewere of the same family, instead of being, as they really are, preciselythe same fish. Certainly the mud of the Altamaha must have some mostpeculiar virtues; and, by the by, I have never anywhere tasted suchdelicious tea as that which we make with this same turbid stream, thewater of which duly filtered, of course, has some peculiar softness whichaffects the tea (and it is the same we always use) in a most curious andagreeable manner. On my return to the house I found a terrible disturbance in consequence ofthe disappearance from under cook John's safe keeping, of a ham Mr. -----had committed to his charge. There was no doubt whatever that theunfortunate culinary slave had made away in some inscrutable manner withthe joint intended for our table: the very lies he told about it were socuriously shallow, child-like, and transparent, that while they confirmedthe fact of his theft quite as much if not more than an absoluteconfession would have done, they provoked at once my pity and myirrepressible mirth to a most painful degree. Mr. ---- was in a state oftowering anger and indignation, and besides a flogging sentenced theunhappy cook to degradation from his high and dignified position (and, alas! all its sweets of comparatively easy labour and good living from theremains of our table) to the hard toil, coarse scanty fare, and despisedposition of a common field hand. I suppose some punishment was inevitablynecessary in such a plain case of deliberate theft as this, but, nevertheless, my whole soul revolts at the injustice of visiting uponthese poor wretches a moral darkness which all possible means are taken toincrease and perpetuate. In speaking of this and the whole circumstance of John's trespass toMr. ---- in the evening, I observed that the ignorance of these poorpeople ought to screen them from punishment. He replied, that they knewwell enough what was right and wrong. I asked how they could be expectedto know it? He replied, by the means of Cooper London, and the religiousinstruction he gave them. So that, after all, the appeal is to be madeagainst themselves to that moral and religious instruction which iswithheld from them, and which, if they obtain it at all, is the result oftheir own unaided and unencouraged exertion. The more I hear, and see, and learn, and ponder the whole of this system of slavery, the moreimpossible I find it to conceive how its practisers and upholders are tojustify their deeds before the tribunal of their own conscience or God'slaw. It is too dreadful to have those whom we love accomplices to thiswickedness; it is too intolerable to find myself an involuntaryaccomplice to it. I had a conversation the next morning with Abraham, cook John's brother, upon the subject of his brother's theft; and only think of the _slave_saying that 'this action had brought disgrace upon the family. ' Does notthat sound very like the very best sort of free pride, the pride ofcharacter, the honourable pride of honesty, integrity, and fidelity? Butthis was not all, for this same Abraham, a clever carpenter and muchvalued _hand_ on the estate, went on, in answer to my questions, to tellme such a story that I declare to you I felt as if I could have howledwith helpless indignation and grief when he departed and went to resumehis work. His grandfather had been an old slave in Darien, extremelyclever as a carpenter, and so highly valued for his skill and goodcharacter that his master allowed him to purchase his liberty by moneywhich he earned by working for himself at odd times, when his task workwas over. I asked Abraham what sum his grandfather paid for his freedom:he said he did not know, but he supposed a large one, because of his beinga 'skilled carpenter, ' and so a peculiarly valuable chattel. I presume, from what I remember Major M---- and Dr. H---- saying on the subject ofthe market value of negroes in Charleston and Savannah, that such a man inthe prime of life would have been worth from 1, 500 to 2, 000 dollars. However, whatever the man paid for his ransom, by his grandson's account, fourteen years after he became free, when he died, he had again amassedmoney to the amount of 700 dollars, which he left among his wife andchildren, the former being a slave on Major ----'s estate, where thelatter remained by virtue of that fact slaves also. So this man not onlybought his own freedom at a cost of _at least_ 1, 000 dollars, but left alittle fortune of 700 more at his death: and then we are told of theuniversal idleness, thriftlessness, incorrigible sloth, and brutishincapacity of this inferior race of creatures, whose only fitting andHeaven-appointed condition is that of beasts of burthen to the whites. Ido not believe the whole low white population of the state of Georgiacould furnish such an instance of energy, industry, and thrift, as theamassing of this laborious little fortune by this poor slave, who left, nevertheless, his children and grandchildren to the lot from which he hadso heroically ransomed himself: and yet the white men with whom I live andtalk tell me, day after day, that there is neither cruelty nor injusticein this accursed system. About half-past five I went to walk on the dykes, and met a gang of thefield-hands going to the tide-mill, as the water served them for workingthen. I believe I have told you that besides the great steam mill there isthis, which is dependent on the rise and fall of the tide in the river, and where the people are therefore obliged to work by day or night atwhatever time the water serves to impel the wheel. They greeted me withtheir usual profusion of exclamations, petitions, and benedictions, and Iparted from them to come and oversee my slave Jack, for whom I had boughta spade, and to whom I had entrusted the task of turning up some groundfor me, in which I wanted to establish some of the Narcissus and otherflowers I had remarked about the ground and the house. Jack, however, wasa worse digger than Adam could have been when first he turned his hand toit, after his expulsion from Paradise. I think I could have managed aspade with infinitely more efficiency, or rather less incapacity, than hedisplayed. Upon my expressing my amazement at his performance, he saidthe people here never used spades, but performed all their agriculturaloperations with the hoe. Their soil must be very light and theiragriculture very superficial, I should think. However, I was obliged toterminate Jack's spooning process and abandon, for the present, my hopesof a flower-bed created by his industry, being called into the house toreceive the return visit of old Mrs. S----. As usual, the appearance, health, vigour, and good management of the children were the theme ofwondering admiration; as usual, my possession of a white nurse the themeof envious congratulation; as usual, I had to hear the habitual senselesscomplaints of the inefficiency of coloured nurses. If you are half astired of the sameness and stupidity of the conversation of my southernfemale neighbours as I am, I pity you; but not as much as I pity them forthe stupid sameness of their most vapid existence, which would deaden anyamount of intelligence, obliterate any amount of instruction, and rendertorpid and stagnant any amount of natural energy and vivacity. I wouldrather die--rather a thousand times--than live the lives of these Georgiaplanters' wives and daughters. Mrs. S---- had brought me some of the delicious wild jasmine that festoonsher dreary pine-wood drive, and most grateful I was for the presence ofthe sweet wild nosegay in my highly unornamental residence. When myvisitors had left me, I took the refreshment of a row over to Darien; andas we had the tide against us coming back, the process was not sorefreshing for the rowers. The evening was so extremely beautiful, and therising of the moon so exquisite, that instead of retreating to the housewhen I reached the island, I got into the Dolphin, my special canoe, andmade Jack paddle me down the great river to meet the Lily, which wascoming back from St. Simon's with Mr. ---- who has been preparing allthings for our advent thither. My letter has been interrupted, dear E----, by the breaking up of ourresidence on the rice plantation, and our arrival at St. Simon's, whence Inow address you. We came down yesterday afternoon, and I was thankfulenough of the fifteen miles' row to rest in, from the labour ofleave-taking, with which the whole morning was taken up, and which, combined with packing and preparing all our own personalities and those ofthe children, was no sinecure. At every moment one or other of the poorpeople rushed in upon me to bid me good-bye; many of their farewells weregrotesque enough, some were pathetic, and all of them made me very sad. Poor people! how little I have done, how little I can do for them. I had along talk with that interesting and excellent man, Cooper London, who madean earnest petition that I would send him from the North a lot of Biblesand Prayer Books; certainly the science of reading must be much morecommon among the negroes than I supposed, or London must look to amarvellously increased spread of the same hereafter. There is, however, considerable reticence upon this point, or else the poor slaves mustconsider the mere possession of the holy books as good for salvation andas effectual for spiritual assistance to those who cannot as to those whocan comprehend them. Since the news of our departure has spread, I havehad repeated eager entreaties for presents of Bibles and Prayer Books, andto my demurrer of 'But you can't read; can you?' have generally receivedfor answer a reluctant acknowledgement of ignorance, which, however, didnot always convince me of the fact. In my farewell conversation withLondon I found it impossible to get him to tell me how he had learned toread: the penalties for teaching them are very severe, heavy fines, increasing in amount for the first and second offence, and imprisonmentfor the third. [4] Such a man as London is certainly aware that to teachthe slaves to read is an illegal act, and he may have been unwilling tobetray whoever had been his preceptor even to my knowledge; at any rate, Igot no answers from him but 'Well, missis, me learn; well, missis, metry, ' and finally, 'Well, missis, me 'spose Heaven help me;' to which Icould only reply, that I knew Heaven was helpful, but very hardly to thetune of teaching folks their letters. I got no satisfaction. Old Jacob, the father of Abraham, cook John, and poor Psyche's husband, took a mostsolemn and sad leave of me, saying he did not expect ever to see me again. I could not exactly tell why, because, though he is aged and infirm, thefifteen miles between the rice plantation and St. Simon's do not appear soinsuperable a barrier between the inhabitants of the two places, which Irepresented to him as a suggestion of consolation. [Footnote 4: These laws have been greatly increased in stringency andseverity since these letters were written, and _death_ has not beenreckoned too heavy a penalty for those who should venture to offer theseunfortunate people the fruit of that forbidden tree of knowledge, theiraccess to which has appeared to their owners the crowning danger of theirown precarious existence among their terrible dependents. ] I have worked my fingers nearly off with making, for the last day or two, innumerable rolls of coarse little baby clothes, layettes for the use ofsmall new-born slaves; M---- diligently cutting and shaping, and I asdiligently stitching. We leave a good supply for the hospitals, and forthe individual clients besides who have besieged me ever since mydeparture became imminent. Our voyage from the rice to the cotton plantation was performed in theLily, which looked like a soldier's baggage wagon and an emigranttransport combined. Our crew consisted of eight men. Forward in the bowwere miscellaneous live stock, pots, pans, household furniture, kitchenutensils, and an indescribable variety of heterogeneous necessaries. Enthroned upon beds, bedding, tables, and other chattels, sat that poorpretty chattel Psyche, with her small chattel children. Midships sat thetwo tiny free women, and myself, and in the stern Mr. ---- steering. And'all in the blue unclouded weather' we rowed down the huge stream, the menkeeping time and tune to their oars with extemporaneous chaunts of adieuto the rice island and its denizens. Among other poetical and musicalcomments on our departure recurred the assertion, as a sort of burthen, that we were 'parted in body, but not in mind, ' from those we left behind. Having relieved one set of sentiments by this reflection, they very wiselybetook themselves to the consideration of the blessings that remained tothem, and performed a spirited chaunt in honour of Psyche and our bouncingblack housemaid, Mary. At the end of a fifteen miles' row we entered one among a perfectlabyrinth of arms or branches, into which the broad river ravels like afringe as it reaches the sea, a dismal navigation along a dismal tract, called 'Five Pound, ' through a narrow cut or channel of water divided fromthe main stream. The conch was sounded, as at our arrival at the riceisland, and we made our descent on the famous long staple cotton island ofSt. Simon's, where we presently took up our abode in what had all theappearance of an old half-decayed rattling farm-house. This morning, Sunday, I peeped round its immediate neighbourhood, and saw, to my inexpressible delight, within hail, some noble-looking evergreenoaks, and close to the house itself a tiny would-be garden, a plot ofground with one or two peach-trees in full blossom, tufts of silvernarcissus and jonquils, a quantity of violets and an exquisite myrtlebush; wherefore I said my prayers with especial gratitude. * * * * * Dearest E----. The fame of my peculiar requisitions has, I find, precededme here, for the babies that have been presented to my admiring noticehave all been without caps; also, however, without socks to their oppositelittle wretched extremities, but that does not signify quite so much. Thepeople, too, that I saw yesterday were remarkably clean and tidy; to besure, it was Sunday. The whole day, till quite late in the afternoon, thehouse was surrounded by a crowd of our poor dependents, waiting to catch aglimpse of Mr. ----, myself, or the children; and until, from sheerweariness, I was obliged to shut the doors, an incessant stream poured inand out, whose various modes of salutation, greeting, and welcome weremore grotesque and pathetic at the same time than anything you canimagine. In the afternoon I walked with ---- to see a new house in processof erection, which, when it is finished, is to be the overseer's abode andour residence during any future visits we may pay to the estate. I washorrified at the dismal site selected, and the hideous house erected onit. It is true that the central position is the principal consideration inthe overseer's location, but both position and building seemed to me towitness to an inveterate love of ugliness, or at any rate a deadness toevery desire of beauty, nothing short of horrible; and for my own part, Ithink it is intolerable to have to leave the point where the waters meet, and where a few fine picturesque old trees are scattered about, to come tothis place even for the very short time I am ever likely to spend here. In every direction our view, as we returned, was bounded by thickets ofthe most beautiful and various evergreen growth, which beckoned myinexperience most irresistibly. ---- said, to my unutterable horror, thatthey were perfectly infested with rattlesnakes, and I must on no accountgo 'beating about the bush' in these latitudes, as the game I should belikely to start would be anything but agreeable to me. We saw quantitiesof wild plum-trees all silvery with blossoms, and in lovely companionshipand contrast with them a beautiful shrub covered with delicate pink bloomlike flowering peach-trees. After that life in the rice-swamp, where theAltamaha kept looking over the dyke at me all the time as I sat in thehouse writing or working, it is pleasant to be on _terra firma_ again, andto know that the river is at the conventional, not to say natural, depthbelow its banks, and under my feet instead of over my head. The twoplantations are of diametrically opposite dispositions--that is all swamp, and this all sand; or to speak more accurately, that is all swamp, andall of this that is not swamp, is sand. On our way home we met a most extraordinary creature of the negro kind, who, coming towards us, halted, and caused us to halt straight in themiddle of the path, when bending himself down till his hands almosttouched the ground, he exclaimed to Mr. ----, 'Massa ----, your mostobedient;' and then, with a kick and a flourish altogether indescribable, he drew to the side of the path to let us pass, which we did perfectlyshouting with laughter, which broke out again every time we looked at eachother and stopped to take breath--so sudden, grotesque, uncouth, and yetdexterous a gambado never came into the brain or out of the limbs ofanything but a 'niggar. ' I observed, among the numerous groups that we passed or met, a much largerproportion of mulattoes than at the rice-island; upon asking Mr. ---- whythis was so, he said that there no white person could land without his orthe overseer's permission, whereas on St. Simon's, which is a large islandcontaining several plantations belonging to different owners, of coursethe number of whites, both residing on and visiting the place, was muchgreater, and the opportunity for intercourse between the blacks and whitesmuch more frequent. While we were still on this subject, a horrid-lookingfilthy woman met us with a little child in her arms, a very light mulatto, whose extraordinary resemblance to Driver Bran (one of the officials, whohad been duly presented to me on my arrival, and who was himself amulatto) struck me directly. I pointed it out to Mr. ----, who merelyanswered, 'Very likely his child. ' 'And, ' said I, 'did you never remarkthat Driver Bran is the exact image of Mr. K----?' 'Very likely hisbrother, ' was the reply: all which rather unpleasant state ofrelationships seemed accepted as such a complete matter of course, that Ifelt rather uncomfortable, and said no more about who was like who, butcame to certain conclusions in my own mind as to a young lad who had beenamong our morning visitors, and whose extremely light colour and straighthandsome features and striking resemblance to Mr. K----, had suggestedsuspicions of a rather unpleasant nature to me, and whosesole-acknowledged parent was a very black negress of the name of Minda. Ihave no doubt at all, now, that he is another son of Mr. K----, Mr. ----'sparagon overseer. As we drew near the house again we were gradually joined by such anumerous escort of Mr. ----'s slaves that it was almost with difficulty wecould walk along the path. They buzzed, and hummed, and swarmed round uslike flies, and the heat and dust consequent upon this friendlycompanionship were a most unpleasant addition to the labour of walking inthe sandy soil through which we were ploughing. I was not sorry when weentered the house and left our bodyguard outside. In the evening I lookedover the plan of the delightful residence I had visited in the morning, and could not help suggesting to Mr. ---- the advantage to be gained inpoint of picturesqueness by merely turning the house round. It is but awooden frame one after all, and your folks 'down east' would think no moreof inviting it to face about than if it was built of cards; but the factis, here nothing signifies except the cotton crop, and whether one's noseis in a swamp and one's eyes in a sand-heap, is of no consequence whatevereither to oneself (if oneself was not I) or anyone else. I find here an immense proportion of old people; the work and the climateof the rice plantation require the strongest of the able-bodied men andwomen of the estate. The cotton crop is no longer by any means asparamount in value as it used to be, and the climate, soil, and labour ofSt. Simon's are better adapted to old, young, and feeble cultivators, than the swamp fields of the rice-island. I wonder if I ever told you ofthe enormous decrease in value of this same famous sea-island long staplecotton. When Major ----, Mr. ----'s grandfather, first sent the produceof this plantation where we now are to England, it was of so fine aquality that it used to be quoted by itself in the Liverpool cottonmarket, and was then worth half a guinea a pound; it is now not worth ashilling a pound. This was told me by the gentleman in Liverpool who hasbeen factor for this estate for thirty years. Such a decrease as this inthe value of one's crop and the steady increase at the same time of aslave population, now numbering between 700 and 800 bodies to clothe andhouse, --mouths to feed, while the land is being exhausted by the carelessand wasteful nature of the agriculture itself, suggests a pretty seriousprospect of declining prosperity; and, indeed, unless these Georgiacotton planters can command more land or lay abundant capital (which theyhave not, being almost all of them over head and ears in debt) upon thatwhich has already spent its virgin vigour, it is a very obvious thingthat they must all very soon be eaten up by their own property. The riceplantations are a great thing to fall back upon under thesecircumstances, and the rice crop is now quite as valuable, if not moreso, than the cotton one on Mr. ----'s estates, once so famous andprosperous through the latter. I find any number of all but superannuated men and women here, whosetales of the former grandeur of the estate and family are like things onereads of in novels. One old woman who crawled to see me, and could hardlylift her poor bowed head high enough to look in my face, had been inMajor ----'s establishment in Philadelphia, and told with infinite prideof having waited upon his daughters and grand-daughters, Mr. ----'ssisters. Yet here she is, flung by like an old rag, crippled with age anddisease, living, or rather dying by slow degrees in a miserable hovel, such as no decent household servant would at the North, I suppose, everset their foot in. The poor old creature complained bitterly to me of allher ailments and all her wants. I can do little, alas! for either. I hada visit from another tottering old crone called Dorcas, who all but wenton her knees as she wrung and kissed my hands; with her came my friendMolly, the grandmother of the poor runaway girl, Louisa, whose story Iwrote you some little time ago. I had to hear it all over again, it beingthe newest event evidently in Molly's life; and it ended as before withthe highly reasonable proposition: 'Me say, missis, what for massa'sniggar run away? Snake eat em up, or dey starve to def in a swamp. Massa's niggars dey don't nebbar run away. ' If I was 'massa's niggars, ' I'spose' I shouldn't run away either, with only those alternatives, butwhen I look at these wretches and at the sea that rolls round thisisland, and think how near the English West Indies and freedom are, itgives me a pretty severe twinge at the heart. * * * * * Dearest E----. I am afraid my letters must be becoming very wearisome toyou, for if, as the copy-book runs, 'variety is charming, ' they certainlycannot be so, unless monotony is also charming, a thing not impossible tosome minds, but of which the copy-book makes no mention. But what willyou? as the French say; my days are no more different from one anotherthan peas in a dish, or sands on the shore: 'tis a pleasant enough life tolive, for one who, like myself, has a passion for dulness, but it affordssmall matter for epistolary correspondence. I suppose it is the surfeit ofexcitement that I had in my youth that has made a life of quiet monotonyso extremely agreeable to me; it is like stillness after loud noise, twilight after glare, rest after labour. There is enough strangeness tooin everything that surrounds me here to interest and excite me agreeablyand sufficiently, and I should like the wild savage loneliness of the faraway existence extremely, if it were not for the one small item of 'theslavery. ' I had a curious visit this morning from half a dozen of the women, amongwhom were Driver Morris's wife and Venus (a hideous old goddess she was, to be sure), Driver Bran's mother. They came especially to see thechildren, who are always eagerly asked for, and hugely admired by theirsooty dependents. These poor women went into ecstasies over the littlewhite piccaninnies, and were loud and profuse in their expressions ofgratitude to massa ---- for getting married and having children, a matterof thankfulness which, though it always makes me laugh very much, is amost serious one to them; for the continuance of the family keeps theestate and slaves from the hammer, and the poor wretches, besides seeingin every new child born to their owners a security against their ownbanishment from the only home they know, and separation from all ties ofkindred and habit, and dispersion to distant plantations, not unnaturallylook for a milder rule from masters who are the children of their fathers'masters. The relation of owner and slave may be expected to lose some ofits harsher features, and, no doubt, in some instances, does so, when itis on each side the inheritance of successive generations. And so ----'sslaves laud, and applaud, and thank, and bless him for having married, andendowed their children with two little future mistresses. One of thesewomen, a Diana by name, went down on her knees and uttered in a loud voicea sort of extemporaneous prayer of thanksgiving at our advent, in whichthe sacred and the profane were most ludicrously mingled; her 'tanks to degood Lord God Almighty that missus had come, what give de poor niggarsugar and flannel, ' and dat 'massa ----, him hab brought de missis and detwo little misses down among de people, ' were really too grotesque; andyet certainly more sincere acts of thanksgiving are not often utteredamong the solemn and decorous ones that are offered up to heaven for'benefits received. ' I find the people here much more inclined to talk than those on therice-island; they have less to do and more leisure, and bestow it veryliberally on me; moreover, the poor old women, of whom there are so manyturned out to grass here, and of whom I have spoken to you before, though they are past work, are by no means past gossip, and the storiesthey have to tell of the former government of the estate under old MassaK---- are certainly pretty tremendous illustrations of the merits ofslavery as a moral institution. This man, the father of the late owner, Mr. R---- K----, was Major ----'s agent in the management of thisproperty; and a more cruel and unscrupulous one as regards the slavesthemselves, whatever he may have been in his dealings with the master, Ishould think it would be difficult to find, even among the cruel andunscrupulous class to which he belonged. In a conversation with old 'House Molly, ' as she is called, to distinguishher from all other Mollies on the estate, she having had the honour ofbeing a servant in Major ----'s house for many years, I asked her if therelation between men and women who are what they call married, i. E. , whohave agreed to live together as man and wife (the only species of marriageformerly allowed on the estate, I believe now London may read the MarriageService to them), was considered binding by the people themselves and bythe overseer. She said 'not much, formerly, ' and that the people couldn'tbe expected to have much regard to such an engagement, utterly ignored asit was by Mr. K----, whose invariable rule, if he heard of anydisagreement between a man and woman calling themselves married, wasimmediately to bestow them in 'marriage' on other parties, whether theychose it or not, by which summary process the slightest 'incompatibilityof temper' received the relief of a divorce more rapid and easy than evenGermany could afford, and the estate lost nothing by any prolongation ofcelibacy on either side. Of course, the misery consequent upon sucharbitrary destruction of voluntary and imposition of involuntary ties wasnothing to Mr. K----. I was very sorry to hear to-day, that Mr. O----, the overseer at therice-island, of whom I have made mention to you more than once in myletters, had had one of the men flogged very severely for getting his wifebaptised. I was quite unable, from the account I received, to understandwhat his objection had been to the poor man's desire to make his wife atleast a formal Christian; but it does seem dreadful that such an actshould be so visited. I almost wish I was back again at the rice-island;for though this is every way the pleasanter residence, I hear so much morethat is intolerable of the treatment of the slaves from those I find here, that my life is really made wretched by it. There is not a single naturalright that is not taken away from these unfortunate people, and the worstof all is, that their condition does not appear to me, upon furtherobservation of it, to be susceptible of even partial alleviation as longas the fundamental evil, the slavery itself, remains. My letter was interrupted as usual by clamours for my presence at thedoor, and petitions for sugar, rice, and baby clothes, from a group ofwomen who had done their tasks at three o'clock in the afternoon, and hadcome to say, 'Ha do missis?' (How do you do?), and beg something on theirway to their huts. Observing one among them whose hand was badly maimed, one finger being reduced to a mere stump, she told me it was inconsequence of the bite of a rattlesnake, which had attacked and bittenher child, and then struck her as she endeavoured to kill it; her littleboy had died, but one of the drivers cut off her finger, and so she hadescaped with the loss of that member only. It is yet too early in theseason for me to make acquaintance with these delightful animals; but theaccounts the negroes give of their abundance is full of agreeable promisefor the future. It seems singular, considering how very common they are, that there are not more frequent instances of the slaves being bitten bythem; to be sure, they seem to me to have a holy horror of ever settingtheir feet near either tree or bush, or anywhere but on the open road, andthe fields where they labour; and of course the snakes are not so frequentin open and frequented places, as in their proper coverts. The Red Indiansare said to use successfully some vegetable cure for the bite, I believethe leaves of the slippery ash or elm; the only infallible remedy, however, is suction, but of this the ignorant negroes are so afraid, thatthey never can be induced to have recourse to it, being of courseimmovably persuaded that the poison which is so fatal to the blood, mustbe equally so to the stomach. They tell me that the cattle wandering intothe brakes and bushes are often bitten to death by these deadly creatures;the pigs, whose fat it seems does not accept the venom into its tissueswith the same effect, escape unhurt for the most part--so much for theanti-venomous virtue of adipose matter--a consolatory consideration forsuch of us as are inclined to take on flesh more than we think graceful. _Monday morning, 25th. _--This letter has been long on the stocks, dearE----. I have been busy all day, and tired, and lazy in the eveninglatterly, and, moreover, feel as if such very dull matter was hardly worthsending all the way off to where you are happy to be. However, that isnonsense; I know well enough that you are glad to hear from me, be it whatit will, and so I resume my chronicle. Some of my evenings have been spentin reading Mr. Clay's anti-abolition speech, and making notes on it, whichI will show you when we meet. What a cruel pity and what a cruel shame itis that such a man should either know no better or do no better for hiscountry than he is doing now! Yesterday I for the first time bethought me of the riding privileges ofwhich Jack used to make such magnificent mention when he was fishing withme at the rice-island; and desiring to visit the remoter parts of theplantation and the other end of the island, I enquired into the resourcesof the stable. I was told I could have a mare with foal; but I declinedadding my weight to what the poor beast already carried, and my onlychoice then was between one who had just foaled, or a fine stallion usedas a plough horse on the plantation. I determined for the latter, andshall probably be handsomely shaken whenever I take my rides abroad. _Tuesday, the 26th. _--My dearest E----. I write to you to-day in greatdepression and distress. I have had a most painful conversation withMr. ----, who has declined receiving any of the people's petitionsthrough me. Whether he is wearied with the number of these prayers andsupplications which he would escape but for me, as they probably wouldnot venture to come so incessantly to him, and I of course feel bound tobring every one confided to me to him; or whether he has been annoyed atthe number of pitiful and horrible stories of misery and oppression underthe former rule of Mr. K----, which have come to my knowledge since Ihave been here, and the grief and indignation caused, but which cannot byany means always be done away with, though their expression may besilenced by his angry exclamations of 'Why do you listen to such stuff?'or 'Why do you believe such trash; don't you know the niggers are alld----d liars?' &c. I do not know; but he desired me this morning to bringhim no more complaints or requests of any sort, as the people hadhitherto had no such advocate, and had done very well without, and I wasonly kept in an incessant state of excitement with all the falsehoodsthey 'found they could make me believe. ' How well they have done withoutmy advocacy, the conditions which I see with my own eyes even more thantheir pitiful petitions demonstrate; it is indeed true, that thesufferings of those who come to me for redress, and still more theinjustice done to the great majority who cannot, have filled my heartwith bitterness and indignation that have overflowed my lips, till, Isuppose, ---- is weary of hearing what he has never heard before, thevoice of passionate expostulation, and importunate pleading againstwrongs that he will not even acknowledge, and for creatures whose commonhumanity with his own I half think he does not believe;--but I mustreturn to the North, for my condition would be almost worse thantheirs--condemned to hear and see so much wretchedness, not only withoutthe means of alleviating it, but without permission even to represent itfor alleviation--this is no place for me, since I was not born amongslaves, and cannot bear to live among them. Perhaps after all what he says is true: when I am gone they will fall backinto the desperate uncomplaining habit of suffering, from which my comingamong them, willing to hear and ready to help, has tempted them; he saysthat bringing their complaints to me, and the sight of my credulouscommiseration, only tend to make them discontented and idle, and bringsrenewed chastisement upon them; and that so, instead of really befriendingthem, I am only preparing more suffering for them whenever I leave theplace, and they can no more cry to me for help. And so I see nothing forit but to go and leave them to their fate; perhaps, too, he is afraid ofthe mere contagion of freedom which breathes from the very existence ofthose who are free; my way of speaking to the people, of treating them, ofliving with them, the appeals I make to their sense of truth, of duty, ofself-respect, the infinite compassion and the human consideration I feelfor them, --all this of course makes my intercourse with them dangerouslysuggestive of relations far different from anything they have ever known, and as Mr. O---- once almost hinted to me, my existence among slaves wasan element of danger to the 'institution. ' If I should go away, the humansympathy that I have felt for them will certainly never come near themagain. I was too unhappy to write any more, my dear friend, and you have beenspared the rest of my paroxysm, which hereabouts culminated in the blessedrefuge of abundant tears. God will provide. He has not forgotten, nor willHe forsake these His poor children; and if I may no longer minister tothem, they yet are in His hand, who cares for them more and better than Ican. Towards the afternoon yesterday, I rowed up the river to the rice-island, by way of refreshment to my spirits, and came back to-day, Wednesday the27th, through rather a severe storm. Before going to bed last night Ifinished Mr. Clay's speech, and ground my teeth over it. Before startingthis morning I received from head-man Frank a lesson on the variousqualities of the various sorts of rice, and should be (at any rate till Iforget all he told me, which I 'feel in my bones' will be soon) acompetent judge and expert saleswoman. The dead white speck, which showsitself sometimes in rice as it does in teeth, is in the former, as in thelatter, a sign of decay; the finest quality of rice is what may be calledflinty, clear and unclouded, and a pretty clean sparkling-looking thing itis. I will tell you something curious and pleasant about my row back. The windwas so high and the river so rough when I left the rice-island, that justas I was about to get into the boat I thought it might not be amiss tocarry my life-preserver with me, and ran back to the house to fetch it. Having taken that much care for my life, I jumped into the boat, and wepushed off. The fifteen miles' row with a furious wind, and part of thetime the tide against us, and the huge broad turbid river broken into afoaming sea of angry waves, was a pretty severe task for the men. Theypulled with a will, however, but I had to forego the usual accompanimentof their voices, for the labour was tremendous, especially towards the endof our voyage, where, of course, the nearness of the sea increased theroughness of the water terribly. The men were in great spirits, however(there were eight of them rowing, and one behind was steering); one ofthem said something which elicited an exclamation of general assent, and Iasked what it was; the steerer said they were pleased because there wasnot another planter's lady in all Georgia who would have gone through thestorm all alone with them in a boat; i. E. Without the protecting presenceof a white man. 'Why, ' said I, 'my good fellows, if the boat capsized, oranything happened, I am sure I should have nine chances for my lifeinstead of one;' at this there was one shout of 'So you would, missis!true for dat, missis, ' and in great mutual good-humour we reached thelanding at Hampton Point. As I walked home I pondered over this compliment of Mr. ----'s slaves tome, and did not feel quite sure that the very absence of the fear whichhaunts the southern women in their intercourse with these people andprevents them from trusting themselves ever with them out of reach ofwhite companionship and supervision was not one of the circumstances whichmakes my intercourse with them unsafe and undesirable. The idea ofapprehending any mischief from them never yet crossed my brain; and in theperfect confidence with which I go amongst them, they must perceive acurious difference between me and my lady neighbours in these parts; allhave expressed unbounded astonishment at my doing so. The spring is fast coming on; and we shall, I suppose, soon leaveGeorgia. How new and sad a chapter of my life this winter here has been! * * * * * Dear E----. I cannot give way to the bitter impatience I feel at mypresent position, and come back to the north without leaving my babies;and though I suppose their stay will not in any case be much prolonged inthese regions of swamp and slavery, I must, for their sakes, remain wherethey are, and learn this dreary lesson of human suffering to the end. Therecord, it seems to me, must be utterly wearisome to you, as the instancesthemselves I suppose in a given time (thanks to that dreadful reconcilerto all that is evil--habit) would become to me. This morning I had a visit from two of the women, Charlotte and Judy, whocame to me for help and advice for a complaint, which it really seems tome every other woman on the estate is cursed with, and which is a directresult of the conditions of their existence; the practice of sending womento labour in the fields in the third week after their confinement is aspecific for causing this infirmity, and I know no specific for curing itunder these circumstances. As soon as these poor things had departed withsuch comfort as I could give them, and the bandages they especially beggedfor, three other sable graces introduced themselves, Edie, Louisa, andDiana; the former told me she had had a family of seven children, but hadlost them all through 'ill luck, ' as she denominated the ignorance and illtreatment which were answerable for the loss of these, as of so many otherpoor little creatures their fellows. Having dismissed her and Diana withthe sugar and rice they came to beg, I detained Louisa, whom I had neverseen but in the presence of her old grandmother, whose version of the poorchild's escape to, and hiding in the woods, I had a desire to compare withthe heroine's own story. She told it very simply, and it was mostpathetic. She had not finished her task one day, when she said she feltill, and unable to do so, and had been severely flogged by Driver Bran, inwhose 'gang' she then was. The next day, in spite of this encouragement tolabour, she had again been unable to complete her appointed work; and Branhaving told her that he'd tie her up and flog her if she did not get itdone, she had left the field and run into the swamp. 'Tie you up, Louisa!'said I, 'what is that?' She then described to me that they were fastenedup by their wrists to a beam or a branch of a tree, their feet barelytouching the ground, so as to allow them no purchase for resistance orevasion of the lash, their clothes turned over their heads, and theirbacks scored with a leather thong, either by the driver himself, or if hepleases to inflict their punishment by deputy, any of the men he maychoose to summon to the office; it might be father, brother, husband, orlover, if the overseer so ordered it. I turned sick, and my blood curdledlistening to these details from the slender young slip of a lassie, withher poor piteous face and murmuring pleading voice. 'Oh, ' said I, 'Louisa;but the rattlesnakes, the dreadful rattlesnakes in the swamps; were younot afraid of those horrible creatures?' 'Oh, missis, ' said the poorchild, 'me no tink of dem, me forget all 'bout dem for de fretting. ' 'Whydid you come home at last?' 'Oh, missis, me starve with hunger, me mostdead with hunger before me come back. ' 'And were you flogged, Louisa?'said I, with a shudder at what the answer might be. 