We had a rough time for a month, tramping to and fro in the earth, and
suffering. And what Englishman was the most interested in the slavery
question by that time? His grace, the king! Yes; from being the most
indifferent, he was become the most interested. He was become the
bitterest hater of the institution I had ever heard talk....
Now and then we had an adventure. One night we were overtaken by a
snow-storm while still a mile from the village we were making for.
Almost instantly we were shut up as in a fog, the driving snow was so
thick. You couldn’t see a thing, and we were soon lost. The slave-driver
lashed us desperately, for he saw ruin before him, but his lashings only
made matters worse, for they drove us further from the road and from
likelihood of succor. So we had to stop at last and slump down in the
snow where we were. The storm continued until toward midnight, then
ceased. By this time two of our feebler men and three of our women were
dead, and others past moving and threatened with death. Our master was
nearly beside himself. He stirred up the living and made us stand, jump,
slap ourselves, to restore our circulation, and he helped as well as he
could with his whip.
Now came a diversion. We heard shrieks and yells, and soon a woman came
running and crying; and seeing our group, she flung herself into our
midst and begged for protection. A mob of people came tearing after her,
some with torches, and they said she was a witch who had caused several
cows to die by a strange disease, and practiced her arts by help of a
devil in the form of a black cat. This poor woman had been stoned until
she hardly looked human, she was so battered and bloody. The mob wanted
to burn her.
Well, now, what do you suppose our master did? When we closed around
this poor creature to shelter her, he saw his chance. He said, burn her
here, or they shouldn’t have her at all. Imagine that! They were
willing. They fastened her to a post; they brought wood and piled it
about her; they applied the torch, while she shrieked and pleaded and
strained her two young daughters to her breast; and our brute, with a
heart solely for business, lashed us into position about the stake and
warmed us into life and commercial value by the same fire which took
away the innocent life of that poor harmless mother. That was the sort
of master we had. I took _his_ number. That snow-storm cost him nine of
his flock; and he was more brutal to us than ever, after that, for many
days together, he was so enraged over his loss.
_FROM_ “RAMBLING NOTES OF AN IDLE EXCURSION” (1877)