Chapter III (1)

THE INTERIOR COTTON DISTRICTS—CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, ETC.

_Central Mississippi, May 31st._—Yesterday was a raw, cold day, wind north-east, like a dry north-east storm at home. Fortunately I came to the pleasantest house and household I had seen for some time. The proprietor was a native of Maryland, and had travelled in the North; a devout Methodist, and somewhat educated. He first came South, as I understood, for the benefit of his health, his lungs being weak.

His first dwelling, a rude log cabin, was still standing, and was occupied by some of his slaves. The new house, a cottage, consisting of four rooms and a hall, stood in a small grove of oaks; the family were quiet, kind, and sensible.

When I arrived, the oldest boy was at work, holding a plough in the cotton-field, but he left it and came at once, with confident and affable courtesy, to entertain me.

My host had been in Texas, and after exploring it quite thoroughly, concluded that he much preferred to remain where he was. He found no part of that country where good land, timber, and a healthy climate were combined: in the West he did not like the vicinage of the Germans and Mexicans; moreover, he didn’t “fancy” a prairie county. Here, in favourable years, he got a bale of cotton to the acre. Not so much now as formerly. Still, he said, the soil would be good enough for him here, for many years to come.

I went five times to the stable without being able to find a servant there. I was always told that “the boy” would feed my horse, and take good care of him, when he came; and so at length I had to go to bed, trusting to this assurance. I went out just before breakfast next morning, and found the horse with only ten _dry_ cobs in the manger. I searched for the boy; could not find him, but was told that my horse had been fed. I said, “I wish to have him fed more—as much as he will eat.” Very well, the boy should give him more. When I went out after breakfast the boy was leading out the horse. I asked if he had given him corn this morning.

“Oh yes, sir.”

“How many ears did you give him?”

“Ten or fifteen—or sixteen, sir; he eats very hearty.”

I went into the stable and saw that he had not been fed; there were the same ten cobs (dry) in the manger. I doubted, indeed, from their appearance, if the boy had fed him at all the night before. I fed him with leaves myself, but could not get into the corn crib. The proprietor was, I do not doubt, perfectly honest, but the negro had probably stolen the corn for his own hogs and fowls.

The next day I rode more than thirty miles, having secured a good feed of corn for the horse at midday. At nightfall I was much fatigued, but had as yet failed to get lodging. It began to rain, and grew dark, and I kept the road with difficulty. About nine o’clock I came to a large, comfortable house.

An old lady sat in the verandah, of whom I asked if I could be accommodated for the night: “Reckon so,” she replied: then after a few moments’ reflection, without rising from her chair she shouted, “Gal!—gal!” Presently a girl came.

“Missis?”

“Call Tom!”

The girl went off, while I remained, waiting for a more definite answer. At length she returned: “Tom ain’t there, missis.”

“Who is there?”

“Old Pete,”

“Well, tell him to come and take this gentleman’s horse.”

Pete came, and I went with him to the gate where I had fastened my horse. Here he called for some younger slave to come and take him down to “the pen,” while he took off the saddle.

All this time it was raining, but any rapidity of movement was out of the question. Pete continued shouting. “Why not lead the horse to the pen yourself?” I asked. “I must take care of de saddle and tings, massa; tote ’em to de house whar dey’ll be safe. Dese niggers is so treacherous, can’t leave nothin’ roun’ but dey’ll hook suthing off of it.”

Next morning, at dawn of day, I saw honest Pete come into the room where I was in bed and go stealthily to his young master’s clothes, probably mistaking them for mine. I moved and he dropped them, and slunk out to the next room, where he went loudly to making a fire. I managed to see the horse well fed night and morning.

There were three pretty young women in this house, of good manners and well dressed, except for the abundance of rings and jewelry which they displayed at breakfast. One of them surprised me not a little at the table. I had been offered, in succession, fried ham and eggs, sweet potatoes, apple-pie, corn-bread, and molasses; this last article I declined, and passed it to the young lady opposite, looking to see how it was to be used. She had, on a breakfast plate, fried ham and eggs and apple-pie, and poured molasses between them.

* * * * *

_June 1st._—I stopped last evening at the house of a man who was called “Doctor” by his family, but who was, to judge from his language, very illiterate. His son, by whom I was first received, followed me to the stable. He had ordered a negro child to lead my horse, but as I saw the little fellow couldn’t hold him I went myself. He had no fodder (corn-leaves), and proposed to give the horse some shucks (corn-husks) dipped in salt water, and, as it was now too late to go further, I assented. Belshazzar licked them greedily, but would not eat them, and they seemed to destroy his appetite for corn, for late in the evening, having groped my way into the stable, I found seven small ears of corn, almost untasted, in the manger. I got the young man to come out and give him more.

The “Doctor” returned from “a hunt,” as he said, with no game but a turtle, which he had taken from a “trot line”—a line, with hooks at intervals, stretched across the river.