'No, missis, me go tohospital; me almost dead and sick so long, 'spec Driver Bran him forgot'bout de flogging. ' I am getting perfectly savage over all these doings, E----, and really think I should consider my own throat and those of mychildren well cut, if some night the people were to take it into theirheads to clear off scores in that fashion. The Calibanish wonderment of all my visitors at the exceedingly coarse andsimple furniture and rustic means of comfort of my abode is very droll. Ihave never inhabited any apartment so perfectly devoid of what we shouldconsider the common decencies of life; but to them my rude chintz-coveredsofa and common pine-wood table, with its green baize cloth, seem theadornings of a palace; and often in the evening, when my bairns areasleep, and M---- up-stairs keeping watch over them, and I sit writingthis daily history for your edification, --the door of the great barn-likeroom is opened stealthily, and one after another, men and women cometrooping silently in, their naked feet falling all but inaudibly on thebare boards as they betake themselves to the hearth, where they squat downon their hams in a circle, --the bright blaze from the huge pine logs, which is the only light of this half of the room, shining on their sootylimbs and faces, and making them look like a ring of ebony idolssurrounding my domestic hearth. I have had as many as fourteen at a timesquatting silently there for nearly half an hour, watching me writing atthe other end of the room. The candles on my table give only light enoughfor my own occupation, the fire light illuminates the rest of theapartment; and you cannot imagine anything stranger than the effect of allthese glassy whites of eyes and grinning white teeth turned towards me, and shining in the flickering light. I very often take no notice of themat all, and they seem perfectly absorbed in contemplating me. My eveningdress probably excites their wonder and admiration no less than my rapidand continuous writing, for which they have sometimes expressedcompassion, as if they thought it must be more laborious than hoeing;sometimes at the end of my day's journal I look up and say suddenly, 'Well, what do you want?' when each black figure springs up at once, as ifmoved by machinery, they all answer, 'Me come say ha do (how d'ye do), missis;' and then they troop out as noiselessly as they entered, like aprocession of sable dreams, and I go off in search, if possible, of whiterones. Two days ago I had a visit of great interest to me from several lads fromtwelve to sixteen years old, who had come to beg me to give them work. Tomake you understand this you must know, that wishing very much to cut somewalks and drives through the very picturesque patches of woodland not farfrom the house, I announced, through Jack, my desire to give employment inthe wood-cutting line, to as many lads as chose, when their unpaid taskwas done, to come and do some work for me, for which I engaged to paythem. At the risk of producing a most dangerous process of reflection andcalculation in their brains, I have persisted in paying what I consideredwages to every slave that has been my servant; and these my labourersmust, of course, be free to work or no, as they like, and if they work forme must be paid by me. The proposition met with unmingled approbation frommy 'gang;' but I think it might be considered dangerously suggestive ofthe rightful relation between work and wages; in short, very involuntarilyno doubt, but, nevertheless, very effectually I am disseminating ideasamong Mr. ----'s dependents, the like of which have certainly never beforevisited their wool-thatched brains. _Friday, March 1. _--Last night after writing so much to you I felt weary, and went out into the air to refresh my spirit. The scene just beyond thehouse was beautiful, the moonlight slept on the broad river which here isalmost the sea, and on the masses of foliage of the great southern oaks;the golden stars of German poetry shone in the purple curtains of thenight, and the measured rush of the Atlantic unfurling its huge skirtsupon the white sands of the beach (the sweetest and most awful lullaby innature) resounded through the silent air. I have not felt well, and have been much depressed for some days past. Ithink I should die if I had to live here. This morning, in order not todie yet, I thought I had better take a ride, and accordingly mounted thehorse which I told you was one of the equestrian alternatives offered mehere; but no sooner did he feel my weight, which, after all, is merelevity and frivolity to him, than he thought proper to rebel, and find thegrasshopper a burthen, and rear and otherwise demonstrate his disgust. Ihave not ridden for a long time now, but Montreal's opposition verypresently aroused the Amazon which is both natural and acquired in me, andI made him comprehend that, though I object to slaves, I expect obedientservants; which views of mine being imparted by a due administration ofboth spur and whip, attended with a judicious combination of coaxing patson his great crested neck, and endearing commendations of his beauty, produced the desired effect. Montreal accepted me as inevitable, andcarried me very wisely and well up the island to another of the slavesettlements on the plantation, called Jones's Creek. On my way I passed some magnificent evergreen oaks, [5] and some thicketsof exquisite evergreen shrubs, and one or two beautiful sites for aresidence, which made me gnash my teeth when I thought of the one we havechosen. To be sure, these charming spots, instead of being conveniently inthe middle of the plantation, are at an out of the way end of it, and sohardly eligible for the one quality desired for the overseer's abode, viz. Being central. [Footnote 5: The only ilex trees which I have seen comparable in size andbeauty with those of the sea-board of Georgia are some to be found in theRoman Campagna, at Passerano, Lunghegna, Castel Fusano, and other of itsgreat princely farms, but especially in the magnificent woody wildernessof Valerano. ] All the slaves' huts on St. Simon's are far less solid, comfortable, andhabitable than those at the rice-island. I do not know whether thelabourer's habitation bespeaks the alteration in the present relativeimportance of the crops, but certainly the cultivators of the oncefar-famed long staple sea-island cotton of St. Simon's are far moremiserably housed than the rice-raisers of the other plantation. Theseruinous shielings, that hardly keep out wind or weather, are deplorablehomes for young or aged people, and poor shelters for the hardworking menand women who cultivate the fields in which they stand. Riding home Ipassed some beautiful woodland with charming pink and white blossomingpeach and plum-trees, which seemed to belong to some orchard that had beenattempted, and afterwards delivered over to wildness. On enquiry I foundthat no fruit worth eating was ever gathered from them. What a pity itseems! for in this warm delicious winter climate any and every species offruit might be cultivated with little pains and to great perfection. As Iwas cantering along the side of one of the cotton fields I suddenly heardsome inarticulate vehement cries, and saw what seemed to be a heap ofblack limbs tumbling and leaping towards me, renewing the screams atintervals as it approached. I stopped my horse, and the black ball boundedalmost into the road before me, and suddenly straightening itself up intoa haggard hag of a half-naked negress, exclaimed, with panting eagerbreathlessness, 'Oh missis, missis! you no hear me cry, you no hear mecall. Oh missis! me call, me cry, and me run; make me a gown like dat. Do, for massy's sake, only make me a gown like dat. ' This modest request for ariding habit in which to hoe the cotton fields served for an introductionto sundry other petitions for rice and sugar and flannel, all which Ipromised the petitioner, but not the 'gown like dat;' whereupon I rodeoff, and she flung herself down in the middle of the road to get her windand rest. The passion for dress is curiously strong in these people, and seems asthough it might be made an instrument in converting them, outwardly at anyrate, to something like civilisation; for though their own native tasteis decidedly both barbarous and ludicrous, it is astonishing how very soonthey mitigate it in imitation of their white models. The fine figures ofthe mulatto women in Charleston and Savannah are frequently as elegantlyand tastefully dressed as those of any of their female superiors; and hereon St. Simon's, owing, I suppose, to the influence of the resident ladyproprietors of the various plantations, and the propensity to imitation intheir black dependents, the people that I see all seem to me much tidier, cleaner, and less fantastically dressed than those on the rice plantation, where no such influences reach them. On my return from my ride I had a visit from Captain F----, the managerof a neighbouring plantation, with whom I had a long conversation aboutthe present and past condition of the estate, the species of feudalmagnificence in which its original owner, Major ----, lived, the ironrule of old overseer K---- which succeeded to it, and the subsequentsovereignty of his son, Mr. R---- K----, the man for whom Mr. ----entertains such a cordial esteem, and of whom every account I receivefrom the negroes seems to me to indicate a merciless sternness ofdisposition that may be a virtue in a slave-driver, but is hardly aChristian grace. Captain F---- was one of our earliest visitors at therice plantation on our arrival, and I think I told you of his mentioning, in speaking to me of the orange trees which formerly grew all round thedykes there, that he had taken Basil Hall there once in their blossomingseason, and that he had said the sight was as well worth crossing theAtlantic for as Niagara. To-day he referred to that again. He has residedfor a great many years on a plantation here, and is connected with ourneighbour, old Mr. C----, whose daughter, I believe, he married. Heinterested me extremely by his description of the house Major ---- hadmany years ago on a part of the island called St. Clair. As far as I canunderstand there must have been an indefinite number of 'masters''residences on this estate in the old Major's time; for what with the onewe are building, and the ruined remains of those not quite improved offthe face of the earth, and the tradition of those that have ceased toexist, even as ruins, I make out no fewer than seven. How gladly would Iexchange all that remain and all that do not, for the smallest tenementin your blessed Yankee mountain village! Captain F---- told me that at St. Clair General Oglethorpe, the good andbrave English governor of the State of Georgia in its colonial days, hadhis residence, and that among the magnificent live oaks which surround thesite of the former settlement, there was one especially venerable andpicturesque, which in his recollection always went by the name of GeneralOglethorpe's Oak. If you remember the history of the colony under hisbenevolent rule, you must recollect how absolutely he and his friend andcounsellor, Wesley, opposed the introduction of slavery in the colony. Howwrathfully the old soldier's spirit ought to haunt these cotton fields andrice swamps of his old domain, with their population of wretched slaves! Iwill ride to St. Clair and see his oak; if I should see him, he cannothave much to say to me on the subject that I should not cry amen to. _Saturday, March 2. _--I have made a gain, no doubt, in one respect incoming here, dear E----, for, not being afraid of a rearing stallion, Ican ride; but, on the other hand, my aquatic diversions are all likely, Ifear, to be much curtailed. Well may you, or any other NorthernAbolitionist, consider this a heaven-forsaken region, --why? I cannot evenget worms to fish with, and was solemnly assured by Jack this morning thatthe whole 'point, ' i. E. Neighbourhood of the house, had been searched invain for these useful and agreeable animals. I must take to some moresportsman-like species of bait; but in my total ignorance of even the kindof fish that inhabit these waters, it is difficult for me to adapt mytemptations to their taste. Yesterday evening I had a visit that made me very sorrowful--if anythingconnected with these poor people can be called more especially sorrowfulthan their whole condition; but Mr. ----'s declaration that he willreceive no more statements of grievances or petitions for redress throughme, makes me as desirous now of shunning the vain appeals of theseunfortunates as I used to be of receiving and listening to them. Theimploring cry, 'Oh missis!' that greets me whichever way I turn, makes melong to stop my ears now; for what can I say or do any more for them? Thepoor little favours--the rice, the sugar, the flannel--that they beg forwith such eagerness, and receive with such exuberant gratitude, I can, itis true, supply, and words and looks of pity and counsel of patience andsuch instruction in womanly habits of decency and cleanliness, as mayenable them to better, in some degree, their own hard lot; but to theentreaty, 'Oh missis, you speak to massa for us! Oh missis, you beg massafor us! Oh missis, you tell massa for we, he sure do as you say!'--Icannot now answer as formerly, and I turn away choking and with eyes fullof tears from the poor creatures, not even daring to promise any more thefaithful transmission of their prayers. The women who visited me yesterday evening were all in the family-way, andcame to entreat of me to have the sentence (what else can I call it?)modified, which condemns them to resume their labour of hoeing in thefields three weeks after their confinement. They knew, of course, that Icannot interfere with their appointed labour, and therefore their soleentreaty was that I would use my influence with Mr. ---- to obtain forthem a month's respite from labour in the field after child-bearing. Theirprincipal spokeswoman, a woman with a bright sweet face, called Mary, anda very sweet voice, which is by no means an uncommon excellence amongthem, appealed to my own experience; and while she spoke of my babies, andmy carefully tended, delicately nursed, and tenderly watched confinementand convalescence, and implored me to have a kind of labour given to themless exhausting during the month after their confinement, I held the tablebefore me so hard in order not to cry that I think my fingers ought tohave left a mark on it. At length I told them that Mr. ---- had forbiddenme to bring him any more complaints from them, for that he thought theease with which I received and believed their stories only tended to makethem discontented, and that, therefore, I feared I could not promise totake their petitions to him; but that he would be coming down to 'thepoint' soon, and that they had better come then some time when I was withhim, and say what they had just been saying to me: and with this, andvarious small bounties, I was forced, with a heavy heart, to dismiss them, and when they were gone, with many exclamations of, 'Oh yes, missis, youwill, you will speak to massa for we; God bless you, missis, we sure youwill!' I had my cry out for them, for myself, for us. All these women hadhad large families, and _all_ of them had lost half their children, andseveral of them had lost more. How I do ponder upon the strange fate whichhas brought me here, from so far away, from surroundings so curiouslydifferent--how my own people in that blessed England of my birth wouldmarvel if they could suddenly have a vision of me as I sit here, and howsorry some of them would be for me! I am helped to bear all that is so very painful to me here by my constantenjoyment of the strange wild scenery in the midst of which I live, andwhich my resumption of my equestrian habits gives me almost dailyopportunity of observing. I rode to-day to some new cleared and ploughedground that was being prepared for the precious cotton crop. I crossed asalt marsh upon a raised causeway that was perfectly alive withland-crabs, whose desperately active endeavours to avoid my horse's hoofswere so ludicrous that I literally laughed alone and aloud at them. Thesides of this road across the swamp were covered with a thick and closeembroidery of creeping moss or rather lichens of the most vivid green andred: the latter made my horse's path look as if it was edged with anexquisite pattern of coral; it was like a thing in a fairy tale, anddelighted me extremely. I suppose, E----, one secret of my being able to suffer as acutely as I dowithout being made either ill or absolutely miserable, is the childishexcitability of my temperament, and the sort of ecstacy which anybeautiful thing gives me. No day, almost no hour, passes without someenjoyment of the sort this coral-bordered road gave me, which not onlycharms my senses completely at the time, but returns again and againbefore my memory, delighting my fancy, and stimulating my imagination. Isometimes despise myself for what seems to me an inconceivable rapidity ofemotion, that almost makes me doubt whether anyone who feels so manythings can really be said to feel anything; but I generally recover fromthis perplexity, by remembering whither invariably every impression ofbeauty leads my thoughts, and console myself for my contemptible facilityof impression by the reflection that it is, upon the whole, a mercifulsystem of compensation by which my whole nature, tortured as it was lastnight, can be absorbed this morning, in a perfectly pleasurablecontemplation of the capers of crabs and the colour of mosses as ifnothing else existed in creation. One thing, however, I think, is equallycertain, and that is, that I need never expect much sympathy; and perhapsthis special endowment will make me, to some degree, independent of it;but I have no doubt that to follow me through half a day with any speciesof lively participation in my feelings would be a severe breathless moralcalisthenic to most of my friends, --what Shakspeare calls 'sweatinglabour. ' As far as I have hitherto had opportunities of observing, children and maniacs are the only creatures who would be capable ofsufficiently rapid transitions of thought and feeling to keep pace withme. And so I rode through the crabs and the coral. There is one thing, however, I beg to commend to your serious consideration as a trainer ofyouth, and that is, the expediency of cultivating in all the young mindsyou educate an equal love of the good, the beautiful, and the absurd(not an easy task, for the latter is apt in its developement tointerfere a little with the two others): doing this, you command all theresources of existence. The love of the good and beautiful of course youare prepared to cultivate--that goes without saying, as the French say;the love of the ludicrous will not appear to you as important, and yetyou will be wrong to undervalue it. In the first place, I might tell youthat it was almost like cherishing the love of one'sfellow-creatures--at which no doubt you shake your head reprovingly;but, leaving aside the enormous provision for the exercise of thisnatural faculty which we offer to each other, why should crabs scuttlefrom under my horse's feet in such a way as to make me laugh again everytime I think of it, if there is not an inherent propriety in laughter, as the only emotion which certain objects challenge--an emotionwholesome for the soul and body of man? After all, _why_ are wecontrived to laugh at all, if laughter is not essentially befitting andbeneficial? and most people's lives are too lead-coloured to afford tolose one sparkle on them, even the smallest twinkle of light gatheredfrom a flash of nonsense. Hereafter point out for the 'appreciative'study of your pupils all that is absurd in themselves, others, and theuniverse in general; 't is an element largely provided, of course, tomeet a corresponding and grateful capacity for its enjoyment. After my crab and coral causeway I came to the most exquisite thickets ofevergreen shrubbery you can imagine. If I wanted to paint paradise I wouldcopy this undergrowth, passing through which I went on to the settlementat St. Annie's, traversing another swamp on another raised causeway. Thethickets through which I next rode were perfectly draped with thebeautiful wild jasmine of these woods. Of all the parasitical plants Iever saw, I do think it is the most exquisite in form and colour, and itsperfume is like the most delicate heliotrope. I stopped for some time before a thicket of glittering evergreens, overwhich hung, in every direction, streaming garlands of these fragrantgolden cups, fit for Oberon's banqueting service. These beautifulshrubberies were resounding with the songs of mocking birds. I sat thereon my horse in a sort of dream of enchantment, looking, listening, andinhaling the delicious atmosphere of those flowers; and suddenly my eyesopened, as if I had been asleep, on some bright red bunches of springleaves on one of the winter-stripped trees, and I as suddenly thought ofthe cold northern skies and earth, where the winter was still inflexiblytyrannising over you all, and, in spite of the loveliness of all that waspresent, and the harshness of all that I seemed to see at that moment, nofirst tokens of the spring's return were ever more welcome to me thanthose bright leaves that reminded me how soon I should leave this scene ofmaterial beauty and moral degradation, where the beauty itself is of anappropriate character to the human existence it surrounds: above all, loveliness, brightness, and fragrance; but below! it gives one a sort ofmelusina feeling of horror--all swamp and poisonous stagnation, which theheat will presently make alive with venomous reptiles. I rode on, and the next object that attracted my attention was a verystartling and by no means agreeable one--an enormous cypress tree whichhad been burnt stood charred and blackened, and leaning towards the roadso as to threaten a speedy fall across it, and on one of the limbs of thisgreat charcoal giant hung a dead rattlesnake. If I tell you that it lookedto me at least six feet long you will say you only wonder I did not saytwelve; it was a hideous-looking creature, and some negroes I met soonafter told me they had found it in the swamp, and hung it dead on theburning tree. Certainly the two together made a dreadful trophy, and acurious contrast to the lovely bowers of bloom I had just beencontemplating with such delight. This settlement at St. Annie's is the remotest on the whole plantation, and I found there the wretchedest huts, and most miserably squalid, filthy and forlorn creatures I had yet seen here--certainly the conditionof the slaves on this estate is infinitely more neglected and deplorablethan that on the rice plantation. Perhaps it may be that the extremelyunhealthy nature of the rice cultivation makes it absolutely necessarythat the physical condition of the labourers should be maintained at itsbest to enable them to abide it; and yet it seems to me that even theprocess of soaking the rice can hardly create a more dangerous miasma thanthe poor creatures must inhale who live in the midst of these swelteringswamps, half sea, half river slime. Perhaps it has something to do withthe fact that the climate on St. Simon's is generally consideredpeculiarly mild and favourable, and so less protection of clothes andshelter is thought necessary here for the poor residents; perhaps, too, itmay be because the cotton crop is now, I believe, hardly as valuable asthe rice crop, and the plantation here, which was once the chief source ofits owner's wealth, is becoming a secondary one, and so not worth so muchcare or expense in repairing and constructing negro huts and feeding andclothing the slaves. More pitiable objects than some of those I saw at theSt. Annie's settlement to-day I hope never to see: there was an old cronecalled Hannah, a sister, as well as I could understand what she said, ofold house Molly, whose face and figure seamed with wrinkles and bowed andtwisted with age and infirmity really hardly retained the semblance ofthose of a human creature, and as she crawled to me almost half her nakedbody was exposed through the miserable tatters that she held on with onehand, while the other eagerly clutched my hand, and her poor blear eyeswandered all over me as if she was bewildered by the strange aspect of anyhuman being but those whose sight was familiar to her. One or two forlorncreatures like herself, too old or too infirm to be compelled to work, andthe half-starved and more than half-naked children apparently left hereunder their charge, were the only inmates I found in these wretchedhovels. I came home without stopping to look at anything, for I had no heart anylonger for what had so charmed me on my way to this place. Galloping alongthe road after leaving the marshes, I scared an ox who was feedingleisurely, and to my great dismay saw the foolish beast betake himselfwith lumbering speed into the 'bush:' the slaves will have to hunt afterhim, and perhaps will discover more rattlesnakes six or twelve feet long. After reaching home I went to the house of the overseer to see his wife, atidy, decent, kind-hearted, little woman, who seems to me to do her dutyby the poor people she lives among, as well as her limited intelligenceand still more limited freedom allow. The house her husband lives in isthe former residence of Major ----, which was the great mansion of theestate. It is now in a most ruinous and tottering condition, and theyinhabit but a few rooms in it; the others are gradually mouldering topieces, and the whole edifice will, I should think, hardly stand longenough to be carried away by the river, which in its yearly inroads on thebank on which it stands has already approached within a perilous proximityto the old dilapidated planter's palace. Old Molly, of whom I have oftenbefore spoken to you, who lived here in the days of the prosperity andgrandeur of 'Hampton, ' still clings to the relics of her old master'sformer magnificence and with a pride worthy of old Caleb of Ravenswoodshowed me through the dismantled decaying rooms and over the remains ofthe dairy, displaying a capacious fish-box or well, where, in the good olddays, the master's supply was kept in fresh salt water till required fortable. Her prideful lamentations over the departure of all this quondamglory were ludicrous and pathetic; but while listening with some amusementto the jumble of grotesque descriptions through which her impression ofthe immeasurable grandeur and nobility of the house she served was thepredominant feature, I could not help contrasting the present state of theestate with that which she described, and wondering why it should havebecome, as it undoubtedly must have done, so infinitely less productive aproperty than in the old Major's time. Before closing this letter, I have a mind to transcribe to you theentries for to-day recorded in a sort of daybook, where I put down verysuccinctly the number of people who visit me, their petitions andailments, and also such special particulars concerning them as seem to meworth recording. You will see how miserable the physical condition of manyof these poor creatures is; and their physical condition, it is insistedby those who uphold this evil system, is the only part of it which isprosperous, happy, and compares well with that of northern labourers. Judge from the details I now send you; and never forget, while readingthem, that the people on this plantation are well off, and considerthemselves well off, in comparison with the slaves on some of theneighbouring estates. _Fanny_ has had six children, all dead but one. She came to beg to haveher work in the field lightened. _Nanny_ has had three children, two of them are dead; she came to implorethat the rule of sending them into the field three weeks after theirconfinement might be altered. _Leah_, Caesar's wife, has had six children, three are dead. _Sophy_, Lewis' wife, came to beg for some old linen; she is sufferingfearfully, has had ten children, five of them are dead. The principalfavour she asked was a piece of meat, which I gave her. _Sally_, Scipio's wife, has had two miscarriages and three children born, one of whom is dead. She came complaining of incessant pain and weaknessin her back. This woman was a mulatto daughter of a slave called Sophy, bya white man of the name of Walker, who visited the plantation. _Charlotte_, Renty's wife, had had two miscarriages, and was with childagain. She was almost crippled with rheumatism, and showed me a pair ofpoor swollen knees that made my heart ache. I have promised her a pair offlannel trowsers, which I must forthwith set about making. _Sarah_, Stephen's wife, --this woman's case and history were, alike, deplorable, she had had four miscarriages, had brought seven children intothe world, five of whom were dead, and was again with child. Shecomplained of dreadful pains in the back, and an internal tumour whichswells with the exertion of working in the fields; probably, I think, sheis ruptured. She told me she had once been mad and ran into the woods, where she contrived to elude discovery for some time, but was at lasttracked and brought back, when she was tied up by the arms and heavy logsfastened to her feet, and was severely flogged. After this she contrivedto escape again, and lived for some time skulking in the woods, and shesupposes mad, for when she was taken again she was entirely naked. Shesubsequently recovered from this derangement, and seems now just like allthe other poor creatures who come to me for help and pity. I suppose herconstant child-bearing and hard labour in the fields at the same time mayhave produced the temporary insanity. _Sukey_, Bush's wife, only came to pay her respects. She had had fourmiscarriages, had brought eleven children into the world, five of whom aredead. _Molly_, Quambo's wife, also only came to see me; hers was the bestaccount I have yet received; she had had nine children, and six of themwere still alive. This is only the entry for to-day, in my diary, of the people's complaintsand visits. Can you conceive a more wretched picture than that which itexhibits of the conditions under which these women live? Their cases arein no respect singular, and though they come with pitiful entreaties thatI will help them with some alleviation of their pressing physicaldistresses, it seems to me marvellous with what desperate patience (Iwrite it advisedly, patience of utter despair) they endure theirsorrow-laden existence. Even the poor wretch who told that miserable storyof insanity and lonely hiding in the swamps and scourging when she wasfound, and of her renewed madness and flight, did so in a sort of low, plaintive, monotonous murmur of misery, as if such sufferings were all 'inthe day's work. ' I ask these questions about their children because I think the number theybear as compared with the number they rear a fair gauge of the effect ofthe system on their own health and that of their offspring. There washardly one of these women, as you will see by the details I have noted oftheir ailments, who might not have been a candidate for a bed in anhospital, and they had come to me after working all day in the fields. * * * * * Dearest E----. When I told you in my last letter of the encroachmentswhich the waters of the Altamaha are daily making on the bank at HamptonPoint and immediately in front of the imposing-looking old dwelling of theformer master, I had no idea how rapid this crumbling process has been oflate years; but to-day, standing there with Mrs. G----, whom I had gone toconsult about the assistance we might render to some of the poor creatureswhose cases I sent you in my last letter, she told me that within thememory of many of the slaves now living on the plantation, a grove oforange trees had spread its fragrance and beauty between the house and theriver. Not a vestige remains of them. The earth that bore them wasgradually undermined, slipped, and sank down into the devouring flood, andwhen she saw the astonished incredulity of my look she led me to theragged and broken bank, and there, immediately below it and just coveredby the turbid waters of the in-rushing tide, were the heads of the poordrowned orange trees, swaying like black twigs in the briny flood whichhad not yet dislodged all of them from their hold upon the soil which hadgone down beneath the water wearing its garland of bridal blossom. As Ilooked at those trees a wild wish rose in my heart that the river and thesea would swallow up and melt in their salt waves the whole of thisaccursed property of ours. I am afraid the horror of slavery with which Icame down to the south, the general theoretic abhorrence of anEnglishwoman for it, has gained, through the intensity it has acquired, amorbid character of mere desire to be delivered from my own share in it. Ithink so much of these wretches that I see, that I can hardly remember anyothers, and my zeal for the general emancipation of the slave, has almostnarrowed itself to this most painful desire that I and mine were freedfrom the responsibility of our share in this huge misery, --and so Ithought:--'Beat, beat, the crumbling banks and sliding shores, wild wavesof the Atlantic and the Altamaha! Sweep down and carry hence this evilearth and these homes of tyranny, and roll above the soil of slavery, andwash my soul and the souls of those I love clean from the blood of ourkind!' But I have no idea that Mr. ---- and his brother would cry amen toany such prayer. Sometimes, as I stand and listen to the roll of the greatocean surges on the further side of little St. Simon's Island, a smallgreen screen of tangled wilderness that interposes between this point andthe Atlantic, I think how near our West Indian islands and freedom are tothese unfortunate people, many of whom are expert and hardy boatmen, asfar as the mere mechanical management of a boat goes; but unlessProvidence were compass and steersman too it avails nothing that theyshould know how near their freedom might be found, nor have I any right totell them if they could find it, for the slaves are not mine, they areMr. ----'s. The mulatto woman, Sally, accosted me again to-day, and begged that shemight be put to some other than field labour. Supposing she felt herselfunequal to it, I asked her some questions, but the principal reason sheurged for her promotion to some less laborious kind of work was, thathoeing in the field was so hard to her on '_account of her colour_, ' andshe therefore petitions to be allowed to learn a trade. I was much puzzledat this reason for her petition, but was presently made to understand thatbeing a mulatto, she considered field labour a degradation; her whitebastardy appearing to her a title to consideration in my eyes. Thedegradation of these people is very complete, for they have accepted thecontempt of their masters to that degree that they profess, and reallyseem to feel it for themselves, and the faintest admixture of white bloodin their black veins appears at once, by common consent of their own race, to raise them in the scale of humanity. I had not much sympathy for thispetition. The woman's father had been a white man who was employed forsome purpose on the estate. In speaking upon this subject to Mrs. G----, she said that, as far as her observation went, the lower class of whitemen in the south lived with coloured women precisely as they would at thenorth with women of their own race; the outcry that one hears againstamalgamation appears therefore to be something educated and acquired, rather than intuitive. I cannot perceive in observing my children, thatthey exhibit the slightest repugnance or dislike to these swarthydependents of theirs, which they surely would do if, as is so oftenpretended, there is an inherent, irreconcilable repulsion on the part ofthe white towards the negro race. All the southern children that I haveseen seem to have a special fondness for these good-natured childish humanbeings, whose mental condition is kin in its simplicity and proneness toimpulsive emotion to their own, and I can detect in them no trace of theabhorrence and contempt for their dusky skins which all questions oftreating them with common justice is so apt to elicit from American menand women. To-day, for the first time since I left the Rice Island, I went outfishing, but had no manner of luck. Jack rowed me up Jones's Creek, asmall stream which separates St. Simon's from the main, on the oppositeside from the great waters of the Altamaha. The day was very warm. It isbecoming almost too hot to remain here much longer, at least for me, whodread and suffer from heat so much. The whole summer, however, is passedby many members of the Georgia families on their estates by the sea. Whenthe heat is intense, the breeze from the ocean and the salt air, Isuppose, prevent it from being intolerable or hurtful. Our neighbour Mr. C---- and his family reside entirely, the year round, on their plantationshere without apparently suffering in their health from the effects of theclimate. I suppose it is the intermediate region between the sea-board andthe mountains that becomes so pestilential when once the warm weather setsin. I remember the Belgian minister, M. De ----, telling me that themountain country of Georgia was as beautiful as paradise, and that theclimate, as far as his experience went, was perfectly delicious. He was, however, only there on an exploring expedition, and, of course, took themost favourable season of the year for the purpose. I have had several women with me this afternoon more or less disabled bychronic rheumatism. Certainly, either their labour or the exposure itentails must be very severe, for this climate is the last that ought toengender rheumatism. This evening I had a visit from a bright young woman, calling herself Minda, who came to beg for a little rice or sugar. Ienquired from which of the settlements she had come down, and found thatshe has to walk three miles every day to and from her work. She made nocomplaint whatever of this, and seemed to think her laborious tramp downto the Point after her day of labour on the field well-rewarded by thepittance of rice and sugar she obtained. Perhaps she consoled herself forthe exertion by the reflection which occurred to me while talking to her, that many women who have borne children, and many women with child, go thesame distance to and from their task ground--that seems dreadful! I have let my letter lie from a stress of small interruptions. Yesterday, Sunday 3rd, old Auber, a stooping, halting hag, came to beg for flanneland rice. As usual, of course, I asked various questions concerning hercondition, family, &c. ; she told me she had never been married, but hadhad five children, two of whom were dead. She complained of flooding, ofintolerable back-ache, and said that with all these ailments, sheconsidered herself quite recovered, having suffered horribly from anabscess in her neck, which was now nearly well. I was surprised to hear ofher other complaints, for she seemed to me like quite an old woman; butconstant child-bearing, and the life of labour, exposure, and privationwhich they lead, ages these poor creatures prematurely. Dear E----, how I do defy you to guess the novel accomplishment I havedeveloped within the last two days; what do you say to my turningbutcher's boy, and cutting up the carcase of a sheep for the instructionof our butcher and cook, and benefit of our table? You know, I have oftenwritten you word, that we have mutton here--thanks to the short salt grasson which it feeds--that compares with the best south down or _pré salé_;but such is the barbarous ignorance of the cook, or rather the butcher whofurnishes our kitchen supplies, that I defy the most expert anatomist topronounce on any piece (joints they cannot be called) of mutton brought toour table to what part of the animal sheep it originally belonged. I haveoften complained bitterly of this, and in vain implored Abraham the cookto send me some dish of mutton to which I might with safety apply thefamiliar name of leg, shoulder, or haunch. These remonstrances andexpostulations have produced no result whatever, however, but an increaseof eccentricity in the _chunks_ of sheeps' flesh placed upon the table;the squares, diamonds, cubes, and rhomboids of mutton have been moreludicrously and hopelessly unlike anything we see in a Christian butcher'sshop, with every fresh endeavour Abraham has made to find out 'zackly wotde missis do want;' so the day before yesterday, while I was painfullydragging S---- through the early intellectual science of the alphabet andfirst reading lesson, Abraham appeared at the door of the room brandishinga very long thin knife, and with many bows, grins, and apologies fordisturbing me, begged that I would go and cut up a sheep for him. My firstimpulse of course was to decline the very unusual task offered me withmingled horror and amusement. Abraham, however, insisted and besought, extolled the fineness of his sheep, declared his misery at being unableto cut it as I wished, and his readiness to conform for the future towhatever _patterns_ of mutton 'de missis would only please to give him. 