Chapter X: Part 10

"The friendship which has subsisted between us, now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles and pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me through that long period. It has been a great solace to me to believe that you are engaged in vindicating to posterity the course we have pursued for preserving to them, in all their purity, the blessings of self-government, which we had assisted, too, in acquiring for them. If ever the earth has beheld a system of administration conducted with a single and steadfast eye to the general interest and happiness of those committed to it; one which, protected by truth, can never know reproach, it is that to which our lives have been devoted. To myself, you have been a pillar of support through life. Take care of me when I am dead, and be assured that I shall leave with you my last affections."[13]

Footnote 13: Jefferson's Memoir and Correspondence, vol. iv., p. 428. Date, February 17, 1826.

JEFFERSON'S UNIVERSITY.

"That the legislator should especially occupy himself with the
education of youth, no one can dispute; for when this is not done in
states, it is a cause of damage to the polity. For a state must be
administered with reference to its polity; and that which is the
peculiar characteristic of each polity is that which preserves and
originally constitutes it; as, for instance, the democratical
principle in a democracy, and the oligarchical in an oligarchy; and
that which is the best principle always constitutes the best
polity."--ARISTOTLE, _Politik._, book viii.

The existence of the University of Virginia is scarcely recognised by British travellers. I was welcomed there as the first who had ever visited it. Charlottesville lies out of the ordinary route of tourists; but Monticello, the seat of Jefferson, is within sight of his favourite institution, and Mr. Madison's residence is only about thirty-five miles off; and it seems surprising that such a combination of interesting objects should not have drawn more pilgrim feet that way.

It was between five and six in the morning when we entered the stage at Orange Courthouse, which was to deposite us at Charlottesville before an early dinner. The snow had wholly disappeared, and I looked out eagerly to see what aspect the far-famed Virginia wore. For the greater part of the way all looked very desolate; the few dwellings were dingy; large mansions, with slave-dwellings clustered near. The trees were bare, the soil one dull red, the fences shabby. The eye found a welcome relief in the woods of stone-pine, and in an occasional apparition of the beautiful bluebird, perching upon a stump or flitting over the fallows. We breakfasted at a farm a little way off the road, whither we had to pick our way by a fieldpath, which was a perfect slough. The hostess was friendly, and served an excellent breakfast to the stage-passengers in a bedchamber.

From this point the road improved. The mountains were before us; and, as we approached them, the undulating surface of the country presented many beauties. It was Sunday. We mounted an eminence all grown over with stone-pine, and on the top we found, in the heart of the grove, a small church where worship was going on, while seventeen horses, two of them with sidesaddles, were fastened to the trees around. This church was free to all sects, but at present used by the Presbyterians, they being the most numerous sect in the neighbourhood.

We arrived at Charlottesville, at the foot of the mountains, by one o'clock, and joined the friends whom we found awaiting us at dinner at the hotel. A Unitarian clergyman was to preach in the courthouse in the afternoon: a rare event, I imagine; for we heard afterward that one of the professor's ladies could not sleep the night before from the idea of a Unitarian being so near. We attended the service, which was very spiritless. The whole burden fell upon the minister, there being no preparation for singing, and apparently no interest beyond mere curiosity. Two long rows of students from the University were there, and I thought I never saw so fine a set of youths. Their demeanour was gentlemanly to the last degree, except in the one particular of spitting, and the seriousness of their manner must have been gratifying to the preacher.

After the service we walked to the University, at the distance, I think, of a little more than a mile from the town. The singular ranges of college buildings are visible from a considerable distance, as they advantageously crown an eminence, presenting the appearance of a piazza surrounding an oblong square, with the professors' houses rising at regular intervals. We found that the low buildings connecting these larger dwellings were the dormitories of the students; ground-floor apartments opening into the piazza, and designed to serve as places of study as well as sleep. The professors' houses are inconveniently small. Jefferson wished, in the first instance, that the professors should be young men; and this fact and the smallness of the dwellings have given rise to the ridiculous belief, entertained by some people, that Jefferson made celibacy a condition of holding professorships in his university. Instead of this, ladies' faces may be seen at many windows, and plenty of children tripping along in the piazzas. At one end of the quadrangle is the Rotunda, containing the lecture-rooms, library, and other apartments; and outside the other end a Gothic chapel was about to be erected. Well-kept grass-plats and gravel-walks fill up the quadrangle.

The number of students at the time of my visit was 206. They are not admitted under the age of sixteen, except in the case of a younger brother accompanying one above that age. Each dormitory is designed to accommodate two students; but, when there is room, any student may rent a whole one if he chooses. The ordinary expenses are so moderate as to be worth specifying:--

Board, including furniture, washing, and attendance $100
Fuel and candles 15
Rent of half a dormitory 8
Use of the library and public rooms 15
Fees to professors, say 75
----
Total $213

exclusive of books and stationary, clothing and pocket-money. The students wear a uniform which is very becoming and not at all conspicuous, being merely a coat of particularly simple fashion and dark colour.

