VIRGINIA.—GLIMPSES BY RAILROAD.
_Richmond, Dec. 16th._—From Washington to Richmond, Virginia, by
the regular great southern route—steamboat on the Potomac to Acquia
Creek, and thence direct by rail. The boat makes 55 miles in 3½ hours,
including two stoppages (12½ miles an hour); fare $2 (3·6 cents a
mile). Flat rail; distance, 75 miles; time 5½ hours (13 miles an hour);
fare, $3 50 (4⅔ cents a mile).
Not more than a third of the country, visible on this route, I should
say, is cleared; the rest mainly a pine forest. Of the cleared land,
not more than one quarter seems to have been lately in cultivation; the
rest is grown over with briars and bushes, and a long, coarse grass of
no value. But two crops seem to be grown upon the cultivated land—maize
and wheat. The last is frequently sown in narrow beds and carefully
surface-drained, and is looking remarkably well.
A good many old plantation mansions are to be seen; generally
standing in a grove of white oaks, upon some hilltop. Most of them
are constructed of wood, of two stories, painted white, and have,
perhaps, a dozen rude-looking little log-cabins scattered around them,
for the slaves. Now and then, there is one of more pretension, with a
large porch or gallery in front, like that of Mount Vernon. These are
generally in a heavy, compact style; less often, perhaps, than similar
establishments at the North, in markedly bad, or vulgar taste, but seem
in sad need of repairs.
The more common sort of habitations of the white people are either of
logs or loosely boarded frames, a brick chimney running up outside, at
one end: everything very slovenly and dirty about them. Swine, hounds,
and black and white children, are commonly lying very promiscuously
together on the ground about the doors.
I am struck with the close cohabitation and association of black and
white—negro women are carrying black and white babies together in their
arms; black and white children are playing together (not going to
school together); black and white faces are constantly thrust together
out of the doors, to see the train go by.
A fine-looking, well-dressed, and well-behaved coloured young man sat,
together with a white man, on a seat in the cars. I suppose the man was
his master; but he was much the less like a gentleman of the two. The
railroad company advertise to take coloured people only in second-class
trains; but servants seem to go with their masters everywhere. Once,
to-day, seeing a lady entering the car at a way-station, with a family
behind her, and that she was looking about to find a place where they
could be seated together, I rose, and offered her my seat, which had
several vacancies round it. She accepted it, without thanking me, and
immediately installed in it a stout negro woman; took the adjoining
seat herself, and seated the rest of her party before her. It consisted
of a white girl, probably her daughter, and a bright and very pretty
mulatto girl. They all talked and laughed together; and the girls
munched confectionary out of the same paper, with a familiarity and
closeness of intimacy that would have been noticed with astonishment,
if not with manifest displeasure, in almost any chance company at the
North When the negro is definitely a slave, it would seem that the
alleged natural antipathy of the white race to associate with him is
lost.
I am surprised at the number of fine-looking mulattoes, or nearly
white-coloured persons, that I see. The majority of those with whom
I have come personally in contact are such. I fancy I see a peculiar
expression among these—a contraction of the eyebrows and tightening of
the lips—a spying, secretive, and counsel-keeping expression.
But the great mass, as they are seen at work, under overseers, in the
fields, appear very dull, idiotic, and brute-like; and it requires an
effort to appreciate that they are, very much more than the beasts they
drive, our brethren—a part of ourselves. They are very ragged, and the
women especially, who work in the field with the men, with no apparent
distinction in their labour, disgustingly dirty. They seem to move very
awkwardly, slowly, and undecidedly, and almost invariably stop their
work while the train is passing.
One tannery and two or three saw-mills afforded the only indications I
saw, in seventy-five miles of this old country—settled before any part
of Massachusetts—of any industrial occupation other than corn and wheat
culture, and fire-wood chopping. At Fredericksburg we passed through
the streets of a rather busy, poorly-built town; but altogether, the
country seen from the railroad, bore less signs of an active and
prospering people than any I ever travelled through before, for an
equal distance.
Richmond, at a glance from adjacent high ground, through a dull
cloud of bituminous smoke, upon a lowering winter’s day, has a very
picturesque appearance, and I was reminded of the sensation produced
by a similar _coup d’œil_ of Edinburgh. It is somewhat similarly
situated upon and among some considerable hills; but the moment it is
examined at all in detail, there is but one spot, in the whole picture,
upon which the eye is at all attracted to rest. This is the Capitol,
a Grecian edifice, standing alone, and finely placed on open and
elevated ground, in the centre of the town. It was built soon after the
Revolution, and the model was obtained by Mr. Jefferson, then Minister
to France, from the Maison Carrée.
A considerable part of the town, which contains a population of 28,000,
is compactly and somewhat substantially built, but is without any
pretensions to architectural merit, except in a few modern private
mansions. The streets are not paved, and but few of them are provided
with side walks other than of earth or gravel. The town is lighted with
gas, and furnished with excellent water by an aqueduct.
On a closer view of the Capitol, a bold deviation from the Grecian
model is very noticeable. The southern portico is sustained upon a very
high blank wall, and is as inaccessible from the exterior as if it had
been intended to fortify the edifice from all ingress other than by
scaling-ladders. On coming round to the west side, however, which is
without a colonnade, a grand entrance, reached by a heavy buttress of
stone steps, is found. This incongruity diminishes, in some degree, the
usual inconvenience of the Greek temple for modern public purposes, for
it gives speedy access to a small central rotunda, out of which doors
open into the legislative halls and offices.
If the walling up of the legitimate entrance has caused the impression,
in a stranger, that he is being led to a prison or fortress, instead
of the place for transacting the public business of a Free State by
its chosen paid agents, it is not removed when on approaching this
side door, he sees before it an armed sentinel—a meek-looking man in a
livery of many colours, embarrassed with a bright-bayoneted firelock,
which he hugs gently, as though the cold iron, this frosty day, chilled
his arm.
He belongs to the Public Guard of Virginia, I am told; a company of a
hundred men (more or less), enlisted under an Act of the State, passed
in 1801, after a rebellion of the coloured people, who, under one
“General Gabriel,” attempted to take the town, in hopes to gain the
means of securing their freedom. Having been betrayed by a traitor,
as insurgent slaves almost always are, they were met, on their
approach, by a large body of well-armed militia, hastily called out
by the Governor. For this, being armed only with scythe-blades, they
were unprepared, and immediately dispersed. “General Gabriel” and the
other leaders, one after another, were captured, tried, and hanged,
the militia in strong force guarding them to execution. Since then, a
disciplined guard, bearing the warning motto, “_Sic semper tyrannis!_”
has been kept constantly under arms in the Capitol, and no man can
enter the legislative temple of Virginia without being reminded that
“Eternal vigilance is the price of——.”