'Upon reflection I thought I might very well contrive to indicate upon thesheep the size and form of the different joints of civilised mutton, andso for the future save much waste of good meat; and moreover the lessononce taught would not require to be repeated, and I have ever held itexpedient to accept every opportunity of learning to do anything, nomatter how unusual, which presented itself to be done; and so I followedAbraham to the kitchen, when, with a towel closely pinned over my silkdress, and knife in hand, I stood for a minute or two meditatingprofoundly before the rather unsightly object which Abraham had pronounced'de beautifullest sheep de missis eber saw. ' The sight and smell of rawmeat are especially odious to me, and I have often thought that if I hadhad to be my own cook, I should inevitably become a vegetarian, probably, indeed, return entirely to my green and salad days. Nathless, I screwed mycourage to the sticking point, and slowly and delicately traced out withthe point of my long carving-knife two shoulders, two legs, a saddle, anda neck of mutton; not probably in the most thoroughly artistic andbutcherly style, but as nearly as my memory and the unassisted light ofnature would enable me; and having instructed Abraham in the variousboundaries, sizes, shapes and names of the several joints, I returned toS---- and her belles-lettres, rather elated upon the whole at thecreditable mode in which I flattered myself I had accomplished my unusualtask, and the hope of once more seeing roast mutton of my acquaintance. Iwill confess to you, dear E----, that the _neck_ was not a satisfactorypart of the performance, and I have spent some thoughts since in trying toadjust in my own mind its proper shape and proportions. As an accompaniment to 'de beautifullest mutton de missis ever see, ' wehave just received from my neighbour Mr. C---- the most magnificent supplyof fresh vegetables, green peas, salad, &c. He has a garden and aScotchman's real love for horticulture, and I profit by them in this veryagreeable manner. I have been interrupted by several visits, my dear E----, among other, onefrom a poor creature called Judy, whose sad story and condition affectedme most painfully. She had been married, she said, some years ago to oneof the men called Temba, who however now has another wife, having left herbecause she went mad. While out of her mind she escaped into the jungle, and contrived to secrete herself there for some time, but was finallytracked and caught, and brought back and punished by being made to sit, day after day, for hours in the stocks--a severe punishment for a man, butfor a woman perfectly barbarous. She complained of chronic rheumatism, andother terrible ailments, and said she suffered such intolerable pain whilelabouring in the fields, that she had come to entreat me to have her worklightened. She could hardly crawl, and cried bitterly all the time shespoke to me. She told me a miserable story of her former experience on the plantationunder Mr. K----'s overseership. It seems that Jem Valiant (an extremelydifficult subject, a mulatto lad, whose valour is sufficiently accountedfor now by the influence of the mutinous white blood) was her firstborn, the son of Mr. K----, who forced her, flogged her severely for havingresisted him, and then sent her off, as a further punishment, to FivePound--a horrible swamp in a remote corner of the estate, to which theslaves are sometimes banished for such offences as are not sufficientlyatoned for by the lash. The dismal loneliness of the place to these poorpeople, who are as dependent as children upon companionship and sympathy, makes this solitary exile a much-dreaded infliction; and this poorcreature said, that bad as the flogging was, she would sooner have takenthat again than the dreadful lonely days and nights she spent on the penalswamp of Five Pound. I make no comment on these terrible stories, my dear friend, and tell themto you as nearly as possible in the perfectly plain unvarnished manner inwhich they are told to me. I do not wish to add to, or perhaps I ought tosay take away from, the effect of such narrations by amplifying the simplehorror and misery of their bare details. * * * * * My dearest E----. I have had an uninterrupted stream of women and childrenflowing in the whole morning to say, 'Ha de missis!' Among others, a poorwoman called Mile, who could hardly stand for pain and swelling in herlimbs; she had had fifteen children and two miscarriages, nine of herchildren had died; for the last three years she had become almost acripple with chronic rheumatism, yet she is driven every day to work inthe field. She held my hands and stroked them in the most appealing way, while she exclaimed, 'Oh my missis! my missis! me neber sleep till day forde pain, ' and with the day her labour must again be resumed. I gave herflannel and sal volatile to rub her poor swelled limbs with; rest I couldnot give her--rest from her labour and her pain--this mother of fifteenchildren. Another of my visitors had a still more dismal story to tell; her name wasDie; she had had sixteen children, fourteen of whom were dead; she had hadfour miscarriages, one had been caused by falling down with a very heavyburthen on her head, and one from having her arms strained up to belashed. I asked her what she meant by having her arms tied up; she saidtheir hands were first tied together, sometimes by the wrists, andsometimes, which was worse, by the thumbs, and they were then drawn up toa tree or post, so as almost to swing them off the ground, and then theirclothes rolled round their waist, and a man with a cow-hide stands andstripes them. I give you the woman's words; she did not speak of this asof anything strange, unusual or especially horrid and abominable; and whenI said, 'Did they do that to you when you were with child?' she simplyreplied, 'Yes, missis. ' And to all this I listen--I, an English woman, thewife of the man who owns these wretches, and I cannot say, 'That thingshall not be done again; that cruel shame and villany shall never be knownhere again. ' I gave the woman meat and flannel, which were what she cameto ask for, and remained choking with indignation and grief long afterthey had all left me to my most bitter thoughts. I went out to try and walk off some of the weight of horror and depressionwhich I am beginning to feel daily more and more, surrounded by all thismisery and degradation that I can neither help nor hinder. The blessedspring is coming very fast, the air is full of delicious wild woodfragrances, and the wonderful songs of southern birds; the wood paths areas tempting as paths into Paradise, but Jack is in such deadly terrorabout the snakes, which are now beginning to glide about with a freedomand frequency certainly not pleasing, that he will not follow me off theopen road, and twice to-day scared me back from charming wood paths Iventured to explore with his exclamations of terrified warning. I gathered some exquisite pink blossoms, of a sort of waxen texture, off asmall shrub which was strange to me, and for which Jack's only name wasdye-bush; but I could not ascertain from him whether any dyeing substancewas found in its leaves, bark, or blossoms. I returned home along the river side, stopping to admire a line of noblelive oaks beginning, alas! to be smothered with the treacherous white mossunder whose pale trailing masses their verdure gradually succumbs, leavingthem, like huge hoary ghosts, perfect mountains of parasitical vegetation, which, strangely enough, appears only to hang upon and swing from theirboughs without adhering to them. The mixture of these streams ofgrey-white filaments with the dark foliage is extremely beautiful as longas the leaves of the tree survive in sufficient masses to produce the richcontrast of colour; but when the moss has literally conquered the wholetree, and after stripping its huge limbs bare, clothed them with its ownwan masses, they always looked to me like so many gigantic Druid ghosts, with flowing robes and beards, and locks all of one ghastly grey, and Iwould not have broken a twig off them for the world, lest a sad voice, like that which reproached Dante, should have moaned out of it to me, Non hai tu spirto di pietade alcuno? A beautiful mass of various woodland skirted the edge of the stream, andmingled in its foliage every shade of green, from the pale stiff spikesand fans of the dwarf palmetto to the dark canopy of the magnificentilex--bowers and brakes of the loveliest wildness, where one dare nottread three steps for fear--what a tantalisation! it is like some wickedenchantment. * * * * * Dearest E----. I have found growing along the edge of the dreary enclosurewhere the slaves are buried such a lovely wild flower; it is a little likethe euphrasia or eye-bright of the English meadows; but grows quite closeto the turf, almost into it, and consists of clusters of tiny whiteflowers that look as if they were made of the finest porcelain; I took upa root of it yesterday, with a sort of vague idea that I could transplantit to the north--though I cannot say that I should care to transplantanything thither that could renew to me the associations of thisplace--not even the delicious wild flowers, if I could. The woods here are full of wild plum-trees, the delicate white blossoms ofwhich twinkle among the evergreen copses, and besides illuminating themwith a faint starlight, suggest to my mind a possible liqueur like kirsch, which I should think could quite as well be extracted from wild plums aswild cherries, and the trees are so numerous that there ought to be quitea harvest from them. You may, and, doubtless, have seen palmetto plants innorthern green and hot houses, but you never saw palmetto roots; and whatcurious things they are! huge, hard, yellowish-brown stems, as thick as myarm, or thicker, extending and ramifying under the ground in masses thatseem hardly justified or accounted for by the elegant, light, spiky fansof dusky green foliage with which they fill the under part of the woodshere. They look very tropical and picturesque, but both in shape andcolour suggest something metallic rather than vegetable, the bronze greenhue and lance-like form of their foliage has an arid hard character thatmakes one think they could be manufactured quite as well as cultivated. Atfirst I was extremely delighted with the novelty of their appearance; butnow I feel thirsty when I look at them, and the same with their kinsfolkthe yuccas and their intimate friends, if not relations, the pricklypears, with all of which once strange growth I have grown, contemptuouslyfamiliar now. Did it ever occur to you what a strange affinity there is between thetexture and colour of the wild vegetables of these sandy southern soils, and the texture and colour of shells? The prickly pear, and especially theround little cactus plants all covered with hairy spikes, are curiouslysuggestive of a family of round spiked shells, with which you, as well asmyself, are, doubtless, familiar; and though the splendid flame colour ofsome cactus blossoms never suggests any nature but that of flowers, I haveseen some of a peculiar shade of yellow pink, that resembles the mingledtint on the inside of some elaborately coloured shell, and the pale whiteand rose flowers of another kind have the colouring and almost texture ofshell, much rather than of any vegetable substance. To-day I walked out without Jack, and in spite of the terror of snakeswith which he has contrived slightly to inoculate me, I did make a shortexploring journey into the woods. I wished to avoid a ploughed field, tothe edge of which my wanderings had brought me; but my dash into thewoodland, though unpunished by an encounter with snakes, brought me onlyinto a marsh as full of land-crabs as an ant-hill is of ants, and fromwhich I had to retreat ingloriously, finding my way home at last by thebeach. I have had, as usual, a tribe of visitors and petitioners ever since Icame home. I will give you an account of those cases which had anythingbeyond the average of interest in their details. One poor woman, namedMolly, came to beg that I would, if possible, get an extension of theirexemption from work after child-bearing. The close of her argument wasconcise and forcible. 'Missis, we hab um piccaninny--tree weeks in deospital, and den right out upon the hoe again--_can we strong_ dat way, missis? No!' And truly I do not see that they can. This poor creature hadhad eight children and two miscarriages. All her children were dead butone. Another of my visitors was a divinely named but not otherwise divineVenus; it is a favourite name among these sable folk, but, of course, musthave been given originally in derision. The Aphrodite in question was adirt-coloured (convenient colour I should say for these parts) mulatto. Icould not understand how she came on this property, for she was thedaughter of a black woman and the overseer of an estate to which hermother formerly belonged, and from which I suppose she was sold, exchanged, or given, as the case may be, to the owners of this plantation. She was terribly crippled with rheumatism, and came to beg for someflannel. She had had eleven children, five of whom had died, and twomiscarriages. As she took her departure the vacant space she left on theother side of my writing table was immediately filled by another blackfigure with a bowed back and piteous face, one of the thousand 'Mollies'on the estate, where the bewildering redundancy of their name is avoidedby adding that of their husband; so when the question, 'Well, who areyou?' was answered with the usual genuflexion, and 'I'se Molly, missis!'I, of course, went on with 'whose Molly?' and she went on to refer herselfto the ownership (under Mr. ---- and heaven) of one Tony, but proceeded tosay that he was not her _real_ husband. This appeal to an element ofreality in the universally accepted fiction which passes here by the titleof marriage surprised me; and on asking her what she meant, she repliedthat her real husband had been sold from the estate for repeated attemptsto run away; he had made his escape several times, and skulked starving inthe woods and morasses, but had always been tracked and brought back, andflogged almost to death, and finally sold as an incorrigible runaway. Whata spirit of indomitable energy the wretched man must have had to havetried so often that hideously hopeless attempt to fly! I do not write youthe poor woman's jargon, which was ludicrous; for I cannot write you thesighs, and tears, and piteous looks, and gestures, that made it pathetic;of course she did not know whither or to whom her _real_ husband had beensold; but in the meantime Mr. K----, that merciful Providence of theestate, had provided her with the above-named Tony, by whom she had hadnine children, six of whom were dead; she, too, had miscarried twice. Shecame to ask me for some flannel for her legs, which are all swollen withconstant rheumatism, and to beg me to give her something to cure some badsores and ulcers, which seemed to me dreadful enough in their presentcondition, but which she said break out afresh and are twice as bad everysummer. I have let my letter lie since the day before yesterday, dear E----, having had no leisure to finish it. Yesterday morning I rode out to St. Clair's, where there used formerly to be another negro settlement andanother house of Major ----'s. I had been persuaded to try one of themares I had formerly told you of, and to be sure a more 'curst' quadruped, and one more worthy of a Petruchio for a rider I did never back. Hertemper was furious, her gait intolerable, her mouth, the most obduratethat ever tugged against bit and bridle. It is not wise anywhere--here itis less wise than anywhere else in the world--to say 'Jamais de cette eauje ne boirai;' but I _think_ I will never ride that delightful creatureMiss Kate again. I wrote you of my having been to a part of the estate called St. Clair's, where there was formerly another residence of Major ----'s; nothingremains now of it but a ruined chimney of some of the offices, which isstanding yet in the middle of what has become a perfect wilderness. At thebest of times, with a large house, numerous household, and paths, anddrives of approach, and the usual external conditions of civilisationabout it, a residence here would have been the loneliest that can well beimagined; now it is the shaggiest desert of beautiful wood that I eversaw. The magnificent old oaks stand round the place in silent solemngrandeur; and among them I had no difficulty in recognising, by thedescription Captain F---- had given me of it, the crumbling shatteredrelic of a tree called Oglethorpe's oak. That worthy valiant old governorhad a residence here himself in the early days of the colony; when, underthe influence of Wesley, he vainly made such strenuous efforts to keepaloof from his infant province the sore curse of slavery. I rode almost the whole way through a grove of perfect evergreen. I hadwith me one of the men of the name of Hector, who has a good deal to dowith the horses, and so had volunteered to accompany me, being one of thefew negroes on the estate who can sit a horse. In the course of ourconversation, Hector divulged certain opinions relative to the comparativegentility of driving in a carriage, and the vulgarity of walking; whichsent me into fits of laughing; at which he grinned sympathetically, andopened his eyes very wide, but certainly without attaining the leastinsight into what must have appeared to him my very unaccountable andunreasonable merriment. Among various details of the condition of thepeople on the several estates in the island, he told me that a greatnumber of the men on all the different plantations had _wives_ on theneighbouring estates, as well as on that to which they properly belonged. 'Oh, but, ' said I, 'Hector, you know that cannot be, a man has but onelawful wife. ' Hector knew this, he said, and yet seemed puzzled himself, and rather puzzled me to account for the fact, that this extensivepractice of bigamy was perfectly well known to the masters and overseers, and never in any way found fault with, or interfered with. Perhaps thispromiscuous mode of keeping up the slave population finds favour with theowners of creatures who are valued in the market at so much per head. Thiswas a solution which occurred to me, but which I left my Trojan hero todiscover, by dint of the profound pondering into which he fell. Not far from the house as I was cantering home, I met S----, and took herup on the saddle before me, an operation which seemed to please her betterthan the vicious horse I was riding, whose various demonstrations ofdislike to the arrangement afforded my small equestrian extreme delightand triumph. My whole afternoon was spent in shifting my bed and bed-roomfurniture from a room on the ground-floor to one above; in the course ofwhich operation, a brisk discussion took place between M---- and my boyJack, who was nailing on the vallence of the bed; and whom I suddenlyheard exclaim in answer to something she had said--'Well den, I do tinkso; and dat's the speech of a man, whether um bond or free. ' A verytrifling incident, and insignificant speech; and yet it came back to myears very often afterward--'the speech of a _man_, whether bond or free. 'They might be made conscious--some of them are evidently conscious--of aninherent element of manhood superior to the bitter accident of slavery;and to which, even in their degraded condition, they might be made torefer that vital self-respect which can survive all external pressure ofmere circumstance, and give their souls to that service of God, which isperfect freedom, in spite of the ignoble and cruel bondage of theirbodies. My new apartment is what I should call decidedly airy; the window, unlesswhen styled by courtesy, shut, which means admitting of draught enough toblow a candle out, must be wide open, being incapable of any intermediatecondition; the latch of the door, to speak the literal truth, does shut;but it is the only part of it that does; that is, the latch and thehinges; everywhere else its configuration is traced by a distinct line oflight and air. If what old Dr. Physic used to say be true, that a draughtwhich will not blow out a candle will blow out a man's life, (a Spanishproverb originally I believe) my life is threatened with extinction inalmost every part of this new room of mine, wherein, moreover, I nowdiscover to my dismay, having transported every other article of bed-roomfurniture to it, it is impossible to introduce the wardrobe for myclothes. Well, our stay here is drawing to a close, and therefore thesesmall items of discomfort cannot afflict me much longer. Among my visitors to-day was a poor woman named Oney, who told me herhusband had gone away from her now for four years; it seems he was theproperty of Mr. K----, and when that gentleman went to slave-driving onhis own account, and ceased to be the overseer of this estate, he carriedher better half, who was his chattel, away with him, and she never expectsto see him again. After her departure I had a most curious visitor, ayoung lad of the name of Renty, whose very decidedly mulatto tingeaccounted, I suppose, for the peculiar disinvoltura of his carriage andmanner; he was evidently in his own opinion a very superior creature; andyet, as his conversation with me testified, he was conscious of some flawin the honour of his 'yellow' complexion. 'Who is your mother, Renty?'said I (I give you our exact dialogue); 'Betty, head-man Frank's wife. ' Iwas rather dismayed at the promptness of this reply, and hesitated alittle at my next question, 'Who is your father?' My sprightly youngfriend, however, answered, without an instant's pause, 'Mr. K----. ' Here Icame to a halt, and, willing to suggest some doubt to the lad, because formany peculiar reasons this statement seemed to me shocking, I said, 'What, old Mr. K----?' 'No, massa R----. ' 'Did your mother tell you so?' 'No, missis, me ashamed to ask her; Mr. C----'s children told me so, and I'spect they know it. ' Renty, you see, did not take Falconbridge's view ofsuch matters; and as I was by no means sorry to find that he consideredhis relation to Mr. K---- a disgrace to his mother, which is an advance inmoral perception not often met with here, I said no more upon the subject. _Tuesday, March 3. _--This morning, old House Molly, coming from Mr. G----'s upon some errand to me, I asked her if Renty's statement was true;she confirmed the whole story, and, moreover, added that this connectiontook place after Betty was married to head-man Frank. Now, he, you know, E----, is the chief man at the Rice Island, second in authority to Mr. O----, and indeed, for a considerable part of the year, absolute masterand guardian during the night, of all the people and property at the riceplantation, for, after the early spring, the white overseer himself isobliged to betake himself to the mainland to sleep, out of the influenceof the deadly malaria of the rice swamp, and Frank remains sole sovereignof the island, from sunset to sunrise, in short, during the whole periodof his absence. Mr. ---- bestowed the highest commendations upon hisfidelity and intelligence, and, during the visit Mr. R---- K---- paid usat the island, he was emphatic in his praise of both Frank and his wife, the latter having, as he declared, by way of climax to his eulogies, quitethe principles of a white woman. Perhaps she imbibed them from hisexcellent influence over her. Frank is a serious, sad, sober-looking, veryintelligent man; I should think he would not relish having his wifeborrowed from him even by the white gentleman, who admired her principlesso much; and it is quite clear from poor Renty's speech about his mother, that by some of these people (and if by any, then very certainly byFrank), the disgrace of such an injury is felt and appreciated much afterthe fashion of white men. This old woman Molly is a wonderfully intelligent, active, energeticcreature, though considerably over seventy years old; she was talking tome about her former master, Major ----, and what she was pleased to callthe _revelation_ war (i. E. Revolution war), during which that gentleman, having embraced the side of the rebellious colonies in their struggleagainst England, was by no means on a bed of roses. He bore King George'scommission, and was a major in the British army, but having married agreat Carolina heiress, and become proprietor of these plantations, sidedwith the country of his adoption, and not that of his birth, in the warbetween them, and was a special object of animosity on that account to theEnglish officers who attacked the sea-board of Georgia, and sent troops onshore and up the Altamaha, to fetch off the negroes, or incite them torise against their owners. 'De British, ' said Molly 'make old massa runabout bery much in de great revelation war. ' He ran effectually, however, and contrived to save both his life and property from the invader. Molly's account was full of interest, in spite of the grotesque lingo inwhich it was delivered, and which once or twice nearly sent me intoconvulsions of laughing, whereupon she apologized with great gravity forher mispronunciation, modestly suggesting that _white words_ wereimpossible to the organs of speech of black folks. It is curious howuniversally any theory, no matter how absurd, is accepted by these people, for anything in which the contemptuous supremacy of the dominant race isadmitted, and their acquiescence in the theory of their own incorrigiblebaseness is so complete, that this, more than any other circumstance intheir condition, makes me doubtful of their rising from it. In order to set poor dear old Molly's notions straight with regard to thenegro incapacity for speaking plain the noble white words, I calledS---- to me and set her talking; and having pointed out to Molly how veryimperfect her mode of pronouncing many words was, convinced the worthy oldnegress that want of training, and not any absolute original impotence, was the reason why she disfigured the _white words_, for which she hadsuch a profound respect. In this matter, as in every other, the slaves payback to their masters the evil of their own dealings with usury, thoughunintentionally. No culture, however slight, simple, or elementary, ispermitted to these poor creatures, and the utterance of many of them ismore like what Prospero describes Caliban's to have been, than the speechof men and women in a Christian and civilised land: the children of theirowners, brought up among them, acquire their negro mode oftalking;--slavish speech surely it is--and it is distinctly perceptible inthe utterances of all southerners, particularly of the women, whoseavocations, taking them less from home, are less favourable to theirthrowing off this ignoble trick of pronunciation, than the more variedoccupation, and the more extended and promiscuous business relations ofmen. The Yankee twang of the regular down Easter is not more easilydetected by any ear, nice in enunciation and accent, than the thick negrospeech of the southerners: neither is lovely or melodious; but though thePuritan snuffle is the harsher of the two, the slave _slobber_ of thelanguage is the more ignoble, in spite of the softer voices of the prettysouthern women who utter it. I rode out to-day upon Miss Kate again, with Jack for my esquire. I madevarious vain attempts to ride through the woods, following the cattletracks; they turned round and round into each other, or led out into thesandy pine barren, the eternal frame in which all nature is set here, theinevitable limit to the prospect, turn landward which way you will. Thewood paths which I followed between evergreen thickets, though littlesatisfactory in their ultimate result, were really more beautiful than themost perfect arrangement of artificial planting that I ever saw in anEnglish park; and I thought if I could transplant the region which I wasriding through bodily into the midst of some great nobleman's possessionson the other side of the water, how beautiful an accession it would bethought to them. I was particularly struck with the elegant growth of aprofuse wild shrub I passed several times to-day, the leaves of which werepale green underneath, and a deep red, varnished brown above. I must give you an idea of the sort of service one is liable to obtainfrom one's most intelligent and civilised servants hereabouts, and theconsequent comfort and luxury of one's daily existence. Yesterday, Aleck, the youth who fulfils the duties of what you call a waiter, andwe in England a footman, gave me a salad for dinner, mixed with so largea portion of the soil in which it had grown, that I requested him to-dayto be kind enough to wash the lettuce before he brought it to table. M---- later in the day told me that he had applied to her very urgentlyfor soap and a brush 'as missis wished de lettuce scrubbed, ' a fate fromwhich my second salad was saved by her refusal of these desiredarticles, and further instructions upon the subject. * * * * * Dearest E----. I have been long promising poor old House Molly to visither in her own cabin, and so the day before yesterday I walked round thesettlement to her dwelling; and a most wretched hovel I found it. She hasoften told me of the special directions left by her old master for thecomfort and well-being of her old age; and certainly his charge has beenbut little heeded by his heirs, for the poor faithful old slave is mostmiserably off in her infirm years. She made no complaint, however, butseemed overjoyed at my coming to see her. She took me to the hut of herbrother, Old Jacob, where the same wretched absence of every decency andevery comfort prevailed; but neither of them seemed to think the conditionthat appeared so wretched to me one of peculiar hardship--though Molly'sformer residence in her master's house might reasonably have made herdiscontented with the lot of absolute privation to which she was nowturned over--but, for the moment, my visit seemed to compensate for allsublunary sorrows, and she and poor old Jacob kept up a duet of rejoicingat my advent, and that I had brought 'de little missis among um peopleafore they die. ' Leaving them, I went on to the house of Jacob's daughter Hannah, with whomPsyche, the heroine of the Rice Island story, and wife of his son Joe, lives. I found their cabin as tidy and comfortable as it could be made, and their children, as usual, neat and clean; they are capital women, bothof them, with an innate love of cleanliness and order most uncommon amongthese people. On my way home, I overtook two of my daily suppliants, whowere going to the house in search of me, and meat, flannel, rice, andsugar, as the case might be; they were both old and infirm-looking women, and one of them, called Scylla, was extremely lame, which she accountedfor by an accident she had met with while carrying a heavy weight of riceon her head; she had fallen on a sharp stake, or snag, as she called it, and had never recovered the injury she had received. She complained alsoof falling of the womb. Her companion (who was not Charybdis however, butPhoebe) was a cheery soul who complained of nothing, but begged forflannel. I asked her about her family and children; she had no childrenleft, nothing but grandchildren; she had had nine children, and seven ofthem died quite young; the only two who grew up left her to join theBritish when they invaded Georgia in the last war, and their children, whom they left behind, were all her family now. In the afternoon, I made my first visit to the hospital of the estate, andfound it, as indeed I find everything else here, in a far worse state eventhan the wretched establishments on the Rice Island, dignified by thatname; so miserable a place for the purpose to which it was dedicated Icould not have imagined on a property belonging to Christian owners. Thefloor (which was not boarded, but merely the damp hard earth itself, ) wasstrewn with wretched women, who, but for their moans of pain and uneasyrestless motions, might very well have each been taken for a mere heap offilthy rags; the chimney refusing passage to the smoke from the pine woodfire, it puffed out in clouds through the room, where it circled and hung, only gradually oozing away through the windows, which were so far welladapted to the purpose that there was not a single whole pane of glass inthem. My eyes, unaccustomed to the turbid atmosphere, smarted and watered, and refused to distinguish at first the different dismal forms, from whichcries and wails assailed me in every corner of the place. By degrees I wasable to endure for a few minutes what they were condemned to live theirhours and days of suffering and sickness through; and, having given whatcomfort kind words and promises of help in more substantial forms couldconvey, I went on to what seemed a yet more wretched abode ofwretchedness. This was a room where there was no fire because there was nochimney, and where the holes made for windows had no panes or glasses inthem. The shutters being closed, the place was so dark that, on firstentering it, I was afraid to stir lest I should fall over some of thedeplorable creatures extended upon the floor. As soon as they perceivedme, one cry of 'Oh missis!' rang through the darkness; and it reallyseemed to me as if I was never to exhaust the pity and amazement anddisgust which this receptacle of suffering humanity was to excite in me. The poor dingy supplicating sleepers upraised themselves as I cautiouslyadvanced among them; those who could not rear their bodies from the earthheld up piteous beseeching hands, and as I passed from one to the other, Ifelt more than one imploring clasp laid upon my dress to solicit myattention to some new form of misery. One poor woman, called Tressa, whowas unable to speak above a whisper from utter weakness and exhaustion, told me she had had nine children, was suffering from incessant flooding, and felt 'as if her back would split open. ' There she lay, a mass offilthy tatters, without so much as a blanket under or over her, on thebare earth in this chilly darkness. I promised them help and comfort, bedsand blankets, and light and fire--that is, I promised to ask Mr. ---- forall this for them; and, in the very act of doing so, I remembered with asudden pang of anguish, that I was to urge no more petitions for hisslaves to their master. I groped my way out, and emerging on the piazza, all the choking tears and sobs I had controlled broke forth, and I leanedthere crying over the lot of these unfortunates, till I heard a feeblevoice of 'Missis, you no cry; missis, what for you cry?' and looking up, saw that I had not yet done with this intolerable infliction. A poorcrippled old man, lying in the corner of the piazza, unable even to crawltowards me, had uttered this word of consolation, and by his side(apparently too idiotic, as he was too impotent, to move, ) sat a youngwoman, the expression of whose face was the most suffering and at the sametime the most horribly repulsive I ever saw. I found she was, as Isupposed, half-witted; and on coming nearer to enquire into her ailmentsand what I could do for her, found her suffering from that horribledisease--I believe some form of scrofula--to which the negroes aresubject, which attacks and eats away the joints of their hands andfingers--a more hideous and loathsome object I never beheld; her name wasPatty, and she was grand-daughter to the old crippled creature by whoseside she was squatting. I wandered home, stumbling with crying as I went, and feeling so utterlymiserable that I really hardly saw where I was going, for I as nearly aspossible fell over a great heap of oyster shells left in the middle of thepath. This is a horrid nuisance, which results from an indulgence whichthe people here have and value highly; the waters round the island areprolific in shell fish, oysters, and the most magnificent prawns I eversaw. The former are a considerable article of the people's diet, and theshells are allowed to accumulate, as they are used in the composition ofwhich their huts are built, and which is a sort of combination of mud andbroken oyster shells, which forms an agglomeration of a kind very solidand durable for such building purposes. But instead of being all carriedto some specified place out of the way, these great heaps of oyster shellsare allowed to be piled up anywhere and everywhere, forming the mostunsightly obstructions in every direction. Of course, the cultivation oforder for the sake of its own seemliness and beauty is not likely to be anelement of slave existence; and as masters have been scarce on thisplantation for many years now, a mere unsightliness is not a matter likelyto trouble anybody much; but after my imminent overthrow by one of thesedisorderly heaps of refuse, I think I may make bold to request that thepaths along which I am likely to take my daily walks may be kept free fromthem. On my arrival at home--at the house--I cannot call any place here myhome!--I found Renty waiting to exhibit to me an extremely neatly madeleather pouch, which he has made by my order, of fitting size anddimensions, to receive Jack's hatchet and saw. Jack and I have set up asort of Sir Walter and Tom Purdie companionship of clearing and cuttingpaths through the woods nearest to the house; thinning the overhangingbranches, clearing the small evergreen thickets which here and there closeover and across the grassy track. To me this occupation was especiallydelightful until quite lately, since the weather began to be rather warmerand the snakes to slide about. Jack has contrived to inoculate me withsome portion of his terror of them; but I have still a daily hankeringafter the lovely green wood walks; perhaps when once I have seen a liverattlesnake my enthusiasm for them will be modified to the degree that hisis. * * * * * Dear E----. This letter has remained unfinished, and my journalinterrupted for more than a week. Mr. ---- has been quite unwell, and Ihave been travelling to and fro daily between Hampton and the Rice Islandin the long boat to visit him; for the last three days I have remained atthe latter place, and only returned here this morning early. My dailyvoyages up and down the river have introduced me to a great variety of newmusical performances of our boatmen, who invariably, when the rowing isnot too hard, moving up or down with the tide, accompany the stroke oftheir oars with the sound of their voices. I told you formerly that Ithought I could trace distinctly some popular national melody with whichI was familiar in almost all their songs; but I have been quite at a lossto discover any such foundation for many that I have heard lately, andwhich have appeared to me extraordinarily wild and unaccountable. The wayin which the chorus strikes in with the burthen, between each phrase ofthe melody chanted by a single voice, is very curious and effective, especially with the rhythm of the rowlocks for accompaniment. The highvoices all in unison, and the admirable time and true accent with whichtheir responses are made, always make me wish that some great musicalcomposer could hear these semi-savage performances. With a very littleskilful adaptation and instrumentation, I think one or two barbaric chantsand choruses might be evoked from them that would make the fortune of anopera. The only exception that I have met with, yet among our boat voices to thehigh tenor which they seem all to possess is in the person of anindividual named Isaac, a basso profondo of the deepest dye, whonevertheless never attempts to produce with his different register anydifferent effects in the chorus by venturing a second, but sings like therest in unison, perfect unison, of both time and tune. By-the-by, thisindividual _does_ speak, and therefore I presume he is not an ape, ourang-outang, chimpanzee, or gorilla; but I could not, I confess, haveconceived it possible that the presence of articulate sounds, and theabsence of an articulate tail, should make, externally at least, socompletely the only appreciable difference between a man and a monkey, asthey appear to do in this individual 'black brother. ' Such stupendous longthin hands, and long flat feet, I did never see off a large quadruped ofthe ape species. But, as I said before, Isaac _speaks_, and I am muchcomforted thereby. You cannot think (to return to the songs of my boatmen) how strange someof their words are: in one, they repeatedly chanted the 'sentiment' that'God made man, and man makes'--what do you think?