The house was large, and in a good-sized parlour or common room stood a handsome centre table, on which were a few books and papers, mostly Baptist publications. I sat here alone in the evening, straining my eyes to read a wretchedly printed newspaper, till I was offered a bed. I was very tired and sleepy, having been ill two nights before. The bed was apparently clean, and I gladly embraced it.

My host, holding a candle for me to undress by (there was no candlestick in the house), called to a boy on the outside to fasten the doors, which he did by setting articles of furniture against them. When I had got into bed he went himself into an inner room, the door of which he closed and fastened in the same manner. No sooner was the light withdrawn than I was attacked by bugs. I was determined, if possible, not to be kept awake by them, but they soon conquered me. I never suffered such incessant and merciless persecution from them before. In half an hour I was nearly frantic, and leaped from bed. But what to do? There was no use in making a disturbance about it; doubtless every other bed and resting place in the house was full of them. I shook out my day clothes carefully and put them on, and then pushing away the barricade, opened the door and went into the parlour. At first I thought that I would arrange the chairs in a row and sleep on them; but this I found impracticable, for the seats of the chairs were too narrow, and moreover of deerskin, which was sure to be full of fleas if not of bugs. Stiff and sore and weak, I groaningly lay down where the light of the moon came through a broken window, for bugs feed but little except in darkness, and with my saddle-bags for a pillow, again essayed to sleep. Fleas! instantly. There was nothing else to be done; I was too tired to sit up, even if that would have effectually removed the annoyance. Finally I dozed—not long, I think, for I was suddenly awakened by a large insect dropping upon my eye. I struck it off, and at the moment it stung me. My eyelid swelled immediately, and grew painful, but at length I slept in spite of it. I was once more awakened by a large beetle which fell on me from the window; once more I got asleep, till finally at four o’clock I awoke with that feverish dryness of the eyes which indicates a determination to sleep no more. It was daylight, and I was stiff and shivering; the inflammation and pain of the sting in my eyelid had in a great degree subsided. I pushed back the bolt of the outside door-lock, and went to the stable. The negroes were already at work in the field. Belshazzar had had a bad night too: that was evident. The floor of the stall, being of earth, had been trodden into two hollows at each end, leaving a small rough hillock in the centre. Bad as it was, however, it was the best in the stable; only one in four of the stalls having a manger that was not broken down. A wee little black girl and boy were cleaning their master’s horses—mine they were afraid of. They had managed to put some fresh corn in his manger, however, and as he refused to eat, I took a currycomb and brush, and in the next two hours gave him the first thorough grooming he had enjoyed since I owned him. I could not detect the reason of his loss of appetite. I had been advised by an old southern traveller to examine the corn when my horse refused to eat—if corn were high I might find that it had been greased. From the actions of the horse, then and subsequently, I suspect some trick of this kind was here practised upon me. When I returned to the house and asked to wash, water was given me in a vessel which, though I doubted the right of my host to a medical diploma, certainly smelt strongly of the shop—it was such as is used by apothecaries in mixing drugs. The title of Doctor is often popularly given at the South to druggists and venders of popular medicines; very probably he had been one, and had now retired to enjoy the respectability of a planter.

* * * * *

_June 2nd._—I met a ragged old negro, of whom I asked the way, and at what house within twelve miles I had better stop. He advised me to go to one more than twelve miles distant.

“I suppose,” said I, “I can stop at any house along the road here, can’t I? They’ll all take in travellers?”

“Yes, sir, if you’ll take rough fare, such as travellers has to, sometimes. They’re all damn’d rascals along dis road, for ten or twelve miles, and you’ll get nothin’ but rough fare. But I say, massa, rough fare’s good enough for dis world; ain’t it, massa? Dis world ain’t nothin; dis is hell, dis is, I calls it; hell to what’s a comin’ arter, ha! ha! Ef you’s prepared? you says. I don’t look much ’s if I was prepared, does I? nor talk like it, nuther. De Lord he cum to me in my cabin in de night time, in de year ’45.”

“What?”

“De Lord! massa, de bressed Lord! He cum to me in de night time, in de year ’45, and he says to me, says he, ‘I’ll spare you yet five year longer, old boy!’ So when ’50 cum round I thought my time had cum, sure; but as I didn’t die, I reckon de Lord has ’cepted of me, and I ’specs I shall be saved, dough I don’t look much like it, ha! ha! ho! ho! de Lord am my rock, and he shall not perwail over me. I will lie down in green pastures and take up my bed in hell, yet will not His mercy circumwent me. Got some baccy, master?”