It was not till I had passed the guard, unchallenged, and stood at the
door-way, that I perceived that the imposing edifice, as I had thought
it at a distance, was nothing but a cheap stuccoed building; nor would
anything short of test by touch have convinced me that the great State
of Virginia would have been so long content with such a parsimonious
pretence of dignity as is found in imitation granite and imitation
marble.
There is an instance of parsimony, without pretence, in Richmond,
which Ruskin himself, if he were a traveller, could not be expected
to applaud. The railroad company which brings the traveller from
Washington, so far from being open to the criticism of having provided
edifices of a style of architecture only fitted for palaces, instead
of a hall suited to conflicts with hackney-coachmen, actually has no
sort of stationary accommodations for them at all, but sets them down,
rain or shine, in the middle of one of the main streets. The adjoining
hucksteries, barbers’ shops, and bar-rooms, are evidently all the
better patronized for this fine simplicity; but I should doubt if the
railroad stock advanced in value by it.
* * * * *
_Richmond._—On a Sunday afternoon I met a negro funeral procession, and
followed after it to the place of burial. There was a decent hearse, of
the usual style, drawn by two horses; six hackney coaches followed it,
and six well-dressed men, mounted on handsome saddle-horses, and riding
them well, rode in the rear of these. Twenty or thirty men and women
were also walking together with the procession, on the side walk. Among
all there was not a white person.
Passing out into the country, a little beyond the principal cemetery
of the city (a neat, rural ground, well filled with monuments and
evergreens), the hearse halted at a desolate place, where a dozen
coloured people were already engaged heaping the earth over the grave
of a child, and singing a wild kind of chant. Another grave was already
dug immediately adjoining that of the child, both being near the foot
of a hill, in a crumbling bank—the ground below being already occupied,
and the graves advancing in irregular terraces up the hill-side—an
arrangement which facilitated labour.
The new comers, setting the coffin—which was neatly made of stained
pine—upon the ground, joined in the labour and the singing, with the
preceding party, until a small mound of earth was made over the grave
of the child. When this was completed, one of those who had been
handling a spade, sighed deeply and said—
“Lord Jesus, have marcy on us—now! you Jim—you! see yar! you jes lay
dat yar shovel cross dat grave—so fash—dah—yes, dat’s right.”
A shovel and a hoe-handle having been laid across the unfilled grave,
the coffin was brought and laid upon them, as on a trestle; after
which, lines were passed under it, by which it was lowered to the
bottom.
Most of the company were of a very poor appearance, rude and
unintelligent, but there were several neatly-dressed and very
good-looking men. One of these now stepped to the head of the grave,
and, after a few sentences of prayer, held a handkerchief before him as
if it were a book, and pronounced a short exhortation, as if he were
reading from it. His manner was earnest, and the tone of his voice
solemn and impressive, except that, occasionally, it would break into
a shout or kind of howl at the close of a long sentence. I noticed
several women near him, weeping, and one sobbing intensely. I was
deeply influenced myself by the unaffected feeling, in connection with
the simplicity, natural, rude truthfulness, and absence of all attempt
at formal decorum in the crowd.
I never in my life, however, heard such ludicrous language as was
sometimes uttered by the speaker. Frequently I could not guess the
idea he was intending to express. Sometimes it was evident that he was
trying to repeat phrases that he had heard used before, on similar
occasions, but which he made absurd by some interpolation or distortion
of a word, thus: “We do not see the end here! oh no, my friends!
there will be a _putrification_ of this body!” the context failing to
indicate whether he meant purification or putrefaction, and leaving it
doubtful if he attached any definite meaning to the word himself. He
quoted from the Bible several times, several times from hymns, always
introducing the latter with “In the words of the poet, my brethren;”
he once used the same form, before a verse from the New Testament, and
once qualified his citation by saying, “I _believe_ the Bible says
that.”
He concluded by throwing a handful of earth on the coffin, repeating
the usual words, slightly disarranged, and then took a shovel, and,
with the aid of six or seven others, proceeded very rapidly to fill
the grave. Another man had in the mean time, stepped into the place
he had first occupied at the head of the grave; an old negro, with a
very singularly distorted face, who raised a hymn, which soon became a
confused chant—the leader singing a few words alone, and the company
then either repeating them after him or making a response to them,
in the manner of sailors heaving at the windlass. I could understand
but very few of the words. The music was wild and barbarous, but not
without a plaintive melody. A new leader took the place of the old man,
when his breath gave out (he had sung very hard, with much bending of
the body and gesticulation), and continued until the grave was filled,
and a mound raised over it.
A man had, in the mean time, gone into a ravine near by, and now
returned with two small branches, hung with withered leaves, that he
had broken off a beech tree: these were placed upright, one at the
head, the other at the foot of the grave. A few sentences of prayer
were then repeated in a low voice by one of the company, and all
dispersed. No one seemed to notice my presence at all. There were about
fifty coloured people in the assembly, and but one other white man
besides myself. This man lounged against the fence, outside the crowd,
an apparently indifferent spectator, and I judged he was a police
officer, or some one procured to witness the funeral, in compliance
with the law which requires that a white man shall always be present at
any meeting, for religious exercises, of the negroes.
The greater part of the coloured people, on Sunday, seemed to be
dressed in the cast-off fine clothes of the white people, received, I
suppose, as presents, or purchased of the Jews, whose shops show that
there must be considerable importation of such articles, probably from
the North, as there is from England into Ireland. Indeed, the lowest
class, especially among the younger, remind me much, by their dress,
of the “lads” of Donnybrook; and when the funeral procession came to
its destination, there was a scene precisely like that you may see
every day in Sackville Street, Dublin,—a dozen boys in ragged clothes,
originally made for tall men, and rather folded round their bodies than
worn, striving who should hold the horses of the gentlemen when they
dismounted to attend the interment of the body. Many, who had probably
come in from the farms near the town, wore clothing of coarse gray
“negro-cloth,” that appeared as if made by contract, without regard to
the size of the particular individual to whom it had been allotted,
like penitentiary uniforms. A few had a better suit of coarse blue
cloth, expressly made for them evidently, for “Sunday clothes.”