--'money!' Is not that apeculiar poetical proposition? Another ditty to which they frequentlytreat me they call Caesar's song; it is an extremely spirited war-song, beginning 'The trumpets blow, the bugles sound--Oh, stand your ground!' Ithas puzzled me not a little to determine in my own mind whether this titleof Caesar's song has any reference to the great Julius, and if so what maybe the negro notion of him, and whence and how derived. One of their songsdispleased me not a little, for it embodied the opinion that 'twenty-sixblack girls not make mulatto yellow girl;' and as I told them I did notlike it, they have omitted it since. This desperate tendency to despiseand undervalue their own race and colour, which is one of the very worstresults of their abject condition, is intolerable to me. While rowing up and down the broad waters of the Altamaha to the music ofthese curious chants, I have been reading Mr. Moore's speech about theabolition of slavery in the district of Columbia; and I confess I thinkhis the only defensible position yet taken, and the only consistentargument yet used in any of the speeches I have hitherto seen upon thesubject. I have now settled down at Hampton again; Mr. ---- is quite recovered, andis coming down here in a day or two for change of air; it is getting toolate for him to stay on the rice plantation even in the day, I think. Youcannot imagine anything so exquisite as the perfect curtains of yellowjasmine with which this whole island is draped; and as the boat comessweeping down towards the point, the fragrance from the thickets hung withtheir golden garlands greets one before one can distinguish them; it isreally enchanting. I have now to tell you of my hallowing last Sunday by gathering acongregation of the people into my big sitting-room, and reading prayersto them. I had been wishing very much to do this for some time past, andobtained Mr. ----'s leave while I was with him at the Rice Island, and itwas a great pleasure to me. Some of the people are allowed to go up toDarien once a month to church; but, with that exception, they have noreligious service on Sunday whatever for them. There is a church on theIsland of St. Simon, but they are forbidden to frequent it, as it leadsthem off their own through neighbouring plantations, and givesopportunities for meetings between the negroes of the different estates, and very likely was made the occasion of abuses and objectionablepractices of various kinds; at any rate, Mr. K---- forbade the Hamptonslaves resorting to the St. Simon's church; and so, for three Sundays inthe month they are utterly without Christian worship or teaching, or anyreligious observance of God's day whatever. I was very anxious that it should not be thought that I _ordered_ any ofthe people to come to prayers, as I particularly desired to see if theythemselves felt the want of any Sabbath service, and would of their ownaccord join in any such ceremony; I therefore merely told the houseservants that if they would come to the sitting-room at eleven o'clock, Iwould read prayers to them, and that they might tell any of their friendsor any of the people that I should be very glad to see them if they likedto come. Accordingly, most of those who live at the Point, i. E. In theimmediate neighbourhood of the house, came, and it was encouraging to seethe very decided efforts at cleanliness and decorum of attire which theyhad all made. I was very much affected and impressed myself by what I wasdoing, and I suppose must have communicated some of my own feeling tothose who heard me. It is an extremely solemn thing to me to read theScriptures aloud to any one, and there was something in my relation to thepoor people by whom I was surrounded that touched me so deeply while thusattempting to share with them the best of my possessions, that I found itdifficult to command my voice, and had to stop several times in order todo so. When I had done, they all with one accord uttered the simple words, 'We thank you, missis, ' and instead of overwhelming me as usual withpetitions and complaints, they rose silently and quietly, in a manner thatwould have become the most orderly of Christian congregations accustomedto all the impressive decorum of civilised church privileges. Poor people!They are said to have what a very irreligious young English clergyman onceinformed me I had--a '_turn_ for religion. ' They seem to me to have a'turn' for instinctive good manners too; and certainly their mode ofwithdrawing from my room after our prayers bespoke either a strong feelingof their own or a keen appreciation of mine. I have resumed my explorations in the woods with renewed enthusiasm, forduring my week's absence they have become more lovely and enticing thanever: unluckily, however, Jack seems to think that fresh rattlesnakes havebudded together with the tender spring foliage, and I see that I shalleither have to give up my wood walks and rides, or go without a guide. Lovely blossoms are springing up everywhere, weeds, of course, wildthings, impertinently so called. Nothing is cultivated here but cotton;but in some of the cotton fields, beautiful creatures are peeping intoblossom, which I suppose will all be duly hoed off the surface of thesoil in proper season: meantime I rejoice in them, and in the splendidmagnificent thistles, which would be in flower-gardens in other parts ofthe world, and in the wonderful, strange, beautiful butterflies that seemto me almost as big as birds, that go zig-zagging in the sun. I sawyesterday a lovely monster, who thought proper, for my greaterdelectation, to alight on a thistle I was admiring, and as the flower waspurple, and he was all black velvet, fringed with gold, I was exceedinglypleased with his good inspiration. This morning I drove up to the settlement at St. Annie's, having variousbundles of benefaction to carry in the only equipage my estate hereaffords, --an exceedingly small, rough, and uncomfortable cart, called thesick house waggon, inasmuch as it is used to convey to the hospital suchof the poor people as are too ill to walk there. Its tender mercies mustbe terrible indeed for the sick, for I who am sound could very hardlyabide them; however, I suppose Montreal's pace is moderated for them:to-day he went rollicking along with us behind him, shaking his fine headand mane, as if he thought the more we were jolted the better we shouldlike it. We found, on trying to go on to Cartwright's Point, that thestate of the tide would not admit of our getting thither, and so had toreturn, leaving it unvisited. It seems to me strange that where the labourof so many hands might be commanded, piers, and wharves, and causeways, are not thrown out (wooden ones, of course, I mean), wherever the commontraffic to or from different parts of the plantation is thus impeded bythe daily rise and fall of the river; the trouble and expense would benothing, and the gain in convenience very considerable. However, perhapsthe nature of the tides, and of the banks and shores themselves, may notbe propitious for such constructions, and I rather incline upon reflectionto think this may be so, because to go from Hampton to our neighbour Mr. C----'s plantation, it is necessary to consult the tide in order to landconveniently. Driving home to-day by Jones' Creek, we saw an immovable rowof white cranes, all standing with imperturbable gravity upon one leg. Ithought of Boccaccio's cook, and had a mind to say, Ha! at them to try ifthey had two. I have been over to Mr. C----, and was very much pleasedwith my visit, but will tell you of it in my next. * * * * * Dear E----. I promised to tell you of my visit to my neighbour Mr. C----, which pleased and interested me very much. He is an old Glasgow man, whohas been settled here many years. It is curious how many of the peopleround this neighbourhood have Scotch names; it seems strange to find themthus gathered in the vicinity of a new Darien; but those in our immediateneighbourhood seem to have found it a far less fatal region than theircountrymen did its namesake of the Isthmus. Mr. C----'s house is a roomy, comfortable, handsomely laid out mansion, to which he received me withvery cordial kindness, and where I spent part of a very pleasant morning, talking with him, hearing all he could tell me of the former history ofMr. ----'s plantation. His description of its former master, oldMajor ----, and of his agent and overseer Mr. K----, and of thatgentleman's worthy son and successor the late overseer, interested me verymuch; of the two latter functionaries his account was terrible, and muchwhat I had supposed any impartial account of them would be; because, letthe propensity to lying of the poor wretched slaves be what it will, theycould not invent, with a common consent, the things that they one and alltell me with reference to the manner in which they have been treated bythe man who has just left the estate, and his father, who for the lastnineteen years have been sole sovereigns of their bodies and souls. Thecrops have satisfied the demands of the owners, who, living inPhiladelphia, have been perfectly contented to receive a large incomefrom their estate without apparently caring how it was earned. Thestories that the poor people tell me of the cruel tyranny under whichthey have lived are not complaints, for they are of things past and gone, and very often, horridly as they shock and affect me, they themselvesseem hardly more than half conscious of the misery their conditionexhibits to me, and they speak of things which I shudder to hear of, almost as if they had been matters of course with them. Old Mr. C---- spoke with extreme kindness of his own people, and hadevidently bestowed much humane and benevolent pains upon endeavours tobetter their condition. I asked him if he did not think the soil andclimate of this part of Georgia admirably suited to the cultivation of themulberry and the rearing of the silk-worm; for it has appeared to me thathereafter, silk may be made one of the most profitable products of thiswhole region: he said that that had long been his opinion, and he had atone time had it much at heart to try the experiment, and had proposed toMajor ---- to join him in it, on a scale large enough to test itsatisfactorily; but he said Mr. K---- opposed the scheme so persistentlythat of course it was impossible to carry it out, as his agency andcooperation were indispensable; and that in like manner he had suggestedsowing turnip crops, and planting peach trees for the benefit and use ofthe people on the Hampton estate, experiments which he had tried withexcellent success on his own; but all these plans for the amelioration andprogress of the people's physical condition had been obstructed andfinally put entirely aside by old Mr. K---- and his son, who, as Mr. C----said, appeared to give satisfaction to their employers, so it was not hisbusiness to find fault with them; he said, however, that the wholecondition and treatment of the slaves had changed from the time ofMajor ----'s death, and that he thought it providential for the poorpeople that Mr. K---- should have left the estate, and the younggentleman, the present owner, come down to look after the people. He showed me his garden, from whence come the beautiful vegetables he hadmore than once supplied me with; in the midst of it was a very fine andflourishing date palm tree, which he said bore its fruit as prosperouslyhere as it would in Asia. After the garden, we visited a charmingnicely-kept poultry yard, and I returned home much delighted with my visitand the kind good humour of my host. In the afternoon, I sat as usual at the receipt of custom, hearing ofaches and pains, till I ached myself sympathetically from head to foot. Yesterday morning, dear E----, I went on horseback to St. Annie's, exploring on my way some beautiful woods, and in the afternoon I returnedthither in a wood waggon with Jack to drive and a mule to draw me, Montreal being quite beyond his management; and then and there, thehatchet and saw being in company, I compelled my slave Jack, all therattlesnakes in creation to the contrary notwithstanding, to cut and cleara way for my chariot through the charming copse. My letter has been lying unfinished for the last three days. I have beenextraordinarily busy, having emancipated myself from the trammels of Jackand all his terror, and as I fear no serpents on horseback, have beendaily riding through new patches of woodland without any guide, taking mychance of what I might come to in the shape of impediments. Last Tuesday, I rode through a whole wood, of burned and charred trees, cypresses andoaks, that looked as if they had been each of them blasted by a specialthunderbolt, and whole thickets of young trees and shrubs perfectly blackand brittle from the effect of fire, I suppose the result of somecarelessness of the slaves. As this charcoal woodland extended for somedistance, I turned out of it, and round the main road through theplantation, as I could not ride through the blackened boughs and brancheswithout getting begrimed. It had a strange wild desolate effect, notwithout a certain gloomy picturesqueness. In the afternoon, I made Israel drive me through Jack's new-made path tobreak it down and open it still more, and Montreal's powerful tramplingdid good service to that effect, though he did not seem to relish thenarrow wood road with its grass path by any means as much as the open wayof what may be called the high road. After this operation, I went on tovisit the people at the Busson Hill settlement. I here found, among othernoteworthy individuals, a female named Judy, whose two children belong toan individual called (not Punch) but Joe, who has another wife, calledMary, at the Rice Island. In one of the huts I went to leave some flanneland rice and sugar for a poor old creature called Nancy, to whom I hadpromised such indulgences: she is exceedingly infirm and miserable, suffering from sore limbs and an ulcerated leg so cruelly that she canhardly find rest in any position from the constant pain she endures, andis quite unable to lie on her hard bed at night. As I bent over herto-day, trying to prop her into some posture where she might find someease, she took hold of my hand, and with the tears streaming over herface, said, 'I have worked every day through dew and damp, and sand andheat, and done good work; but oh, missis, me old and broken now, no tonguecan tell how much I suffer. ' In spite of their curious thick utterance andcomical jargon, these people sometimes use wonderfully striking andpathetic forms of speech. In the next cabin, which consisted of anenclosure, called by courtesy a room, certainly not ten feet square, andowned by a woman called Dice--that is, not owned, of course, but inhabitedby her--three grown up human beings and eight children stow themselves byday and night, which may be called close packing, I think. I presume thatthey must take turns to be inside and outside the house, but they did notmake any complaint about it, though I should think the aspect of mycountenance, as I surveyed their abode and heard their numbers, might havegiven them a hint to that effect; but I really do find these poorcreatures patient of so much misery, that it inclines me the more to heedas well as hear their petitions and complaints, when they bring them tome. After my return home, I had my usual evening reception, and, among otherpleasant incidents of plantation life, heard the following agreeableanecdote from a woman named Sophy, who came to beg for some rice. Inasking her about her husband and children, she said she had never had anyhusband, that she had had two children by a white man of the name ofWalker, who was employed at the mill on the rice island; she was in thehospital after the birth of the second child she bore this man, and at thesame time two women, Judy and Sylla, of whose children Mr. K---- was thefather, were recovering from their confinements. It was not a month sinceany of them had been delivered, when Mrs. K---- came to the hospital, hadthem all three severely flogged, a process which _she_ personallysuperintended, and then sent them to Five Pound--the swamp Botany Bay ofthe plantation, of which I have told you--with further orders to thedrivers to flog them every day for a week. Now, E----, if I make you sickwith these disgusting stories, I cannot help it--they are the life itselfhere; hitherto I have thought these details intolerable enough, but thisapparition of a female fiend in the middle of this hell I confess adds anelement of cruelty which seems to me to surpass all the rest. Jealousy isnot an uncommon quality in the feminine temperament; and just conceive thefate of these unfortunate women between the passions of their masters andmistresses, each alike armed with power to oppress and torture them. Sophywent on to say that Isaac was her son by driver Morris, who had forcedher while she was in her miserable exile at Five Pound. Almost beyond mypatience with this string of detestable details, I exclaimed--foolishlyenough, heaven knows--'Ah, but don't you know, did nobody ever tell orteach any of you, that it is a sin to live with men who are not yourhusbands?' Alas, E----, what could the poor creature answer but what shedid, seizing me at the same time vehemently by the wrist: 'Oh yes, missis, we know--we know all about dat well enough; but we do anything to get ourpoor flesh some rest from de whip; when he made me follow him into debush, what use me tell him no? he have strength to make me. ' I havewritten down the woman's words; I wish I could write down the voice andlook of abject misery with which they were spoken. Now, you will observethat the story was not told to me as a complaint; it was a thing long pastand over, of which she only spoke in the natural course of accounting forher children to me. I make no comment; what need, or can I add, to suchstories? But how is such a state of things to endure?--and again, how isit to end? While I was pondering, as it seemed to me, at the very bottomof the Slough of Despond, on this miserable creature's story, anotherwoman came in (Tema), carrying in her arms a child the image of themulatto Bran; she came to beg for flannel. I asked her who was herhusband. She said she was not married. Her child is the child ofbricklayer Temple, who has a wife at the rice island. By this time, whatdo you think of the moralities, as well as the amenities, of slave life?These are the conditions which can only be known to one who lives amongthem; flagrant acts of cruelty may be rare, but this ineffable state ofutter degradation, this really _beastly_ existence, is the normalcondition of these men and women, and of that no one seems to take heed, nor have I ever heard it described so as to form any adequate conceptionof it, till I found myself plunged into it;--where and how is one to beginthe cleansing of this horrid pestilential immondezzio of an existence? It is Wednesday, the 20th of March; we cannot stay here much longer; Iwonder if I shall come back again! and whether, when I do, I shall findthe trace of one idea of a better life left in these poor people's mindsby my sojourn among them. One of my industries this morning has been cutting out another dress forone of our women, who had heard of my tailoring prowess at the riceisland. The material, as usual, was a miserable cotton, many-coloured likethe scarf of Iris. While shaping it for my client, I ventured to suggestthe idea of the possibility of a change of the nethermost as well as theuppermost garment. This, I imagine, is a conception that has never dawnedupon the female slave mind on this plantation. They receive twice a year acertain supply of clothing, and wear them (as I have heard some nasty fineladies do their stays, for fear they should get out of shape), withoutwashing, till they receive the next suit. Under these circumstances Ithink it is unphilosophical, to say the least of it, to speak of thenegroes as a race whose unfragrance is heaven-ordained, and the result ofspecial organisation. I must tell you that I have been delighted, surprised, and the very leastperplexed, by the sudden petition on the part of our young waiter, Aleck, that I will teach him to read. He is a very intelligent lad of aboutsixteen, and preferred his request with an urgent humility that was verytouching. I told him I would think about it. I mean to do it. I will doit, --and yet, it is simply breaking the laws of the government under whichI am living. Unrighteous laws are made to be broken, --_perhaps_, --butthen, you see, I am a woman, and Mr. ---- stands between me and thepenalty. If I were a man, I would do that and many a thing besides, anddoubtless should be shot some fine day from behind a tree by some goodneighbour, who would do the community a service by quietly getting rid ofa mischievous incendiary; and I promise you in such a case no questionswould be asked, and my lessons would come to a speedy and silent end; butteaching slaves to read is a fineable offence, and I am _feme couverte_, and my fines must be paid by my legal owner, and the first offence of thesort is heavily fined, and the second more heavily fined, and for thethird, one is sent to prison. What a pity it is I can't begin withAleck's third lesson, because going to prison can't be done by proxy, andthat penalty would light upon the right shoulders! I certainly intend toteach Aleck to read. I certainly won't tell Mr. ---- anything about it. I'll leave him to find it out, as slaves, and servants and children, andall oppressed, and ignorant, and uneducated and unprincipled people do;then, if he forbids me I can stop--perhaps before then the lad may havelearnt his letters. I begin to perceive one most admirable circumstance inthis slavery: you are absolute on your own plantation. No slaves'testimony avails against you, and no white testimony exists but such asyou choose to admit. Some owners have a fancy for maiming their slaves, some brand them, some pull out their teeth, some shoot them a little hereand there (all details gathered from advertisements of runaway slaves insouthern papers); now they do all this on their plantations, where nobodycomes to see, and I'll teach Aleck to read, for nobody is here to see, atleast nobody whose seeing I mind; and I'll teach every other creature thatwants to learn. I haven't much more than a week to remain in this blessedpurgatory, in that last week perhaps I may teach the boy enough to go onalone when I am gone. _Thursday, 21st. _--I took a long ride to-day all through some new woodsand fields, and finally came upon a large space sown with corn for thepeople. Here I was accosted by such a shape as I never beheld in the worstof my dreams; it looked at first, as it came screaming towards me, like alive specimen of the arms of the Isle of Man, which, as you may or may notknow, are three legs joined together, and kicking in different directions. This uncouth device is not an invention of the Manxmen, for it is found onsome very ancient coins, --Greek, I believe; but at any rate it is now thedevice of our subject Island of Man, and, like that set in motion, andnothing else, was the object that approached me, only it had a head wherethe three legs were joined, and a voice came out of the head to thiseffect, 'Oh missis, you hab to take me out of dis here bird field, me noable to run after birds, and ebery night me lick because me no run afterdem. ' When this apparition reached me and stood as still as it could, Iperceived it consisted of a boy who said his name was 'Jack de birddriver. ' I suppose some vague idea of the fitness of things had inducedthem to send this living scarecrow into the cornfield, and if he had beenset up in the midst of it, nobody, I am sure, would have imagined he wasanything else; but it seems he was expected to run after the featheredfowl who alighted on the grain field, and I do not wonder that he did notfulfil this expectation. His feet, legs, and knees were all maimed anddistorted, his legs were nowhere thicker than my wrist, his feet were ayard apart from each other, and his knees swollen and knocking together. What a creature to ran after birds! He implored me to give him some meat, and have him sent back to Little St. Simon's Island, from which he came, and where he said his poor limbs were stronger and better. Riding home, I passed some sassafras trees, which are putting forthdeliciously fragrant tassels of small leaves and blossoms, and otherexquisite flowering shrubs, which are new to me, and enchant me perhapsall the more for their strangeness. Before reaching the house, I wasstopped by one of our multitudinous Jennies, with a request for some meat, and that I would help her with some clothes for Ben and Daphne, of whomshe had the sole charge; these are two extremely pretty andinteresting-looking mulatto children, whose resemblance to Mr. K---- hadinduced me to ask Mr. ----, when first I saw them, if he did not thinkthey must be his children? He said they were certainly like him, but Mr. K---- did not acknowledge the relationship. I asked Jenny who their motherwas. 'Minda. ' 'Who their father?' 'Mr. K----. ' 'What! old Mr. K----?' 'No, Mr. R. K----. ' 'Who told you so?' 'Minda, who ought to know. ' 'Mr. K----denies it. ' 'That's because he never has looked upon them, nor done athing for them. ' 'Well, but he acknowledged Renty as his son, why shouldhe deny these?' 'Because old master was here then, when Renty was born, and he made Betty tell all about it, and Mr. K---- had to own it; butnobody knows anything about this, and so he denies it'--with whichinformation I rode home. I always give you an exact report of anyconversation I may have with any of the people, and you see from this thatthe people on the plantation themselves are much of my worthy neighbourMr. C----'s mind, that the death of Major ---- was a great misfortune forthe slaves on his estate. I went to the hospital this afternoon, to see if the condition of the poorpeople was at all improved since I had been last there; but nothing hadbeen done. I suppose Mr. G---- is waiting for Mr. ---- to come down inorder to speak to him about it. I found some miserable new cases of womendisabled by hard work. One poor thing, called Priscilla, had come out ofthe fields to-day scarcely able to crawl; she has been losing blood for awhole fortnight without intermission, and, until to-day, was labouring inthe fields. Leah, another new face since I visited the hospital last, islying quite helpless from exhaustion; she is advanced in her pregnancy, and doing task work in the fields at the same time. What piteousexistences to be sure! I do wonder, as I walk among them, well fed, wellclothed, young, strong, idle, doing nothing but ride and drive about allday, a woman, a creature like themselves, who have borne children too, what sort of feeling they have towards me. I wonder it is not one ofmurderous hate--that they should lie here almost dying with unrepaidlabour for me. I stand and look at them, and these thoughts work in mymind and heart, till I feel as if I must tell them how dreadful and howmonstrous it seems to me myself, and how bitterly ashamed and grieved Ifeel for it all. To-day I rode in the morning round poor Cripple Jack's bird field again, through the sweet spicy-smelling pine land, and home by my new road cutthrough Jones's wood, of which I am as proud as if I had made instead offound it--the grass, flowering shrubs, and all. In the afternoon, I drovein the wood wagon back to Jones's, and visited Busson Hill on the way, with performances of certain promises of flannel, quarters of dollars, &c. &c. At Jones's, the women to-day had all done their work at a quarter pastthree, and had swept their huts out very scrupulously for my reception. Their dwellings are shockingly dilapidated and over-crammed--poorcreatures!--and it seems hard that, while exhorting them to spend labourin cleaning and making them tidy, I cannot promise them that they shall berepaired and made habitable for them. In driving home through my new wood cut, Jack gave me a terrible accountof a flogging that a negro called Glasgow had received yesterday. Heseemed awfully impressed with it; so I suppose it must have been anunusually severe punishment; but he either would not or could not tell mewhat the man had done. On my return to the house, I found Mr. ---- hadcome down from the rice plantation, whereat I was much delighted on allaccounts. I am sure it is getting much too late for him to remain in thatpestilential swampy atmosphere; besides I want him to see my improvementsin the new wood paths, and I want him to come and hear all these poorpeople's complaints and petitions himself. They have been flocking in tosee him ever since it was known he had arrived. I met coming on thaterrand Dandy, the husband of the woman for whom I cut out the gown theother day; and asking him how it had answered, he gave a piteous accountof its tearing all to pieces the first time she put it on; it had appearedto me perfectly rotten and good for nothing, and, upon questioning him asto where he bought it and what he paid for it, I had to hear a sad accountof hardship and injustice. I have told you that the people collect mossfrom the trees and sell it to the shopkeepers in Darien for the purpose ofstuffing furniture; they also raise poultry, and are allowed to dispose ofthe eggs in the same way. It seems that poor Dandy had taken the miserablematerial Edie's gown was made of as payment for a quantity of moss andeggs furnished by him at various times to one of the Darien storekeepers, who refused him payment in any other shape, and the poor fellow had noredress; and this, he tells me, is a frequent experience with all theslaves both here and at the rice island. Of course, the rascallyshopkeepers can cheat these poor wretches to any extent they please withperfect impunity. Mr. ---- told me of a visit Renty paid him, which was not a little curiousin some of its particulars. You know none of the slaves are allowed theuse of fire arms; but Renty put up a petition to be allowed Mr. K----'sgun, which it seems that gentleman left behind him. Mr. ---- refused thispetition, saying at the same time to the lad that he knew very well thatnone of the people were allowed guns. Renty expostulated on the score ofhis _white blood_, and finding his master uninfluenced by thatconsideration, departed with some severe reflections on Mr. K----, hisfather, for not having left him his gun as a keepsake, in token of(paternal) affection, when he left the plantation. It is quite late, and I am very tired, though I have not done much morethan usual to-day, but the weather is beginning to be oppressive to me, who hate heat; but I find the people, and especially the sick in thehospital, speak of it as cold. I will tell you hereafter of a most comicalaccount Mr. ---- has given me of the prolonged and still protractedpseudo-pregnancy of a woman called Markie, who for many more months thanare generally required for the process of continuing the human species, pretended to be what the Germans pathetically and poetically call 'in goodhope, ' and continued to reap increased rations as the reward of herexpectation, till she finally had to disappoint the estate and receive aflogging. He told me too, what interested me very much, of a conspiracy among Mr. C----'s slaves some years ago. I cannot tell you about it now; I will someother time. It is wonderful to me that such attempts are not being madethe whole time among these people to regain their liberty; probablybecause many are made ineffectually, and never known beyond the limits ofthe plantation where they take place. * * * * * Dear E----. We have been having something like northern Marchweather--blinding sun, blinding wind, and blinding dust, through allwhich, the day before yesterday, Mr. ---- and I rode together round mostof the fields, and over the greater part of the plantation. It was adetestable process, the more so that he rode Montreal and I Miss Kate, andwe had no small difficulty in managing them both. In the afternoon we hadan equally detestable drive through the new wood paths to St. Annie's, andhaving accomplished all my errands among the people there, we crossed overcertain sounds, and seas, and separating waters, to pay a neighbourlyvisit to the wife of one of our adjacent planters. How impossible it would be for you to conceive, even if I could describe, the careless desolation which pervaded the whole place; the shaggy unkemptgrounds we passed through to approach the house; the ruinous, rackrent, tumble-down house itself, the untidy, slatternly all but beggarlyappearance of the mistress of the mansion herself. The smallest Yankeefarmer has a tidier estate, a tidier house, and a tidier wife than thismember of the proud southern chivalry, who, however, inasmuch as he hasslaves, is undoubtedly a much greater personage in his own estimation thanthose capital fellows W---- and B----, who walk in glory and in joy behindtheir ploughs upon your mountain sides. The Brunswick canal project wasdescanted upon, and pronounced, without a shadow of dissent, a scheme theimpracticability of which all but convicted its projectors of insanity. Certainly, if, as I hear the monied men of Boston have gone largely intothis speculation, their habitual sagacity must have been seriously atfault; for here on the spot nobody mentions the project but as a subjectof utter derision. While the men discussed about this matter, Mrs. B---- favoured me with thecongratulations I have heard so many times on the subject of my having awhite nursery maid for my children. Of course, she went into the oldsubject of the utter incompetency of negro women to discharge such anoffice faithfully; but in spite of her multiplied examples of their utterinefficiency, I believe the discussion ended by simply our both agreeingthat ignorant negro girls of twelve years old are not as capable ortrustworthy as well-trained white women of thirty. Returning home our route was changed, and Quash the boatman took us allthe way round by water to Hampton. I should have told you that our exitwas as wild as our entrance to this estate and was made through a brokenwooden fence, which we had to climb partly over and partly under, withsome risk and some obloquy, in spite of our dexterity, as I tore my dress, and very nearly fell flat on my face in the process. Our row home wasperfectly enchanting; for though the morning's wind and (I suppose) thestate of the tide had roughened the waters of the great river, and ourpassage was not as smooth as it might have been, the wind had died away, the evening air was deliciously still, and mild, and soft. A young slip ofa moon glimmered just above the horizon, and 'the stars climbed up thesapphire steps of heaven, ' while we made our way over the rolling, rushing, foaming waves, and saw to right and left the marsh fires burningin the swampy meadows, adding another coloured light in the landscape tothe amber-tinted lower sky and the violet arch above, and giving wildpicturesqueness to the whole scene by throwing long flickering rays offlame upon the distant waters. _Sunday, the 14th. _--I read service again to-day to the people. You cannotconceive anything more impressive than the silent devotion of their wholedemeanour while it lasted, nor more touching than the profound thanks withwhich they rewarded me when it was over, and they took their leave; andto-day they again left me with the utmost decorum of deportment, andwithout pressing a single petition or complaint, such as they ordinarilythrust upon me on all other occasions, which seems to me an instinctivefeeling of religious respect for the day and the business they have comeupon, which does them infinite credit. In the afternoon I took a long walk with the chicks in the woods; long atleast for the little legs of S---- and M----, who carried baby. We camehome by the shore, and I stopped to look at a jutting point, just belowwhich a small sort of bay would have afforded the most capital positionfor a bathing house. If we stayed here late in the season, such arefreshment would become almost a necessary of life, and anywhere alongthe bank just where I stopped to examine it to-day, an establishment forthat purpose might be prosperously founded. I am amused, but by no means pleased, at an entirely new mode ofpronouncing which S---- has adopted. Apparently the negro jargon hascommended itself as euphonious to her infantile ears, and she is nowtreating me to the most ludicrous and accurate imitations of it every timeshe opens her mouth. Of course I shall not allow this, comical as it is, to become a habit. This is the way the southern ladies acquire the thickand inelegant pronunciation which distinguishes their utterances from thenorthern snuffle; and I have no desire that S---- should adorn her mothertongue with either peculiarity. It is a curious and sad enough thing toobserve, as I have frequent opportunities of doing, the unboundedinsolence and tyranny (of manner, of course it can go no farther), of theslaves towards each other. 'Hi! you boy!' and 'Hi! you girl!' shouted inan imperious scream, is the civillest mode of apostrophising those at adistance from them; more frequently it is 'You niggar, you hear? hi! youniggar!' And I assure you no contemptuous white intonation ever equalledthe _prepotenza_ of the despotic insolence of this address of these poorwretches to each other. I have left my letter lying for a couple of days, dear E----. I have beenbusy and tired; my walking and riding is becoming rather more laborious tome, for, though nobody here appears to do so, I am beginning to feel therelaxing influence of the spring. The day before yesterday I took a disagreeable ride, all through swampyfields and charred blackened thickets, to discover nothing eitherpicturesque or beautiful; the woods in one part of the plantation havebeen on fire for three days, and a whole tract of exquisite evergreens hasbeen burnt down to the ground. In the afternoon I drove in the wood wagonto visit the people at St. Annie's. There had been rain these last twonights, and their wretched hovels do not keep out the weather; they arereally miserable abodes for human beings. I think pigs who were at allparticular might object to some of them. There is a woman at thissettlement called Sophy, the wife of a driver, Morris, who is so prettythat I often wonder if it is only by contrast that I admire her so much, or if her gentle, sweet, refined face, in spite of its dusky colour, wouldnot approve itself anywhere to any one with an eye for beauty. Her mannerand voice too are peculiarly soft and gentle; but, indeed, the voices ofall these poor people, men as well as women, are much pleasanter and moremelodious than the voices of white people in general. Most of the wretchedhovels had been swept and tidied out in expectation of my visit, and manywere the consequent petitions for rations of meat, flannel, osnaburgs, etc. Promising all which, in due proportion to the cleanliness of eachseparate dwelling, I came away. On my way home I called for a moment atJones' settlement to leave money and presents promised to the peoplethere, for similar improvement in the condition of their huts. I had nottime to stay and distribute my benefactions myself; and so appointed aparticularly bright intelligent looking woman, called Jenny, pay-mistressin my stead; and her deputed authority was received with the utmostcheerfulness by them all. I have been having a long talk with Mr. ---- about Ben and Daphne, thosetwo young mulatto children of Mr. K----'s, whom I mentioned to you lately. Poor pretty children! they have refined and sensitive faces as well asstraight regular features; and the expression of the girl's countenance, as well as the sound of her voice, and the sad humility of her deportment, are indescribably touching. Mr. B---- expressed the strongest interest inand pity for them, _because of their colour_: it seems unjust almost tothe rest of their fellow unfortunates that this should be so, and yet itis almost impossible to resist the impression of the unfitness of thesetwo forlorn young creatures, for the life of coarse labour and dreadfuldegradation to which they are destined. In any of the southern cities thegirl would be pretty sure to be reserved for a worse fate; but even here, death seems to me a thousand times preferable to the life that is beforeher. In the afternoon I rode with Mr. ---- to look at the fire in the woods. Wedid not approach it, but stood where the great volumes of smoke could beseen rising steadily above the pines, as they have now continued to do forupwards of a week; the destruction of the pine timber must be somethingenormous. We then went to visit Dr. And Mrs. G----, and wound up theseexercises of civilized life by a call on dear old Mr. C----, whose nurseryand kitchen garden are a real refreshment to my spirits. How completelythe national character of the worthy canny old Scot is stamped on the careand thrift visible in his whole property, the judicious successful cultureof which has improved and adorned his dwelling in this remote corner ofthe earth! The comparison, or rather contrast, between himself and hisquondam neighbour Major ----, is curious enough to contemplate. The Scotchtendency of the one to turn everything to good account, the Irishpropensity of the other to leave everything to ruin, to disorder, andneglect; the careful economy and prudent management of the mercantileman, the reckless profusion, and careless extravagance of the soldier. Theone made a splendid fortune and spent it in Philadelphia, where he builtone of the finest houses that existed there, in the old-fashioned days, when fine old family mansions were still to be seen breaking themonotonous uniformity of the Quaker city. The other has resided here onhis estate ameliorating the condition of his slaves and his property, abenefactor to the people and the soil alike--a useful and a goodexistence, an obscure and tranquil one. Last Wednesday we drove to Hamilton--by far the finest estate on St. Simon's Island. The gentleman to whom it belongs lives, I believe, habitually in Paris; but Captain F---- resides on it, and, I suppose, isthe real overseer of the plantation. All the way along the road (wetraversed nearly the whole length of the island) we found great tracts ofwood, all burnt or burning; the destruction had spread in every direction, and against the sky we saw the slow rising of the smoky clouds that showedthe pine forest to be on fire still. What an immense quantity of propertysuch a fire must destroy! The negro huts on several of the plantationsthat we passed through were the most miserable human habitations I everbeheld. The wretched hovels at St. Annie's, on the Hampton estate, thathad seemed to me the _ne plus ultra_ of misery, were really palaces tosome of the dirty, desolate, dilapidated dog kennels which we passedto-day, and out of which the negroes poured like black ants at ourapproach, and stood to gaze at us as we drove by. The planters' residences we passed were only three. It makes one ponderseriously when one thinks of the mere handful of white people on thisisland. In the midst of this large population of slaves, how absolutelyhelpless they would be if the blacks were to become restive! They could bedestroyed to a man before human help could reach them from the main, orthe tidings even of what was going on be carried across the surroundingwaters. As we approached the southern end of the island, we began todiscover the line of the white sea sands beyond the bushes andfields, --and presently, above the sparkling, dazzling line of snowywhite, --for the sands were as white as our English chalkcliffs, --stretched the deep blue sea line of the great Atlantic Ocean. We found that there had been a most terrible fire in the Hamiltonwoods--more extensive than that on our own plantation. It seems as if thewhole island had been burning at different points for more than a week. What a cruel pity and shame it does seem to have these beautiful masses ofwood so destroyed! I suppose it is impossible to prevent it. The 'fieldhands' make fires to cook their mid-day food wherever they happen to beworking; and sometimes through their careless neglect, but sometimes tooundoubtedly on purpose, the woods are set fire to by these means. Onebenefit they consider that they derive from the process is the destructionof the dreaded rattlesnakes that infest the woodland all over the island;but really the funeral pyre of these hateful reptiles is too costly atthis price. Hamilton struck me very much, --I mean the whole appearance of the place;the situation of the house, the noble water prospect it commanded, themagnificent old oaks near it, a luxuriant vine trellis, and a splendidhedge of Yucca gloriosa, were all objects of great delight to me. Thelatter was most curious to me, who had never seen any but single specimensof the plant, and not many of these. I think our green house at the northboasts but two; but here they were growing close together, and in such amanner as to form a compact and impenetrable hedge, their spiky leavesstriking out on all sides like _chevaux de frise_, and the tall slenderstems that bear those delicate ivory-coloured bells of blossoms, springingup against the sky in a regular row. I wish I could see that hedge inblossom. It must be wonderfully strange and lovely, and must look bymoonlight like a whole range of fairy Chinese pagodas carved in ivory. At dinner we had some delicious green peas, so much in advance of you arewe down here with the seasons. Don't you think one might accept therattlesnakes, or perhaps indeed the slavery, for the sake of the greenpeas? 