A little after sunset I came to an unusually promising plantation, the dwelling being within a large enclosure, in which there was a well-kept southern sward shaded by fine trees. The house, of the usual form, was painted white, and the large number of neat out-buildings seemed to indicate opulence, and, I thought, unusual good taste in its owner. A lad of sixteen received me, and said I could stay; I might fasten my horse, and when the negroes came up he would have him taken care of. When I had done so, and had brought the saddle to the verandah, he offered me a chair, and at once commenced a conversation in the character of entertainer. Nothing in his tone or manner would have indicated that he was not the father of the family, and proprietor of the establishment. No prince royal could have had more assured and nonchalant dignity. Yet a northern stable-boy, or apprentice, of his age, would seldom be found as ignorant.

“Where do you live, sir, when you are at home?” he asked.

“At New York.”

“New York is a big place, sir, I expect?”

“Yes, very big.”

“Big as New Orleans, is it, sir?”

“Yes, much bigger.”

“Bigger ’n New Orleans? It must be a bully city.”

“Yes; the largest in America.”

“Sickly there now, sir?”

“No, not now; it is sometimes.”

“Like New Orleans, I suppose?”

“No, never so bad as New Orleans sometimes is.”

“Right healthy place, I expect, sir?”

“Yes, I believe so, for a place of its size.”

“What diseases do you have there, sir?”

“All sorts of diseases—not so much fever, however, as you have hereabouts.”

“Measles and hooping-cough, sometimes, I reckon?”

“Yes, ’most all the time, I dare say.”

“All the time! People must die there right smart. Some is dyin’ ’most every day, I expect, sir?”

“More than a hundred every day, I suppose.”

“Gosh! a hundred every day! Almighty sickly place ’t must be?”

“It is such a large place, you see—seven hundred thousand people.”

“Seven hundred thousand—expect that’s a heap of people, ain’t it?”

His father, a portly, well-dressed man, soon came in, and learning that I had been in Mexico, said, “I suppose there’s a heap of Americans flocking in and settling up that country along on the line, ain’t there, sir?”

“No, sir, very few. I saw none, in fact—only a few Irishmen and Frenchmen, who called themselves Americans. Those were the only foreigners I saw, except negroes.”

“Niggers! Where were they from?”

“They were runaways from Texas.”

“But their masters go there and get them again, don’t they?”

“No, sir, they can’t.”

“Why not?”

“The Mexicans are friendly to the niggers, and protect them.”

“But why not go to the Government?”

“The Government considers them as free, and will not let them be taken back.”

“But that’s stealing, sir. Why don’t our Government make them deliver them up? What good is the Government to us if it don’t preserve the rights of property, sir? Niggers are property, ain’t they? and if a man steals my property, ain’t the Government bound to get it for me? Niggers are property, sir, the same as horses and cattle, and nobody’s any more right to help a nigger that’s run away than he has to steal a horse.”

He spoke very angrily, and was excited. Perhaps he was indirectly addressing me, as a Northern man, on the general subject of fugitive slaves. I said that it was necessary to have special treaty stipulations about such matters. The Mexicans lost their _peons_—bounden servants; they ran away to our side, but the United States Government never took any measures to restore them, nor did the Mexicans ask it. “But,” he answered, in a tone of indignation, “those are not niggers, are they? They are white people, sir, just as white as the Mexicans themselves, and just as much right to be free.”

My horse stood in the yard till quite dark, the negroes not coming in from the cotton-field. I twice proposed to take him to the stable, but he said, “No: the niggers would come up soon and attend to him.” Just as we were called to supper, the negroes began to make their appearance, getting over a fence with their hoes, and the master called to one to put the horse in the stable, and to “take good care of him.” “I want him to have all the corn he’ll eat,” said I. “Yes, sir; feed him well; do you hear there?”

The house was meagrely furnished within, not nearly as well as the most common New England farm-house. I saw no books and no decorations. The interior wood-work was unpainted.

At supper there were three negro girls in attendance—two children of twelve or fourteen years of age, and an older one, but in a few moments they all disappeared. The mistress called aloud several times, and at length the oldest came, bringing in hot biscuit.

“Where’s Suke and Bet?”

“In the kitchen, missus.”

“Tell them both to come to me, right off.”

A few minutes afterwards, one of the girls slunk in and stood behind me, as far as possible from her mistress. Presently, however, she was discovered.

“You Bet, you there? Come here! come here to me! close to me! (_Slap, slap, slap._) Now, why don’t you stay in here? (_Slap, slap, slap_, on the side of the head.) I know! you want to be out in the kitchen with them Indians! (_Slap, slap, slap._) Now see if you can stay here.” (_Slap!_) The other girl didn’t come at all, and was forgotten.

As soon as supper was over my hostess exclaimed, “Now, you Bet, stop crying there, and do you go right straight home; mind you run every step of the way, and if you stop one minute in the kitchen you’d better look out. Begone!” During the time I was in the house she was incessantly scolding the servants, in a manner very disagreeable for me to hear, though they seemed to regard it very little.