Some were dressed with foppish extravagance, and many in the latest
style of fashion. In what I suppose to be the fashionable streets,
there were many more well-dressed and highly-dressed coloured people
than white; and among this dark gentry the finest French cloths,
embroidered waistcoats, patent-leather shoes, resplendent brooches,
silk hats, kid gloves, and _eau de mille fleurs_, were quite common.
Nor was the fairer, or rather the softer sex, at all left in the shade
of this splendour. Many of the coloured ladies were dressed not only
expensively, but with good taste and effect, after the latest Parisian
mode. Some of them were very attractive in appearance, and would have
produced a decided sensation in any European drawing-room. Their walk
and carriage were more often stylish and graceful. Nearly a fourth part
seemed to me to have lost all African peculiarity of feature, and to
have acquired, in place of it, a good deal of that voluptuousness of
expression which characterizes many of the women of the South of Europe.
There was no indication of their belonging to a subject race, except
that they invariably gave the way to the white people they met. Once,
when two of them, engaged in conversation and looking at each other,
had not noticed his approach, I saw a Virginian gentleman lift his
walking-stick and push a woman aside with it. In the evening I saw
three rowdies, arm-in-arm, taking the whole of the sidewalk, hustle
a black man off it, giving him a blow, as they passed, that sent him
staggering into the middle of the street. As he recovered himself
he began to call out to, and threaten them. Perhaps he saw me stop,
and thought I should support him, as I was certainly inclined to:
“Can’t you find anything else to do than to be knockin’ quiet people
round! You jus’ come back here, will you? Here, you! _don’t care
if you is white_. You jus’ come back here, and I’ll teach you how
to behave—knockin’ people round!—don’t care if I does hab to go to
der watch-house.” They passed on without noticing him further, only
laughing jeeringly—and he continued: “You come back here, and I’ll make
you laugh; you is jus’ three white nigger cowards, dat’s what _you_ be.”
I observe, in the newspapers, complaints of growing insolence and
insubordination among the negroes, arising, it is thought, from too
many privileges being permitted them by their masters, and from too
merciful administration of the police laws with regard to them. Except
in this instance, however, I have seen not the slightest evidence
of any independent manliness on the part of the negroes towards the
whites. As far as I have yet observed, they are treated very kindly
and even generously as servants, but their manner to white people is
invariably either sullen, jocose, or fawning.
The pronunciation and dialect of the negroes, here, is generally much
more idiomatic and peculiar than with us. As I write, I hear a man
shouting, slowly and deliberately, meaning to say _there_: “_Dah! dah!_
DAH!”
Among the people you see in the streets, full half, I should think,
are more or less of negro blood, and a very decent, civil people these
seem, in general, to be; more so than the labouring class of whites,
among which there are many very ruffianly-looking fellows. There is
a considerable population of foreign origin, generally of the least
valuable class; very dirty German Jews, especially, abound, and their
characteristic shops (with their characteristic smells, quite as bad as
in Cologne) are thickly set in the narrowest and meanest streets, which
seem to be otherwise inhabited mainly by negroes.
Immense waggons, drawn by six mules each, the teamster always riding
on the back of the near-wheeler, are a characteristic feature of the
streets. On the canal, a long, narrow-canoe-like boat, perhaps fifty
feet long and six wide, and drawing but a foot or two of water, is
nearly as common as the ordinary large boats, such as are used on our
canals. They come out of some of the small, narrow, crooked streams,
connected with the canals, in which a difficult navigation is effected
by poleing. They are loaded with tobacco, flour, and a great variety
of raw country produce. The canal boatmen seem rude, insolent, and
riotous, and every facility is evidently afforded them, at Richmond,
for indulging their peculiar appetites and tastes. A great many low
eating, and, I should think, drinking, shops are frequented chiefly by
the negroes. Dancing and other amusements are carried on in these at
night.
From reading the comments of Southern statesmen and newspapers on
the crime and misery which sometimes result from the accumulation of
poor and ignorant people, with no intelligent masters to take care of
them, in our Northern towns, one might get the impression that Southern
towns—especially those not demoralized by foreign commerce—were
comparatively free from a low and licentious population. From what I
have seen, however, I am led to think that there is at least as much
vice, and of what we call rowdyism, in Richmond, as in any Northern
town of its size.
* * * * *
_Richmond._—Yesterday morning, during a cold, sleety storm, against
which I was struggling, with my umbrella, to the post-office, I met a
comfortably-dressed negro leading three others by a rope; the first
was a middle-aged man; the second a girl of, perhaps, twenty; and the
last a boy, considerably younger. The arms of all three were secured
before them with hand-cuffs, and the rope by which they were led passed
from one to another; being made fast at each pair of hand-cuffs. They
were thinly clad, the girl especially so, having only an old ragged
handkerchief around her neck, over a common calico dress, and another
handkerchief twisted around her head. They were dripping wet, and
icicles were forming, at the time, on the awning bars.
The boy looked most dolefully, and the girl was turning around, with a
very angry face, and shouting, “O pshaw! Shut up!”
“What are they?” said I, to a white man, who had also stopped, for a
moment, to look at them. “What’s he going to do with them?”
“Come in a canal boat, I reckon: sent down here to be sold.—That ar’s a
likely gal.”
Our ways lay together, and I asked further explanation. He informed me
that the negro-dealers had confidential servants always in attendance,
on the arrival of the railroad trains and canal packets, to take any
negroes that might have come consigned to them, and bring them to their
marts.
Nearly opposite the post-office was another singular group of negroes.
They consisted of men and boys, and each carried a coarse, white
blanket, drawn together at the corners so as to hold some articles;
probably, extra clothes. They stood in a row, in lounging attitudes,
and some of them, again, were quarrelling, or reproving one another.
A villanous-looking white man stood in front of them. Presently, a
stout, respectable man, dressed in black according to the custom, and
without any overcoat or umbrella, but with a large, golden-headed
walking-stick, came out of the door of an office, and, without saying a
word, walked briskly up the street; the negroes immediately followed,
in file; the other white man bringing up the rear. They were slaves
that had been sent into the town to be hired out as servants or factory
hands. The gentleman in black was, probably, the broker in the business.
Near the post-office, opposite a large livery and sale stable,
I turned into a short, broad street, in which were a number of
establishments, the signs on which indicated that they were occupied
by “Slave Dealers,” and that “Slaves, for Sale or to Hire,” were to
be found within them. They were much like Intelligence Offices, being
large rooms partly occupied by ranges of forms, on which sat a few
comfortably and neatly clad negroes, who appeared perfectly cheerful,
each grinning obsequiously, but with a manifest interest or anxiety,
when I fixed my eye on them for a moment.