Of the two hundred and six students whom I had the pleasure of seeing, one hundred and fifty-one belonged to the state, five came from the Northern States, and the rest from the South and West; six from South Carolina, though there are colleges both at Charleston and Columbia. Professor Patterson spoke of the youths among whom he was living as being as steady and promising a set of young men as could be met with. We heard afterward a somewhat different account in a stagecoach; but, of course, the testimony of a professor is worth much more than that of two chance travellers; and all that I saw of the appearance and manners of the students was very creditable to the institution. Every student visits each professor's house twice in the session, once to dinner and once to a ball; and, I suppose, as much oftener as he may be asked. The session lasts ten months, the vacation being in the hot months of July and August.

The distinctive principle of this University is that each student is free to attend the schools of his choice, and no others; provided that, being under twenty-one years of age, he shall attend at least three professors. The professors highly approve of this arrangement, finding that it enables young men to qualify themselves rapidly and effectually for particular callings, in cases where time is valuable; and that the youths put vigour into their pursuits, in proportion as they are free, within a reasonable limit, to gratify their tastes and fulfil their own purposes in the choice of their studies.

There are nine professorships, and in each school there are three regular lectures a week, besides the instructions suited to the several classes into which the school is divided. The professors when I was there were--

Professor Harrison, Ancient Languages and History. This gentleman must find himself fully occupied. He was the sole instructer that session of seventy-five young men in Latin and Greek, and, of such as desired it, in Hebrew. His qualifications are understood to be of a very high order.

Professor Blœttermann had sixty-four pupils in Modern Languages, viz., French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Anglo-Saxon; and was ready to teach, moreover, the Danish, Swedish, Dutch, and Portuguese languages.

Professor Bonnycastle (Mathematics) had a large attendance, consisting of one hundred and nine, divided into five classes, beginning with the theory of Arithmetic, and concluding the course of Pure Mathematics with the Integral Calculus. There is, moreover, a class of Mixed Mathematics for such of the more advanced students as choose to pursue it, and another of Civil Engineering.

Professor Patterson undertakes the Natural Philosophy, having an attendance of seventy-three pupils. The apparatus provided for the use of this school is very extensive and complete; and an observatory, with the necessary astronomical instruments, is open to the students.

Professor Emmet, Chymistry and Materia Medica, eighty-nine pupils.

Professor Magill, Medicine, forty-one pupils.

Professor Warner, Anatomy and Surgery, forty-four pupils. An extensive museum is attached to the Medical Department, and the anatomical school is regularly supplied with subjects, from which the lectures are delivered. The advantage claimed for this, above all other medical schools in the country, is that its session lasts ten months instead of four.

Professor Tucker, Moral Philosophy, sixty-seven pupils, who are divided into two classes; the examinations of the junior class being in Rhetoric, Belles Lettres, Logic, and Ethics, from the professor's lectures, Blair's and Campbell's Rhetoric, and Stewart's "Active and Moral Powers." The senior class studies Mental Philosophy and Political Economy; and the examinations are from the professor's lectures, Brown's Lectures, Say's and Adam Smith's Political Economy.

Professor Davis, Law, forty-eight pupils. The students of this school have instituted a Law Society, at whose meetings the professor presides, and where the business of every branch of the profession is rehearsed.

Three honorary distinctions are conferred in this University; a certificate of proficiency, conferred by the faculty on any proficient in a particular branch of study; that of graduate in any school, for proficiency in the general studies of any school; and the third, of Master of Arts of the University of Virginia, is obtained by graduation in the schools of Ancient and Modern Languages, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chymistry, and Moral Philosophy. All these are obtained when deserved, and not in consequence of any prescribed term of study having been gone through. The title of Doctor of Medicine is conferred on the graduate in the Medical Department. The certificates and diplomas are delivered in the presence of all the members of the University and of the public on the last day of the session, in the Rotunda, amid many observances and rites.

It will be observed that there is no Theological Professorship. It was noticed by the religious North at the time of the foundation of the University, that this was probably the first instance in the world of such an establishment exhibiting this kind of deficiency, and the experiment was denounced as a very hazardous one. The result seems to have been, that while theological instruction has been obtainable elsewhere, a greater number and variety of young men, of different religious persuasions, have been educated at this institution than would have been likely to resort to it if it had, by the choice of a theological professor, identified itself with any single denomination. The reasons for the omission of a Professorship of Divinity are stated in the first Report of the Commissioners who met in August, 1818, at Rockfish Gap, on the Blue Ridge, for the purpose of organizing the plans of this institution. Jefferson was understood to be the author of the report, which contains the following passage:

"In conformity with the principles of our constitution, which places all sects of religion on an equal footing; with the jealousy of the different sects, in guarding that equality from encroachment and surprise; and with the sentiments of the legislature, in favour of freedom of religion, manifested on former occasions, we have proposed no Professor of Divinity; and the rather, as the proofs of the being of a God, the Creator, Preserver, and Supreme Ruler of the universe, the Author of all the relations of morality, and of the laws and obligations these infer, will be within the province of the Professor of Ethics; to which, adding the developments of those moral obligations, of those in which all sects agree, with a knowledge of the languages of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, a basis will be formed common to all sects. Proceeding thus far without offence to the constitution, we have thought it proper at this point to leave every sect to provide, as they think fittest, the means of further instruction in their own peculiar tenets."