The Indians, I learned, lived some miles away, and were hired to hoe cotton. I inquired their wages. “Well, it costs me about four bits (fifty cents) a day,” (including food, probably). They worked well for a few days at a time; were better at picking than at hoeing. “They don’t pick so much in a day as niggers, but do it better.” The women said they were good for nothing, and her husband had no business to plant so much cotton that he couldn’t ’tend it with his own slave hands.

While at table a young man, very dirty and sweaty, with a ragged shirt and no coat on, came in to supper. He was surly and rude in his actions, and did not speak a word; he left the table before I had finished, and lighting a pipe, laid himself at full length on the floor of the room to smoke. This was the overseer.

Immediately after supper the master told me that he was in the habit of going to bed early, and he would show me where I was to sleep. He did so, and left me without a candle. It was dark, and I did not know the way to the stables, so I soon went to bed. On a feather bed I did not enjoy much rest, and when I at last awoke and dressed, breakfast was just ready. I said I would go first to look after my horse, and did so, the planter following me. I found him standing in a miserable stall, in a sorry state; he had not been cleaned, and there were no cobs or other indications of his having been fed at all since he had been there. I said to my host—

“He has not been fed, sir!”

“I wonder! hain’t he? Well, I’ll have him fed. I s’pose the overseer forgot him.”

But, instead of going to the crib and feeding him at once himself, he returned to the house and blew a horn for a negro; when after a long time one came in sight from the cotton-fields, he called to him to go to the overseer for the key of the corn-crib and feed the gentleman’s horse, and asked me now to come to breakfast. The overseer joined us as a supper; nothing was said to him about my horse, and he was perfectly silent, and conducted himself like an angry or sulky man in all his actions. As before, when he had finished his meal, without waiting for others to leave the table, he lighted a pipe and lay down to rest on the floor. I went to the stable and found my horse had been supplied with seven poor ears of corn only. I came back to ask for more, but could find neither master nor overseer. While I was packing my saddle-bags preparatory to leaving, I heard my host call a negro to “clean that gentleman’s horse and bring him here.” As it was late, I did not interpose. While I was putting on the bridle, he took off the musquito tent attached to the saddle and examined it. I explained why I carried it.

“You won’t want it any more,” said he; “no musquitoes of any account where you are going now; you’d better give it to me, sir; I should like to use it when I go a-fishing; musquitoes are powerful bad in the swamp.” After some further solicitation, as I seldom used it, I gave it to him. Almost immediately afterwards he charged me a dollar for my entertainment, which I paid, notwithstanding the value of the tent was several times that amount. Hospitality to travellers is so entirely a matter of business with the common planters.

I passed the hoe-gang at work in the cotton-field, the overseer lounging among them carrying a whip; there were ten or twelve of them; not one looked up at me. Within ten minutes I passed five who were ploughing, with no overseer or driver in sight, and each stopped his plough to gaze at me.

* * * * *

_June 3rd._—Yesterday I met a well-dressed man upon the road, and inquired of him if he could recommend me to a comfortable place to pass the night.

“Yes, I can,” said he; “you stop at John Watson’s. He is a real good fellow, and his wife is a nice, tidy woman; he’s got a good house, and you’ll be as well taken care of there as in any place I know.”

“What I am most concerned about is a clean bed,” said I.

“Well, you are safe for that, there.”

So distinct a recommendation was unusual, and when I reached the house he had described to me, though it was not yet dark, I stopped to solicit entertainment.

In the gallery sat a fine, stalwart man, and a woman, who in size and figure matched him well. Some ruddy, fat children were playing on the steps. The man wore a full beard, which is very uncommon in these parts. I rode to a horse-block near the gallery, and asked if I could be accommodated for the night. “Oh, yes, you can stay here if you can get along without anything to eat; we don’t have anything to eat but once a week.” “You look as if it agreed with you, I reckon I’ll try it for one night.” “Alight, sir, alight. Why, you came from Texas, didn’t you? Your rig looks like it,” he said, as I dismounted. “Yes, I’ve just crossed Texas, all the way from the Rio Grande.” “Have you though? Well, I’ll be right glad to hear something of that country.” He threw my saddle and bags across the rail of the gallery, and we walked together to the stable.

“I hear that there are a great many Germans in the western part of Texas,” he said presently.

“There are a great many; west of the Guadaloupe, more Germans than Americans born.”

“Have they got many slaves?”

“No.”

“Well, won’t they break off and make a free State down there, by and by?”

“I should think it not impossible that they might.”

“I wish to God they would; I would like right well to go and settle there if it was free from slavery. You see Kansas and all the Free States are too far north for me; I was raised in Alabama, and I don’t want to move into a colder climate; but I would like to go into a country where they had not got this curse of slavery.”

He said this not knowing that I was a Northern man. Greatly surprised, I asked, “What are your objections to slavery, sir?”