In Chambers’ Journal for October, 1853,[12] there is an account of the
Richmond slave marts, and the manner of conducting business in them, to
which I shall refer the reader, in lieu of any further narration of my
own observations on this subject. (See Appendix B.) I did not myself
happen to witness, during fourteen months that I spent in the Slave
States, any sale of negroes by auction. This must not be taken as an
indication that negro auctions are not of frequent occurrence (I did
not, so far as I now recollect, witness the sale of anything else, at
auction, at the South). I saw negroes advertised to be sold at auction,
very frequently.
The hotel at which I am staying, “The American,” Milberger Smith,
from New York, proprietor, is an excellent one. I have never, this
side the Atlantic, had my comforts provided for better, in my private
room, with so little annoyance from the servants. The chamber-servants
are negroes, and are accomplished in their business; (the dining-room
servants are Irish). A man and a woman attend together upon a few
assigned rooms, in the hall adjoining which they are constantly in
waiting; your bell is answered immediately, your orders are quickly
and quietly followed, and your particular personal wants anticipated
as much as possible, and provided for, as well as the usual offices
performed, when you are out. The man becomes your servant while you are
in your room; he asks, at night, when he comes to request your boots,
at what time he shall come in the morning, and then, without being very
exactly punctual, he comes quietly in, makes your fire, sets the boots
before it, brushes and arranges your clothes, lays out your linen,
arranges your dressing gear, asks if you want anything else of him
before breakfast, opens the shutters, and goes off to the next room.
I took occasion to speak well of him to my neighbour one day, that I
might judge whether I was particularly favoured.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “Henry was a very good boy, very—valuable
servant—quite so—would be worth two thousand dollars, if he was a
little younger—easy.”
At dinner, a venerable looking man asked another—
“Niggers are going high now, aint they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What would you consider a fair price for a woman thirty years old,
with a young-one two years old?”
“Depends altogether on her physical condition, you know.—Has she any
other children?”
“_Yes; four._”
“——Well—I reckon about seven to eight hundred.”
“I bought one yesterday—gave six hundred and fifty.”
“Well, sir, if she’s tolerable likely, you did well.”
* * * * *
This morning I visited a farm, situated on the bank of James River,
near Richmond.
The labour upon it was entirely performed by slaves. I did not inquire
their number, but I judged there were from twenty to forty. Their
“quarters” lined the approach-road to the mansion, and were well-made
and comfortable log cabins, about thirty feet long by twenty wide, and
eight feet wall, with a high loft and shingle roof. Each divided in the
middle, and having a brick chimney outside the wall at either end, was
intended to be occupied by two families. There were square windows,
closed by wooden ports, having a single pane of glass in the centre.
The house-servants were neatly dressed, but the field-hands wore very
coarse and ragged garments.
During the three hours, or more, in which I was in company with the
proprietor, I do not think ten consecutive minutes passed uninterrupted
by some of the slaves requiring his personal direction or assistance.
He was even obliged, three times, to leave the dinner-table.
“You see,” said he, smiling, as he came in the last time, “a farmer’s
life, in this country, is no sinecure.” Then turning the conversation
to slavery, he observed, in answer to a remark of mine, “I only wish
your philanthropists would contrive some satisfactory plan to relieve
us of it; the trouble and the responsibility of properly taking care
of our negroes, you may judge, from what you see yourself here, is
anything but enviable. But what can we do that is better? Our free
negroes—and I believe it is the same at the North as it is here—are
a miserable set of vagabonds, drunken, vicious, worse off, it is my
honest opinion, than those who are retained in slavery. I am satisfied,
too, that our slaves are better off, as they are, than the majority of
your free labouring classes at the North.”
I expressed my doubts.
“Well, they certainly are better off than the English agricultural
labourers, or, I believe, those of any other Christian country. Free
labour might be more profitable to us: I am inclined to think it would
be. The slaves are excessively careless and wasteful, and, in various
ways—which, without you lived among them, you could hardly be made to
understand—subject us to very annoying losses.
“To make anything by farming, here, a man has got to live a hard life.
You see how constantly I am called upon—and, often, it is about as
bad at night as by day. Last night I did not sleep a wink till near
morning; I am quite worn out with it, and my wife’s health is failing.
But I cannot rid myself of it.”
I asked why he did not employ an overseer.
“Because I do not think it right to trust to such men as we have to
use, if we use any, for overseers.”
“Is the general character of overseers bad?”
“They are the curse of this country, sir; the worst men in the
community. * * * * But lately, I had another sort of fellow offer—a
fellow like a dancing-master, with kid gloves, and wrist-bands turned
up over his coat-sleeves, and all so nice, that I was almost ashamed
to talk to him in my old coat and slouched hat. Half a bushel of
recommendations he had with him, too. Well, he was not the man for
me—not half the gentleman, with all his airs, that Ned here is”—(a
black servant, who was bursting with suppressed laughter, behind his
chair).
“Oh, they are interesting creatures, sir,” he continued, “and, with all
their faults, have many beautiful traits. I can’t help being attached
to them, and I am sure they love us.” In his own case, at least, I did
not doubt; his manner towards them was paternal—familiar and kind;
and they came to him like children who have been given some task,
and constantly are wanting to be encouraged and guided, simply and
confidently. At dinner, he frequently addressed the servant familiarly,
and drew him into our conversation as if he were a family friend,
better informed, on some local and domestic points, than himself.
* * * * *
I have been visiting a coal-pit: the majority of the mining labourers
are slaves, and uncommonly athletic and fine-looking negroes; but a
considerable number of white hands are also employed, and they occupy
all the responsible posts. The slaves are, some of them, owned by the
mining company; but the most are hired of their owners, at from $120 to
$200 a year, the company boarding and clothing them. (I understood that
it was customary to give them a certain allowance of money and let them
find their own board.)
The white hands are mostly English or Welsh. One of them, with whom
I conversed, told me that he had been here several years; he had
previously lived some years at the North. He got better wages here
than he earned at the North, but he was not contented, and did not
intend to remain. On pressing him for the reason of his discontent, he
said, after some hesitation, he would rather live where he could be
more free; a man had to be too “discreet” here: if one happened to say
anything that gave offence, they thought no more of drawing a pistol or
a knife upon him, than they would of kicking a dog that was in their
way. Not long since, a young English fellow came to the pit, and was
put to work along with a gang of negroes. One morning, about a week
afterwards, twenty or thirty men called on him, and told him that they
would allow him fifteen minutes to get out of sight, and if they ever
saw him in those parts again they would “give him hell.” They were all
armed, and there was nothing for the young fellow to do but to move
“right off.”