There are no daily public prayers at this institution, but there are regular services on Sundays, administered by clergymen of the four denominations, in turns of a year each. These clergymen officiate on the invitation of the professors, officers, and students. The attendance upon public worship is purely voluntary; and, as might be expected as a consequence, it is regular and complete.

This institution may well be called Jefferson's University. The first conception was his; the whole impulse and direction; the scheme of its studies, and the organization of its government. His letters to his intimate friends during the last five years of his life breathe a rational ardour about this enterprise which is very animating to those connected with the university, and which affords a fine stimulus to the students, who are daily reminded of what they owe to him, and what were his expectations from them. "I fear not to say," he writes, "that within twelve or fifteen years from this time (1825), a majority of the rulers of our state will have been educated here. They shall carry hence the correct principles of our day; and you may count assuredly that they will exhibit their country in a degree of sound respectability it has never known, either in our days or those of our forefathers. I cannot live to see it. My joy must only be that of anticipation." In his last letter to Madison, a few months later, he says, "And if I remove beyond the reach of attentions to the university, or beyond the bourne of life itself, as I soon must, it is a comfort to leave that institution under your care, and an assurance that it will not be wanting."

The following passage in the same letter renders strangers curious to learn the politics of the university. "In the selection of our Law Professor, we must be rigorously attentive to his political principles. You will recollect that, before the Revolution, Coke-Littleton was the universal elementary book of law students; and a sounder whig never wrote, nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of the British constitution, or in what were called English liberties. You remember, also, that our lawyers were then all whigs. But when his black-letter text, and uncouth but cunning learning got out of fashion, and the honeyed Mansfieldism of Blackstone became the student's hornbook, from that moment that profession (the nursery of our Congress) began to slide into toryism, and nearly all the young brood of lawyers are now of that hue. They suppose themselves, indeed, to be whigs, because they no longer know what whigism or republicanism means. It is in our seminary that that vestal flame is to be kept alive; it is thence to spread anew over our own and the sister states." On inquiry I found that, out of the 206 students, seven held the principles of the democratic party. There seemed to be little or none of the federalism of the North, but a strong attachment to Calhoun on the part of the majority in the establishment. The evil influences of slavery have entered in to taint the work of the great champion of freedom. The political attachments of this once democratic institution are to the leader who, in order to uphold slavery, would, to judge him by himself, establish a Lacedæmonian government throughout the South; making every white man a soldier, in order to preserve a false idea of honour, and to obviate danger from the oppressed servile class. To observing eyes it appears plain that the hour is approaching when these young men must, like all other American men, choose their part, and enter decisively into struggle to maintain or overthrow the first principles of freedom. It will then be seen whether "the vestal flame" has been kept alive, or whether the name of him who cherished it has been honoured with mere lip-worship, while the labours of his latter years have been despised and undone. The eyes of the world will be fixed on Jefferson's University during the impending conflict between slaveholders and freemen.

To return to our Sunday afternoon. It was known that we should soon arrive at the University with our letters of introduction, and a truly hospitable welcome was prepared for us. We called first at Professor Patterson's, where we found ourselves, in half an hour, as much at home as if we had been acquainted for months. We were obliged to decline taking up our abode there at once, but promised to return the next morning, and remain for as long a time as we could spare. Professor Tucker, long known in England, and at present more extensively so through his very acceptable Life of Jefferson, was recovering from an illness which confined him to his room, and sent to ask me to visit him there. I was glad that he was well enough to see me, and that I had thus the benefit of a good deal of his lively, sensible, and earnest conversation.

A great disappointment awaited our rising on the Monday morning. On the Sunday afternoon the sun had been so hot that we threw off our shawls. The next morning we looked out upon a snowstorm. There was, from the beginning, no hope of our getting to Monticello. Jefferson's house upon the mountain was actually in sight, and there was no possibility of our reaching it, and we were obliged to satisfy ourselves with the traces we found of him about the University. Professor Patterson's carriage came for us early, and we passed a morning of the liveliest gossip with the ladies and children of the family, while the professors were engaged in their duties. The frankness of the whole society was particularly winning, and so was the cordiality among themselves; a degree of mutual good understanding which is seldom found in the small society of a college, village-like in its seclusion and leisure, with added temptations to jealousy and censoriousness. The ladies of Professor Patterson's family gave me a spirited and amiable description of their arrival as strangers at the University, and of the zeal and kind consideration with which they were welcomed and aided on every hand. Two facts struck me in the course of our feminine talk on the subject of housekeeping; that chickens are there to be had for a dollar a dozen, plump fowls ready for the fire; and that Mrs. Patterson's coachman, a slave, could read. These ladies, seeing apparently only domestic slaves kindly treated like their own, spoke lightly on the great subject, asking me if I did not think the slaves were happy; but their husbands used a very different tone, observing, with gloom, that it was a dark question every way.