“Objections! The first’s here” (striking his breast); “I never could bring myself to like it. Well, sir, I know slavery is wrong, and God ’ll put an end to it. It’s bound to come to an end, and when the end does come, there’ll be woe in the land. And, instead of preparing for it, and trying to make it as light as possible, we are doing nothing but make it worse and worse. That’s the way it appears to me, and I’d rather get out of these parts before it comes. Then I’ve another objection to it. I don’t like to have slaves about me. Now, I tell a nigger to go and feed your horse; I never know if he’s done it unless I go and see; and if he didn’t know I would go and see, and would whip him if I found he hadn’t fed him, would he feed him? He’d let him starve. I’ve got as good niggers as anybody, but I never can depend on them; they will lie, and they will steal, and take advantage of me in every way they dare. Of course they will, if they are slaves. But lying and stealing are not the worst of it. I’ve got a family of children, and I don’t like to have such degraded beings round my house while they are growing up. I know what the consequences are to children, of growing up among slaves.”

I here told him that I was a Northern man, and asked if he could safely utter such sentiments among the people of this district, who bore the reputation of being among the most extreme and fanatical devotees of slavery. “I’ve been told a hundred times I should be killed if I were not more prudent in expressing my opinions, but, when it comes to killing, I’m as good as the next man, and they know it. I never came the worst out of a fight yet since I was a boy. I never am afraid to speak what I think to anybody. I don’t think I ever shall be.”

“Are there many persons here who have as bad an opinion of slavery as you have?”

“I reckon you never saw a conscientious man who had been brought up among slaves who did not think of it pretty much as I do—did you?”

“Yes, I think I have, a good many.”

“Ah, self-interest warps men’s minds wonderfully, but I don’t believe there are many who don’t think so, sometimes—it’s impossible, I know, that they don’t.”

“Were there any others in this neighbourhood,” I asked, “who avowedly hated slavery?” He replied that there were a good many mechanics, all the mechanics he knew, who felt slavery to be a great curse to them, and who wanted to see it brought to an end in some way. The competition in which they were constantly made to feel themselves engaged with slave-labour was degrading to them, and they felt it to be so. He knew a poor, hard-working man who was lately offered the services of three negroes for six years each if he would let them learn his trade, but he refused the proposal with indignation, saying he would starve before he helped a slave to become a mechanic.[9] There was a good deal of talk now among them about getting laws passed to prevent the owners of slaves from having them taught trades, and to prohibit slave-mechanics from being hired out. He could go out to-morrow, he supposed, and in the course of a day get two hundred signatures to a paper alleging that slavery was a curse to the people of Mississippi, and praying the Legislature to take measures to relieve them of it as soon as practicable. (The county contains three times as many slaves as whites.)

He considered a coercive government of the negroes by the whites, forcing them to labour systematically, and restraining them from a reckless destruction of life and property, at present to be necessary. Of course, he did not think it wrong to hold slaves, and the profits of their labour were not more than enough to pay a man for looking after them—not if he did his duty to them. What was wrong, was making slavery so much worse than was necessary. Negroes would improve very rapidly, if they were allowed, in any considerable measure, the ordinary incitements to improvement. He knew hosts of negroes who showed extraordinary talents, considering their opportunities: there were a great many in this part of the country who could read and write, and calculate mentally as well as the general run of white men who had been to schools. There were Colonel ——’s negroes, some fifty of them; he did not suppose there were any fifty more contented people in the world; they were not driven hard, and work was stopped three times a day for meals; they had plenty to eat, and good clothes; and through the whole year they had from Friday night to Monday morning to do what they liked with themselves. Saturdays, the men generally worked in their patches (private gardens), and the women washed and mended clothes. Sundays, they nearly all went to a Sabbath School which the mistress taught, and to meeting, but they were not obliged to go; they could come and go as they pleased all Saturday and Sunday; they were not looked after at all. Only on Monday morning, if there should any one be missing, or any one should come to the field with ragged or dirty clothes, he would be whipped. He had often noticed how much more intelligent and sprightly these negroes all were than the common run; a great many of them had books and could read and write; and on Sundays they were smartly dressed, some of them better than he or his wife ever thought of dressing. These things were purchased with the money they made out of their patches, working Saturdays.

There were two other large plantations near him, in both of which the negroes were turned out to work at half-past three every week-day morning—I might hear the bell ring for them—and frequently they were not stopped till nine o’clock at night, Saturday nights the same as any other. One of them belonged to a very religious lady, and on Sunday mornings at half-past nine she had her bell rung for Sunday School, and after Sunday School they had a meeting, and after dinner another religious service. Every negro on the plantation was obliged to attend all these exercises, and if they were not dressed clean they were whipped. They were never allowed to go off the plantation, and if they were caught speaking to a negro from any other place, they were whipped. They could all of them repeat the catechism, he believed, but they were the dullest, and laziest, and most sorrowful looking negroes he ever saw.