“What reason did they give him for it?”
“They did not give him any reason.”
“But what had he done?”
“Why, I believe they thought he had been too free with the niggers; he
wasn’t used to them, you see, sir, and he talked to ’em free like, and
they thought he’d make ’em think too much of themselves.”
He said the slaves were very well fed, and well treated—not worked over
hard. They were employed night and day, in relays.
The coal from these beds is of special value for gas manufacture, and
is shipped, for that purpose, to all the large towns on the Atlantic
sea-board, even to beyond Boston. It is delivered to shipping at
Richmond, at fifteen cents a bushel: about thirty bushels go to a ton.
* * * * *
_Petersburg._—The train was advertised to leave at 3.30 P.M. At
that hour the cars were crowded with passengers, and the engineer,
punctually at the minute, gave notice that he was at his post, by a
long, loud whistle of the locomotive. Five minutes afterwards he gave
us an impatient jerk; ten minutes afterwards we advanced three rods;
twelve minutes afterwards, returned to first position: continued,
“backing and filling,” upon the bridge over the rapids of the James
river, for half an hour. At precisely four o’clock, crossed the bridge
and fairly started for Petersburg.
Ran twenty miles in exactly an hour and thirty minutes, (thirteen
miles an hour; mail train, especially recommended by advertisement as
“fast”). Brakes on three times, for cattle on the track; twenty minutes
spent at way-stations. Flat rail. Locomotive built at Philadelphia. I
am informed that most of those used on the road—perhaps all those of
the _slow_ trains—are made at Petersburg.
At one of the stoppages, smoke was to be seen issuing from the truck
of a car. The conductor, on having his attention called to it, nodded
his head sagely, took a morsel of tobacco, put his hands in his pocket,
looked at the truck as if he would mesmerize it, spat upon it, and then
stept upon the platform and shouted, “All right! Go ahead!” At the
next stoppage, the smoking was furious; conductor bent himself over it
with an evidently strong exercise of his will, but not succeeding to
tranquillize the subject at all, he suddenly relinquished the attempt,
and, deserting Mesmer for Preisnitz, shouted, “Ho! boy! bring me some
water here.” A negro soon brought a quart of water in a tin vessel.
“Hain’t got no oil, Columbus?”
“No, sir.”
“Hum—go ask Mr. Smith for some: this yer’s a screaking so, I durstn’t
go on. You Scott! get some salt. And look here, some of you boys, get
me some more water. D’ye hear?”
Salt, oil, and water, were crowded into the box, and, after five
minutes’ longer delay, we went on, the truck still smoking, and the
water and oil boiling in the box, until we reached Petersburg. The heat
was the result, I suppose, of a neglect of sufficient or timely oiling.
While waiting, in a carriage, for the driver to get my baggage, I saw a
negro oiling all the trucks of the train; as he proceeded from one to
other, he did not give himself the trouble to elevate the outlet of his
oiler, so that a stream of oil, costing probably a dollar and a half a
gallon, was poured out upon the ground the whole length of the train.
There were, in the train, two first-class passenger cars, and two
freight cars. The latter were occupied by about forty negroes, most of
them belonging to traders, who were sending them to the cotton States
to be sold. Such kind of evidence of activity in the slave trade of
Virginia is to be seen every day; but particulars and statistics of it
are not to be obtained by a stranger here. Most gentlemen of character
seem to have a special disinclination to converse on the subject;
and it is denied, with feeling, that slaves are often reared, as is
supposed by the Abolitionists, with the intention of selling them to
the traders. It appears to me evident, however, from the manner in
which I hear the traffic spoken of incidentally, that the cash value of
a slave for sale, above the cost of raising it from infancy to the age
at which it commands the highest price, is generally considered among
the surest elements of a planter’s wealth. Such a nigger is worth such
a price, and such another is too old to learn to pick cotton, and such
another will bring so much, when it has grown a little more, I have
frequently heard people say, in the street, or the public-houses. That
a slave woman is commonly esteemed least for her working qualities,
most for those qualities which give value to a brood-mare is, also,
constantly made apparent.[13]
By comparing the average decennial ratio of slave increase in all the
States with the difference in the number of the actual slave-population
of the slave-breeding States, as ascertained by the Census, it is
apparent that the number of slaves exported to the cotton States is
considerably more than twenty thousand a year.[14]
While calling on a gentleman occupying an honourable official position
at Richmond, I noticed upon his table a copy of Professor Johnson’s
Agricultural Tour in the United States. Referring to a paragraph in it,
where some statistics of the value of the slaves raised and annually
exported from Virginia were given, I asked if he knew how these had
been obtained, and whether they were authentic. “No,” he replied, “I
don’t know anything about it; but if they are anything unfavourable to
the institution of slavery, you may be sure they are false.” This is
but an illustration, in extreme, of the manner in which I find a desire
to obtain more correct but _definite_ information, on the subject of
slavery, is usually met, by gentlemen otherwise of enlarged mind and
generous qualities.
A gentleman, who was a member of the “Union Safety Committee” of
New York, during the excitement which attended the discussion of the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, told me that, as he was passing through
Virginia this winter, a man entered the car in which he was seated,
leading in a negro girl, whose manner and expression of face indicated
dread and grief. Thinking she was a criminal, he asked the man what she
had done.
“Done? Nothing.”
“What are you going to do with her?”
“I’m taking her down to Richmond, to be sold.”
“Does she belong to you?”
“No; she belongs to ——; he raised her.”
“Why does he sell her—has she done anything wrong?”
“Done anything? No: she’s no fault, I reckon.”
“Then, what does he want to sell her for?”
“Sell her for! Why shouldn’t he sell her? He sells one or two every
year; wants the money for ’em, I reckon.”
The irritated tone and severe stare with which this was said, my friend
took as a caution not to pursue his investigation.
A gentleman with whom I was conversing on the subject of the cost
of slave labour, in answer to an inquiry—What proportion of all the
stock of slaves of an old plantation might be reckoned upon to do
full work?—answered, that he owned ninety-six negroes; of these, only
thirty-five were field-hands, the rest being either too young or
too old for hard work. He reckoned his whole force as only equal to
twenty-one strong men, or “_prime_ field-hands.” But this proportion
was somewhat smaller than usual, he added, “because his women were
uncommonly good breeders; he did not suppose there was a lot of women
anywhere that bred faster than his; he never heard of babies coming so
fast as they did on his plantation; it was perfectly surprising; and
every one of them, in his estimation, was worth two hundred dollars, as
negroes were selling now, the moment it drew breath.”