'Tis a world of compensations--a life of compromises, you know; andone should learn to set one thing against another if one means to thriveand fare well, i. E. Eat green peas on the twenty-eighth of March. After dinner I walked up and down before the house for a long while withMrs. F----, and had a most interesting conversation with her about thenegroes and all the details of their condition. She is a kind-hearted, intelligent woman; but though she seemed to me to acquiesce, as a matterof inevitable necessity, in the social system in the midst of which shewas born and lives, she did not appear to me, by several things shesaid, to be by any means in love with it. She gave me a very sadcharacter of Mr. K----, confirming by her general description of him theimpression produced by all the details I have received from our ownpeople. As for any care for the moral or religious training of theslaves, that, she said, was a matter that never troubled his thoughts;indeed, his only notion upon the subject of religion, she said, was, that it was something _not bad_ for white women and children. We drove home by moonlight; and as we came towards the woods in the middleof the island, the fire-flies glittered out from the dusky thickets as ifsome magical golden veil was every now and then shaken out into thedarkness. The air was enchantingly mild and soft, and the whole waythrough the silvery night delightful. My dear friend, I have at length made acquaintance with a liverattlesnake. Old Scylla had the pleasure of discovering it while huntingfor some wood to burn. Israel captured it, and brought it to the house formy edification. I thought it an evil-looking beast, and could not helpfeeling rather nervous while contemplating it, though the poor thing had anoose round its neck and could by no manner of means have extricateditself. The flat head, and vivid vicious eye, and darting tongue, werenone of them lovely to behold; but the sort of threatening whirr producedby its rattle, together with the deepening and fading of the marks on itsskin, either with its respiration or the emotions of fear and anger it wasenduring, were peculiarly dreadful and fascinating. It was quite a youngone, having only two or three rattles in its tail. These, as you probablyknow, increase in number by one annually; so that you can always tell theage of the amiable serpent you are examining--if it will let you count thenumber of joints of its rattle. Captain F---- gave me the rattle of onewhich had as many as twelve joints. He said it had belonged to a verylarge snake which had crawled from under a fallen tree trunk on which hischildren were playing. After exhibiting his interesting captive, Israelkilled, stuffed, and presented it to me for preservation as a trophy, andmade me extremely happy by informing me that there was a nest of themwhere this one was found. I think with terror of S---- running about withher little socks not reaching half-way up her legs, and her little frocksnot reaching half-way down them. However, we shall probably not makeacquaintance with many more of these natives of Georgia, as we are toreturn as soon as possible now to the north. We shall soon be free again. This morning I rode to the burnt district, and attempted to go through itat St. Clair's, but unsuccessfully: it was impossible to penetrate throughthe charred and blackened thickets. In the afternoon I walked round thepoint, and visited the houses of the people who are our nearestneighbours. I found poor Edie in sad tribulation at the prospect ofresuming her field labour. It is really shameful treatment of a woman justafter child labour. She was confined exactly three weeks ago to-day, andshe tells me she is ordered out to field work on Monday. She seems todread the approaching hardships of her task-labour extremely. Her baby wasborn dead, she thinks in consequence of a fall she had while carrying aheavy weight of water. She is suffering great pain in one of her legs andsides, and seems to me in a condition utterly unfit for any work, muchless hoeing in the fields; but I dare not interfere to prevent thiscruelty. She says she has already had to go out to work three weeks afterher confinement with each of her other children, and does not complain ofit as anything special in her case. She says that is now the invariablerule of the whole plantation, though it used not to be so formerly. I have let my letter lie since I wrote the above, dear E----; but as mineis a story without beginning, middle, or end, it matters extremely littlewhere I leave it off or where I take it up; and if you have not, betweenmy wood rides and sick slaves, come to Falstaff's conclusion that I have'damnable iteration, ' you are patient of sameness. But the days are likeeach other; and the rides and the people, and, alas! their conditions, donot vary. To-day, however, my visit to the infirmary was marked by an event whichhas not occurred before--the death of one of the poor slaves while I wasthere. I found on entering the first ward, --to use a most inapplicableterm for the dark, filthy, forlorn room I have so christened, --an oldnegro called Friday lying on the ground. I asked what ailed him, and wastold he was dying. I approached him, and perceived, from the glazed eyesand the feeble rattling breath, that he was at the point of expiring. His tattered shirt and trousers barely covered his poor body; hisappearance was that of utter exhaustion from age and feebleness; he hadnothing under him but a mere handful of straw that did not cover theearth he was stretched on; and under his head, by way of pillow for hisdying agony, two or three rough sticks just raising his skull a fewinches from the ground. The flies were all gathering around his mouth, and not a creature was near him. There he lay, --the worn-out slave, whose life had been spent in unrequited labour for me and mine, --withoutone physical alleviation, one Christian solace, one human sympathy, tocheer him in his extremity, --panting out the last breath of his wretchedexistence, like some forsaken, over-worked, wearied-out beast ofburthen, rotting where it falls! I bent over the poor awful humancreature in the supreme hour of his mortality; and while my eyes, blinded with tears of unavailing pity and horror, were fixed upon him, there was a sudden quivering of the eyelids and falling of the jaw, --andhe was free. I stood up, and remained long lost in the imagination ofthe change that creature had undergone, and in the tremendousoverwhelming consciousness of the deliverance God had granted the soulwhose cast-off vesture of decay lay at my feet. How I rejoiced forhim--and how, as I turned to the wretches who were calling to me fromthe inner room, whence they could see me as I stood contemplating thepiteous object, I wished they all were gone away with him, thedelivered, the freed by death from bitter bitter bondage. In the nextroom, I found a miserable, decrepid, old negress, called Charity, lyingsick, and I should think near too to die; but she did not think her workwas over, much as she looked unfit for further work on earth; but withfeeble voice and beseeching hands implored me to have her work lightenedwhen she was sent back to it from the hospital. She is one of the oldestslaves on the plantation, and has to walk to her field labour, and backagain at night, a distance of nearly four miles. There were an unusualnumber of sick women in the room to-day; among them quite a young girl, daughter of Boatman Quash's, with a sick baby, who has a father, thoughshe has no husband. Poor thing! she looks like a mere child herself. Ireturned home so very sad and heart-sick that I could not rouse myselfto the effort of going up to St. Annie's with the presents I hadpromised the people there. I sent M---- up in the wood wagon with them, and remained in the house with my thoughts, which were none of themerriest. * * * * * Dearest E----. On Friday, I rode to where the rattlesnake was found, andwhere I was informed by the negroes there was a _nest_ of them--a pleasingdomestic picture of home and infancy that word suggests, not altogetherappropriate to rattlesnakes, I think. On horseback I felt bold toaccomplish this adventure, which I certainly should not have attempted onfoot; however, I could discover no sign of either snake or nest--(perhapsit is of the nature of a mare's nest, and undiscoverable); but, havingdone my duty by myself in endeavouring to find it, I rode off and coastedthe estate by the side of the marsh, till I came to the causeway. There Ifound a new cleared field, and stopped to admire the beautiful appearanceof the stumps of the trees scattered all about it, and wreathed andgarlanded with the most profuse and fantastic growth of variousplants--wild roses being among the most abundant. What a lovely aspect oneside of nature presents here, and how hideous is the other! In the afternoon, I drove to pay a visit to old Mrs. A----, the ladyproprietress whose estate immediately adjoins ours. On my way thither, Ipassed a woman called Margaret walking rapidly and powerfully along theroad. She was returning home from the field, having done her task at threeo'clock; and told me, with a merry beaming black face, that she was going'to clean up de house, to please de missis. ' On driving through myneighbour's grounds, I was disgusted more than I can express with themiserable negro huts of her people; they were not fit to sheltercattle--they were not fit to shelter anything, for they were literally inholes, and, as we used to say of our stockings at school, too bad to darn. To be sure, I will say, in excuse for their old mistress, her ownhabitation was but a very few degrees less ruinous and disgusting. Whatwould one of your Yankee farmers say to such abodes? When I think of thewhite houses, the green blinds, and the flower plots, of the villages inNew England, and look at these dwellings of lazy filth and inertdegradation, it does seem amazing to think that physical and moralconditions so widely opposite should be found among people occupying asimilar place in the social scale of the same country. The Northernfarmer, however, thinks it no shame to work, the Southern planter does;and there begins and ends the difference. Industry, man's crown of honourelsewhere, is here his badge of utter degradation; and so comes all bywhich I am here surrounded--pride, profligacy, idleness, cruelty, cowardice, ignorance, squalor, dirt, and ineffable abasement. When I returned home, I found that Mrs. F---- had sent me some magnificentprawns. I think of having them served singly, and divided as one does alobster--their size really suggests no less respect. _Saturday, 31st. _--I rode all through the burnt district and the bush toMrs. W----'s field, in making my way out of which I was very nearlyswamped, and, but for the valuable assistance of a certain sable Scipiowho came up and extricated me, I might be floundering hopelessly therestill. He got me out of my Slough of Despond, and put me in the way to acharming wood ride which runs between Mrs. W----'s and Colonel H----'sgrounds. While going along this delightful boundary of these twoneighbouring estates, my mind not unnaturally dwelt upon the terms ofdeadly feud in which the two families owning them are living with eachother. A horrible quarrel has occurred quite lately upon the subject ofthe ownership of this very ground I was skirting, between Dr. H---- andyoung Mr. W----; they have challenged each other, and what I am going totell you is a good sample of the sort of spirit which grows up amongslaveholders. So read it, for it is curious to people who have not livedhabitually among savages. The terms of the challenge that has passedbetween them have appeared like a sort of advertisement in the localpaper, and are to the effect that they are to fight at a certain distancewith certain weapons--firearms, of course; that there is to be on theperson of each a white paper, or mark, immediately over the region of theheart, as a point for direct aim; and whoever kills the other is to havethe privilege of _cutting off his head, and sticking it up on a pole onthe piece of land which was the origin of the debate_; so that, some fineday, I might have come hither as I did to-day and found myself ridingunder the shadow of the gory locks of Dr. H---- or Mr. W----, my peacefuland pleasant neighbours. I came home through our own pine woods, which are actually a wildernessof black desolation. The scorched and charred tree trunks are stillsmoking and smouldering; the ground is a sort of charcoal pavement, andthe fire is still burning on all sides, for the smoke was rapidly risingin several directions on each hand of the path I pursued. Across thisdismal scene of strange destruction, bright blue and red birds, likeliving jewels, darted in the brilliant sunshine. I wonder if the firehas killed and scared away many of these beautiful creatures. In theafternoon I took Jack with me to clear some more of the wood paths; butthe weather is what I call hot, and what the people here think warm, andthe air was literally thick with little black points of insects, whichthey call sand flies, and which settle upon one's head and faceliterally like a black net; you hardly see them or feel them at thetime, but the irritation occasioned by them is intolerable, and I had torelinquish my work and fly before this winged plague as fast as I couldfrom my new acquaintance the rattlesnakes. Jack informed me, in thecourse of our expedition, that the woods on the island were sometimesburnt away in order to leave the ground in grass for fodder for thecattle, and that the very beautiful ones he and I had been clearingpaths through were not unlikely to be so doomed, which strikes me as ahorrible idea. In the evening, poor Edie came up to the house to see me, with an oldnegress called Sackey, who has been one of the chief nurses on the islandfor many years. I suppose she has made some application to Mr. G---- for arespite for Edie, on finding how terribly unfit she is for work; orperhaps Mr. ----, to whom I represented her case, may have ordered herreprieve; but she came with much gratitude to me (who have, as far as Iknow, had nothing to do with it), to tell me that she is not able to besent into the field for another week. Old Sackey fully confirmed Edie'saccount of the terrible hardships the women underwent in being thus drivento labour before they had recovered from child-bearing. She said that oldMajor ---- allowed the women at the rice island five weeks, and those herefour weeks, to recover from a confinement, and then never permitted themfor some time after they resumed their work to labour in the fields beforesunrise or after sunset; but Mr. K---- had altered that arrangement, allowing the women at the rice island only four weeks, and those here onlythree weeks, for their recovery; 'and then, missis, ' continued the oldwoman, 'out into the field again, through dew and dry, as if nothing hadhappened; that is why, missis, so many of the women have falling of thewomb, and weakness in the back; and if he had continued on the estate, hewould have utterly destroyed all the breeding women. ' Sometimes, aftersending them back into the field, at the expiration of their three weeks, they would work for a day or two, she said, and then fall down in thefield with exhaustion, and be brought to the hospital almost at the pointof death. Yesterday, Sunday, I had my last service at home with these poor people;nearly thirty of them came, all clean, neat, and decent, in their dressand appearance. S---- had begged very hard to join the congregation, andupon the most solemn promise of remaining still she was admitted; but inspite of the perfect honour with which she kept her promise, her presencedisturbed my thoughts not a little, and added much to the poignancy of thefeeling with which I saw her father's poor slaves gathered round me. Thechild's exquisite complexion, large grey eyes, and solemn and at the sametime eager countenance, was such a wonderful piece of contrast to theirsable faces, so many of them so uncouth in their outlines and proportions, and yet all of them so pathetic, and some so sublime in their expressionof patient suffering and religious fervour; their eyes never wandered fromme and my child, who sat close by my knee, their little mistress, theirfuture providence, my poor baby! Dear E----, bless God that you have neverreared a child with such an awful expectation: and at the end of theprayers, the tears were streaming over their faces, and one chorus ofblessings rose round me and the child--farewell blessings, and prayersthat we would return; and thanks so fervent in their incoherency, it wasmore than I could bear, and I begged them to go away and leave me torecover myself. And then I remained with S----, and for quite a long whileeven her restless spirit was still in wondering amazement at my bittercrying. I am to go next Sunday to the church on the island, where there isto be service; and so this is my last Sunday with the people. When I had recovered from the emotion of this scene, I walked out withS---- a little way, but meeting M---- and the baby, she turned home withthem, and I pursued my walk alone up the road, and home by the shore. Theyare threatening to burn down all my woods to make grass land for thecattle, and I have terrified them by telling them that I will never comeback if they destroy the woods. I went and paid a visit to Mrs. G----;poor little, well-meaning, helpless woman! what can she do for these poorpeople, where I who am supposed to own them can do nothing? and yet howmuch may be done, is done, by the brain and heart of one human being incontact with another! We are answerable for incalculable opportunities ofgood and evil in our daily intercourse with every soul with whom we haveto deal; every meeting, every parting, every chance greeting, and everyappointed encounter, are occasions open to us for which we are to account. To our children, our servants, our friends, our acquaintances, --to eachand all every day, and all day long, we are distributing that which isbest or worst in existence, --influence: with every word, with every look, with every gesture, something is given or withheld of great importance itmay be to the receiver, of inestimable importance to the giver. Certainly the laws and enacted statutes on which this detestable system isbuilt up are potent enough; the social prejudice that buttresses it isalmost more potent still; and yet a few hearts and brains well bent to dothe work, would bring within this almost impenetrable dungeon ofignorance, misery, and degradation, in which so many millions of humansouls lie buried, that freedom of God which would presently conquer forthem their earthly liberty. With some such thoughts I commended theslaves on the plantation to the little overseer's wife; I did not tell mythoughts to her, they would have scared the poor little woman half out ofher senses. To begin with, her bread, her husband's occupation, has itsroot in slavery; it would be difficult for her to think as I do of it. Iam afraid her care, even of the bodily habits and sicknesses of the peopleleft in Mrs. G----'s charge, will not be worth much, for nobody treatsothers better than they do themselves; and she is certainly doing her bestto injure herself and her own poor baby, who is two and a-half years old, and whom she is still suckling. This is, I think, the worst case of this extraordinary delusion soprevalent among your women that I have ever met with yet; but they allnurse their children much longer than is good for either baby or mother. The summer heat, particularly when a young baby is cutting teeth, is, Iknow, considered by young American mothers an exceedingly critical time, and therefore I always hear of babies being nursed till after the secondsummer; so that a child born in January would be suckled till it waseighteen or nineteen months old, in order that it might not be weaned tillits second summer was over. I am sure that nothing can be worse than thissystem, and I attribute much of the wretched ill health of young Americanmothers to over nursing; and of course a process that destroys theirhealth and vigour completely must affect most unfavourably the child theyare suckling. It is a grievous mistake. I remember my charming friendF---- D---- telling me that she had nursed her first child till her secondwas born--a miraculous statement, which I can only believe because shetold it me herself. Whenever anything seems absolutely impossible, theword of a true person is the only proof of it worth anything. * * * * * Dear E----. I have been riding into the swamp behind the new house; I hada mind to survey the ground all round it before going away, to see whatcapabilities it afforded for the founding of a garden, but I confess itlooked very unpromising. Trying to return by another way, I came to amorass, which, after contemplating, and making my horse try for a fewpaces, I thought it expedient not to attempt. A woman called Charlotte, who was working in the field, seeing my dilemma and the inglorious retreatI was about to make, shouted to me at the top of her voice, 'You no turnback, missis! if you want to go through, send, missis, send! you hab slaveenough, nigger enough, let 'em come, let 'em fetch planks, and make debridge; what you say dey must do, --send, missis, send, missis!' It seemedto me, from the lady's imperative tone in my behalf, that if she had beenin my place, she would presently have had a corduroy road through theswamp of prostrate 'niggers, ' as she called her family in Ham, and riddenover the same dry-hoofed; and to be sure, if I pleased, so might I, for, as she very truly said, 'what you say, missis, they must do. ' Instead ofsummoning her sooty tribe, however, I backed my horse out of the swamp, and betook myself to another pretty woodpath, which only wants widening tobe quite charming. At the end of this, however, I found swamp the second, and out of this having been helped by a grinning facetious personage, mostappropriately named Pun, I returned home in dudgeon, in spite of what dearMiss M---- calls the 'moral suitability' of finding a foul bog at the endof every charming wood path or forest ride in this region. In the afternoon, I drove to Busson Hill, to visit the people there. Ifound that both the men and women had done their work at half-past three. Saw Jema with her child, that ridiculous image of Driver Bran, in herarms, in spite of whose whitey brown skin she still maintains that itsfather is a man as black as herself--and she (to use a most extraordinarycomparison I heard of a negro girl making with regard to her mother) is asblack as 'de hinges of hell. ' Query: Did she really mean hinges--orangels? The angels of hell is a polite and pretty paraphrase for devils, certainly. In complimenting a woman, called Joan, upon the tidy conditionof her house, she answered, with that cruel humility that is so bad anelement in their character, 'Missis no 'spect to find coloured folks'house clean as white folks. ' The mode in which they have learned to acceptthe idea of their own degradation and unalterable inferiority, is the mostserious impediment that I see in the way of their progress, sinceassuredly, 'self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting. ' In thesame way yesterday, Abraham the cook, in speaking of his brother's theftat the rice island, said 'it was a shame even for a coloured man to dosuch things. ' I labour hard, whenever any such observation is made, toexplain to them that the question is one of moral and mental culture, --notthe colour of an integument, --and assure them, much to my own comfort, whatever it may be to theirs, that white people are as dirty and asdishonest as coloured folks, when they have suffered the same lack ofdecent training. If I could but find one of these women, on whose mind theidea had dawned that she was neither more nor less than my equal, I thinkI should embrace her in an ecstacy of hopefulness. In the evening, while I was inditing my journal for your edification, Jemamade her appearance with her Bran-brown baby, having walked all the waydown from Busson Hill to claim a little sugar I had promised her. She hadmade her child perfectly clean, and it looked quite pretty. When I askedher what I should give her the sugar in, she snatched her filthyhandkerchief off her head; but I declined this sugar basin, and gave itto her in some paper. Hannah came on the same errand. After all, dear E----, we shall not leave Georgia so soon as I expected;we cannot get off for at least another week. You know, our movements areapt to be both tardy and uncertain. I am getting sick in spirit of my stayhere; but I think the spring heat is beginning to affect me miserably, andI long for a cooler atmosphere. Here, on St. Simon's, the climate isperfectly healthy, and our neighbours, many of them, never stir from theirplantations within reach of the purifying sea influence. But a land thatgrows magnolias is not fit for me--I was going to say magnolias andrattlesnakes; but I remember K----'s adventure with her friend therattlesnake of Monument Mountain, and the wild wood-covered hill half-waybetween Lenox and Stockbridge, which your Berkshire farmers havechristened Rattlesnake Mountain. These agreeable serpents seem, like thelovely little humming birds which are found in your northernmost as wellas southernmost States, to have an accommodating disposition with regardto climate. Not only is the vicinity of the sea an element of salubrity here; but thegreat masses of pine wood growing in every direction indicate lightness ofsoil and purity of air. Wherever these fragrant, dry, aromatic fir forestsextend, there can be no inherent malaria, I should think, in eitheratmosphere or soil. The beauty and profusion of the weeds and wildflowers in the fields now is something, too, enchanting. I wish I couldspread one of these enamelled tracts on the side of one of yoursnow-covered hills now--for I daresay they are snow-covered yet. I must give you an account of Aleck's first reading lesson, which tookplace at the same time that I gave S---- hers this morning. It was thefirst time he had had leisure to come, and it went off most successfully. He seems to me by no means stupid. I am very sorry he did not ask me to dothis before; however, if he can master his alphabet before I go, he may, if chance favour him with the occasional sight of a book, help himself onby degrees. Perhaps he will have the good inspiration to apply to CooperLondon for assistance; I am much mistaken if that worthy does not contrivethat Heaven shall help Aleck, as it formerly did him--in the matter ofreading. I rode with Jack afterwards, showing him where I wish paths to be cutand brushwood removed. I passed the new house, and again circumvented itmeditatingly to discover its available points of possible futurecomeliness, but remained as convinced as ever that there are absolutelynone. Within the last two days, a perfect border of the dark blueVirginicum has burst into blossom on each side of the road, fringing itwith purple as far as one can look along it; it is lovely. I must tellyou of something which has delighted me greatly. I told Jack yesterday, that if any of the boys liked, when they had done their tasks, to comeand clear the paths that I want widened and trimmed, I would pay them acertain small sum per hour for their labour; and behold, three boys havecome, having done their tasks early in the afternoon, to apply for_work_ and _wages_: so much for a suggestion not barely twenty-fourhours old, and so much for a prospect of compensation! In the evenings I attempted to walk out when the air was cool, but had torun precipitately back into the house to escape from the clouds ofsand-flies that had settled on my neck and arms. The weather has suddenlybecome intensely hot; at least, that is what it appears to me. After I hadcome in I had a visit from Venus and her daughter, a young girl of tenyears old, for whom she begged a larger allowance of food as, she said, what she received for her was totally inadequate to the girl's propernourishment. I was amazed, upon enquiry, to find that three quarts ofgrits a week--that is not a pint a day--was considered a sufficient supplyfor children of her age. The mother said her child was half-famished onit, and it seemed to me terribly little. My little workmen have brought me in from the woods three darling littlerabbits which they have contrived to catch. They seemed to me slightlydifferent from our English bunnies; and Captain F----, who called to-day, gave me a long account of how they differed from the same animal in thenorthern States. I did not like to mortify my small workmen by refusingtheir present; but the poor little things must be left to run wild again, for we have no conveniences for pets here, besides we are just weighinganchor ourselves. I hope these poor little fluffy things will not meet anyrattlesnakes on their way back to the woods. I had a visit for flannel from one of our Dianas to-day, --who had done hertask in the middle of the day, yet came to receive her flannel, --the mosthorribly dirty human creature I ever beheld, unless indeed her child, whomshe brought with her, may have been half a degree dirtier. The other day, Psyche (you remember the pretty under nurse, the poor thingwhose story I wrote you from the rice plantation) asked me if her motherand brothers might be allowed to come and see her when we are gone away. Iasked her some questions about them, and she told me that one of herbrothers, who belonged to Mr. K----, was hired by that gentleman to a Mr. G---- of Darien, and that, upon the latter desiring to purchase him, Mr. K---- had sold the man without apprising him or any one member of hisfamily that he had done so--a humane proceeding that makes one's bloodboil when one hears of it. He had owned the man ever since he was a boy. Psyche urged me very much to obtain an order permitting her to see hermother and brothers. I will try and obtain it for her, but there seemsgenerally a great objection to the visits of slaves from neighbouringplantations, and, I have no doubt, not without sufficient reason. The moreI see of this frightful and perilous social system, the more I feel thatthose who live in the midst of it must make their whole existence oneconstant precaution against danger of some sort or other. I have given Aleck a second reading lesson with S----, who takes anextreme interest in his newly acquired alphabetical lore. He is a veryquick and attentive scholar, and I should think a very short time wouldsuffice to teach him to read; but, alas! I have not even that short time. When I had done with my class, I rode off with Jack, who has become quitean expert horseman, and rejoices in being lifted out of the immediateregion of snakes by the length of his horse's legs. I cantered through thenew wood paths, and took a good sloping gallop through the pine land toSt. Annie's. The fire is actually still burning in the woods. I came homequite tired with the heat, though my ride was not a long one. Just as I had taken off my habit and was preparing to start off withM----and the chicks for Jones's, in the wood wagon, old Dorcas, one ofthe most decrepid, rheumatic, and miserable old negresses from thefurther end of the plantation, called in to beg for some sugar. She hadwalked the whole way from her own settlement, and seemed absolutelyexhausted then, and yet she had to walk all the way back. It was nototherwise than slightly meritorious in me, my dear E----, to take her upin the wagon and endure her abominable dirt and foulness in the closestproximity, rather than let her drag her poor old limbs all that wayback; but I was glad when we gained her abode and lost her company. I ammightily reminded occasionally in these parts of Trinculo's soliloquyover Caliban. The people at Jones's had done their work at half-pastthree. Most of the houses were tidy and clean, so were many of thebabies. On visiting the cabin of an exceedingly decent woman calledPeggy, I found her, to my surprise, possessed of a fine large bible. Shetold me her husband, Carpenter John, can read, and that she means tomake him teach her. The fame of Aleck's literature has evidently reachedJones's, and they are not afraid to tell me that they can read or wishto learn to do so. This poor woman's health is miserable; I never saw amore weakly sickly looking creature. She says she has been broken downever since the birth of her last child. I asked her how soon after herconfinement she went out into the field to work again. She answered veryquietly, but with a deep sigh: 'Three weeks, missis; de usual time. ' AsI was going away, a man named Martin came up, and with great vehemencebesought me to give him a prayer-book. In the evening, he came down tofetch it, and to show me that he can read. I was very much pleased tosee that they had taken my hint about nailing wooden slats across thewindows of their poor huts, to prevent the constant ingress of thepoultry. This in itself will produce an immense difference in thecleanliness and comfort of their wretched abodes. In one of the huts Ifound a broken looking-glass; it was the only piece of furniture of thesort that I had yet seen among them. The woman who owned it was, I amsorry to say, peculiarly untidy and dirty, and so were her children: sothat I felt rather inclined to scoff at the piece of civilized vanity, which I should otherwise have greeted as a promising sign. I drove home, late in the afternoon, through the sweet-smelling woods, that are beginning to hum with the voice of thousands of insects. My troopof volunteer workmen is increased to five; five lads working for my wagesafter they have done their task work; and this evening, to my no smallamazement, Driver Bran came down to join them for an hour, after workingall day at Five Pound, which certainly shows zeal and energy. Dear E----, I have been riding through the woods all the morning withJack, giving him directions about the clearings, which I have some fainthope may be allowed to continue after my departure. I went on an exploringexpedition round some distant fields, and then home through the St. Annie's woods. They have almost stripped the trees and thickets along theswamp road since I first came here. I wonder what it is for: not fuelsurely, nor to make grass land of, or otherwise cultivate the swamp. I dodeplore these pitiless clearings; and as to this once pretty road, itlooks 'forlorn, ' as a worthy Pennsylvania farmer's wife once said to me ofa pretty hill-side from which her husband had ruthlessly felled abeautiful grove of trees. I had another snake encounter in my ride this morning. Just as I hadwalked my horse through the swamp, and while contemplating ruefully itsnaked aspect, a huge black snake wriggled rapidly across the path, and Ipulled my reins tight and opened my mouth wide with horror. Thesehideous-looking creatures are, I believe, not poisonous, but they grow toa monstrous size, and have tremendous _constrictive_ power. I have heardstories that sound like the nightmare, of their fighting desperately withthose deadly creatures, rattlesnakes. I cannot conceive, if the blacksnakes are not poisonous, what chance they have against such antagonists, let their squeezing powers be what they will. How horrid it did look, _slithering_ over the road! Perhaps the swamp has been cleared on accountof its harbouring these dreadful worms. I rode home very fast, in spite of the exquisite fragrance of the wildcherry blossoms, the carpets and curtains of wild flowers, among which asort of glorified dandelion glowed conspicuously; dandelions such as Ishould think grew in the garden of Eden, if there were any at all there. Ipassed the finest magnolia that I have yet seen; it was magnificent, andI suppose had been spared for its beauty, for it grew in the very middleof a cotton field; it was as large as a fine forest tree, and its hugeglittering leaves shone like plates of metal in the sun; what a spectaclethat tree must be in blossom, and I should think its perfume must be smeltfrom one end of the plantation to the other. What a glorious creature!Which do you think ought to weigh most in the scale, the delight of such avegetable, or the disgust of the black animal I had just met a few minutesbefore? Would you take the one with the other? Neither would I. I have spent the whole afternoon at home; my 'gang' is busily at workagain. Sawney, one of them, came to join it nearly at sun-down, not havinggot through his day's task before. In watching and listening to theselads, I was constantly struck with the insolent tyranny of their demeanourtowards each other. This is almost a universal characteristic of themanner of the negroes among themselves. They are diabolically cruel toanimals too, and they seem to me as a rule hardly to know the differencebetween truth and falsehood. These detestable qualities, which Iconstantly hear attributed to them as innate and inherent in their race, appear to me the direct result of their condition. The individualexceptions among them are, I think, quite as many as would be found undersimilar circumstances, among the same number of white people. In considering the whole condition of the people on this plantation, itappears to me that the principal hardships fall to the lot of the women;that is, the principal physical hardships. The very young members of thecommunity are of course idle and neglected; the very very old, idle andneglected too; the middle-aged men do not appear to me over-worked, andlead a mere animal existence, in itself not peculiarly cruel ordistressing, but involving a constant element of fear and uncertainty, andthe trifling evils of unrequited labour, ignorance the most profound, (towhich they are condemned by law); and the unutterable injustice whichprecludes them from all the merits and all the benefits of voluntaryexertion, and the progress that results from it. If they are absolutelyunconscious of these evils, then they are not very ill-off brutes, alwaysbarring the chance of being given or sold away from their mates or theiryoung--processes which even brutes do not always relish. I am very muchstruck with the vein of melancholy, which assumes almost a poetical tonein some of the things they say. Did I tell you of that poor old decrepidcreature Dorcas, who came to beg some sugar of me the other day? saying asshe took up my watch from the table and looked at it, 'Ah? I need not lookat this, I have almost done with time!' Was not that striking from such apoor old ignorant crone? * * * * * Dear E----. This is the fourth day that I have had a 'gang' of ladsworking in the woods for me after their task hours, for pay; you cannotthink how zealous and energetic they are; I daresay the novelty of theprocess pleases them almost as much as the money they earn. I must saythey quite deserve their small wages. Last night I received a present from Mrs. F---- of a drum fish, whichanimal I had never beheld before, and which seemed to me first cousin tothe great Leviathan. It is to be eaten, and is certainly the biggest fishfood I ever saw; however, everything is in proportion, and the prawns thatcame with it are upon a similarly extensive scale; this magnificentpiscatorial bounty was accompanied by a profusion of Hamilton green peas, really a munificent supply. I went out early after breakfast with Jack hunting for new paths; we rodeall along the road by Jones's Creek, and most beautiful it was. We skirtedthe plantation burial ground, and a dismal place it looked; the cattletrampling over it in every direction--except where Mr. K---- had had anenclosure put up round the graves of two white men who had worked on theestate. They were strangers, and of course utterly indifferent to thepeople here; but by virtue of their white skins, their resting-place wasprotected from the hoofs of the cattle, while the parents and children, wives, husbands, brothers and sisters, of the poor slaves, sleepingbeside them, might see the graves of those they loved trampled upon andbrowsed over, desecrated and defiled, from morning till night. There issomething intolerably cruel in this disdainful denial of a common humanitypursuing these wretches even when they are hid beneath the earth. The day was exquisitely beautiful, and I explored a new wood path, andfound it all strewed with a lovely wild flower not much unlike a primrose. I spent the afternoon at home. I dread going out twice a-day now, onaccount of the heat and the sand flies. While I was sitting by the window, Abraham, our cook, went by with some most revolting looking 'raw material'(part I think of the interior of the monstrous drum fish of which I havetold you). I asked him with considerable disgust what he was going to dowith it, he replied, 'Oh! we coloured people eat it, missis;' said I, 'Whydo you say we coloured people?' 'Because, missis, white people won't touchwhat we too glad of. ' 'That, ' said I, 'is because you are poor, and do notoften have meat to eat, not because you are coloured, Abraham; rich whitefolks will not touch what poor white folks are too glad of; it has nothingin the world to do with colour, and if there were white people here worseoff than you (amazing and inconceivable suggestion, I fear), they would beglad to eat what you perhaps would not touch. ' Profound pause ofmeditation on the part of Abraham, wound up by a considerate 'Well, missis, I suppose so. ' After which he departed with the horrid lookingoffal. To-day--Saturday--I took another ride of discovery round the fields byJones's. I think I shall soon be able to survey this estate, I have riddenso carefully over it in every direction; but my rides are drawing to aclose and even were I to remain here this must be the case unless I got upand rode under the stars in the cool of the night. This afternoon I wasobliged to drive up to St. Annie's: I had promised the people severaltimes that I would do so. I went after dinner and as late as I could, andfound very considerable improvement in the whole condition of the place;the houses had all been swept, and some of them actually scoured. Thechildren were all quite tolerably clean; they had put slats across alltheir windows, and little chicken gates to the doors to keep out thepoultry. There was a poor woman lying in one of the cabins in a wretchedcondition. She begged for a bandage, but I do not see of what great usethat can be to her, as long as she has to hoe in the fields so many hoursa day, which I cannot prevent. Returning home, Israel undertook to pilot me across the cotton fields intothe pine land; and a more excruciating process than being dragged overthat very uneven surface in that wood wagon without springs I did neverendure, mitigated and soothed though it was by the literally fascinatingaccount my charioteer gave me of the rattlesnakes with which the place wedrove through becomes infested as the heat increases. I cannot say thathis description of them, though more demonstrative as far as regarded hisown horror of them, was really worse than that which Mr. G---- was givingme of them yesterday. He said they were very numerous, and were found inevery direction all over the plantation, but that they did not becomereally vicious until quite late in the summer; until then, it appears thatthey generally endeavour to make off if one meets them, but during theintense heats of the latter part of July and August they never think ofescaping, but at any sight or sound which they may consider inimical, theyinstantly coil themselves for a spring. The most intolerable proceeding ontheir part, however, that he described, was their getting up into thetrees, and either coiling themselves in or depending from the branches. There is something too revolting in the idea of serpents looking down uponone from the shade of the trees to which one may betake oneself forshelter in the dreadful heat of the southern midsummer; decidedly I do notthink the dog-days would be pleasant here. The mocassin snake, which isnearly as deadly as the rattlesnake, abounds all over the island. In the evening, I had a visit from Mr. C---- and Mr. B----, who officiatesto-morrow at our small island church. The conversation I had with thesegentlemen was sad enough. They seem good and kind and amiable men, and Ihave no doubt are conscientious in their capacity of slaveholders; but toone who has lived outside this dreadful atmosphere, the whole tone oftheir discourse has a morally muffled sound, which one must hear to beable to conceive. Mr. B---- told me that the people on this plantation notgoing to church was the result of a positive order from Mr. K----, who hadperemptorily forbidden their doing so, and of course to have infringedthat order would have been to incur severe corporal chastisement. BishopB----, it seems, had advised that there should be periodical preaching onthe plantations, which, said Mr. B----, would have obviated any necessityfor the people of different estates congregating at any given point atstated times, which might perhaps be objectionable, and at the same timewould meet the reproach which was now beginning to be directed towards thesouthern planters as a class, of neglecting the eternal interest of theirdependents. But Mr. K---- had equally objected to this. He seems to haveheld religious teaching a mighty dangerous thing--and how right he was! Ihave met with conventional cowardice of various shades and shapes invarious societies that I have lived in; but anything like the pervadingtimidity of tone which I find here on all subjects, but above all on thatof the condition of the slaves, I have never dreamed of. Truly slaverybegets slavery, and the perpetual state of suspicion and apprehension ofthe slaveholders is a very handsome offset, to say the least of it, against the fetters and the lash of the slaves. Poor people, one and all, but especially poor oppressors of the oppressed! The attitude of these menis really pitiable; they profess (perhaps some of them strive to do soindeed) to consult the best interests of their slaves, and yet shrink backterrified from the approach of the slightest intellectual or moralimprovement which might modify their degraded and miserable existence. Ido pity these deplorable servants of two masters more than any humanbeings I have ever seen--more than their own slaves a thousand times! To-day is Sunday, and I have been to the little church on the island. Itis the second time since I came down to the south that I have been to aplace of worship. A curious little incident prefaced my going thither thismorning. I had desired Israel to get my horse ready and himself toaccompany me, as I meant to ride to church; and you cannot imagineanything droller than his horror and dismay when he at length comprehendedthat my purpose was to attend divine service in my riding habit. I askedhim what was the trouble, for though I saw something was creating adreadful convulsion in his mind, I had no idea what it was till he toldme, adding, that he had never seen such a thing on St. Simon's in hislife--as who should say, such a thing was never seen in Hyde Park or theTuileries before. You may imagine my amusement, but presently I wasdestined to shock something much more serious than poor Israel's sense of_les convénances et bienséances_, and it was not without something of aneffort that I made up my mind to do so. I was standing at the open windowspeaking to him about the horses, and telling him to get ready to ridewith me, when George, another of the men, went by with a shade or visor tohis cap exactly the shape of the one I left behind at the north, and forwant of which I have been suffering severely from the intense heat andglare of the sun for the last week. I asked him to hand me his cap, saying, 'I want to take the pattern of that shade. ' Israel exclaimed, 'Ohmissis, not to-day; let him leave the cap with you to-morrow, but don'tcut pattern on de Sabbath day!' It seemed to me a much more serious matterto offend this scruple than the prejudice with regard to praying in ariding habit; still it had to be done. 