Four of the professors and two or three students, fine, well-mannered young men, joined us at dinner, and many ladies and others of the professors in the evening. I was amused and gratified by the interest shown in the living authors of England, especially the ladies. Every particular that I could tell about Mrs. Somerville and Mrs. Marcet was eagerly listened to. The Herschel family, Mr. Malthus, and many more, were fully and affectionately discussed. The great treat of the evening to me was a long conversation with Professor Hamilton on the German language and literature, and on the mutual criticism of the Germans and the English. He offered a comparison of the genius of the Greek and German languages, which, for want of sufficient learning, I do not pretend to appreciate, but which impressed me strongly with admiration of his powers of conversation.

One of the ladies took an opportunity of asking me privately to request leave to attend a lecture with the Natural Philosophy class in the morning. Ladies are excluded by rule; but she thought that the rule might for once be infringed without injury in the case of foreign ladies. The professor kindly made no difficulty, and my prompter highly enjoyed her single opportunity.

We breakfasted before eight, and went immediately to survey the large building, the Rotunda. First we saw the library, a well-chosen collection of books, the list of which was made out by Jefferson. The students read in the Rotunda, and take out books by order. In the gallery above the books, the mineralogical collection, belonging to Professor Patterson, is arranged, and open to observation. Higher up still is a whispering gallery. The lecture to which we were admitted was on Heat. It was clear, fluent, and entertaining. The young men appeared to be good listeners; some wrote down almost all they heard, and many asked questions of the professor at the conclusion of the lecture.

Mr. Tucker begged us to go to his chamber to luncheon, as he was still unable to venture out of it. We had a delightful hour there. The sick gentleman's room was crowded with guests, all busy with question and remark, our time being short, and the quantity we had to say, like old friends in a brief meeting, being inexhaustible. A serious request was made to us that we would stay a month, giving up a portion of our southern journey in exchange for the good offices of the University. We could not possibly do this; but there can be no doubt of what our enjoyment would have been during a whole month of intimate intercourse with such stirring people as this graceful, kindly little society is composed of. Having said all that so many tongues could, in an hour's time, about the Theory of Rent, Colonel Thompson, and Mr. Malthus; the value of public censure and eulogy; Mrs. Somerville again, Philadelphia ale, American politics, and a hundred other things, we were obliged to go. Keepsakes of the ladies' work were put into our hands, and packets of sandwiches into the carriage; and a party escorted us to our inn, bad as the weather was. Letters of introduction were hastily prepared and sent after us, and during our whole visit nothing was omitted which could concern our comfort or enhance our pleasure. As I cast my last look from the window of the stage towards the University, it was with less regret than pleasurable astonishment at my own experience of the speed with which it is possible for foreign minds to communicate, and lasting regard to be established.

COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SOUTH.

"For Nature here
Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will
Her virgin fancies."

MILTON.

"These views of the degradation of the Southern States receive a
melancholy and impressive confirmation from the general aspect and
condition of the country, viewed in contrast with its former
prosperity. With natural advantages more bountiful than were ever
dispensed by a kind Providence to any other people upon the surface
of the globe, there is, from the mountains to the seacoast, one
unbroken scene of cheerless stagnation and premature
decay."--_Southern Review_, vol. ii., p. 513.

There was no end to the kind cautions given me against travelling through the Southern States, not only on account of my opinions on slavery, but because of the badness of the roads and the poverty of the wayside accommodations. There was so much of this, that my companion and I held a consultation one day, in our room at Washington, spreading out the map, and surveying the vast extent of country we proposed to traverse before meeting my relatives at New-Orleans. We found that neither was afraid, and afterward that there was no cause for fear, except to persons who are annoyed by irregularity and the absence of comfort. The evil prognostications went on multiplying as we advanced; but we learned to consider them as mere voices on the mountain of our enterprise, which must not deter us from accomplishing it. We had friends to visit at Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; Montgomery, Alabama; and Mobile. At Richmond we were cautioned about the journey into South Carolina; at Charleston we were met with dreadful reports of travelling in Georgia; in Georgia people spoke of the horrors of Alabama, and so on; and, after all, nothing could well be easier than the whole undertaking. I do not remember a single difficulty that occurred all the way. There was much fatigue, of course. In going down from Richmond to Charleston with a party of friends, we were nine days on the road, and had only three nights' rest. Throughout the journey we were obliged to accommodate ourselves to the stage hours, setting off sometimes in the evening, sometimes at midnight; or, of all uncomfortable seasons, at two or three in the morning. On a journey of many days, we had to inform ourselves of the longest time that the stage would stop at a supping or breakfasting place, so that we might manage to snatch an hour's sleep. While the meal was preparing, it was my wont to lie down and doze, in spite of hunger; if I could find a bed or sofa, it was well; if not, I could wrap myself in my cloak, and make a pillow on the floor of my carpet-bag. I found that a sleep somewhat longer than this, when I could go to bed for two hours, was more fatiguing than refreshing. The being waked up at two, when I had lain down at midnight, was the greatest discomfort I experienced. But little sleep can be obtained in the stage from the badness of the roads. It was only when quite wearied out that I could forget myself for an hour or two amid the joltings and rollings of the vehicle. In Alabama, some of the passengers in the stage were Southern gentlemen coming from New-York, in comparison with whose fatigues ours were nothing. I think they had then travelled eleven days and nights with very short intervals of rest, and the badness of the roads at the end of a severe winter had obliged them to walk a good deal. They looked dreadfully haggard and nervous, and we heard afterward that one of them had become incessantly convulsed in the face after we had left them. It is not necessary, of course, to proceed without stopping in such a way as this; but it is necessary to be patient of fatigue to travel in the South at all.

