et with a huge piece of sturgeon for his
Sunday feast. My friends, however, left me little time to indulge in a
contemplative mood, for good old Madeira, a hearty welcome, and a stroll
about and around the place, filled up the day; while the fragrant weed
and the social circle occupied no small portion of the evening. Having
spent a few but very pleasant days here, I took leave of my hospitable
friends--not forgetting that jovial soul, Uncle Ben; then embarking in a
steamer, and armed with a solitary letter of introduction, I started off
to visit a plantation on the banks of James River.

A planter's home, like the good Highland laird's, seems made of India
rubber. Without writing to inquire whether the house is full, or your
company agreeable, you consider the former improbable and the latter
certain. When you approach your victim, a signal is thrown out; the
answer is a boat; in you get, bag and baggage; you land at the foot of
his lawn or of some little adjoining pier, and thus apparently force
yourself upon his hospitality. Reader, if it is ever your good fortune
to be dropped with a letter of introduction at Shirley, one glance from
the eye of the amiable host and hostess, accompanied by a real shake of
the hand, satisfy you beyond doubt you are truly and heartily welcome. A
planter's house on James River reminds one in many ways of the old
country. The building is old, the bricks are of the brownest red, and in
many places concealed by ivy of colonial birth; a few venerable monarchs
of the forest throw their ample shade over the greensward, which slopes
gently down to the water. The garden, the stables, the farm-yard, the
old gates, the time-honoured hues of everything,--all is so different
from the new facing and new painting which prevails throughout the
North, that you feel you are among other elements; and if you go inside
the house, the thoughts also turn homeward irresistibly as the eye
wanders from object to object. The mahogany table and the old
dining-room chairs, bright with that dark ebony polish of time which
human ingenuity vainly endeavours to imitate; the solid bookcases, with
their quaint gothic-windowly-arranged glass-doors, behind which, in calm
and dusty repose, lie heavy patriarchal-looking tomes on the lower
shelves, forming a sold basis above which to place lighter and less
scholastic literature; an arm-chair, that might have held the invading
Caesar, and must have been second-hand in the days