I asked what he thought might be the usual proportion of workers to
slaves, supported on plantations, throughout the South. On the large
cotton and sugar plantations of the more Southern States, it was very
high, he replied; because their hands were nearly all bought and
_picked for work_; he supposed, on these, it would be about one-half;
but, on any old plantation, where the stock of slaves had been an
inheritance, and none had been bought or sold, he thought the working
force would rarely be more than one-third, at most, of the whole number.
This gentleman was out of health, and told me, with frankness, that
such was the trouble and annoyance his negroes occasioned him—although
he had an overseer—and so wearisome did he find the lonely life he
led on his plantation, that he could not remain upon it; and as he
knew everything would go to the dogs if he did not, he was seriously
contemplating to sell out, retaining only his foster-mother and a body
servant. He thought of taking them to Louisiana and Texas, for sale;
but, if he should learn that there was much probability that Lower
California would be made a Slave State, he supposed it would pay him to
wait, as probably, if that should occur, he could take them there and
sell them for twice as much as they would now bring in New Orleans. He
knew very well, he said, that, as they were, raising corn and tobacco,
they were paying nothing at all like a fair interest on their value.[15]
Some of his best hands he now rented out, to work at a furnace, and
for the best of these he had been offered, for next year, two hundred
dollars. He did not know whether he ought to let them go, though. They
were worked hard, and had too much liberty, and were acquiring bad
habits. They earned money by overwork, and spent it for whisky, and got
a habit of roaming about and _taking care of themselves_; because when
they were not at work in the furnace, nobody looked out for them.
I begin to suspect that the great trouble and anxiety of Southern
gentlemen is:—How, without quite destroying the capabilities of the
negro for any work at all, to prevent him from learning to take care of
himself.
* * * * *
_Petersburg, Dec. 28th._—It was early on a fine, mild, bright morning,
like the pleasantest we ever have in March, that I alighted from a
train of cars, at a country station. Besides the shanty that stood
for a station-house, there was a small, comfortable farm-house on the
right, and a country store on the left, and around them, perhaps, fifty
acres of clear land, now much flooded with muddy water;—all framed in
by thick pine wood.
A few negro children, staring as fixedly and posed as lifelessly as if
they were really figures “carved in ebony,” stood, lay, and lounged
on the sunny side of the ranks of locomotive-firewood; a white man,
smoking a cigar, looked out of the door of the store, and another,
chewing tobacco, leaned against a gate-post in front of the farm-house;
I advanced to the latter, and asked him if I could hire a horse in the
neighbourhood.
“How d’ye do, sir?” he replied, spitting and bowing with ceremony; “I
have some horses—none on ’em very good ones, though—rather hard riders;
reckon, perhaps, they wouldn’t suit you.”
“Thank you; do you think I could find anything better about here?”
“Colonel Gillin, over here to the store, ’s got a right nice
saddle-horse, if he’ll let you take her. I’ll go over there with you,
and see if he will.... Mornin’, Colonel;—here’s a gentleman that wants
to go to Thomas W.’s: couldn’t you let him have your saddle-horse?”
“How do you do, sir; I suppose you’d come back to-night?”
“That’s my intention; but I might be detained till to-morrow, unless
it would be inconvenient to you to spare your horse.”
“Well, yes, sir, I reckon you can have her;—Tom!—Tom!—_Tom!_ Now, has
that devilish nigger gone again? Tom! _Oh_, Tom! saddle the filly for
this gentleman.——Have you ever been to Mr. W.’s, sir?”
“No, I have not.”
“It isn’t a very easy place for strangers to go to from here; but I
reckon I can direct you, so you’ll have no difficulty.”
He accordingly began to direct me; but the way appeared so difficult to
find, I asked him to let me make a written memorandum, and, from this
memorandum, I now repeat the directions he gave me.
“You take this road here—you’ll see where it’s most travelled, and
it’s easy enough to keep on it for about a mile; then there’s a fork,
and you take the right; pretty soon, you’ll cross a creek and turn to
the right—the creek’s been up a good deal lately, and there’s some big
trees fallen along there, and if they ha’n’t got them out of the way,
you may have some difficulty in finding where the road is; but you
keep bearing off to the right, where it’s the most open (_i.e._, the
wood), and you’ll see it again pretty soon. Then you go on, keeping
along in the road—you’ll see where folks have travelled before—for may
be a quarter of a mile, and you’ll find a cross road; you must take
that to the left; pretty soon you’ll pass two cabins; one of ’em’s
old and all fallen in, the other one’s new, and there’s a white man
lives into it: you can’t mistake it. About a hundred yards beyond it,
there’s a fork, and you take the left—it turns square off, and it’s
fenced for a good bit; keep along by the fence, and you can’t miss
it. It’s right straight beyond that till you come to a school-house,
there’s a gate opposite to it, and off there there’s a big house—but
I don’t reckon you’ll see it neither, for the woods. But somewhere,
about three hundred yards beyond the school-house, you’ll find a little
road running off to the left through an old field; you take that, and
in less than half a mile you’ll find a path going square off to the
right; you take that, and keep on it till you pass a little cabin in
the woods; ain’t nobody lives there now: then it turns to the left,
and when you come to a fence and a gate, you’ll see a house there,
that’s Mr. George Rivers’ plantation—it breaks in two, and you take the
right, and when you come to the end of the fence, turn the corner—don’t
keep on, but turn there. Then it’s straight, till you come to the
creek again—there’s a bridge there; don’t go over the bridge, but turn
to the left, and keep along nigh the creek, and pretty soon you’ll
see a meeting-house in the woods; you go to that, and you’ll see a
path bearing off to the right—it looks as if it was going right away
from the creek, but you take it, and pretty soon it’ll bring you to
a saw-mill on the creek, up higher a piece; you just cross the creek
there, and you’ll find some people at the mill, and they’ll put you
right straight on the road to Mr. W.’s.”
“How far is it all, sir?”
“I reckon it’s about two hours’ ride, when the roads are good, to the
saw-mill. Mr. W.’s gate is only a mile or so beyond that, and then
you’ve got another mile, or better, after you get to the gate, but
you’ll see some nigger-quarters—the niggers belong to Mr. W., and I
reckon ther’ll be some of ’em round, and they’ll show you just where to
go.”