Yet I was very fond of these long journeys. The traveller (if he be not an abolitionist) is perfectly secure of good treatment, and fatigue and indifferent fare are the only evils which need be anticipated. The toils of society in the cities were so great to me that I generally felt my spirits rise when our packing began; and, the sorrow of parting with kind hosts once over, the prospect of a journey of many days was a very cheerful one. The novelty and the beauty of the scenery seemed inexhaustible; and the delightful American stages, open or closed all round at the will of the traveller, allow of everything being seen.

The American can conceive of nothing more dismal than a pine-barren on a rainy day; but the profound tranquillity made it beautiful to me, whose rainy days have been almost all spent in cities, amid the rumbling of hackney-coaches, the clink of pattens, the gurgle of spouts, and the flitting by of umbrellas. It is very different in the pine-barrens. The sandy soil absorbs the rain, so that there is no mud; the pines stand meekly drooping, as if waiting to be fed; the drip is noiseless; and the brooks and pools are seen bubbling clear, or quietly filling, while not a wing cleaves the air, each bird nestling in the covert of its domestic tree. When the rain ceases towards evening, the whole region undergoes a change. If a parting ray from the west pierces the woods, the stems look lilach in the moist light; the vines glitter before they shake off their last drops; the redbird startles the eye; the butterflies come abroad in clouds; the frogs grow noisy, and all nature wakens up fresh as from her siesta. The planter may be seen on his pacing white horse in a glade of the wood, or superintending the negroes who are repairing the fence of his estate. One black holds the large dibble, with which the holes for the stakes are made; others are warming their hands at the fire which blazes on the ground; many hands to do slovenly work. While any light is left, the driver is apt to shorten his road by cutting across a knoll instead of winding round it; and then the wheels are noiseless on the turf; the branches crash as the vehicle is forced between the trees; and the wood-pigeons, frightened from their roost, flutter abroad.

When the sun has gone down all is still within the stage; the passengers grow drowsy unless hunger keeps them awake. Each one nods upon his neighbour's shoulder, till a red light, gradually illuminating all the faces, and every moment growing brighter, rouses the dullest. Each tells somebody else that we are coming to a fire in the woods. First there are lines of little yellow flames on each side the path; the blazing up of twigs too dry to have been made incombustible by the morning's rain. Then there is a pond of red fire on either hand, and pillars of light rising from it; tall burning stems, throwing out jets of flame on all sides, or emitting a flood of sparks when touched by the night breeze. The succeeding darkness is intense. The horses seem to feel it, for they slacken to a footpace, and the grazing of a wheel against a pinestem, or the zigzag motion of the vehicle, intimates that the driver's eyes have been dazzled. Presently the horses set off again, and the passengers sink once more into silence. They are next roused by the discordant horn of the driver, sending out as many distinct blasts as there are passengers, each blast more of a screech than the last, and the final flourish causing a shout of laughter in the coach; laughter animated a little, perhaps, by the prospect of supper. Right or left soon appears the loghouse, its open shutters and door giving token that a large fire is blazing within. The gentlemen hand out the ladies at the door, and then stand yawning and stretching, or draw to the fire while they can, before the ladies take possession of the best places. The hostess, who is busy cooking, points to a lamp, with which the ladies light themselves to her chamber, to put up their hair under their bonnets for the night. Little impish blacks peep and grin from behind the stove or shine in the heat of the chimney-corner. If any one of them has ever received a compliment on his dexterity, he serves with most ostentatious bustle, his eyes wide open, his row of white teeth all in sight, and his little body twisting about with every affectation of activity. An observer may see some fun going on behind the mistress's back; a whisk of a carving-knife across a companion's throat, or a flourish of two plates like cymbals over the head.