As a general rule, the condition of the slaves, as regards their material comfort, had greatly improved within twenty years. He did not know that it had in other respects. It would not be a bit safer to turn them free to shift for themselves, than it would have been twenty years ago. Of this he was quite confident. Perhaps they were a little more intelligent, knew more, but they were not as capable of self-guidance, not as much accustomed to work and contrive for themselves, as they used to be, when they were not fed and clothed nearly as well as now.

Beyond the excessive labour required of them on some plantations, he did not think slaves were often treated with unnecessary cruelty. It was necessary to use the lash occasionally. Slaves never really felt under any moral obligation to obey their masters. Faithful service was preached to them as a Christian duty, and they pretended to acknowledge it, but the fact was that they were obedient just so far as they saw that they must be to avoid punishment; and punishment was necessary, now and then, to maintain their faith in their master’s power. He had seventeen slaves, and he did not suppose that there had been a hundred strokes of the whip on his place for a year past.

He asked if there were many Americans in Texas who were opposed to slavery, and if they were free to express themselves. I said that the wealthy Americans there were all slaveholders themselves; that their influence all went to encourage the use of slave-labour, and render labour by whites disreputable. “But are there not a good many northern men there?” he asked. The northern men, I replied, were chiefly merchants or speculators, who had but one idea, which was to make money as fast as they could; and nearly all the little money there was in that country was in the hands of the largest slaveholders.

If that was the way of things there, he said, there could not be much chance of its becoming a Free State. I thought the chances were against it, but if the Germans continued to flock into the country, it would rapidly acquire all the characteristic features of a free-labour community, including an abundance and variety of skilled labour, a home market for a variety of crops, denser settlements, and more numerous social, educational, and commercial conveniences. There would soon be a large body of small proprietors, not so wealthy that the stimulus to personal and active industry would have been lost, but yet able to indulge in a good many luxuries, to found churches, schools, and railroads, and to attract thither tradesmen, mechanics, professional men, and artists. Moreover, the labourers who were not landholders would be intimately blended with them in all their interests; the two classes not living dissociated from each other, as was the case generally at the South, but engaged in a constant fulfilment of reciprocal obligations. I told him that if such a character of society could once be firmly and extensively established before the country was partitioned out into these little independent negro kingdoms, which had existed from the beginning in every other part of the South, I did not think any laws would be necessary to prevent slavery. It might be a slave State, but it would be a free people.

On coming from my room in the morning, my host met me with a hearty grasp of the hand. “I have slept very little with thinking of what you told me about western Texas. I think I shall have to go there. If we could get rid of slavery in this region, I believe we would soon be the most prosperous people in the world. What a disadvantage it must be to have your ground all frozen up, and to be obliged to fodder your cattle five months in the year, as you do at the North. I don’t see how you live. I think I should like to buy a small farm near some town where I could send my children to school—a farm that I could take care of with one or two hired men. One thing I wanted to ask you, are the Germans learning English at all?” “Oh, yes; they teach the children English in their schools.” “And have they good schools?” “Wherever they have settled at all closely they have. At New Braunfels they employ American as well as German teachers, and instruction can be had in the classics, natural history, and the higher mathematics.” “Upon my word, I think I must go there,” he replied. (Since then, as I hear, an educational institution of a high character, has been established by German influence in San Antonio, teachers in which are from Harvard.)

When I left he mounted a horse and rode on with me some miles, saying he did not often find an intelligent man who liked to converse with him on the question of slavery. It seemed to him there was an epidemic insanity on the subject. It is unnecessary to state his views at length. They were precisely those which used to be common among all respectable men at the South.

As we rode an old negro met and greeted us warmly. My companion hereupon observed that he had never uttered his sentiments in the presence of a slave, but in some way all the slaves in the country had, he thought, been informed what they were, for they all looked to him as their special friend. When they got into trouble, they would often come to him for advice or assistance. This morning before I was up, a negro came to him from some miles distant, who had been working for a white man on Sundays till he owed him three dollars, which, now that the negro wanted it, he said he could not pay. He had given the negro the three dollars, for he thought he could manage to get it from the white man.

He confirmed an impression I had begun to get of the purely dramatic character of what passed for religion with most of the slaves. One of his slaves was a preacher, and a favourite among them. He sometimes went to plantations twenty miles away—even further—on a Sunday, to preach a funeral sermon, making journeys of fifty miles a day on foot. After the sermon, a hat would be passed round, and he sometimes brought home as much as ten dollars. He was a notable pedestrian; and once when he had committed some abominable crime for which he knew he would have to be punished, and had run away, he (Mr. Watson) rode after him almost immediately, often got in sight of him, but did not overtake him until the second day, when starting early in the morning he overhauled him crossing a broad, smooth field. When the runaway parson saw that he could not escape, he jumped up into a tree and called out to him, with a cheerful voice, “I gin ye a good run dis time, didn’t I, massa?” He was the most rascally negro, the worst liar, thief, and adulterer on his place. Indeed, when he was preaching, he always made a strong point of his own sinfulness, and would weep and bellow about it like a bull of Bashan, till he got a whole camp meeting into convulsions.