After reading over my memorandum, and finding it correct, and agreeing
with him that I should pay two dollars a day for the mare, we walked
out, and found her saddled and waiting for me.
I remarked that she was very good looking.
“Yes, sir; she ain’t a bad filly; out of a mare that came of Lady
Rackett by old Lord-knows-who, the best horse we ever had in this part
of the country: I expect you have heard of him. Oh! she’s maybe a
little playful, but you’ll find her a pleasant riding-horse.”
The filly was just so pleasantly playful, and full of well-bred life,
as to create a joyful, healthy, sympathetic, frolicsome heedlessness in
her rider, and, in two hours, we had lost our way, and I was trying to
work up a dead reckoning.
First, we had picked our way from the store down to the brook, through
a deeply corrugated clay-road; then there was the swamp, with the
fallen trees and thick underwood, beaten down and barked in the miry
parts by waggons making a road for themselves, no traces of which road
could we find in the harder, pebbly ground. At length, when we came to
drier land, and among pine trees, we discovered a clear way cut through
them, and a distinct road before us again; and this brought us soon to
an old clearing, just beginning to be grown over with pines, in which
was the old cabin of rotten logs, one or two of them falling out of
rank on the door side, and the whole concern having a dangerous lurch
to one corner, as if too much whisky had been drunk in it: then a more
recent clearing, with a fenced field and another cabin, the residence
of the white man we were told of, probably. No white people, however,
were to be seen, but two negroes sat in the mouth of a wigwam, husking
maize, and a couple of hungry hounds came bounding over the zig-zag,
gateless fence, as if they had agreed with each other that they would
wait no longer for the return of their master, but would straightway
pull down the first traveller that passed, and have something to eat
before they were quite famished. They stopped short, however, when
they had got within a good cart-whip’s length of us, and contented
themselves with dolefully youping as long as we continued in sight. We
turned the corner, following some slight traces of a road, and shortly
afterwards met a curious vehicular establishment, probably belonging to
the master of the hounds. It consisted of an axle-tree and wheels, and
a pair of shafts made of unbarked saplings, in which was harnessed, by
attachments of raw hide and rope, a single small black ox. There was
a bit, made of telegraph wire, in his mouth, by which he was guided,
through the mediation of a pair of much-knotted rope reins, by a white
man—a dignified sovereign, wearing a brimless crown—who sat upon a
two-bushel sack (of meal, I trust, for the hounds’ sake), balanced upon
the axle-tree, and who saluted me with a frank “How are you?” as we
came opposite each other.
Soon after this, we reached a small grove of much older and larger
pines than we had seen before, with long and horizontally stretching
branches, and duller and thinner foliage. In the middle of it was
another log cabin, with a door in one of the gable ends, a stove pipe,
half rusted away, protruding from the other, and, in the middle of one
of the sides, a small square port-hole, closed by a wooden shutter.
This must have been the school-house; but there were no children then
about it, and no appearance of there having been any lately. Near it
was a long string of fence, and a gate and lane, which gave entrance,
probably, to a large plantation, though there was no cultivated land
within sight of the road.
I could remember hardly anything after this, except a continuation of
pine trees, big, little, and medium in size, and hogs, and a black,
crooked, burnt sapling, that we had made believe was a snake springing
at us and had jumped away from, and then we had gone on at a trot—it
must have been some time ago, that—and then I was paying attentions to
Jane (the filly’s name was Jane Gillan), and finally my thoughts had
gone wool-gathering, and we must have travelled some miles out of our
way and—“Never mind,” said Jane, lifting her head, and turning in the
direction we had been going, “I don’t think it’s any great matter if
we are lost; such a fine day—so long since I’ve been out; if you don’t
care, I’d just as lief be lost as not; let’s go on and see what we
shall come to.”
“Very well, my beauty; you know the country better than I do. If you’ll
risk your dinner, I’m quite ready to go anywhere you choose to take
me. It’s quite certain we have not passed any meeting-house, or creek,
or saw-mill, or negro-quarters, and, as we have been two hours on the
road, it’s evident we are not going straight to Mr. W.’s; I must see
what we do pass after this,” and I stood up in the stirrups as we
walked on, to see what the country around us was like.
“Old fields”—a coarse, yellow, sandy soil, bearing scarcely anything
but pine trees and broom-sedge. In some places, for acres, the pines
would not be above five feet high—that was land that had been in
cultivation, used up and “turned out,” not more than six or eight years
before; then there were patches of every age; sometimes the trees were
a hundred feet high. At long intervals, there were fields in which the
pine was just beginning to spring in beautiful green plumes from the
ground, and was yet hardly noticeable among the dead brown grass and
sassafras bushes and blackberry vines, which nature first sends to hide
the nakedness of the impoverished earth.
Of living creatures, for miles, not one was to be seen (not even
a crow or a snow-bird), except hogs. These—long, lank, bony,
snake-headed, hairy, wild beasts—would come dashing across our path, in
packs of from three to a dozen, with short, hasty grunts, almost always
at a gallop, and looking neither to right nor left, as if they were
in pursuit of a fox, and were quite certain to catch him in the next
hundred yards; or droves of little pigs would rise up suddenly in the
sedge, and scamper off squealing into cover, while their heroic mothers
would turn round and make a stand, looking fiercely at us, as if they
were quite ready to fight if we advanced any further, but always
breaking, as we came near, with a loud _boosch_!
Once I saw a house, across a large, new old field, but it was far
off, and there was no distinct path leading towards it out of the
waggon-track we were following; so we did not go to it, but continued
walking steadily on through the old fields and pine woods for more than
an hour longer.
We then arrived at a grove of tall oak-trees, in the midst of which ran
a brook, giving motion to a small grist-mill. Back of the mill were two
log cabins, and near these a number of negroes, in holiday clothes,
were standing in groups among the trees. When we stopped one of them
came towards us. He wore a battered old hat, stiffly starched shirt
collar, cutting his ears; a red cravat, and an old black dress coat,
threadbare and a little ragged, but adorned with new brass buttons. He
knew Mr. Thomas W., certainly he did, and he reckoned I had come about
four miles (he did not know but it might be eight, if I thought so) off
the road I had been directed to follow. But that was of no consequence,
because he could show me where to go by a straight road—a cross
cut—from here, that would make it just as quick for me as if I had gone
the way I had intended.
“How far is it from here?” I asked.
“Oh, ’taint far, sar.”
“How far do you think?”