At last supper is ready; the broiled venison, the ham collops and eggs, and apple-sauce; the infusion which is called tea or coffee; and the reeking corn-bread. Before the clatter of knives has ceased, the stage, with its fresh horses, is at the door; the ladies snatch a final warming while the driver finishes his protracted meal, their eyes being now at liberty to study the apartment, looking round for some other object than the old story, the six presidents who smile from the walls of almost every loghouse in America, and the great map of the United States, with a thumbmark, amounting to an erasure, on the spot of the very territory where this particular loghouse happens to be. If we wanted to consult a map in a hurry in such places as these, we never had to hunt out our present situation. There was always the worn spot to serve as the centre to our investigations. The passengers, however wearily they might have descended from the stage, are pretty sure to enter it again with a spring; warm and satisfied, with a joke on their tongues, and a good supper to sleep or muse upon.

The sleep seldom lasts long, however. You are sure to come to a creek, where nobody has ever erected a bridge, or where a freshet has carried one away, and no measures have been taken to rebuild it. With drowsy groans, the passengers rouse themselves, and get out at the driver's bidding under the cold stars or the drifting clouds. The ladies slip on their India-rubber shoes, for their first step may be into soft mud. They stand upon a bank if there be one, in order not to be run over in the dark; while the scow shows by the reflection of the light at her bow where the river is. When she touches the bank the driver calls to everybody to keep out of the way, cracks his whip, and drives his lumbering carriage down the bank and into the scow; the passengers follow; the scow is unchained, and the whole load is pushed across the stream, or pulled, if it happens to be a rope-ferry. When the expected shock tells you that you have arrived at the other side, the driver again cracks his whip, and the horses scramble. If they should refuse to mount the steep bank, and back a step upon the passengers instead, every one would infallibly be driven into the river. A delicate coaxing is therefore employed; and I imagine the animals must be aware what a ticklish thing any freak of theirs would be in such a situation, for I never knew them decline mounting the bank without a single back step.

If the teambolt or other fastening of equal consequence should happen to break, there is a chance of two hours' rest or so. Something snaps; the vehicle stops, the gentlemen get out; the ladies gaze from the windows, while somebody half-dressed comes out with a lantern from any dwelling that may be in sight, and goes back again for hammer and nail, or, at worst, a piece of cord, and you proceed at a slow footpace to the nearest hotel. There the slaves, roused from the floor, where they are lying like dogs, go winking about, putting fresh logs on the smouldering fire, and lighting a lamp or two. After repeated inquiries on the part of the ladies, who feel the first minutes of their two hours slipping away without any promise of rest, a female slave at last appears, staring as if she had never seen anybody before. The ladies have already taken out nightcap, soap, and towel from their carpet-bags. They motion the woman up stairs, and follow her. They find the water-jug, if there be one, empty, of course. With infinite coaxing they get the attendant to fill it. Long after they are undressed it comes, clear or "sort o' muddy," as may be. If there are no sheets or yellow ones, the ladies spread their dressing-gowns over the bed, and use their cloaks for a covering. As soon as they have lain down, a draught begins to blow in the strangest way on the top of their heads. They examine, and find a broken window behind the bed. They wrap up their heads and lie down again. As soon as they are fairly dreaming that they are at home, and need not get up till they please, the horn startles them; they raise their heads, see a light under the door, and the black woman looks in to drawl out that they must please to make haste. It seems like a week since they lay down; but they are not rested, and turn away sick and dizzy from the flickering light.

In the morning you wonder where your fatigue is gone. As the day steals through the forest, kindling up beauty as it goes, the traveller's whole being is refreshed. The young aloes under the fallen trunks glitter with dew; the gray moss, dangling from the trees, waves in the breath of the morning. The busy little chameleons run along the fences, and the squirrel erects his brush as you pass. While the crescent moon and the morning star glittered low down in the sky, you had longed to stay the sun beneath the horizon; but, now that he is come, fresh vigour and enjoyment seem to be shed down with his rays.

At such an hour you often come up with a family departing from the spot where they had "camped out" for the night. I never had the pleasure of camping out, but I know exactly what it must be like, for I have seen establishments of this sort in every stage of the process, from the searching out a spot blessed with a running stream, a shelter to windward, a dry soil, and plenty of fuel, to the piling the wagon with the pots, pans, and children previous to starting at dawn. There is a striking air of cheer about the family when beginning their new day; leaving behind the desolation they have made; the scorched turf, the scattered brushwood, chips, and meat-bones, and setting forth in renewed strength in the fresh morning. I owe to these people many a picture such as will never meet my eye in the galleries of art.

Our stationary rural life in the South was various and pleasant enough; all shaded with the presence of slavery, but without any other drawback. There is something in the make-shift, irregular mode of life which exists where there are slaves, that is amusing when the cause is forgotten.