* * * * *

The night after leaving Mr. Watson’s I was kindly received by a tradesman, who took me, after closing his shop, to his mother’s house, a log cabin, but more comfortable than many more pretentious residences at which I passed a night on this journey. For the first time in many months tea was offered me. It was coarse Bohea, sweetened with honey, which was stirred into the tea as it boiled in a kettle over the fire, by the old lady herself, whose especial luxury it seemed to be. She asked me if folks ever drank tea at the North, and when I spoke of green tea said she had never heard of that kind of tea before. They owned a number of slaves, but the young man looked after my horse himself. There was a good assortment of books and newspapers at this house, and the people were quite intelligent and very amiable.

The next day, I passed a number of small Indian farms, very badly cultivated—the corn nearly concealed by weeds. The soil became poorer than before, and the cabins of poor people more frequent. I counted about ten plantations, or negro-cultivated farms, in twenty miles. A planter, at whose house I called after sunset, said it was not convenient for him to accommodate me, and I was obliged to ride until it was quite dark. The next house at which I arrived was one of the commonest sort of cabins. I had passed twenty like it during the day, and I thought I would take the opportunity to get an interior knowledge of them. The fact that a horse and waggon were kept, and that a considerable area of land in the rear of the cabin was planted with cotton, showed that the family were by no means of the lowest class, yet, as they were not able even to hire a slave, they may be considered to represent very favourably, I believe, the condition of the poor whites of the plantation districts. The whites of the county, I observe, by the census, are three to one of the slaves; in the nearest adjoining county, the proportion is reversed; and within a few miles the soil was richer, and large plantations occurred.

It was raining, and nearly nine o’clock. The door of the cabin was open, and I rode up and conversed with the occupant as he stood within. He said that he was not in the habit of taking in travellers, and his wife was about sick, but if I was a mind to put up with common fare, he didn’t care. Grateful, I dismounted and took the seat he had vacated by the fire, while he led away my horse to an open shed in the rear—his own horse ranging at large, when not in use, during the summer.

The house was all comprised in a single room, twenty-eight by twenty-five feet in area, and open to the roof above. There was a large fireplace at one end and a door on each side—no windows at all. Two bedsteads, a spinning-wheel, a packing-case, which served as a bureau, a cupboard, made of rough hewn slabs, two or three deer-skin seated chairs, a Connecticut clock, and a large poster of Jayne’s patent medicines, constituted all the visible furniture, either useful or ornamental in purpose. A little girl, immediately, without having had any directions to do so, got a frying-pan and a chunk of bacon from the cupboard, and cutting slices from the latter, set it frying for my supper. The woman of the house sat sulkily in a chair tilted back and leaning against the logs, spitting occasionally at the fire, but took no notice of me, barely nodding when I saluted her. A baby lay crying on the floor. I quieted it and amused it with my watch till the little girl, having made “coffee” and put a piece of corn-bread on the table with the bacon, took charge of it.

I hoped the woman was not very ill.

“Got the headache right bad,” she answered. “Have the headache a heap, I do. Knew I should have it to-night. Been cuttin’ brush in the cotton this arternoon. Knew’t would bring on my headache. Told him so when I begun.”

As soon as I had finished my supper and fed Jude, the little girl put the fragments and the dishes in the cupboard, shoved the table into a corner, and dragged a quantity of quilts from one of the bedsteads, which she spread upon the floor, and presently crawled among them out of sight for the night. The woman picked up the child—which, though still a suckling, she said was twenty-two months old—and nursed it, retaking her old position. The man sat with me by the fire, his back towards her. The baby having fallen asleep was laid away somewhere, and the woman dragged off another lot of quilts from the beds, spreading them upon the floor. Then taking a deep tin pan, she filled it with alternate layers of corn-cobs and hot embers from the fire. This she placed upon a large block, which was evidently used habitually for the purpose, in the centre of the cabin. A furious smoke arose from it, and we soon began to cough. “Most _too_ much smoke,” observed the man. “Hope ’twill drive out all the gnats, then,” replied the woman. (There is a very minute flying insect here, the bite of which is excessively sharp.)

The woman suddenly dropped off her outer garment and stepped from the midst of its folds, in her petticoat; then, taking the baby from the place where she had deposited it, lay down and covered herself with the quilts upon the floor. The man told me that I could take the bed which remained on one of the bedsteads, and kicking off his shoes only, rolled himself into a blanket by the side of his wife. I ventured to take off my cravat and stockings, as well as my boots, but almost immediately put my stockings on again, drawing their tops over my pantaloons. The advantage of this arrangement was that, although my face, eyes, ears, neck, and hands, were immediately attacked, the vermin did not reach my legs for two or three hours. Just after the clock struck two, I distinctly heard the man and the woman, and the girl and the dog scratching, and the horse out in the shed stamping and gnawing himself. Soon afterward the man exclaimed, “Good God Almighty—mighty! mighty! mighty!” and jumping up pulled off one of his stockings, shook it, scratched his foot vehemently, put on the stocking, and lay down again with a groan. The two doors were open, and through the logs and the openings in the roof, I saw the clouds divide and the moon and stars reveal themselves. The woman, after having been nearly smothered by the smoke from the pan which she had originally placed close to her own pillow, rose and placed it on the sill of the windward door, where it burned feebly and smoked lustily, like an altar to the Lares, all night. Fortunately the cabin was so open that it gave us little annoyance, while it seemed to answer the purpose of keeping all flying insects at a distance.