'Do you think it wrong, Israel, 'said I, 'to work on Sunday?' 'Yes, missis, parson tell we so. ' 'Then, Israel, be sure you never do it. Did your parson never tell you that yourconscience was for yourself and not for your neighbours, Israel?' 'Oh yes, missis, he tell we that too. ' 'Then mind that too, Israel. ' The shade wascut out and stitched upon my cap, and protected my eyes from the fierceglare of the sun and sand as I rode to church. On our way, we came to a field where the young corn was coming up. Thechildren were in the field--little living scarecrows--watching it, ofcourse, as on a weekday, to keep off the birds. I made Israel observethis, who replied, 'Oh missis, if de people's corn left one whole day notwatched, not one blade of it remain to-morrow; it must be watched, missis. ' 'What, on the Sabbath day, Israel?' 'Yes, missis, or else we loseit all. ' I was not sorry to avail myself of this illustration of thenature of works of necessity, and proceeded to enlighten Israel withregard to what I conceive to be the genuine observance of the Sabbath. You cannot imagine anything wilder or more beautiful than the situation ofthe little rustic temple in the woods where I went to worship to-day, withthe magnificent live oaks standing round it and its picturesque burialground. The disgracefully neglected state of the latter, its broken andruinous enclosure, and its shaggy weed-grown graves, tell a strange storyof the residents of this island, who are content to leave theresting-place of their dead in so shocking a condition. In the tiny littlechamber of a church, the grand old litany of the Episcopal Church ofEngland was not a little shorn of its ceremonial stateliness; clerk therewas none, nor choir, nor organ, and the clergyman did duty for all, givingout the hymn and then singing it himself, followed as best might be by theuncertain voices of his very small congregation, the smallest I think Iever saw gathered in a Christian place of worship, even counting a few ofthe negroes who had ventured to place themselves standing at the back ofthe church--an infringement on their part upon the privileges of theirbetters--as Mr. B---- generally preaches a second sermon to them after the_white_ service, to which as a rule they are not admitted. On leaving the church, I could not but smile at the quaint and originalcostumes with which Israel had so much dreaded a comparison for myirreproachable London riding habit. However, the strangeness of it waswhat inspired him with terror; but, at that rate, I am afraid a Paris gownand bonnet might have been in equal danger of shocking his prejudices. There was quite as little affinity with the one as the other in thecurious specimens of the 'art of dressing' that gradually distributedthemselves among the two or three indescribable machines (to use theappropriate Scotch title) drawn up under the beautiful oak trees, on whichthey departed in various directions to the several plantations on theisland. I mounted my horse, and resumed my ride and my conversation with Israel. He told me that Mr. K----'s great objection to the people going to churchwas their meeting with the slaves from the other plantations; and onereason, he added, that he did not wish them to do that was, that theytrafficked and bartered away the cooper's wares, tubs, piggins, &c. , madeon the estate. I think, however, from everything I hear of that gentleman, that the mere fact of the Hampton people coming in contact with the slavesof other plantations would be a thing he would have deprecated. As asevere disciplinarian, he was probably right. In the course of our talk, a reference I made to the Bible, and Israel'sanswer that he could not read, made me ask him why his father had nevertaught any of his sons to read; old Jacob, I know, can read. What followedI shall never forget. He began by giving all sorts of childish unmeaningexcuses and reasons for never having tried to learn--became confused andquite incoherent, --and then, suddenly stopping, and pulling up his horse, said, with a look and manner that went to my very heart; 'Missis, what forme learn to read? me have no prospect!' I rode on without venturing tospeak to him again for a little while. When I had recovered from thatremark of his, I explained to him that, though indeed 'without prospect'in some respects, yet reading might avail him much to better hiscondition, moral, mental, and physical. He listened very attentively, andwas silent for a minute; after which he said:--'All you say very true, missis, and me sorry now me let de time pass; but you know what de whiteman dat goberns de estate him seem to like and favour, dat de people findout bery soon and do it; now, Massa K----, him neber favour our reading, him not like it; likely as not he lick you if he find you reading, or ifyou wish to teach your children, him always say, "Pooh, teach 'em toread--teach 'em to work. " According to dat, we neber paid much attentionto it, but now it will be different; it was different in former times. Deold folks of my father and mother's time could read more than we can, andI expect de people will dare to give some thought to it again now. 'There's a precious sample of what one man's influence may do in his ownsphere, dear E----! This man Israel is a remarkably fine fellow in everyway, with a frank, open, and most intelligent countenance, which risesbefore me with its look of quiet sadness whenever I think of those words(and they haunt me), 'I have no prospect. ' On my arrival at home, I found that a number of the people, not knowing Ihad gone to church, had come up to the house, hoping that I would readprayers to them, and had not gone back to their homes, but waited to seeme. I could not bear to disappoint them, for many of them had come fromthe farthest settlements on the estate; and so, though my hot ride hadtired me a good deal, and my talk with Israel troubled me profoundly, Itook off my habit, and had them all in, and read the afternoon service tothem. When it was over, two of the women--Venus and Trussa--asked if theymight be permitted to go to the nursery and see the children. Theiraccount of the former condition of the estate was a corroboration ofIsrael's. They said that the older slaves on the plantation had been farbetter off than the younger ones of the present day; that Major ---- wasconsiderate and humane to his people; and that the women were especiallycarefully treated. But they said Mr. K---- had ruined all the young womenwith working them too soon after their confinements; and as for the elderones, he would kick them, curse them, turn their clothes over their heads, flog them unmercifully himself, and abuse them shamefully, no matter whatcondition they were in. They both ended with fervent thanks to God that hehad left the estate, and rejoicing that we had come, and, above all, thatwe 'had made young missis for them. ' Venus went down on her knees, exclaiming, 'Oh, missis, I glad now; and when I am dead, I glad in mygrave that you come to us and bring us little missis. ' * * * * * Dear E----. I still go on exploring, or rather surveying, the estate, theaspect of which is changing every day with the unfolding of the leaves andthe wonderful profusion of wild flowers. The cleared ground all round thenew building is one sheet of blooming blue of various tints; it isperfectly exquisite. But in the midst of my delight at these new blossoms, I am most sorrowfully bidding adieu to that paragon of parasites, theyellow jasmine; I think I must have gathered the very last blossoms of itto-day. Nothing can be more lovely, nothing so exquisitely fragrant. I wassurprised to recognise by their foliage, to-day, some fine mulberrytrees, by Jones's Creek; perhaps they are the remains of the silk-wormexperiment that Mr. C---- persuaded Major ---- to try so ineffectually. While I was looking at some wild plum and cherry trees that were alreadyswarming with blight in the shape of multitudinous caterpillars' nests, aningenuous darkie, by name Cudgie, asked me if I could explain to him whythe trees blossomed out so fair, and then all 'went off into a kind ofdying. ' Having directed his vision and attention to the horrid whiteglistening webs, all lined with their brood of black devourers, I left himto draw his own conclusions. The afternoon was rainy, in spite of which I drove to Busson Hill, and hada talk with Bran about the vile caterpillar blights on the wild plumtrees, and asked him if it would not be possible to get some sweet graftsfrom Mr. C---- for some of the wild fruit trees, of which there are suchquantities. Perhaps, however, they are not worth grafting. Bran promisedme that the people should not be allowed to encumber the paths and thefront of their houses with unsightly and untidy heaps of oyster shells. Hepromised all sorts of things. I wonder how soon after I am gone they willall return into the condition of brutal filth and disorder in which Ifound them. The men and women had done their work here by half-past three. The chieflabour in the cotton fields, however, is both earlier and later in theseason. At present they have little to do but let the crop grow. In theevening I had a visit from the son of a very remarkable man, who had beenone of the chief drivers on the estate in Major ----'s time, and his sonbrought me a silver cup which Major ---- had given his father as atestimonial of approbation, with an inscription on it recording hisfidelity and trustworthiness at the time of the invasion of the coast ofGeorgia by the English troops. Was not that a curious reward for a slavewho was supposed not to be able to read his own praises? And yet, from thehonourable pride with which his son regarded this relic, I am sure themaster did well so to reward his servant, though it seemed hard that theson of such a man should be a slave. Maurice himself came with hisfather's precious silver cup in his hand, to beg for a small pittance ofsugar, and for a prayer-book, and also to know if the privilege of a milchcow for the support of his family, which was among the favours Major ----allowed his father, might not be continued to him. He told me he had tenchildren 'working for massa, ' and I promised to mention his petition toMr. ----. On Sunday last, I rode round the woods near St. Annie's and met with amonstrous snake, which Jack called a chicken snake; but whether because itparticularly affected poultry as its diet, or for what other reason, hecould not tell me. Nearer home, I encountered another gliding creature, that stopped a moment just in front of my horse's feet, as if it was toomuch afraid of being trampled upon to get out of the way; it was the onlysnake animal I ever saw that I did not think hideous. It was of aperfectly pure apple green colour, with a delicate line of black like acollar round its throat; it really was an exquisite worm, and Jack said itwas harmless. I did not, however, think it expedient to bring it home inmy bosom, though if ever I have a pet snake, it shall be such an one. In the afternoon, I drove to Jones's with several supplies of flannel forthe rheumatic women and old men. We have ridden over to Hamilton again, topay another visit to the F----s, and on our way passed an enormousrattlesnake, hanging dead on the bough of a tree. Dead as it was, itturned me perfectly sick with horror, and I wished very much to come backto the north immediately, where these are not the sort of blackberriesthat grow on every bush. The evening air now, after the heat of the day, is exquisitely mild, and the nights dry and wholesome, the wholeatmosphere indescribably fragrant with the perfume of flowers; and as Istood, before going to bed last night, watching the slow revolving lighton Sapelo Island, that warns the ships from the dangerous bar at theriver's mouth, and heard the measured pulse of the great Atlantic waterson the beach, I thought no more of rattlesnakes--no more, for one shortwhile, of slavery. How still, and sweet, and solemn, it was! We have been paying more friendly and neighbourly visits, or ratherreturning them; and the recipients of these civilised courtesies on ourlast calling expedition were the family one member of which was a partyconcerned in that barbarous challenge I wrote you word about. Hithertothat very brutal and bloodthirsty cartel appears to have had no result. You must not on that account imagine that it will have none. At the north, were it possible for a duel intended to be conducted on such savage termsto be matter of notoriety, the very horror of the thing would create afeeling of grotesqueness, and the antagonists in such a proposed encounterwould simply incur an immense amount of ridicule and obloquy. But herenobody is astonished and nobody ashamed of such preliminaries to a mortalcombat between two gentlemen, who propose firing at marks over eachother's hearts, and cutting off each other's heads; and though thisagreeable party of pleasure has not come off yet, there seems to be noreason why it should not at the first convenient season. Reflecting uponall which, I rode not without trepidation through Colonel H----'s grounds, and up to his house. Mr. W----'s head was not stuck upon a pole anywherewithin sight, however, and as soon as I became pretty sure of this, Ibegan to look about me, and saw instead a trellis tapestried with the mostbeautiful roses I ever beheld, another of these exquisite southernflowers--the Cherokee rose. The blossom is very large, composed of fouror five pure white petals, as white and as large as those of the finestCamellia with a bright golden eye for a focus; the buds and leaves arelong and elegantly slender, like those of some tea roses, and the green ofthe foliage is dark and at the same time vivid and lustrous; it grew inmasses so as to form almost a hedge, all starred with these wonderfulwhite blossoms, which, unfortunately, have no perfume. We rode home through the pine land to Jones's, looked at the new housewhich is coming on hideously, saw two beautiful kinds of trumpethoneysuckle already lighting up the woods in every direction with gleamsof scarlet, and when we reached home found a splendid donation ofvegetables, flowers, and mutton from our kind neighbour Mrs. F----, who isa perfect Lady Bountiful to us. This same mutton, however--my heart bleedsto say it--disappeared the day after it was sent to us. Abraham the cookdeclares that he locked the door of the safe upon it, which I think may betrue, but I also think he unlocked it again. I am sorry; but, after all, it is very natural these people should steal a little of our meat from usoccasionally, who steal almost all their bread from them habitually. I rode yesterday to St. Annie's with Mr. ----. We found a whole tract ofmarsh had been set on fire by the facetious negro called Pun, who hadhelped me out of it some time ago. As he was set to work in it, perhaps itwas with a view of making it less damp; at any rate, it was crackling, blazing, and smoking cheerily, and I should think would be insupportablefor the snakes. While stopping to look at the conflagration, Mr. ---- wasaccosted by a three parts naked and one part tattered little sheslave--black as ebony, where her skin was discoverable through its perfectincrustation of dirt--with a thick mat of frizzly wool upon her skull, which made the sole request she preferred to him irresistiblyludicrous:--'Massa, massa, you please to buy me a comb to tick in myhead?' Mr. ---- promised her this necessary of life, and I promised myselfto give her the luxury of one whole garment. Mrs. ---- has sent me thebest possible consolation for the lost mutton, some lovely flowers, andthese will not be stolen. * * * * * _Saturday, the 13th. _--Dear E----, I rode to-day through all my woodpathsfor the last time with Jack, and I think I should have felt quitemelancholy at taking leave of them and him, but for the apparition of alarge black snake, which filled me with disgust and nipped my othersentiments in the bud. Not a day passes now that I do not encounter one ormore of these hateful reptiles; it is curious how much more odious theyare to me than the alligators that haunt the mud banks of the river roundthe rice plantation. It is true that there is something very dreadful inthe thick shapeless mass, uniform in colour almost to the black slime onwhich it lies basking, and which you hardly detect till it begins tomove. But even those ungainly crocodiles never sickened me as those rapid, lithe, and sinuous serpents do. Did I ever tell you that the people at therice plantation caught a young alligator and brought it to the house, andit was kept for some time in a tub of water? It was an ill-tempered littlemonster; it used to set up its back like a cat when it was angry, and openits long jaws in a most vicious manner. After looking at my new path in the pine land, I crossed Pike Bluff, andbreaking my way all through the burnt district, returned home by Jones's. In the afternoon, we paid a long visit to Mr. C----. It is extremelyinteresting to me to talk with him about the negroes; he has spent so muchof his life among them, has managed them so humanely, and apparently sosuccessfully, that his experience is worthy of all attention. And yet itseems to me that it is impossible, or rather, perhaps, for those veryreasons it is impossible, for him ever to contemplate them in anycondition but that of slavery. He thinks them very like the Irish, andinstanced their subserviency, their flattering, their lying, andpilfering, as traits common to the character of both peoples. But I cannotpersuade myself that in both cases, and certainly in that of the negroes, these qualities are not in great measure the result of their condition. Hesays that he considers the extremely low diet of the negroes one reasonfor the absence of crimes of a savage nature among them; most of them donot touch meat the year round. But in this respect they certainly do notresemble the Irish, who contrive upon about as low a national diet ascivilisation is acquainted with, to commit the bloodiest and most frequentoutrages with which civilisation has to deal. His statement that it isimpossible to bribe the negroes to work on their own account with anysteadiness may be generally true, but admits of quite exceptions enough tothrow doubt upon its being natural supineness in the race rather than theinevitable consequence of denying them the entire right to labour fortheir own profit. Their laziness seems to me the necessary result of theirprimary wants being supplied, and all progress denied them. Of course, ifthe natural spur to exertion, necessity, is removed, you do away with thewill to work of a vast proportion of all who do work in the world. It isthe law of progress that a man's necessities grow with his exertions tosatisfy them, and labour and improvement thus continually act and reactupon each other to raise the scale of desire and achievement; and I do notbelieve that, in the majority of instances among any people on the face ofthe earth, the will to labour for small indulgences would survive the lossof freedom and the security of food enough to exist upon. Mr. ---- saidthat he had offered a bribe of twenty dollars apiece, and the use of apair of oxen, for the clearing of a certain piece of land, to the men onhis estate, and found the offer quite ineffectual to procure the desiredresult; the land was subsequently cleared as usual task work under thelash. Now, certainly, we have among Mr. ----'s people instances of men whohave made very considerable sums of money by boat-building in theirleisure hours, and the instances of almost life-long persevering stringentlabour by which slaves have at length purchased their own freedom and thatof their wives and children, are on record in numbers sufficient to provethat they are capable of severe sustained effort of the most patient andheroic kind for that great object, liberty. For my own part, I know nopeople who doat upon labour for its own sake; and it seems to me quitenatural to any absolutely ignorant and nearly brutish man, if you say tohim, 'No effort of your own can make you free, but no absence of effortshall starve you, ' to decline to work for anything less than mastery overhis whole life, and to take up with his mess of porridge as thealternative. One thing that Mr. ---- said seemed to me to prove rather toomuch. He declared that his son, objecting to the folks on his plantationgoing about bare-headed, had at one time offered a reward of a dollar tothose who should habitually wear hats without being able to induce them todo so, which he attributed to sheer careless indolence; but I think it wasmerely the force of the habit of going uncovered rather than absolutelaziness. The universal testimony of all present at this conversation wasin favour of the sweetness of temper and natural gentleness ofdisposition of the negroes; but these characteristics they seemed to thinkless inherent than the result of diet and the other lowering influences oftheir condition; and it must not be forgotten that on the estate of thiswise and kind master a formidable conspiracy was organised among hisslaves. We rowed home through a world of stars, the stedfast ones set in the stillblue sky, and the flashing swathes of phosphoric light turned up by ouroars and keel in the smooth blue water. It was lovely. * * * * * _Sunday, 14th. _--My dear E----. That horrid tragedy with which we havebeen threatened, and of which I was writing to you almost jestingly a fewdays ago, has been accomplished, and apparently without exciting anythingbut the most passing and superficial sensation in this community. The duelbetween Dr. H---- and Mr. W---- did not take place, but an accidentalencounter in the hotel at Brunswick did, and the former shot the latterdead on the spot. He has been brought home and buried here by the littlechurch close to his mother's plantation; and the murderer, if he is evenprosecuted, runs no risk of finding a jury in the whole length and breadthof Georgia who could convict him of anything. It is horrible. I drove to church to-day in the wood wagon, with Jack and Aleck, Hectorbeing our charioteer, in a gilt guard-chain and pair of slippers to matchas the Sabbatic part of his attire. The love of dirty finery is not atrait of the Irish in Ireland, but I think it crops out strongly when theycome out here; and the proportion of their high wages put upon their backsby the young Irish maid-servants in the north, indicates a strongaddiction to the female passion for dress. Here the tendency seems toexist in men and women alike; but I think all savage men rejoice, evenmore than their women, in personal ornamentation. The negroes certainlyshow the same strong predilection for finery with their womenkind. I stopped before going into church to look at the new grave that has takenits place among the defaced stones, all overgrown with briers, that lieround it. Poor young W----! poor widowed mother, of whom he was the onlyson! What a savage horror! And no one seems to think anything of it, morethan of a matter of course. My devotions were anything but satisfactory orrefreshing to me. My mind was dwelling incessantly upon the new graveunder the great oaks outside, and the miserable mother in her home. Theair of the church was perfectly thick with sand-flies; and the disgracefulcarelessness of the congregation in responding and singing the hymns, andtheir entire neglect of the prayer-book regulations for kneeling, disturbed and displeased me even more than the last time I was at church;but I think that was because of the total absence of excitement orfeeling among the whole population of St. Simon's upon the subject of thebloody outrage with which my mind was full, which has given me a sensationof horror towards the whole community. Just imagine--only it is impossibleto imagine--such a thing taking place in a New England village; thedismay, the grief, the shame, the indignation, that would fill the heartsof the whole population. I thought we should surely have some reference tothe event from the pulpit, some lesson of Christian command over furiouspassions. Nothing--nobody looked or spoke as if anything unusual hadoccurred; and I left the church, rejoicing to think that I was going awayfrom such a dreadful state of society. Mr. B---- remained to preach asecond sermon to the negroes--the duty of submission to masters whointermurder each other. I had service at home in the afternoon, and my congregation was much morecrowded than usual; for I believe there is no doubt at last that we shallleave Georgia this week. Having given way so much before when I thought Iwas praying with these poor people for the last time, I suppose I had, soto speak, expended my emotion; and I was much more composed and quiet thanwhen I took leave of them before. But, to tell you the truth, thisdreadful act of slaughter done in our neighbourhood by one man of ouracquaintance upon another, impresses me to such a degree that I can hardlyturn my mind from it, and Mrs. W---- and her poor young murdered son havetaken almost complete possession of my thoughts. After prayers I gave my poor people a parting admonition, and many chargesto remember me and all I had tried to teach them during my stay. Theypromised with one voice to mind and do all that 'missis tell we;' and withmany a parting benediction, and entreaties to me to return, they wenttheir way. I think I have done what I could for them--I think I have doneas well as I could by them; but when the time comes for ending any humanrelation, who can be without their misgivings? who can be bold to say, Icould have done no more, I could have done no better? In the afternoon I walked out, and passed many of the people, who are nowbeginning, whenever they see me, to say, 'Good bye, missis!' which israther trying. Many of them were clean and tidy, and decent in theirappearance to a degree that certainly bore strong witness to the temporaryefficacy of my influence in this respect. There is, however, of coursemuch individual difference even with reference to this, and some take muchmore kindly and readily to cleanliness, no doubt to godliness too, thansome others. I met Abraham, and thought that, in a quiet tête-à-tête, andwith the pathetic consideration of my near departure to assist me, I couldget him to confess the truth about the disappearance of the mutton; but hepersisted in the legend of its departure through the locked door; and asI was only heaping sins on his soul with every lie I caused him to add tothe previous ones, I desisted from my enquiries. Dirt and lying are thenatural tendencies of humanity, which are especially fostered by slavery. Slaves may be infinitely wrong, and yet it is very hard to blame them. I returned home, finding the heat quite oppressive. Late in the evening, when the sun had gone down a long time, I thought I would try and breathethe fresh sea air, but the atmosphere was thick with sand-flies, whichdrove me in at last from standing listening to the roar of the Atlantic onLittle St. Simon's Island, the wooded belt that fends off the ocean surgesfrom the north side of Great St. Simon's. It is a wild little sand-heap, covered with thick forest growth, and belongs to Mr. ----. I have long hada great desire to visit it. I hope yet to be able to do so before ourdeparture. I have just finished reading, with the utmost interest and admiration, J---- C----'s narrative of his escape from the wreck of the Poolaski: whata brave, and gallant, and unselfish soul he must be! You never readanything more thrilling, in spite of the perfect modesty of this accountof his. If I can obtain his permission, and squeeze out the time, I willsurely copy it for you. The quiet unassuming character of his usualmanners and deportment adds greatly to his prestige as a hero. What a finething it must be to be such a man! * * * * * Dear E----. We shall leave this place next Thursday or Friday, and therewill be an end to this record; meantime I am fulfilling all sorts of lastduties, and especially those of taking leave of my neighbours, by whom theneglect of a farewell visit would be taken much amiss. On Sunday, I rode to a place called Frederica to call on a Mrs. A----, whocame to see me some time ago. I rode straight through the island by themain road that leads to the little church. How can I describe to you the exquisite spring beauty that is now adorningthese woods, the variety of the fresh new-born foliage, the fragrance ofthe sweet wild perfumes that fill the air? Honeysuckles twine round everytree; the ground is covered with a low white-blossomed shrub more fragrantthan lilies of the valley. The accacuas are swinging their silver censersunder the green roof of these wood temples; every stump is like aclassical altar to the sylvan gods, garlanded with flowers; every post, orstick, or slight stem, like a Bacchante's thyrsus, twined with wreaths ofivy and wild vine, waving in the tepid wind. Beautiful butterflies flickerlike flying flowers among the bushes, and gorgeous birds, like wingedjewels, dart from the boughs, --and--and--a huge ground snake slid like adark ribbon, across the path while I was stopping to enjoy all thisdeliciousness, and so I became less enthusiastic, and cantered on pastthe little deserted churchyard, with the new-made grave beneath its groveof noble oaks, and a little farther on reached Mrs. A----'s cottage, halfhidden in the midst of ruins and roses. This Frederica is a very strange place; it was once a town, _the_ town, the metropolis of the island. The English, when they landed on the coastof Georgia in the war, destroyed this tiny place, and it has never beenbuilt up again. Mrs. A----'s, and one other house, are the only dwellingsthat remain in this curious wilderness of dismantled crumbling grey wallscompassionately cloaked with a thousand profuse and graceful creepers. These are the only ruins properly so called, except those of Fort Putnam, that I have ever seen in this land of contemptuous youth. I hailed thesepicturesque groups and masses with the feelings of a European, to whomruins are like a sort of relations. In my country, ruins are like a minorchord in music, here they are like a discord; they are not the relics oftime, but the results of violence; they recall no valuable memories of aremote past, and are mere encumbrances to the busy present. Evidently theyare out of place in America, except on St. Simon's Island, between thissavage selvage of civilisation and the great Atlantic deep. These heaps ofrubbish and roses would have made the fortune of a sketcher; but I imaginethe snakes have it all to themselves here, and are undisturbed by campstools, white umbrellas, and ejaculatory young ladies. I sat for a long time with Mrs. A----, and a friend of hers staying withher, a Mrs. A----, lately from Florida. The latter seemed to me aremarkable woman; her conversation was extremely interesting. She had beenstopping at Brunswick, at the hotel where Dr. H---- murdered young W----, and said that the mingled ferocity and blackguardism of the men whofrequented the house had induced her to cut short her stay there, and comeon to her friend Mrs. A----'s. We spoke of that terrible crime which hadoccurred only the day after she left Brunswick, and both ladies agreedthat there was not the slightest chance of Dr. H----'s being punished inany way for the murder he had committed; that shooting down a man who hadoffended you was part of the morals and manners of the southern gentry, and that the circumstance was one of quite too frequent occurrence tocause any sensation, even in the small community where it obliterated oneof the principal members of the society. If the accounts given by theseladies of the character of the planters in this part of the south may bebelieved, they must be as idle, arrogant, ignorant, dissolute, andferocious as that mediaeval chivalry to which they are fond of comparingthemselves; and these are southern women, and should know the people amongwhom they live. We had a long discussion on the subject of slavery, and they took asusual the old ground of justifying the system, _where_ it was administeredwith kindness and indulgence. It is not surprising that women shouldregard the question from this point of view; they are very seldom _just_, and are generally treated with more indulgence than justice by men. Theywere very patient of my strong expressions of reprobation of the wholesystem, and Mrs. A----, bidding me good-bye, said that, for aught shecould tell, I might be right, and might have been led down here byProvidence to be the means of some great change in the condition of thepoor coloured people. I rode home pondering on the strange fate that has brought me to thisplace so far from where I was born, this existence so different in all itselements from that of my early years and former associations. If Ibelieved Mrs. A----'s parting words, I might perhaps verify them; perhapsI may yet verify although I do not believe them. On my return home, Ifound a most enchanting bundle of flowers, sent to me by Mrs. G----;pomegranate blossoms, roses, honeysuckle, everything that blooms twomonths later with us in Pennsylvania. I told you I had a great desire to visit Little St. Simon's, and the daybefore yesterday I determined to make an exploring expedition thither. Itook M---- and the children, little imagining what manner of day's workwas before me. Six men rowed us in the 'Lily, ' and Israel brought the woodwagon after us in a flat. Our navigation was a very intricate one, allthrough sea swamps and marshes, mud-banks and sand-banks, with great whiteshells and bleaching bones stuck upon sticks to mark the channel. Welanded on this forest in the sea by Quash's house, the only humanresidence on the island. It was larger and better, and more substantialthan the negro huts in general, and he seemed proud and pleased to do thehonours to us. Thence we set off, by my desire, in the wagon through thewoods to the beach; road there was none, save the rough clearing that themen cut with their axes before us as we went slowly on. Presently, we cameto a deep dry ditch, over which there was no visible means of proceeding. Israel told me if we would sit still he would undertake to drive the wagoninto and out of it; and so, indeed, he did, but how he did it is more thanI can explain to you now, or could explain to myself then. A less powerfulcreature than Montreal could never have dragged us through; and when wepresently came to a second rather worse edition of the same, I insistedupon getting out and crossing it on foot. I walked half a mile while thewagon was dragged up and down the deep gulley, and lifted bodily over somehuge trunks of fallen trees. The wood through which we now drove was allon fire, smoking, flaming, crackling, and burning round us. The sun glaredupon us from the cloudless sky, and the air was one cloud of sand-fliesand mosquitoes. I covered both my children's faces with veils andhandkerchiefs, and repented not a little in my own breast of the rashnessof my undertaking. The back of Israel's coat was covered so thick withmosquitoes that one could hardly see the cloth; and I felt as if we shouldbe stifled, if our way lay much longer through this terrible wood. Presently we came to another impassable place, and again got out of thewagon, leaving Israel to manage it as best he could. I walked with thebaby in my arms a quarter of a mile, and then was so overcome with theheat that I sat down in the burning wood, on the floor of ashes, till thewagon came up again. I put the children and M---- into it, and continuedto walk till we came to a ditch in a tract of salt marsh, over whichIsrael drove triumphantly, and I partly jumped and was partly hauled over, having declined the entreaties of several of the men to let them lie downand make a bridge with their bodies for me to walk over. At length wereached the skirt of that tremendous wood, to my unspeakable relief, andcame upon the white sand hillocks of the beach. The trees were allstrained crooked, from the constant influence of the sea-blast. The coastwas a fearful-looking stretch of dismal, trackless sand, and the ocean layboundless and awful beyond the wild and desolate beach, from which we werenow only divided by a patch of low coarse-looking bush, growing as thickand tangled as heather, and so stiff and compact that it was hardlypossible to drive through it. Yet in spite of this several lads who hadjoined our train rushed off into it in search of rabbits, though Israelcalled repeatedly to them, warning them of the danger of rattlesnakes. Wedrove at last down to the smooth sea sand; and here, outstripping ourguides, was barred farther progress by a deep gully, down which it wasimpossible to take the wagon. Israel, not knowing the beach well, wasafraid to drive round the mouth of it; and so it was determined that fromthis point we should walk home under his guidance. I sat in the wagonwhile he constructed a rough foot-bridge of bits of wood and broken planksfor us, over the narrow chasm, and he then took Montreal out of the wagonand tied him behind it, leaving him for the other men to take charge ofwhen they should arrive at this point. And so, having mightily desired tosee the coast of Little St. Simon's Island, I did see it thoroughly; for Iwalked a mile and a half round it, over beds of sharp shells, throughswamps half knee deep, poor little S---- stumping along with doggedheroism, and Israel carrying the baby, except at one deep _mal passo_, when I took the baby and he carried S----; and so, through the wood roundQuash's house, where we arrived almost fainting with fatigue and heat, andwhere we rested but a short time; for we had to start almost immediatelyto save the tide home. I called at Mr. C----'s on my way back, to return him his son'smanuscript, which I had in the boat for that purpose. I sent Jack, whohad come to meet me with the horses, home, being too tired to attemptriding; and, covered with mud literally up to my knees I was obliged tolie down ignominiously all the afternoon to rest. And now I will give youa curious illustration of the utter subserviency of slaves. It seems thatby taking the tide in proper season, and going by boat, all that horriblewood journey might have been avoided, and we could have reached the beach, with perfect ease in half the time; but because, being of courseabsolutely ignorant of this, I had expressed a desire to go through thewood, not a syllable of remonstrance was uttered by any one; and the mennot only underwent the labour of cutting a path for the wagon and draggingit through and over all the impediments we encountered, but allowed me andthe children to traverse that burning wood, rather than tell me that bywaiting and taking another way I could get to the sea. When I expressed myastonishment at their not having remonstrated against my order, andexplained how I could best achieve the purpose I had in view, the soleanswer I got even from Israel was, 'Missis say so, so me do; missis say mego through the wood, me no tell missis go another way. ' You see, my dearE----, one had need bethink oneself what orders one gives, when one hasthe misfortune to be despotic. How sorry I am that I have been obliged to return that narrative of Mr. C----'s without asking permission to copy it, which I did not do becauseI should not have been able to find the time to do it! We go away the dayafter to-morrow. All the main incidents of the disaster the newspapershave made you familiar with--the sudden and appalling loss of that finevessel laden with the very flower of the south. There seems hardly to be afamily in Georgia and South Carolina that had not some of its members onboard that ill-fated ship. You know it was a sort of party of pleasuremore than anything else; the usual annual trip to the north for change ofair and scene, for the gaieties of Newport and Saratoga, that all thewealthy southern people invariably take every summer. The weather had been calm and lovely; and dancing, talking, and laughing, as if they were in their own drawing-rooms, they had passed the time awaytill they all separated for the night. At the first sound of the explodingboiler, Mr. C---- jumped up, and in his shirt and trousers ran on deck. The scene was one of horrible confusion; women screaming, men swearing, the deck strewn with broken fragments of all descriptions, the vesselleaning frightfully to one side, and everybody running hither and thitherin the darkness in horror and dismay. He had left Georgia with Mrs. F----and Mrs. N----, the two children, and one of the female servants of theseladies under his charge. He went immediately to the door of the ladies'cabin and called Mrs. F----; they were all there half-dressed; he badethem dress as quickly as possible and be ready to follow and obey him. Hereturned almost instantly, and led them to the side of the vessel, where, into the boats, that had already been lowered, desperate men and womenwere beginning to swarm, throwing themselves out of the sinking ship. Hebade Mrs. F---- jump down into one of these boats which was only in thepossession of two sailors; she instantly obeyed him, and he threw herlittle