“Well, massa, I spec—I spec—(looking at my horse) I spec, massa, ef you
goes de way, sar, dat I show you, sar, I reckon it’ll take you——”
“How far is it—how many miles?”
“How many miles, sar? ha! masser, I don ’zactly reckon I ken tell
ou—not ’cisely, sar—how many miles it is, not ’zactly, ’cisely, sar.”
“How is that?—you don’t what?”
“I don’t ’zactly reckon I can give you de drection excise about de
miles, sar.”
“Oh! but how many miles do you think it is; is it two miles?”
“Yes, sar; as de roads is now, I tink it is just about two miles. Dey’s
long ones, dough, I reckon.”
“Long ones? you think it’s more than two miles, don’t you, then?”
“Yes, sar, I reckon it’s four or five miles.”
“Four or five! four or five long ones or short ones, do you mean?”
“I don ’zactly know, sar, wedder dey is short ones or long ones, sar,
but I reckon you find em middlin’ long; I spec you’ll be about two
hours ’fore you be done gone all the way to Mass W.’s.”
He walked on with us a few rods upon a narrow path, until we came to
a crossing of the stream; pointing to where it continued on the other
side, he assured me that it went right straight to Mr. W.’s plantation.
“You juss keep de straight road, massar,” he repeated several times,
“and it’ll take you right dar, sar.”
He had been grinning and bowing, and constantly touching his hat, or
holding it in his hand during our conversation, which I understood to
mean, that he would thank me for a dime. I gave it to him, upon which
he repeated his contortions and his form of direction—“Keep de straight
road.” I rode through the brook, and he called out again—“You keep dat
road right straight, and it’ll take you right straight dar.” I rode up
the bank and entered the oak wood, and still again heard him enjoining
me to “keep dat road right straight.”
Within less than a quarter of a mile there was a fork in the road to
the left, which seemed a good deal more travelled than the straight
one; nevertheless I kept the latter, and was soon well satisfied that
I had done so. It presently led me up a slope out of the oak woods
into a dark evergreen forest; and though it was a mere bridle-path,
it must have existed, I thought, before the trees began to grow, for
it was free of stumps, and smooth and clean as a garden walk, and the
pines grew thickly up, about four feet apart, on each side of it,
their branches meeting, just clear of my head, and making a dense
shade. There was an agreeable, slightly balsamic odour in the air; the
path was covered with a deep, elastic mat of pine leaves, so that our
footstep could hardly be heard; and for a time we greatly enjoyed going
along at a lazy, pacing walk of Jane’s. It was noon-day, and had been
rather warmer than was quite agreeable on the open road, and I took my
hat off, and let the living pine leaves brush my hair. But, after a
while, I felt slightly chilly; and when Jane, at the same time, gave a
little sympathizing caper, I bent my head down, that the limbs might
not hit me, until it nearly rested on her neck, dropped my hands and
pressed my knees tightly against her. Away we bounded!
A glorious gallop Jane had inherited from her noble grandfather!
Out of the cool dark-green alley, at last, and soon, with a more
cautious step, down a steep, stony declivity, set with deciduous
trees—beech, ash, oak, gum—“gum,” beloved of the “minstrels.” A
brawling shallow brook at the bottom, into which our path descended,
though on the opposite shore was a steep high bank, faced by an
impenetrable brake of bush and brier.
Have we been following a path only leading to a watering-place, then? I
see no continuance of it. Jane does not hesitate at all; but, as if it
was the commonest thing here to take advantage of natures engineering
in this way, walking into the water, turns her head up stream.
For more than a mile we continued following up the brook, which was
all the time walled in by insurmountable banks, overhung by large
trees. Sometimes it swept strongly through a deep channel, contracted
by boulders; sometimes purled and tinkled over a pebbly slope; and
sometimes stood in broad, silent pools, around the edges of which
remained a skirt of ice, held there by bushes and long broken
water-grasses.
At length came pine woods again. Jane was now for leaving the brook.
I let her have her own way, and she soon found a beaten track in the
woods. It certainly was not the “straight road” we had been directed
to follow; but its course was less crooked than that of the brook, and
after some time it led us out into a more open country, with young
pines and enclosed fields. Eventually we came to a gate and lane, which
we followed till we came to another cross-lane leading straight to a
farm-house.
As soon as we turned into the cross-lane, half a dozen little negro
boys and girls were seen running toward the house, to give alarm. We
passed a stable, with a cattle-pen by its side, opposite which was a
vegetable garden, enclosed with split palings; then across a running
stream of water; then by a small cabin on the right; and a corn-crib
and large pen, with a number of fatting hogs in it, on the left; then
into a large, irregular yard, in the midst of which was the farm-house,
before which were now collected three white children, six black ones,
two negro women, and an old lady wearing spectacles.
“How dy do, sir?” said the old lady, as we reined up, lifted our hat,
and put our black foot foremost.
“Thank you, madam, quite well; but I have lost my way to Mr. Thomas
W.’s, and will trouble you to tell me how to go from here to get to his
house.”
By this time a black man came cautiously walking in from the field back
of the house, bringing an axe; a woman, who had been washing clothes in
the brook, left her work and came up on the other side, and two more
girls climbed up on to a heap of logs that had been thrown upon the
ground, near the porch, for fuel. The swine were making a great noise
in their pen, as if feeding-time had come; and a flock of turkeys were
gobbling so incessantly and loudly that I was not heard. The old lady
ordered the turkeys to be driven away, but nobody stirred to do it, and
I rode nearer and repeated my request. No better success. “Can’t you
shew away them turkeys?” she asked again; but nobody “shewed.” A third
time I endeavoured to make myself understood. “Will you please direct
me how to go to Mr. W.’s?”
“No, sir—not here.”
“Excuse me—I asked if you would direct me to Mr. W.’s.”
“If some of you niggers don’t shew them turkeys, I’ll have you all
whipped as soon as your mass John comes home,” exclaimed the old
lady, now quite excited. The man with the axe, without moving towards
them at all, picked up a billet of wood, and threw it at the biggest
cock-turkey, who immediately collapsed; and the whole flock scattered,
chased by the two girls who had been on the log-heap.
“An’t dat Colonel Gillin’s mare, master?” asked the black man, coming
up on my left.
“You want to go to Thomas W.’s?” asked the old lady.
“Yes, madam.”
“It’s a good many years since I have been to Thomas W.’s, and I reckon
I can’t tell you how to go there now.”
“If master’ll go over to Missy Abler’s, I reckon dey ken tell ’em dah,
sar.”
“And how shall I go to Mrs. Abler’s?”