When, on rising in the morning, I said that I would like to wash my face, water was given me for the purpose in an earthen pie-dish. Just as breakfast, which was of exactly the same materials as my supper, was ready, rain began to fall, presently in such a smart shower as to put the fire out and compel us to move the table under the least leaky part of the roof.

At breakfast occurred the following conversation:—

“Are there many niggers in New York?”

“Very few.”

“How do you get your work done?”

“There are many Irish and German people constantly coming there who are glad to get work to do.”

“Oh, and you have them for slaves?”

“They want money and are willing to work for it. A great many American-born work for wages, too.”

“What do you have to pay?”

“Ten or twelve dollars a month.”

“There was a heap of Irishmen to work on the railroad; they was paid a dollar a day; there was a good many Americans, too, but mostly they had little carts and mules, and hauled dirt and sich like. They was paid twenty-five or thirty dollars a month and found.”

“What did they find them?”

“Oh, blanket and shoes, I expect; they put up kind o’ tents like for ’em to sleep in altogether.”

“What food did they find them?”

“Oh, common food; bacon and meal.”

“What do they generally give the niggers on the plantations here?”

“A peck of meal and three pound of bacon is what they call ’lowance, in general, I believe. It takes a heap o’ meat on a big plantation. I was on one of William R. King’s plantations over in Alabamy, where there was about fifty niggers, one Sunday last summer, and I see ’em weighin’ outen the meat. Tell you, it took a powerful heap on it. They had an old nigger to weigh it out, and he warn’t no ways partickler about the weight. He just took and chopped it off, middlins, in chunks, and he’d throw them into the scales, and if a piece weighed a pound or two over he wouldn’t mind it; he never took none back. Ain’t niggers all-fired sassy at the North?”

“No, not particularly.”

“Ain’t they all free, there? I hearn so.”

“Yes.”

“Well, how do they get along when they’s free?”

“I never have seen a great many, to know their circumstances very well. Right about where I live they seem to me to live quite comfortably; more so than the niggers on these big plantations do, I should think.”

“Oh, they have a mighty hard time on the big plantations. I’d ruther be dead than to be a nigger on one of these big plantations.”

“Why, I thought they were pretty well taken care of on them.”

The man and his wife both looked at me as if surprised, and smiled.

“Why, they are well fed, are they not?”

“Oh, but they work em so hard. My God, sir, in pickin’ time on these plantations they start ’em to work ’fore light, and they don’t give ’em time to eat.”

“I supposed they generally gave them an hour or two at noon.”

“No, sir; they just carry a piece of bread and meat in their pockets and they eat it when they can, standin’ up. They have a hard life on ’t, that’s a fact. I reckon you can get along about as well withouten slaves as with ’em, can’t you, in New York?”

“In New York there is not nearly so large a proportion of very rich men as here. There are very few people who farm over three hundred acres, and the greater number—nineteen out of twenty, I suppose—work themselves with the hands they employ. Yes, I think it’s better than it is here, for all concerned, a great deal. Folks that can’t afford to buy niggers get along a great deal better in the Free States, I think; and I guess that those who could afford to have niggers get along better without them.”

“I no doubt that’s so. I wish there warn’t no niggers here. They are a great cuss to this country, I expect. But ’twouldn’t do to free ’em; that wouldn’t do nohow!”

“Are there many people here who think slavery a curse to the country?”

“Oh, yes, a great many. I reckon the majority would be right glad if we could get rid of the niggers. But it wouldn’t never do to free ’em and leave ’em here. I don’t know anybody, hardly, in favour of that. Make ’em free and leave ’em here and they’d steal everything we made. Nobody couldn’t live here then.”

These views of slavery seem to be universal among people of this class. They were repeated to me at least a dozen times.

“Where I used to live [Alabama], I remember when I was a boy—must ha’ been about twenty years ago—folks was dreadful frightened about the niggers. I remember they built pens in the woods where they could hide, and Christmas time they went and got into the pens, ’fraid the niggers was risin’.”

“I remember the same time where we was in South Carolina,” said his wife; “we had all our things put up in bags, so we could tote ’em, if we heerd they was comin’ our way.”

They did not suppose the niggers ever thought of rising now, but could give no better reason for not supposing so than that “everybody said there warn’t no danger on ’t now.”