e wall. The
purpose of this was equally apparent.

The hall when I entered was half filled with people. They appeared to
be of all ages and sorts. They stood conversing in groups, just as men
do when assembled for any business, ceremony, or amusement, and waiting
for the affair to begin. It was plain, however, from the demeanour of
these people, that what they waited for did not impress them with any
feelings of solemnity. On the contrary a merry-meeting might have been
anticipated, judging from the rough jests and coarse peals of laughter
that from time to time rang through the hall.

There was one group, however, which gave out no such signs or sounds.
Seated along the stone banquette, and standing beside it, squatted down
upon the floor, or leaning against the wall in any and every attitude,
were the individuals of this group. Their black and brown skins, the
woolly covering of their skulls, their rough red "brogans," their coarse
garments of cheap cottonade, of jeans, of "nigger cloth" died cinnamon
colour by the juice of the catalpa-tree,--these characteristics marked
them as distinct from all the other groups in the hall--a distinct race
of beings.

But even without the distinctions of dress or complexion--even without
the thick lips or high cheekbones and woolly hair, it was easy to tell
that those who sat upon the banquette were under different circumstances
from these who strutted over the floor. While these talked loudly and
laughed gaily, those were silent and sad. These moved about with the
air of the conqueror--those were motionless with the passive look and
downcast mien of the captive. These were _masters_--those were
_slaves_! They were the slaves of the plantation Besancon.

All were silent, or spoke only in whispers. Most of them seemed ill at
ease. Mothers sat holding their "piccaninnies" in their sable embrace,
murmuring expressions of endearment, or endeavouring to hush them to
rest. Here and there big tears rolled over their swarthy cheeks, as the
maternal heart rose and fell with swelling emotions. Fathers looked on
with drier eyes, but with the stern helpless gaze of despair, which
bespoke the consciousness, that they had no power to avert their fate--
no power to undo whatever might be decreed by the pitiless wretches
around them.

Not all of them wore this expression. Several of the younger slaves,
both boys and girls, were gaily-dressed in stuffs of brilliant colours,
with