The waking in the morning is accomplished by two or three black women staring at you from the bedposts. Then it is five minutes' work to get them out of the room. Perhaps, before you are half dressed, you are summoned to breakfast. You look at your watch, and listen whether it has stopped, for it seems not to be seven o'clock yet. You hasten, however, and find your hostess making the coffee. The young people drop in when the meal is half done, and then it is discovered that breakfast has been served an hour too early, because the clock has stopped, and the cook has ordered affairs according to her own conjectures. Everybody laughs, and nothing ensues. After breakfast a farmer in homespun--blue trousers and an orange-brown coat, or all over gray--comes to speak with your host. A drunken white has shot one of his negroes, and he fears no punishment can be obtained, because there were no witnesses of the deed but blacks. A consultation is held whether the affair shall go into court; and, before the farmer departs, he is offered cake and liqueur.

Your hostess, meantime, has given her orders, and is now engaged in a back room, or out in the piazza behind the house, cutting out clothes for her slaves; very laborious work in warm weather. There may be a pretence of lessons among the young people, and something more than pretence if they happen to have a tutor or governess; but the probability is that their occupations are as various as their tempers. Rosa cannot be found; she is lying on the bed in her own room reading a novel; Clara is weeping for her canary, which has flown away while she was playing with it; Alfred is trying to ascertain how soon we may all go out to ride; and the little ones are lounging about the court, with their arms round the necks of blacks of their own size. You sit down to the piano or to read, and one slave or another enters every half hour to ask what is o'clock. Your hostess comes in at length, and you sit down to work with her; she gratifies your curiosity about her "people," telling you how soon they burn out their shoes at the toes, and wear out their winter woollens, and tear up their summer cottons; and how impossible it is to get black women to learn to cut out clothes without waste; and how she never inquires when and where the whipping is done, as it is the overseer's business, and not hers. She has not been seated many minutes when she is called away, and returns saying how babyish these people are, that they will not take medicine unless she gives it to them; and how careless of each other, so that she has been obliged to stand by and see Diana put clean linen upon her infant, and to compel Bet to get her sick husband some breakfast.

Morning visiters next arrive. It may be the clergyman, with some new book that you want to look at; and inquiries whether your host sees any prospect of getting the requisite number of professors for the new college, or whether the present head of the institution is to continue to fill all the chairs. It may be a lank judge from some raw district, with a quid in his cheek, a swordcane in his hand, and a legal doubt in his mind which he wants your host to resolve. It may be a sensible woman, with courtesy in her countenance and decision in her air, who is accustomed really to rule her household, and to make the most of such human material and such a human lot as are pressing around and upon her. If so, the conversation between her and your hostess becomes rapid and interesting; full of tales of perplexity and trouble, of droll anecdotes, and serious and benevolent plans. Or it may be a lady of a different cast, who is delighted at the prospect of seeing you soon again. You look perplexed, and mention that you fear you shall be unable to return this way. Oh, but you will come and live here. You plead family, friends, and occupation in England, to say nothing of England being your home. Oh, but you can bring your family and friends with you. You laughingly ask why. She draws up and replies, "for the honour and glory of living in a republic."

Meantime Clara has dried her tears, for some one has recovered her canary, and the door of the cage is shut. The carriage and saddle-horses are scrambling on the gravel before the door, and the children run in to know if they may ride with you. Cake, fruit, and liqueurs, or perhaps tea, are brought in, and then the ladies depart. The clergyman thinks he will ride round with your party, hearing that you are going to inspect Mr. A.'s plantation. He warns you that it will not be "pleasant to see even the best plantations," and your trembling heart fully agrees.

You admire the horsemanship of your host on his white horse, and the boys on their black ponies. The carriage goes at good speed, and yet the fast _pace_ of the saddle-horses enables the party to keep together. While you are looking out upon a picturesque loghouse, peeping forth from a blossomy thicket, or admiring a splendid hedge of the Cherokee rose in straggling bloom, Rosa rouses herself from a revery, and asks you to tell her all about Victoria.

"What shall I tell you?"

"What religion is she? A Unitarian, I suppose, like you."

Church of Englandism and dissent being explained, Rosa resumes, in a plaintive voice, "Is she betrothed yet."

"Not that I know of."

"Oh, I hope she is! I wish I knew! When will she be queen? When she is eighteen, won't she? Oh! I thought she was to be of age, and be made queen at eighteen. How long will she be a queen?"

"As long as she lives."

"As long as she lives! Why I thought--"

Rosa has no idea of rulers not being changed every four or eight years. Even her imagination is almost overpowered at the idea of being set above everybody else for life.

The carriage stops, and you are invited to step out, and view the ravages of a tornado a season or two ago; you see how clear a path it made for itself in the forest, and how it swept across the river, tearing down an answering gap through the tall canebrake on the opposite bank. The prostrated trees lie sunk in swamp, half hidden by flowering reeds and bright mosses, while their stumps, twice as tall as yourself, are all cropped off, whatever may be their thickness, precisely at the same height, and so wrenched and twisted as to convince you that you never before conceived of the power of the winds. The boys show you a dry path down to the river side, that you may see the fishtraps that are laid in the stream, and watch the couples of shad-fishers--dark figures amid the flashing waters--who are pursuing their occupation in the glare of noon. The girls tell you how father remembers the time when there were bears in that canebrake, and there was great trouble in getting them to come out of their thick covert to be killed. When father first came here, this side of the river was all canebrake too. Is not a canebrake very ugly? It may not have any picturesque beauty; but your eye rests upon it with satisfaction, as a tropical feature in the scene.