boy to the men after her. He then ordered Mrs. N----, with thenegro woman, to throw themselves off the vessel into the boat, and, withMrs. N----'s baby in his arms, sprang after them. His foot touched thegunwale of the boat, and he fell into the water; but recovering himselfinstantly, he clambered into the boat, which he then peremptorily orderedthe men to set adrift, in spite of the shrieks, and cries, and commands, and entreaties of the frantic crowds who were endeavouring to get into it. The men obeyed him, and rowing while he steered, they presently fellastern of the ship, in the midst of the darkness and tumult and terror. Another boat laden with people was near them. For some time they saw theheartrending spectacle of the sinking vessel, and the sea strewn withmattresses, seats, planks, &c, to which people were clinging, floating, and shrieking for succour, in the dark water all round them. But theygradually pulled further and further out of the horrible chaos of despair, and, with the other boat still consorting with them, rowed on. Theywatched from a distance the piteous sight of the ill-fated steamersettling down, the gay girdle of light that marked the line of herbeautiful saloons and cabins gradually sinking nearer and nearer to theblackness, in which they were presently extinguished; and the ship, withall its precious human freight engulfed--all but the handful left in thosetwo open boats, to brave the dangers of that terrible coast! They were somewhere off the North Carolina shore, which, when the daylightdawned, they could distinctly see, with its ominous line of breakers andinhospitable perilous coast. The men had continued rowing all night, andas the summer sun rose flaming over their heads, the task of pulling theboat became dreadfully severe; still they followed the coast, Mr. C----looking out for any opening, creek, or small inlet, that might give them achance of landing in safety. The other boat rowed on at some littledistance from them. All the morning, and through the tremendous heat of the middle day, theytoiled on without a mouthful of food--without a drop of water. At length, towards the afternoon, the men at the oars said they were utterlyexhausted and could row no longer, and that Mr. C---- must steer the boatashore. With wonderful power of command, he prevailed on them to continuetheir afflicting labour. The terrible blazing sun pouring on all theirunsheltered heads had almost annihilated them; but still there laybetween them and the land those fearful foaming ridges, and the women andchildren, if not the men themselves, seemed doomed to inevitable death inthe attempt to surmount them. Suddenly they perceived that the boat thathad kept them company was about to adventure itself in the perilousexperiment of landing. Mr. C---- kept his boat's head steady, the menrested on their oars, and watched the result of the fearful risk they werethemselves about to run. They saw the boat enter the breakers--they sawher whirled round and capsized, and then they watched, slowly emerging anddragging themselves out of the foaming sea, _some_, and only some, of thepeople that they knew the boat contained. Mr. C----, fortified with thisterrible illustration of the peril that awaited them, again besought themto row yet for a little while further along the coast, in search of somepossible place to take the boat safely to the beach, promising at sunsetto give up the search; and again the poor men resumed their toil, but theline of leaping breakers stretched along the coast as far as eye couldsee, and at length the men declared they could labour no longer, andinsisted that Mr. C---- should steer them to shore. He then said that hewould do so, but they must take some rest before encountering the perilwhich awaited them, and for which they might require whatever remainingstrength they could command. He made the men leave the oars and lie downto sleep for a short time, and then, giving the helm to one of them, didthe same himself. When they were thus a little refreshed with this shortrest, he prepared to take the boat into the breakers. He laid Mrs. N----'s baby on her breast, and wrapped a shawl round andround her body so as to secure the child to it, and said, in the event ofthe boat capsizing, he would endeavour to save her and her child. Mrs. F---- and her boy he gave in charge to one of the sailors, and thecoloured woman who was with her to the other; and they promised solemnly, in case of misadventure to the boat, to do their best to save thesehelpless creatures; and so they turned, as the sun was going down, thebows of the boat to the terrible shore. They rose two of the breakerssafely, but then the oar of one of the men was struck from his hand, andin an instant the boat whirled round and turned over. Mr. C---- instantlystruck out to seize Mrs. N----, but she had sunk, and though he divedtwice he could not see her; at last, he felt her hair floating loose withhis foot, and seizing hold of it, grasped her securely and swam with herto shore. While in the act of doing so, he saw the man who had promised tosave the coloured woman making alone for the beach; and even then, in thatextremity, he had power of command enough left to drive the fellow back toseek her, which he did, and brought her safe to land. The other man kepthis word of taking care of Mrs. F----, and the latter never released hergrasp of her child's wrist, which bore the mark of her agony for weeksafter their escape. They reached the sands, and Mrs. N----'s shawl havingbeen unwound, her child was found laughing on her bosom. But hardly hadthey had time to thank God for their deliverance when Mr. C---- fellfainting on the beach; and Mrs. F----, who told me this, said that for onedreadful moment they thought that the preserver of all their lives hadlost his own in the terrible exertion and anxiety that he had undergone. He revived, however, and crawling a little further up the beach, theyburrowed for warmth and shelter as well as they could in the sand, and laythere till the next morning, when they sought and found succour. You cannot imagine, my dear E----, how strikingly throughout this wholenarrative the extraordinary power of Mr. C----'s character makes itselffelt, --the immediate obedience that he obtained from women whose terrormight have made them unmanageable, and men whose selfishness might havedefied his control; the wise though painful firmness, which enabled him toorder the boat away from the side of the perishing vessel, in spite of thepity that he felt for the many, in attempting to succour whom he couldonly have jeopardized the few whom he was bound to save; the wonderfulinfluence he exercised over the poor oarsmen, whose long protracted labourpostponed to the last possible moment the terrible risk of their landing. The firmness, courage, humanity, wisdom, and presence of mind, of all hispreparations for their final tremendous risk, and the authority which hewas able to exercise while struggling in the foaming water for his ownlife and that of the woman and child he was saving, over the man who wasproving false to a similar sacred charge, --all these admirable traits aremost miserably transmitted to you by my imperfect account; and when Iassure you that his own narrative, full as it necessarily was of thedetails of his own heroism, was as simple, modest, and unpretending, as itwas interesting and touching, I am sure you will agree with me that hemust be a very rare man. When I spoke with enthusiasm to his old father ofhis son's noble conduct, and asked him if he was not proud of it, his solereply was, --'I am glad, madam, my son was not selfish. ' Now, E----, I have often spoken with you and written to you of thedisastrous effect of slavery upon the character of the white menimplicated in it; many, among themselves, feel and acknowledge it to thefullest extent, and no one more than myself can deplore that any humanbeing I love should be subjected to such baneful influences; but the devilmust have his due, and men brought up in habits of peremptory command overtheir fellow men, and under the constant apprehension of danger, and awfulnecessity of immediate readiness to meet it, acquire qualities precious tothemselves and others in hours of supreme peril such as this man passedthrough, saving by their exercise himself and all committed to his charge. I know that the southern men are apt to deny the fact that they do liveunder an habitual sense of danger; but a slave population, coerced intoobedience, though unarmed and half fed, _is_ a threatening source ofconstant insecurity, and every southern _woman_ to whom I have spoken onthe subject, has admitted to me that they live in terror of their slaves. Happy are such of them as have protectors like J---- C----. Such men willbest avoid and best encounter the perils that may assail them from theabject subject, human element, in the control of which their noblefaculties are sadly and unworthily employed. _Wednesday, 17th April. _--I rode to-day after breakfast, to Mrs. D----'s, another of my neighbours, who lives full twelve miles off. During the lasttwo miles of my expedition, I had the white sand hillocks and blue line ofthe Atlantic in view. The house at which I called was a tumble-downbarrack of a dwelling in the woods, with a sort of poverty-strickenpretentious air about it, like sundry 'proud planters' dwellings that Ihave seen. I was received by the sons as well as the lady of the house, and could not but admire the lordly rather than manly indifference, withwhich these young gentlemen, in gay guard chains and fine attire, playedthe gallants to me, while filthy, bare-footed half naked negro womenbrought in refreshments, and stood all the while fanning the cake, andsweetmeats, and their young masters, as if they had been all the same sortof stuff. I felt ashamed for the lads. The conversation turned upon Dr. H----'s trial; for there has been a trial as a matter of form, and anacquittal as a matter of course; and the gentlemen said, upon myexpressing some surprise at the latter event, that there could not befound in all Georgia a jury who would convict him, which says but littlefor the moral sense of 'all Georgia. ' From this most painful subject wefell into the Brunswick canal, and thereafter I took my leave and rodehome. I met my babies in the wood-wagon, and took S---- up before me, andgave her a good gallop home. Having reached the house with the appetite ofa twenty-four miles' ride, I found no preparation for dinner, and not somuch as a boiled potato to eat, and the sole reply to my famished anddisconsolate exclamations was--'Being that you order none, missis, I notknow. ' I had forgotten to order my dinner, and my _slaves_, unauthorised, had not ventured to prepare any. Wouldn't a Yankee have said, 'Wal now, you went off so uncommon quick, I kinder guessed you forgot all aboutdinner, ' and have had it all ready for me? But my slaves durst not, and soI fasted till some tea could be got for me. * * * * * This was the last letter I wrote from the plantation, and I never returnedthere, nor ever saw again any of the poor people among whom I lived duringthis winter, but Jack, once, under sad circumstances. The poor lad'shealth failed so completely, that his owners humanely brought him to thenorth, to try what benefit he might derive from the change; but this wasbefore the passing of the Fugitive Slave Bill, when touching the soil ofthe northern states, a slave became free; and such was the apprehensionfelt lest Jack should be enlightened as to this fact by some philanthropicabolitionist, that he was kept shut up in a high upper room of a largeempty house, where even I was not allowed to visit him. I heard at lengthof his being in Philadelphia; and upon my distinct statement that Iconsidered freeing their slaves the business of the Messrs. ----themselves, and not mine, I was at length permitted to see him. Poorfellow! coming to the north did not prove to him the delight his eagerdesire had so often anticipated from it; nor under such circumstances isit perhaps much to be wondered at that he benefited but little by thechange, --he died not long after. I once heard a conversation between Mr. O---- and Mr. K----, the twooverseers of the plantation on which I was living, upon the question oftaking slaves, servants, necessary attendants, into the northern states;Mr. O---- urged the danger of their being 'got hold of, ' i. E. , set freeby the abolitionists, to which Mr. K---- very pertinently replied, 'Oh, stuff and nonsense, I take care when my wife goes north with the children, to send Lucy with her; _her children are down here, and I defy all theabolitionists in creation to get her to stay north_. ' Mr. K---- was anextremely wise man. APPENDIX I wrote the following letter after reading several leading articles in the_Times_ newspaper, at the time of the great sensation occasioned by Mrs. Beecher Stowe's novel of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin, ' and after the Anti-SlaveryProtest which that book induced the women of England to address to thoseof America, on the subject of the condition of the slaves in the southernstates. My dear E----. I have read the articles in the _Times_ to which you refer, on the subject of the inaccuracy of Mrs. Beecher Stowe's book as a pictureof slavery in America, and have ascertained who they were written by. Having done so, I do not think it worth while to send my letter forinsertion, because, as that is the tone deliberately taken upon thesubject by that paper, my counter statement would not, I imagine, beadmitted into its columns. I enclose it to you, as I should like you tosee how far from true, according to my experience, the statements of the'_Times'_ Correspondent' are. It is impossible of course to know why iterects itself into an advocate for slavery; and the most charitableconjecture I can form upon the subject is, that the Stafford Housedemonstration may have been thought likely to wound the sensitive nationalviews of America upon this subject; and the statement put forward by the_Times_, contradicting Mrs. Stowe's picture, may be intended to soothetheir irritation at the philanthropic zeal of our lady abolitionists. Believe me, dear E----, Yours always truly, F. A. K. * * * * * _Letter to the Editor of the_ 'Times. ' Sir, --As it is not to be supposed that you consciously afford the supportof your great influence to misstatements, I request your attention to someremarks I wish to make on an article on a book called 'Uncle Tom's Cabinas it is, ' contained in your paper of the 11th. In treating Mrs. HarrietBeecher Stowe's work as an exaggerated picture of the evils of slavery, Ibeg to assure you that you do her serious injustice:--of the merits of herbook as a work of art, I have no desire to speak, --to its power as a mostinteresting and pathetic story, all England and America can bearwitness, --but of its truth and moderation as a representation of theslave system in the United States, I can testify with the experience ofan eye witness, having been a resident in the Southern States, and hadopportunities of observation such as no one who has not lived on a slaveestate can have. It is very true that in reviving the altogether explodedfashion of making the hero of her novel 'the perfect monster that theworld ne'er saw, ' Mrs. Stowe has laid herself open to fair criticism, andmust expect to meet with it from the very opposite taste of the presentday; but the ideal excellence of her principal character is no argument atall against the general accuracy of her statements with regard to theevils of slavery;--everything else in her book is not only possible, butprobable, and not only probable, but a very faithful representation of theexisting facts:--faithful, and not, as you accuse it of being, exaggerated; for, with the exception of the horrible catastrophe, theflogging to death of poor Tom, she has pourtrayed none of the mostrevolting instances of crime produced by the slave system--with which shemight have darkened her picture, without detracting from its perfecttruth. Even with respect to the incident of Tom's death, it must not besaid that if such an event is possible, it is hardly probable; for this isunfortunately not true. It is not true that the value of the slave asproperty infallibly protects his life from the passions of his master. Itis no new thing for a man's passions to blind him to his most obvious andimmediate temporal interests, as well as to his higher and everlastingones, --in various parts of the world and stages of civilisation, varioushuman passions assume successive prominence, and become developed, to thepartial exclusion or deadening of others. In savage existence, and thosestates of civilisation least removed from it, the animal passionspredominate. In highly cultivated modern society, where the complicatedmachinery of human existence is at once a perpetually renewed cause andeffect of certain legal and moral restraints, which, in the shape ofgovernment and public opinion, protect the congregated lives and interestsof men from the worst outrages of open violence, the natural selfishnessof mankind assumes a different development; and the love of power, ofpleasure, or of pelf, exhibits different phenomena from those elicitedfrom a savage under the influence of the same passions. The channel inwhich the energy and activity of modern society inclines more and more topour itself, is the peaceful one of the pursuit of gain. This ispreeminently the case with the two great commercial nations of the earth, England and America;--and in either England or the Northern States ofAmerica, the prudential and practical views of life prevail so far, thatinstances of men sacrificing their money interests at the instigation ofrage, revenge, and hatred, will certainly not abound. But the Southernslaveholders are a very different race of men from either Manchestermanufacturers or Massachusetts merchants; they are a remnant of barbarismand feudalism, maintaining itself with infinite difficulty and danger bythe side of the latest and most powerful developement of commercialcivilisation. The inhabitants of Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and NewOrleans, whose estates lie like the suburban retreats of our city magnatesin the near neighbourhood of their respective cities, are not now thepeople I refer to. They are softened and enlightened by manyinfluences, --the action of city life itself, where human sympathy, andhuman respect, stimulated by neighbourhood, produce salutary socialrestraint, as well as less salutary social cowardice. They travel to theNorthern States, and to Europe; and Europe and the Northern States travelto them; and in spite of themselves, their peculiar conditions receivemodifications from foreign intercourse. The influence, too, of commercialenterprise, which, in these latter days, is becoming the agent ofcivilisation all over the earth, affects even the uncommercial residentsof the Southern cities, and however cordially they may dislike or despisethe mercantile tendencies of Atlantic Americans, or transatlanticEnglishmen, their frequent contact with them breaks down some of thebarriers of difference between them, and humanises the slaveholder of thegreat cities into some relation with the spirit of his own times andcountry. But these men are but a most inconsiderable portion of theslaveholding population of the South, --a nation, for as such they shouldbe spoken of, of men whose organisation and temperament is that of thesouthern European; living under the influence of a climate at onceenervating and exciting; scattered over trackless wildernesses of aridsand and pestilential swamp; entrenched within their own boundaries;surrounded by creatures absolutely subject to their despotic will;delivered over by hard necessity to the lowest excitements of drinking, gambling, and debauchery for sole recreation; independent of all opinion;ignorant of all progress; isolated from all society--it is impossible toconceive a more savage existence within the pale of any moderncivilisation. The South Carolinan gentry have been fond of styling themselves thechivalry of the South, and perhaps might not badly represent, in theirrelations with their dependents, the nobility of France before thepurifying hurricane of the Revolution swept the rights of the suzerain andthe wrongs of the serf together into one bloody abyss. The planters of theinterior of the Southern and South-Western States, with their furiousfeuds and slaughterous combats, their stabbings and pistolings, theirgross sensuality, brutal ignorance, and despotic cruelty, resemble thechivalry of France before the horrors of the Jacquerie admonished themthat there was a limit even to the endurance of slaves. With such men asthese, human life, even when it can be bought or sold in the market for somany dollars, is but little protected by considerations of interest fromthe effects of any violent passion. There is yet, however, another aspectof the question, which is, that it is sometimes clearly _not_ the interestof the owner to prolong the life of his slaves; as in the case of inferioror superannuated labourers, or the very notorious instance in which someof the owners of sugar plantations stated that they found it better worththeir while to _work off_ (i. E. Kill with labour) a certain proportion, oftheir force, and replace them by new hands every seven years, than workthem less severely and maintain them in diminished efficiency for anindefinite length of time. Here you will observe a precise estimate of theplanter's material interest led to a result which you argue passion itselfcan never be so blind as to adopt. This was a deliberate economicalcalculation, openly avowed some years ago by a number of sugar planters inLouisiana. If, instead of accusing Mrs. Stowe of exaggeration, you hadbrought the same charge against the author of the 'White Slave, ' I shouldnot have been surprised; for his book presents some of the most revoltinginstances of atrocity and crime that the miserable abuse of irresponsiblepower is capable of producing, and it is by no means written in the spiritof universal humanity which pervades Mrs. Stowe's volumes: but it is notliable to the charge of exaggeration, any more than her less disgustingdelineation. The scenes described in the 'White Slave' _do_ occur in theslave States of North America; and in two of the most appalling incidentsof the book--the burning alive of the captured runaway, and the hangingwithout trial of the Vicksburg gamblers--the author of the 'White Slave'has very simply related positive facts of notorious occurrence. To whichhe might have added, had he seen fit to do so, the instance of a slave whoperished in the sea swamps, where he was left bound and naked, a prey tothe torture inflicted upon him by the venomous mosquito swarms. Mypurpose, however, in addressing you was not to enter into a disquisitionon either of these publications; but I am not sorry to take thisopportunity of bearing witness to the truth of Mrs. Stowe's admirablebook, and I have seen what few Englishmen can see--the working of thesystem in the midst of it. In reply to your 'Dispassionate Observer, ' who went to the Southprofessedly with the purpose of seeing and judging of the state of thingsfor himself, let me tell you that, little as he may be disposed to believeit, his testimony is worth less than nothing; for it is morally impossiblefor any Englishman going into the Southern States, except as a _resident_, to know anything whatever of the real condition of the slave population. This was the case some years ago, as I experienced, and it is now likelyto be more the case than ever; for the institution is not _yet_ approveddivine to the perceptions of Englishmen, and the Southerners are asanxious to hide its uglier features from any note-making observer fromthis side the water, as to present to his admiration and approval such ascan by any possibility be made to wear the most distant approach tocomeliness. The gentry of the Southern States are preeminent in their own countryfor that species of manner which, contrasted with the breeding of theNortherners, would be emphatically pronounced 'good' by Englishmen. Bornto inhabit landed property, they are not inevitably made clerks andcounting-house men of, but inherit with their estates some of theinvariable characteristics of an aristocracy. The shop is not theirelement; and the eager spirit of speculation and the sordid spirit ofgain do not infect their whole existence, even to their very demeanourand appearance, as they too manifestly do those of a large proportion ofthe inhabitants of the Northern States. Good manners have an undue valuefor Englishmen, generally speaking; and whatever departs from theirpeculiar standard of breeding is apt to prejudice them, as whateverapproaches it prepossesses them, far more than is reasonable. TheSoutherners are infinitely better bred men, according to Englishnotions, than the men of the Northern States. The habit of command givesthem a certain self-possession, the enjoyment of leisure a certain ease. Their temperament is impulsive and enthusiastic, and their manners havethe grace and spirit which seldom belong to the deportment of a Northernpeople; but upon more familiar acquaintance, the vices of the socialsystem to which they belong will be found to have infected them withtheir own peculiar taint; and haughty overbearing irritability, effeminate indolence, reckless extravagance, and a union of profligacyand cruelty, which is the immediate result of their irresponsible powerover their dependents, are some of the less pleasing traits whichacquaintance developes in a Southern character. In spite of all this, there is no manner of doubt that the 'candid English observer' will, forthe season of his sojourning among them, greatly prefer theirintercourse to that of their Northern brethren. Moreover, without in theleast suspecting it, he will be bribed insidiously and incessantly bythe extreme desire and endeavour to please and prepossess him which thewhole white population of the slave States will exhibit--as long as hegoes only as a 'candid observer, ' with a mind not _yet_ made up upon thesubject of slavery, and open to conviction as to its virtues. Everyconciliating demonstration of courtesy and hospitable kindness will beextended to him, and, as I said before, if his observation is permitted(and it may even appear to be courted), it will be to a fairly boundpurified edition of the black book of slavery, in which, though theinherent viciousness of the whole story cannot be suppressed, thecoarser and more offensive passages will be carefully expunged. And now, permit me to observe, that the remarks of your traveller must derivemuch of their value from the scene of his enquiry. In Maryland, Kentucky, and Virginia, the outward aspect of slavery has ceased to wearits most deplorable features. The remaining vitality of the system nolonger resides in the interests, but in the pride and prejudices of theplanters. Their soil and climate are alike favourable to the labours ofa white peasantry: the slave cultivation has had time to prove itselfthere the destructive pest which, in time, it will prove itself whereverit prevails. The vast estates and large fortunes that once maintained, and were maintained by, the serfdom of hundreds of negroes, havedwindled in size and sunk in value, till the slaves have become so heavya burthen on the resources of the exhausted soil and impoverished ownersof it, that they are made themselves objects of traffic in order to wardoff the ruin that their increase would otherwise entail. Thus, theplantations of the Northern slave States now present to the travellervery few of the darker and more oppressive peculiarities of the system;and, provided he does not stray too near the precincts where the negroesare sold, or come across gangs of them on their way to Georgia, Louisiana, or Alabama, he may, if he is a very superficial observer, conclude that the most prosperous slavery is not much worse than themost miserable freedom. But of what value will be such conclusions applied to those numerousplantations where no white man ever sets foot without the expresspermission of the owner? not estates lying close to Baltimore andCharleston, or even Lesington or Savannah, but remote and savagewildernesses like Legree's estate in 'Uncle Tom, ' like all the plantationsin the interior of Tennessee and Alabama, like the cotton-fields andrice-swamps of the great muddy rivers of Lousiana and Georgia, like thedreary pine barrens and endless woody wastes of north Carolina. These, especially the islands, are like so many fortresses, approachable for'observers' only at the owners' will. On most of the rice plantations inthese pestilential regions, no white man can pass the night at certainseasons of the year without running the risk of his life; and during theday, the master and overseer are as much alone and irresponsible in theirdominion over their black cattle, as Robinson Crusoe was over his smallfamily of animals on his desert habitation. Who, on such estates as these, shall witness to any act of tyranny or barbarity, however atrocious? Noblack man's testimony is allowed against a white, and who on the dismalswampy rice-grounds of the Savannah, or the sugar-brakes of theMississippi and its tributaries, or the up country cotton lands of theOcamulgee, shall go to perform the task of candid observation andbenevolent enquiry? I passed some time on two such estates--plantations where the negroesesteemed themselves well off, and, compared with the slaves on several ofthe neighbouring properties, might very well consider themselves so; andI will, with your permission, contrast some of the items of my observationwith those of the traveller whose report you find so satisfactory on thesubject of the 'consolations' of slavery. And first, for the attachment which he affirms to subsist between theslave and master. I do not deny that certain manifestations on the part ofthe slave may suggest the idea of such a feeling; but whether upon betterexamination it will be found to deserve the name, I very much doubt. Inthe first place, on some of the great Southern estates, the owners arehabitual absentees, utterly unknown to their serfs, and enjoying theproceeds of their labour in residences as remote as possible from thesands and swamps where their rice and cotton grow, and their slaves bowthemselves under the eye of the white overseer, and the lash of the blackdriver. Some of these Sybarites prefer living in Paris, that paradise ofAmerican republicans, some in the capitals of the middle states of theunion, Philadelphia or New York. The air of New England has a keen edge of liberty, which suits fewSouthern constitutions; and unkindly as abolition has found its nativesoil and native skies, that is its birthplace, and there it flourishes, inspite of all attempts to root it out and trample it down, and within anyatmosphere poisoned by its influence no slaveholder can willingly drawbreath. Some travel in Europe, and few, whose means permit the contrary, ever pass the entire year on their plantations. Great intervals of manyyears pass, and no master ever visits some of these properties: whatspecies of attachment do you think the slave entertains for him? In othercases, the visits made will be of a few days in one of the winter months;the estate and its cultivators remaining for the rest of the year underthe absolute control of the overseer, who, provided he contrives to get agood crop of rice or cotton into the market for his employers, is left tothe arbitrary exercise of a will seldom uninfluenced for evil, by thecombined effects of the grossest ignorance and habitual intemperance. Thetemptation to the latter vice is almost irresistible to a white man insuch a climate, and leading an existence of brutal isolation, among aparcel of human beings as like brutes as they can be made. But the ownerwho at these distant intervals of months or years revisits his estates, islooked upon as a returning providence by the poor negroes. They have noexperience of his character to destroy their hopes in his goodness, andall possible and impossible ameliorations of their condition areanticipated from his advent, less work, more food, fewer stripes, and someof that consideration which the slave hopes may spring from his positivemoney value to his owner, --a fallacious dependence, as I have alreadyattempted to show, but one which, if it has not always predominatingweight with the master, never can have any with the overseer, who has noteven the feeling of regard for his own property to mitigate hisabsolutism over the slaves of another man. There is a very powerful cause which makes the prosperity and well-being(as far as life is concerned) of most masters a subject of solicitude withtheir slaves. The only stability of their condition, such as it is, hangsupon it. If the owner of a plantation dies, his estates may fall into themarket, and his slaves be sold at public auction the next day; and whetherthis promises a better, or threatens a worse condition, the slaves cannotknow, and no human being cares. One thing it inevitably brings, theuprooting of all old associations; the disruption of all the ties offellowship in misery; the tearing asunder of all relations of blood andaffection; the sale into separate and far distant districts of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, and children. If the estate does not lie in theextreme south, there is the vague dread of being driven thither fromVirginia to Georgia, from Carolina to Alabama, or Louisiana, a changewhich, for reasons I have shown above, implies the passing from a higherinto a lower circle of the infernal pit of slavery. I once heard a slave on the plantation of an absentee express the mostlively distress at hearing that his master was ill. Before, however, I hadrecovered from my surprise at this warm 'attachment' to a distant and allbut unknown proprietor, the man added, 'massa die, what become of all himpeople?' On my arrival on the plantation where I resided, I was hailed with themost extravagant demonstrations of delight, and all but lifted off my feetin the arms of people who had never seen me before; but who, knowing me tobe connected with their owners, expected from me some of the multitudinousbenefits which they always hope to derive from masters. These, until theycome to reside among them, are always believed to be sources ofbeneficence and fountains of redress by the poor people, who have known norule but the delegated tyranny of the overseer. In these expectations, however, they very soon find themselves cruelly mistaken. Of course, ifthe absentee planter has received a satisfactory income from his estate, he is inclined to be satisfied with the manager of it, and assubordination to the only white man among hundreds of blacks must bemaintained at any and every cost, the overseer is justified and upheld inhis whole administration. If the wretched slave ever dared to prefer acomplaint of ill-usage the most atrocious, the law which refuses thetestimony of a black against a white is not only the law of the land, butof every man's private dealings; and lying being one of the naturalresults of slavery, and a tendency to shirk compelled and unrequitedlabour another, the overseer stands on excellent vantage-ground, when herefers to these undoubted characteristics of the system, if called upon torebut any charge of cruelty or injustice. But pray consider for a momentthe probability of any such charge being preferred by a poor creature, who has been for years left to the absolute disposal of this man, and whoknows very well that in a few days, or months at furthest, the master willagain depart, leaving him again for months, perhaps for years, utterly atthe mercy of the man against whom he has dared to prefer a complaint. Onthe estates which I visited, the owners had been habitually absent, andthe 'attachment' of slaves to such masters as these, you will allow, canhardly come under the denomination of a strong personal feeling. Your authority next states that the infirm and superannuated slaves nolonger capable of ministering to their masters' luxuries, on the estatethat he visited, were ending their lives among all the comforts of home, with kindred and friends around them, in a condition which he contrasts, at least by implication, very favourably with the workhouse, the lastrefuge provided by the social humanity of England--for the pauper labourerwhen he has reached that term when 'unregarded age is in corners thrown. 'On the plantation where I lived the infirmary was a large room, the wallsof which were simply mud and lathes--the floor, the soil itself, damp withperpetual drippings from the holes in the roof, and the open space whichserved for a window was protected only by a broken shutter, which, inorder to exclude the cold, was drawn so near as almost to exclude thelight at the same time. Upon this earthen floor, with nothing but itshard damp surface beneath him, no covering but a tattered shirt andtrowsers, and a few sticks under his head for a pillow, lay an old man ofupwards of seventy, dying. When I first looked at him I thought by theglazed stare of his eyes, and the flies that had gathered round his halfopen mouth, that he was dead: but on stooping nearer, I perceived that thelast faint struggle of life was still going on, but even while I bent overhim it ceased; and so, like a worn-out hound, with no creature to comfortor relieve his last agony, with neither Christian solace or human succournear him, with neither wife, nor child, nor even friendly fellow being tolift his head from the knotty sticks on which he had rested it, or driveaway the insects that buzzed round his lips and nostrils like those of afallen beast, died this poor old slave, whose life had been exhausted inunrequited labour, the fruits of which had gone to pamper the pride andfeed the luxury of those who knew and cared neither for his life or death, and to whom, if they had heard of the latter, it would have been a matterof absolute though small gain, the saving of a daily pittance of meal, which served to prolong a life no longer available to them. I proceed to the next item in your observer's record. All children belowthe age of twelve were unemployed, he says, on the estate he visited: thisis perhaps a questionable benefit, when, no process of mental cultivationbeing permitted, the only employment for the leisure thus allowed is thatof rolling, like dogs or cats, in the sand and the sun. On all theplantations I visited, and on those where I resided, the infants in armswere committed to the care of these juvenile slaves, who were denominatednurses, and whose sole employment was what they call to 'mind baby. ' Thepoor little negro sucklings were cared for (I leave to your own judgementhow efficiently or how tenderly) by these half-savage slips ofslavery--carried by them to the fields where their mothers were workingunder the lash, to receive their needful nourishment, and then carriedback again to the 'settlement, ' or collection of negro huts, where theywallowed unheeded in utter filth and neglect until the time again returnedfor their being carried to their mother's breast. Such was the employmentof the children of eight or nine years old, and the only supervisionexercised over either babies or 'baby minders' was that of the old womanleft in charge of the infirmary, where she made her abode all day long andbestowed such samples of her care and skill upon its inmates as I shallhave occasion to mention presently. The practice of thus driving themothers a-field, even while their infants were still dependent upon themfor their daily nourishment, is one of which the evil as well as thecruelty is abundantly apparent without comment. The next note ofadmiration elicited from your 'impartial observer' is bestowed upon thefact that the domestic servants (i. E. House slaves) on the plantation hevisited were _allowed_ to live away from the owner's residence, and tomarry. But I never was on a southern plantation, and I never heard of one, where any of the slaves were allowed to sleep under the same roof withtheir owner. With the exception of the women to whose care the children ofthe planter, if he had any, might be confided, and perhaps a little boy orgirl slave, kept as a sort of pet animal and allowed to pass the night onthe floor of the sleeping apartment of some member of the family, theresidence of _any_ slaves belonging to a plantation night and day in theirmaster's house, like Northern or European servants, is a thing I believeunknown throughout the Southern States. Of course I except the cities, andspeak only of the estates, where the house servants are neither betterhoused or accommodated than the field-hands. Their intolerably dirtyhabits and offensive persons would indeed render it a severe trial to anyfamily accustomed to habits of decent cleanliness; and, moreover, considerations of safety, and that cautious vigilance which is a hardnecessity of the planter's existence, in spite of the supposed attachmentof his slaves, would never permit the near proximity, during theunprotected hours of the night, of those whose intimacy with the dailyhabits and knowledge of the nightly securities resorted to might proveterrible auxiliaries to any attack from without. The city guards, patrols, and night-watches, together with their stringent rules about negroesbeing abroad after night, and their well fortified lock-up houses for alldetected without a pass, afford some security against these attacheddependents; but on remote plantations, where the owner and his family andperhaps a white overseer are alone, surrounded by slaves and separatedfrom all succour against them, they do not sleep under the white man'sroof, and, for politic reasons, pass the night away from their master'sabode. The house servants have no other or better allowance of food thanthe field labourers, but have the advantage of eking it out by what isleft from the master's table, --if possible, with even less comfort in onerespect, inasmuch as no time whatever is set apart for their meals, whichthey snatch at any hour and in any way that they can--generally, however, standing or squatting on their hams round the kitchen fire; the kitchenbeing a mere outhouse or barn with a fire in it. On the estate where Ilived, as I have mentioned, they had no sleeping-rooms in the house; butwhen their work was over, they retired like the rest to their hovels, thediscomfort of which had to them all the additional disadvantage ofcomparison with their owner's mode of living. In all establishmentswhatever, of course some disparity exists between the accommodation of thedrawing-rooms and best bed-rooms and the servants' kitchen and attics; buton a plantation it is no longer a matter of degree. The young women whoperformed the offices of waiting and housemaids, and the lads whoattended upon the service of their master's table where I lived, hadneither table to feed at nor chair to sit down upon themselves; the 'boys'lay all night on the hearth by the kitchen fire, and the women upon theusual slave's bed--a frame of rough boards, strewed with a little moss offthe trees, with the addition perhaps of a tattered and filthy blanket. Asfor the so-called privilege of marrying--surely it is gross mockery toapply such a word to a bond which may be holy in God's sight, but whichdid not prevent the owner of a plantation where my observations were madefrom selling and buying men and their so-called wives and children intodivided bondage, nor the white overseer from compelling the wife of one ofthe most excellent and exemplary of his master's slaves to live withhim--nor the white wife of another overseer, in her husband's temporaryabsence from the estate, from barbarously flogging three _married_ slaveswithin a month of their confinement, their condition being the result ofthe profligacy of the said overseer, and probably compelled by the verysame lash by which it was punished. This is a very disgusting picture ofmarried life on slave estates: but I have undertaken to reply to thestatements of your informant, and I regret to be obliged to record thefacts by which alone I can do so. 