itable.

Maum Buckey and I soon became very good friends. She was proud of her
relationship with a white Englishman--"a right go-down Buckra" as she
called him--who commanded a ship, and besides recommended her to other
gentlemen in his way for a Washerwoman; and although she took care to
inform me, before we had been twenty-four hours acquainted, that her
Husband, Sam Handsell, has been a sad Rascal, who would have drunk all
her Money away, had he not Timeously drunk himself to death, she made me
the friendliest welcome, and promised that she would do all she could
for me, "the little piccaninny buckra," who was set down by Mr. Handsell
as being the son of an old Shipmate of his that had met with
misfortunes. After a six weeks' stay in the island, and _The Humane
Hopwood_ getting Freight in the way of Sugar, Captain Handsell bade me
good by, and set sail with a fair wind for Bristol, England. I never
set Eyes upon him again. You see, my Friends, that this is no
cunningly-spun Romance, in which a character disappears for a Season,
and turns up again, as pat as you please, at the end of the Fourth
Volume; but a plain Narrative of Facts, in which the Personages
introduced must needs Come and Go precisely as they Came and Went to me
in Real Life. I have often wished, when I had Power and Riches, to meet
with and show my Gratitude to the rough old Sea-Porpoise that used to
Rope's-End me so, and was so tearing a Tyrant to his Hands, and yet in a
mere fit of kind-heartedness played the Honest Man to me, when All
Things seemed against me, and rescued John Dangerous from a Foul and
Wicked Trap.

Maum Buckey had a great rambling house--it had but one Storey, with a
Piazza running round, but a huge number of Rooms and Yards--in the
suburbs of Kingston. There did I take up my abode. She had at least
twenty Negro and Mulotter Women and Girls that worked for her at the
Washing, and at Starching and Ironing, for the Mill was always going
with her. 'Twas wash, wash, wash, and wring, wring, wring, and scrub,
scrub, scrub, all day and all night too, when the harbour was full of
ships. Not that she ever touched Soapsuds or Flat-iron or
Goffering-stick herself. She was vastly too much of a Fine Lady for
that, and would loll about in a great chair,--one Negro child fanning
her with a great Palmetto, and another tickling the soles of her
feet,--sipping her Sangaree as daintily as you please. She was the most
ignorant old creature that eve