You proceed, and point out with admiration a beautifully-situated dwelling, which you declare takes your fancy more than any you have seen. The children are amused that you should suppose any one lives there, overshadowed with trees as it is, so that its inhabitants would be devoured by moschetoes. Your hostess tells you that it is called Mr. B.'s Folly. He spent a good deal of money and much taste upon it, but it is uninhabitable from being rather too near the river. The fever appeared so immediately and decisively that the family had to leave it in three months, and there it stands, to be called B.'s Folly.

Your host paces up to the carriage window to tell you that you are now on A.'s plantation. You are overtaking a long train of negroes going to their work from dinner. They look all over the colour of the soil they are walking on: dusky in clothing, dusky in complexion. An old man, blacker than the rest, is indicated to you as a native African; and you point out a child so light as to make you doubt whether he be a slave. A glance at the long heel settles the matter. You feel that it would be a relief to be assured that this was a troop of monkeys dressed up for sport, rather than that these dull, shuffling animals should be human.

There is something inexpressibly disgusting in the sight of a slave woman in the field. I do not share in the horror of the Americans at the idea of women being employed in outdoor labour. It did not particularly gratify me to see the cows always milked by men (where there were no slaves); and the hay and harvest fields would have looked brighter in my eyes if women had been there to share the wholesome and cheerful toil. But a negro woman behind the plough presents a very different object from the English mother with her children in the turnip-field, or the Scotch lassie among the reapers. In her pre-eminently ugly costume, the long, scanty, dirty woollen garment, with the shabby large bonnet at the back of her head, the perspiration streaming down her dull face, the heavy tread of the splay foot, the slovenly air with which she guides her plough, a more hideous object cannot well be conceived, unless it be the same woman at home, in the negro quarter, as the cluster of slave dwellings is called.

You are now taken to the cotton-gin, the building to your left, where you are shown how the cotton, as picked from the pods, is drawn between cylinders so as to leave the seeds behind; and how it is afterward packed, by hard pressure, into bales. The neighbouring creek is dammed up to supply the water-wheel by which this gin is worked. You afterward see the cotton-seed laid in handfuls round the stalks of the young springing corn, and used in the cotton field as manure.

Meantime you attempt to talk with the slaves. You ask how old that very aged man is, or that boy; they will give you no intelligible answer. Slaves never know, or never will tell their ages, and this is the reason why the census presents such extraordinary reports on this point, declaring a great number to be above a hundred years old. If they have a kind master, they will boast to you of how much he gave for each of them, and what sums he has refused for them. If they have a hard master, they will tell you that they would have more to eat and be less flogged, but that massa is busy, and has no time to come down and see that they have enough to eat. Your hostess is well known on this plantation, and her kind face has been recognised from a distance; and already a negro woman has come to her with seven or eight eggs, for which she knows she shall receive a quarter dollar. You follow her to the negro quarter, where you see a tidy woman knitting, while the little children who are left in her charge are basking in the sun, or playing all kinds of antics in the road; little shining, plump, cleareyed children, whose mirth makes you sad when you look round upon their parents, and see what these bright creatures are to come to. You enter one of the dwellings, where everything seems to be of the same dusky hue: the crib against the wall, the walls themselves, and the floor, all look one yellow. More children are crouched round the wood fire, lying almost in the embers. You see a woman pressing up against the wall like an idiot, with her shoulder turned towards you, and her apron held up to her face. You ask what is the matter with her, and are told that she is shy. You see a woman rolling herself about in a crib, with her head tied up. You ask if she is ill, and are told that she has not a good temper; that she struck at a girl she was jealous of with an axe, and the weapon being taken from her, she threw herself into the well, and was nearly drowned before she was taken out, with her head much hurt.

The overseer has, meantime, been telling your host about the fever having been more or less severe last season, and how well off he shall think himself if he has no more than so many days' illness this summer: how the vegetation has suffered from the late frosts, pointing out how many of the oranges have been cut off, but that the great magnolia in the centre of the court is safe. You are then invited to see the house, learning by the way the extent and value of the estate you are visiting, and of the "force" upon it. You admire the lofty, cool rooms, with their green blinds, and the width of the piazzas on both sides the house, built to compensate for the want of shade from trees, which cannot be allowed near the dwelling for fear of moschetoes. You visit the icehouse, and find it pretty full, the last winter having been a severe one. You learn that, for three or four seasons after this icehouse was built, there was not a spike of ice in the state, and a cargo had to be imported from Massachusetts.