'Work, ' continues your authority, 'beganat six in the morning, at nine an hour's rest was allowed for breakfast, and by two or three o'clock the day's work was done. ' Certainly this was apattern plantation, and I can only lament that my experience lay amid suchfar less favourable circumstances. The negroes among whom I lived went tothe fields at daybreak, carrying with them their allowance of food, whichtoward noon, and not till then, they ate, cooking it over a fire whichthey kindled as best they could where they were working; their _second_meal in the day was at night after their labour was over, having worked atthe _very least_ six hours without rest or refreshment, since theirnoon-day meal--properly so called, indeed, for it was meal and nothingelse, or a preparation something thicker than porridge, which they callhominy. Perhaps the candid observer, whose report of the estate he visitedappeared to you so consolatory, would think that this diet contrastedfavourably with that of potato and butter-milk fed Irish labourers. But amore just comparison surely would be with the mode of living of thelabouring population of the United States, the peasantry of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, or indeed with the condition of thosevery potato and butter-milk fed Irishmen when they have exchanged theirnative soil for the fields of the Northern and North-Western States, andwhen, as one of them once was heard to say, it was no use writing homethat he got meat three times a-day, for nobody in Ireland would believeit. The next item in the list of commendation is the hospital, which yourinformant also visited, and of which he gives the following account--'Itconsisted of three separate wards, all clean and well ventilated: one wasfor lying-in women, who were invariably allowed a month's rest after theirconfinement. ' Permit me to place beside this picture that of a Southerninfirmary, such as I saw it, and taken on the spot. In the first room thatI entered I found only half of the windows, of which there were six, glazed; these were almost as much obscured with dirt as the otherwindowless ones were darkened by the dingy shutters which the shiveringinmates had closed in order to protect themselves from the cold. In theenormous chimney glimmered the powerless embers of a few chips of wood, round which as many of the sick women as had strength to approach werecowering, some on wooden settles (there was not such a thing as a chairwith a back in the whole establishment), most of them on the ground, excluding those who were too ill to rise--and these poor wretches layprostrate on the earth, without bedstead, bed, mattress, or pillow, withno covering but the clothes they had on and some filthy rags of blanket inwhich they endeavoured to wrap themselves as they lay literally strewingthe floor, so that there was hardly room to pass between them. Here intheir hour of sickness and suffering lay those whose health and strengthhad given way under unrequited labour--some of them, no later than theprevious day, had been urged with the lash to their accustomed tasks--andtheir husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons were even at that hoursweating over the earth whose increase was to procure for others all theluxuries which health can enjoy, all the comforts which can alleviatesickness. Here lay women expecting every hour the terror and agonies ofchild-birth, others who had just brought their doomed offspring into theworld, others who were groaning over the anguish and bitter disappointmentof miscarriages--here lay some burning with fever, others chilled withcold and aching with rheumatism, upon the hard cold ground, the draughtsand damp of the atmosphere increasing their sufferings, and dirt, noise, stench, and every aggravation of which sickness is capable combined intheir condition. There had been among them one or two cases of prolongedand terribly hard labour; and the method adopted by the ignorant oldnegress, who was the sole matron, midwife, nurse, physician, surgeon, andservant of the infirmary, to assist them in their extremity, was to tie acloth tight round the throats of the agonised women, and by drawing ittill she almost suffocated them she produced violent and spasmodicstruggles, which she assured me she thought materially assisted theprogress of the labour. This was one of the Southern infirmaries withwhich I was acquainted; and I beg to conclude this chapter of contrasts toyour informant's consolatory views of slavery, by assuring you once morevery emphatically that they have been one and all drawn from estateswhere the slaves esteemed themselves well treated, were reputed generallyto be so, and undoubtedly, as far as my observation went, were so, compared with those on several of the adjoining plantations. With regard to the statement respecting the sums of money earned byindustrious negroes, there is no doubt that it is perfectly correct. Iknew of some slaves on a plantation in the extreme South who had received, at various times, large sums of money from a shopkeeper in the small townnear their estate, for the grey moss or lichen collected from theevergreen oaks of Carolina and Georgia, upon which it hangs in vastmasses, and after some cleaning process becomes an excellent substitutefor horse-hair, for bed, chair, and sofa-stuffing. On another estate, someof the slaves were expert boat makers, and had been allowed by theirmasters to retain the price (no inconsiderable one) for some that they hadfound time to manufacture after their day's labour was accomplished. Thesewere undoubtedly privileges, but I confess it appears to me that thejuster view of the matter would be this--if these men were industriousenough out of their scanty leisure to earn these sums of money, which amere exercise of arbitrary will on the part of the master allowed them tokeep, how much more of remuneration, of comfort, of improvement, physicaland mental, might they not have achieved, had the due price of their dailylabour merely been paid to them? It seems to me that this is the mode ofputting the case to Englishmen, and all who have not agreed to consideruncertain favour an equivalent for common justice in the dealings of manwith man. As the slaves are well known to toil for years sometimes toamass the means of rescuing themselves from bondage, the fact of theirbeing able and sometimes allowed to earn considerable sums of money isnotorious. But now that I have answered one by one the instances you haveproduced, with others--I am sure as accurate and I believe as common--ofan entirely opposite description, permit me to ask you what this sort oftestimony amounts to. I allow you full credit for yours, allow me fullcredit for mine, and the result is very simply a nullification of the oneby the other statement, and a proof that there is as much good as evil inthe details of slavery; but now, be pleased to throw into the scale thisconsideration, that the principle of the whole is unmitigated abominableevil, as by your own acknowledgement you hold it to be, and add, moreover, that the principle being invariably bad beyond the power of the best manacting under it to alter its execrable injustice, the goodness of thedetail is a matter absolutely dependent upon the will of each individualslaveholder, so that though the best cannot make the system in thesmallest particular better, the bad can make every practical detail of itas atrocious as the principle itself; and then tell me upon what groundyou palliate a monstrous iniquity, which is the rule, because of theaccidental exceptions which go to prove it. Moreover, if, as you haveasserted, good preponderates over evil in the practice, though not in thetheory of slavery, or it would not maintain its existence, why do youuphold to us, with so much complacency, the hope that it is surely if notrapidly approaching its abolishment? Why is the preponderating good, whichhas, as you say, proved sufficient to uphold the institution hitherto, tobecome (in spite of the spread of civilisation and national progress, andthe gradual improvement of the slaves themselves) inadequate to itsperpetuation henceforward? Or why, if good really has prevailed in it, doyou rejoice that it is speedily to pass away? You say the emancipation ofthe slaves is inevitable, and that through progressive culture the negroof the Southern States daily approaches more nearly to the recovery of therights of which he has been robbed. But whence do you draw this happyaugury, except from the hope, which all Christian souls must cherish, thatGod will not permit much longer so great a wickedness to darken the faceof the earth? Surely the increased stringency of the Southern slave-laws, the more than ever vigilant precautions against all attempts to enlightenor educate the negroes, the severer restrictions on manumission, thethrusting forth out of certain States of all free persons of colour, theatrocious Fugitive Slave Bill, one of the latest achievements ofCongress, and the piratical attempts upon Cuba, avowedly on the part ofall Southerners, abetting or justifying it because it will addslave-territory and 600, 000 slaves to their possessions;--surely these donot seem indications of the better state of things you anticipate, except, indeed, as the straining of the chain beyond all endurable tightnesssignificantly suggests the probability of its giving way. I do not believe the planters have any disposition to put an end toslavery, nor is it perhaps much to be wondered at that they have not. Todo so is, in the opinion of the majority of them, to run the risk oflosing their property, perhaps their lives, for a benefit which theyprofess to think doubtful to the slaves themselves. How far they are rightin anticipating ruin from the manumission of their slaves I thinkquestionable, but that they do so is certain, and self-impoverishment forthe sake of abstract principle is not a thing to be reasonably expectedfrom any large mass of men. But, besides the natural fact that theslaveholders wish to retain their property, emancipation is, in their viewof it, not only a risk of enormous pecuniary loss, and of their entiresocial status, but involves elements of personal danger, and above all, disgust to inveterate prejudices, which they will assuredly neverencounter. The question is not alone one of foregoing great wealth, or themere means of subsistence (in either case almost equally hard); it is notalone the unbinding the hands of those who have many a bloody debt ofhatred and revenge to settle; it is not alone the consenting suddenly tosee by their side, upon a footing of free social equality, creaturestowards whom their predominant feeling is one of mingled terror andabhorrence, and who, during the whole of their national existence, havebeen, as the earth, trampled beneath their feet, yet ever threatening togape and swallow them alive. It is not all this alone which makes itunlikely that the Southern planter should desire to free his slaves:freedom in America is not merely a personal right, it involves a politicalprivilege. Freemen there are legislators. The rulers of the land are themajority of the people, and in many parts of the Southern States the blackfree citizens would become, if not at once, yet in process of time, inevitably voters, landholders, delegates to state legislatures, membersof assembly--who knows?--senators, judges, aspirants to the presidency ofthe United States. You must be an American, or have lived long among them, to conceive the shout of derisive execration with which such an idea wouldbe hailed from one end of the land to the other. That the emancipation of the negroes need not necessarily put them inpossession of the franchise is of course obvious, but as a generalconsequence the one would follow from the other; and at present certainlythe slaveholders are no more ready to grant the political privilege thanthe natural right of freedom. Under these circumstances, though the utmostcommiseration is naturally excited by the slaves, I agree with you thatsome forbearance is due to the masters. It is difficult to conceive a moreawful position than theirs: fettered by laws which impede every movementtowards right and justice, and utterly without the desire to repealthem--dogged by the apprehension of nameless retributions--bound beneath aburthen of responsibility for which, whether they acknowledge it or not, they are held accountable by God and men--goaded by the keen consciousnessof the growing reprobation of all civilised Christian communities, theirexistence presents the miserable moral counterpart of the physicalcondition of their slaves; and it is one compared with which that of thewretchedest slave is, in my judgement, worthy of envy. * * * * * _Letter to C. G. , Esq. _ Before entering upon my answer to your questions, let me state that I haveno claim to be ranked as an abolitionist in the American acceptation ofthe word, for I have hitherto held the emancipation of the slaves to beexclusively the business and duty of their owners, whose highest moralinterest I thought it was to rid themselves of such a responsibility, inspite of the manifold worldly interests almost inextricably bound up withit. This has been my feeling hitherto with regard to the views of theabolitionists, which I now, however, heartily embrace, inasmuch as I thinkthat from the moment the United States Government assumed an attitude ofcoercion and supremacy towards the Southern States, it was bound with itsfleets and armies to introduce its polity with respect to slavery, andwherever it planted the standard of the Union to proclaim the universalfreedom which is the recognised law of the Northern United States. Thatthey have not done so has been partly owing to a superstitious, buthonourable veneration for the letter of their great charter, theconstitution, and still more to the hope they have never ceased toentertain of bringing back the South to its allegiance under the formerconditions of the Union, an event which will be rendered impossible by anyattempt to interfere with the existence of slavery. The North, with the exception of an inconsiderable minority of itsinhabitants, has never been at all desirous of the emancipation of theslaves. The Democratic party which has ruled the United States for manyyears past has always been friendly to the slaveholders, who have, withfew exceptions, been all members of it (for by a strange perversion bothof words and ideas, some of the most Democratic States in the Union areSouthern slave States, and in the part of Georgia where the slavepopulation is denser than in any other part of the South, a county existsbearing the satirical title of _Liberty County_). And the support of theSouth has been given to the Northern Democratic politicians, upon thedistinct understanding that their 'domestic institution' was to beguaranteed to them. The condition of the free blacks in the Northern States has of course beenaffected most unfavourably by the slavery of their race throughout theother half of the Union, and indeed it would have been a difficult matterfor Northern citizens to maintain towards the blacks an attitude of socialand political equality as far as the borders of Delaware, whileimmediately beyond they were pledged to consider them as the 'chattels' oftheir owners, animals no more noble or human than the cattle in theirmasters' fields. How could peace have been maintained if the Southern slaveholders had beencompelled to endure the sight of negroes rising to wealth and eminence inthe Northern cities, or entering as fellow-members with themselves thehalls of that legislature to which all free-born citizens are eligible?they would very certainly have declined with fierce scorn, not thefellowship of the blacks alone, but of those white men who admitted thedespised race of their serfs to a footing of such impartial equality. Ittherefore was the instinctive, and became the deliberate policy of theNorthern people, once pledged to maintain slavery in the South, to maketheir task easy by degrading the blacks in the Northern States to acondition contrasting as little as possible with that of the Southernslaves. The Northern politicians struck hands with the Southernslaveholders, and the great majority of the most enlightened citizens ofthe Northern States, absorbed in the pursuit of wealth and the extensionand consolidation of their admirable and wonderful national prosperity, abandoned the government of their noble country and the preservation ofits nobler institutions to the slaveholding aristocracy of the South--to amob of politicians by trade, the vilest and most venal class of men thatever disgraced and endangered a country--to foreign emigrants, whosebrutish ignorance did not prevent the Democratic party from seizing uponthem as voters, and bestowing on the Irish and German boors just landed ontheir shores the same political privileges as those possessed andintelligently exercised by the farmers and mechanics of New England, themost enlightened men of their class to be found in the world. The gradual encroachment of the Southern politicians upon the liberties ofthe North, by their unrelaxing influence in Congress and over successivecabinets and presidents, was not without its effect in stimulating someresistance on the part of Northern statesmen of sufficient intelligence toperceive the inevitable results towards which this preponderance in thenational counsels was steadily tending; and I need not remind you of therapidity and force with which General Jackson quelled an incipientrebellion in South Carolina, when Mr. Calhoun made the tariff question thepretext for a threatened secession in 1832, of the life-long opposition toSouthern pretensions by John Quincy Adams, of the endeavour of Mr. Clay tostem the growing evil by the conditions of the Missouri compromise, andall the occasional attempts of individuals of more conscientiousconvictions than their fellow-citizens on the subject of the sin ofslavery, from Dr. Channing's eloquent protest on the annexation of Texas, to Mr. Charles Sumner's philippic against Mr. Brooks of South Carolina. The disorganisation of the Democratic party, after a cohesion of so manyyears, at length changed the aspect of affairs; and the North appeared tobe about to arouse itself from its apathetic consent to Southerndomination. The Republican party, headed by Colonel Fremont, who was knownto be an anti-slavery man, nearly carried the presidential election sixyears ago, and then every preparation had been made in the South for theprocess of secession, which was only averted by the election of Mr. Buchanan, a pro-slavery Southern sympathiser, though born in Pennsylvania. Under his presidency, the Southern statesmen, resuming their attitude ofapparent friendliness with the North, kept in abeyance, maturing andperfecting by every treasonable practice, for which their preponderatingshare in the cabinet afforded them fatal facilities, the plan of theviolent disruption of the Union, upon which they had determined wheneverthe Republican party should have acquired sufficient strength, to elect apresident with Northern views. Before, however, this event occurred, thewar in Kansas rang a prophetic peal of warning through the land; and thestruggle there begun between New England emigrants bent on founding a freestate, and Missouri border ruffians determined to make the new territory aslaveholding addition to the South, might have roused the whole North andWest to the imminence of the peril, by which the safety of the Union wasthreatened. But neither the struggle in Kansas, nor the strange and piteous episodewhich grew out of it, of John Brown's attempt to excite an insurrection inVirginia, and his execution by the government of that State, did more thanstartle the North with a nine days' wonder out of its apatheticindifference. The Republican party, it is true, gained adherents, andacquired strength by degrees; and Mr. Buchanan's term of officeapproaching its expiration, it became apparent that the Democratic partywas about to lose its supremacy, and the slaveholders their dominion; andno sooner was this evident than the latter threw off the mask, andrenounced their allegiance to the Union. In a day--in an houralmost--those stood face to face as mortal enemies who were citizens ofthe same country, subjects of the same government, children of the samesoil; and the North, incredulous and amazed, found itself suddenlysummoned to retrieve its lost power and influence, and assert the dignityof the insulted Union against the rebellious attempt of the South tooverthrow it. But it was late for them to take that task in hand. For years the conductof the government of the United States had been becoming a more desperateand degraded _jobbery_, one from which day by day the Northern gentlemenof intelligence, influence, and education withdrew themselves in greaterdisgust, devoting their energies to schemes of mere personal advantage, and leaving the commonweal with selfish and contemptuous indifference tothe guidance of any hands less nice and less busy than their own. Nor would the Southern planters--a prouder and more aristocratic race thanthe Northern merchants--have relished the companionship of theirfellow-politicians more than the latter, but _their_ personal interestswere at stake, and immediately concerned in their maintaining theirpredominant influence over the government; and while the Boston men wroteand talked transcendentalism, and became the most accomplished of_aestetische_ cotton spinners and railroad speculators, and made the shoesand cow-hides of the Southerners, the latter made their laws; (I believeNew Jersey is really the great cow-hide factory); and the New York men, owners of the fastest horses and finest houses in the land, having made asort of Brummagem Paris of their city, were the bankers and brokers of theSoutherners, while the latter were their legislators. The grip the slaveholders had fastened on the helm of the State had beentightening for nearly half a century, till the government of the nationhad become literally theirs, and the idea of their relinquishing it wasone which the North did not contemplate, and they would not tolerate. If I have said nothing of the grievances which the South has allegedagainst the North--its tariff, made chiefly in the interest of thenorth-eastern manufacturing States, or its inconsiderable but enthusiasticMassachusetts and Pennsylvania Abolition party--it is because I do notbelieve these causes of complaint would have had the same effect upon anybut a community of slaveholders, men made impatient (by the life-longhabit of despotism), not only of all control, but of any opposition. Thirty years ago Andrew Jackson--a man of keen sagacity as well asdetermined energy--wrote of them that they were bent upon destroying theUnion, and that, whatever was the pretext of their discontent, that wastheir aim and purpose. 'To-day, ' he wrote, 'it is the tariff, by and by itwill be slavery. ' The event has proved how true a prophet he was. My ownconviction is that the national character produced and fostered byslaveholding is incompatible with free institutions, and that theSouthern aristocracy, thanks to the pernicious influences by which theyare surrounded, are unfit to be members of a Christian republic. It isslavery that has made the Southerners rebels to their government, traitorsto their country, and the originators of the bloodiest civil war that everdisgraced humanity and civilisation. It is for their sinful complicity inslavery, and their shameful abandonment of all their duties as citizens, that the Northerners are paying in the blood of their men, the tears oftheir women, and the treasure which they have till now held more preciousthan their birthright. They must now not merely impose a wise restrictionupon slavery, they must be prepared to extinguish it. They neglected anddespised the task of moderating its conditions and checking its growth;they must now suddenly, in the midst of unparalleled difficulties anddangers, be ready to deal summarily with its entire existence. They haveloved the pursuit of personal prosperity and pleasure more than theircountry; and now they must spend life and living to reconquer their greatinheritance, and win back at the sword's point what Heaven had forbiddenthem to lose. Nor are we, here in England, without part in this tremendoussin and sorrow; we have persisted in feeding our looms, and the hugewealth they coin, with the produce of slavery. In vain our vast Indianterritory has solicited the advantage of becoming our free cottonplantation; neither our manufacturers nor our government would venture, would wait, would spend or lose, for that purpose; the slave-grown harvestwas ready, was abundant, was cheap--and now the thousand arms of our greatnational industry are folded in deplorable inactivity; the countless handsthat wrought from morn till night the wealth that was a world's wonder arestretched unwillingly to beg their bread; and England has never seen asadder sight than the enforced idleness of her poor operatives, or anobler one than their patient and heroic endurance. And now you ask me what plan, what scheme, what project the government ofthe United States has formed for the safe and successful emancipation offour millions of slaves, in the midst of a country distracted with all thehorrors of war, and the male population of which is engaged in militaryservice at a distance from their homes? Most assuredly none. Precipitatedheadlong from a state of apparent profound security and prosperity into aseries of calamitous events which have brought the country to the verge ofruin, neither the nation or its governors have had leisure to preparethemselves for any of the disastrous circumstances they have had toencounter, least of all for the momentous change which the President'sproclamation announces as imminent: a measure of supreme importance, notdeliberately adopted as the result of philanthropic conviction orfar-sighted policy, but (if not a mere feint of party politics) the lasteffort of the incensed spirit of endurance in the North--a punishmentthreatened against rebels, whom they cannot otherwise subdue, and which ayear ago half the Northern population would have condemned upon principle, and more than half revolted from on instinct. The country being in a state of war necessarily complicates everything, and renders the most plausible suggestions for the settlement of thequestion of emancipation futile: because from first to last now it will beone tremendous chapter of accidents, instead of a carefully considered andwisely prepared measure of government. But supposing the war to haveceased, either by the success of the Northern arms or by the consent ofboth belligerents, the question of manumission in the Southern States whenreduced to the condition of territories or restored to the sway of theirown elected governors and legislatures, though difficult, is by no meansone of insuperable difficulty; and I do not believe that a great nation ofEnglishmen, having once the will to rid itself of a danger and a disgrace, will fail to find a way. The thing, therefore, most to be desired now is, that Americans may unanimously embrace the purpose of emancipation, and, though they have been reluctantly driven by the irresistible force ofcircumstances to contemplate the measure, may henceforward never averttheir eyes from it till it is accomplished. When I was in the South many years ago I conversed frequently with twohighly intelligent men, both of whom agreed in saying that the immensevalue of the slaves as property was the only real obstacle to theirmanumission, and that whenever the Southerners became convinced that itwas their interest to free them they would very soon find the means to doit. In some respects the conditions are more favourable than those we hadto encounter in freeing our West India slaves. Though the soil and climateof the Southern States are fertile and favourable, they are not tropical, and there is no profuse natural growth of fruits or vegetables to rendersubsistence possible without labour; the winter temperature is like thatof the Roman States; and even as far south as Georgia and the borders ofFlorida, frosts severe enough to kill the orange trees are sometimesexperienced. The inhabitants of the Southern States, throughout by far thelargest portion of their extent, must labour to live, and will undoubtedlyobey the beneficent law of necessity whenever they are made to feel thattheir existence depends upon their own exertions. The plan of a gradualemancipation, preceded by a limited apprenticeship of the negroes to whitemasters, is of course often suggested as less dangerous than their entireand immediate enfranchisement. But when years ago I lived on a Southernplantation, and had opportunities of observing the miserable results ofthe system on everything connected with it--the souls, minds, bodies, andestates of both races of men, and the very soil on which they existedtogether--I came to the conclusion that immediate and entire emancipationwas not only an act of imperative right, but would be the safest and mostprofitable course for the interests of both parties. The gradual andinevitable process of ruin which exhibits itself in the long run on everyproperty involving slavery, naturally suggests some element of decayinherent in the system; the reckless habits of extravagance andprodigality in the masters, the ruinous wastefulness and ignorantincapacity of the slaves, the deterioration of the land under theexhausting and thriftless cultivation to which it is subjected, made itevident to me that there were but two means of maintaining a prosperousownership in Southern plantations: either the possession of considerablecapital wherewith to recruit the gradual waste of the energies of thesoil, and supply by all the improved and costly methods of modernagriculture the means of profitable cultivation (a process demanding, asEnglish farmers know, an enormous and incessant outlay of both money andskill), or an unlimited command of fresh soil, to which the slaves mightbe transferred as soon as that already under culture exhibited signs ofexhaustion. Now the Southerners are for the most part men whose onlywealth is in their land and labourers--a large force of slaves is theirmost profitable investment. The great capitalists and monied men of thecountry are Northern men; the planters are men of large estates butrestricted means--many of them are deeply involved in debt, and there arevery few who do not depend from year to year for their subsistence on theharvest of their fields and the chances of the cotton and rice crops ofeach season. This makes it of vital importance to them to command an unrestrictedextent of territory. The man who can move a 'gang' of able-bodied negroesto a tract of virgin soil is sure of an immense return of wealth; as sureas that he who is circumscribed in this respect, and limited to thecultivation of certain lands with cotton or tobacco by slaves, will in thecourse of a few years see his estate gradually exhausted and unproductive, refusing its increase, while its black population propagating andmultiplying will compel him eventually, under penalty of starvation, tomake _them_ his crop, and substitute, as the Virginians have beenconstrained to do, a traffic in human cattle for the cultivation ofvegetable harvests. The steady decrease of the value of the cotton crop, even on the famoussea island plantations of Georgia, often suggested to me the inevitableruin of the owners within a certain calculable space of time, as the landbecame worn out, and the negroes continued to increase in number; and hadthe estate on which I lived been mine, and the laws of Georgia not madesuch an experiment impossible, I would have emancipated the slaves on itimmediately, and turned them into a free tenantry, as the first means ofsaving my property from impending destruction. I would have paid themwages, and they should have paid me rent. I would have relinquished thecharge of feeding and clothing them, and the burthen of their old, young, and infirm; in short, I would have put them at once upon the footing offree hired labourers. Of course such a process would have involvedtemporary loss, and for a year or two the income of the estate would, Idare say, have suffered considerably; but, in all such diversions oflabour or capital from old into new channels and modes of operation, theremust be an immediate sacrifice of present to future profit, and I do notdoubt that the estate would have recovered from the momentary necessaryinterruption of its productiveness, to resume it with an upward instead ofa downward tendency, and a vigorous impulse towards progress andimprovement substituted for the present slow but sure drifting tostagnation and decay. As I have told you, the land affords no spontaneous produce which willsustain life without labour. The negroes therefore must work to eat; theyare used to the soil and climate, and accustomed to the agriculture, andthere is no reason at all to apprehend--as has been suggested--that a raceof people singularly attached to the place of their birth and residencewould abandon in any large numbers their own country, just as theconditions of their existence in it were made more favourable, to try theunknown and (to absolute ignorance) forbidding risks of emigration to thesterner climate and harder soil of the Northern States. Of course, in freeing the slaves, it would be necessary to contemplate thepossibility of their becoming eventual proprietors of the soil to someextent themselves. There is as little doubt that many of them would soonacquire the means of doing so (men who amass, during hours of daily extralabour, through years of unpaid toil, the means of buying themselves fromtheir masters, would soon justify their freedom by the intelligentimprovement of their condition), as that many of the present landholderswould be ready and glad to alienate their impoverished estates by parcels, and sell the land which has become comparatively unprofitable to them, toits enfranchised cultivators. This, the future ownership of land bynegroes, as well as their admission to those rights of citizenship whicheverywhere in America such ownership involves, would necessarily be futuresubjects of legislation; and either or both privileges might be withheldtemporarily, indefinitely, or permanently, as might seem expedient, andthe progress in civilisation which might justify such an extension ofrights. These, and any other modifications of the state of the blackpopulation in the South, would require great wisdom to deal with, buttheir immediate transformation from bondsmen to free might, I think, beaccomplished with little danger or difficulty, and with certain increaseof prosperity to the Southern States. On the other hand, it is not impossible that, left to the unimpeded actionof the natural laws that govern the existence of various races, the blackpopulation, no longer directly preserved and propagated for the purposesof slavery, might gradually decrease and dwindle, as it does at theNorth--where, besides the unfavourable influence of a cold climate on arace originally African, it suffers from its admixture with the whites, and the amalgamation of the two races, as far as it goes, tends evidentlyto the destruction of the weaker. The Northern mulattoes are an unhealthyfeeble population, and it might yet appear that even under the morefavourable influence of a Southern climate, whenever the direct stimulusafforded by slavery to the increase of the negroes was removed, theirgradual extinction or absorption by the predominant white race wouldfollow in the course of time. But the daily course of events appears to be rendering more and moreunlikely the immediate effectual enfranchisement of the slaves: thePresident's proclamation will reach with but little efficacy beyond themere borders of the Southern States. The war is assuming an aspect ofindefinite duration; and it is difficult to conceive what will be thecondition of the blacks, freed _de jure_ but by no means _de facto_, inthe vast interior regions of the Southern States, as long as the struggleraging all round their confines does not penetrate within them. Each ofthe combatants is far too busily absorbed in the furious strife to affordthought, leisure, or means, either effectually to free the slaves oreffectually to replace them in bondage; and in the meantime theircondition is the worst possible for the future success of eitheroperation. If the North succeeds in subjugating the South, its earliestbusiness will be to make the freedom of the slaves real as well asnominal, and as little injurious to themselves as possible. If, on theother hand, the South makes good its pretensions to a separate nationalexistence, no sooner will the disseverment of the Union be an establishedfact than the slaveholders will have to consolidate once more the systemof their 'peculiar institution, ' to reconstruct the prison which has halfcrumbled to the ground, and rivet afresh the chains which have been allbut struck off. This will be difficult: the determination of the North torestrict the area of slavery by forbidding its ingress into futureterritories and States has been considered by the slaveholders a wrong, and a danger justifying a bloody civil war; inasmuch as, if under thosecircumstances they did not abolish slavery themselves in a given number ofyears, it would infallibly abolish them by the increase of the negropopulation, hemmed with them into a restricted space by this _cordonsanitaire_ drawn round them. But, bad as this prospect has seemed toslaveholders (determined to continue such), and justifying--as it may beconceded that it does from their point of view--not a ferocious civil war, but a peaceable separation from States whose interests were declaredabsolutely irreconcileable with theirs, the position in which they willfind themselves if the contest terminates in favour of Secession will beundoubtedly more difficult and terrible than the one the mere anticipationof which has driven them to the dire resort of civil war. All round theSouthern coast, and all along the course of the great Mississippi, and allacross the northern frontier of the Slave States, the negroes have alreadythrown off the trammels of slavery. Whatever their condition may be--anddoubtless in many respects it is miserable enough--they are to all intentsand purposes free. Vast numbers of them have joined the Northern invadingarmies, and considerable bodies of them have become organised as soldiersand labourers, under the supervision of Northern officers and employers;most of them have learned the use of arms, and possess them; all of themhave exchanged the insufficient slave diet of grits and rice for theabundant supplies of animal food, which the poorest labourer in thatfavoured land of cheap provisions and high wages indulges in to an extentunknown in any other country. None of these slaves of yesterday will bethe same slaves to-morrow. Little essential difference as may yet havebeen effected by the President's proclamation in the interior of theSouth in the condition of the blacks, it is undoubtedly known to them, andthey are waiting in ominous suspense its accomplishment or defeat by thefortune of the war; they are watching the issue of the contest of whichthey well know themselves to be the theme, and at its conclusion, end howit will, they must be emancipated or exterminated. With the North not onlynot friendly to slavery, but henceforward bitterly hostile toslaveholders, and no more to be reckoned upon as heretofore, it might havebeen infallibly by the Southern white population in any difficulty withthe blacks (a fact of which the negroes will be as well aware as theirformer masters)--with an invisible boundary stretching from ocean toocean, over which they may fly without fear of a master's claim followingthem a single inch--with the hope and expectation of liberty suddenlysnatched from them at the moment it seemed within their grasp--with thedoor of their dungeon once more barred between them and the light intowhich they were in the act of emerging--is it to be conceived, that thesefour millions of people, many thousands of whom are already free andarmed, will submit without a struggle to be again thrust down into thehell of slavery? Hitherto there has been no insurrection among thenegroes, and observers friendly and inimical to them have alike drawn fromthat fact conclusions unfavourable to their appreciation of the freedomapparently within their grasp; but they are waiting to see what the Northwill really achieve for them. The liberty offered them is hithertoanomalous, and uncertain enough in its conditions; they probably trust itas little as they know it: but slavery they _do_ know--and when once theyfind themselves again delivered over to _that_ experience, there will notbe ONE insurrection in the South; there will be an insurrection in everyState, in every county, on every plantation--a struggle as fierce as itwill be futile--a hopeless effort of hopeless men, which will baptise inblood the new American nation, and inaugurate its birth among thecivilised societies of the earth, not by the manumission but the massacreof every slave within its borders. Perhaps, however, Mr. Jefferson Davis means to free the negroes. Wheneverthat consummation is attained, the root of bitterness will have perishedfrom the land; and when a few years shall have passed blunting the hatredwhich has been excited by this fratricidal strife, the Americans of boththe Northern and Southern States will perceive that the selfish policy ofother nations would not have so rejoiced over their division, had it notseemed, to those who loved them not, the proof of past failure and theprophecy of future weakness. Admonished by its terrible experiences, I believe the nation will reuniteitself under one government, remodel its constitution, and again addressitself to fulfill its glorious destiny. I believe that the country sprungfrom ours--of all our just subjects of national pride the greatest--willresume its career of prosperity and power, and become the noblest as wellas the mightiest that has existed among the nations of the earth.