crupling herself to wield the
instrument of torture, and with her own hands inflict severe
chastisement. Her husband was less inhuman than his wife, but he was
often goaded on by her to acts of great severity. In his last illness
I was sent for, and watched beside his death couch. The girl on whom
he had so often inflicted punishment, haunted his dying hours; and
when at length the king of terrors approached, he shrieked in utter
agony of spirit, "Oh, the blackness of darkness, the black imps, I can
see them all around me--take them away!" and amid such exclamations he
expired. These persons were of one of the first families in
Charleston.

A friend of mine, in whose veracity I have entire confidence, told me
that about two years ago, a woman in Charleston with whom I was well
acquainted, had starved a female slave to death. She was confined in a
solitary apartment, kept constantly tied, and condemned to the slow
and horrible death of starvation. This woman was notoriously cruel. To
those who have read the narrative of James Williams I need only say,
that the character of young Larrimore's wife is an exact description
of this female tyrant, whose countenance was ever dressed in smiles
when in the presence of strangers, but whose heart was as the nether
millstone toward her slaves.

As I was traveling in the lower country in South Carolina, a number of
years since, my attention was suddenly arrested by an exclamation of
horror from the coachman, who called out, "Look there, Miss Sarah,
don't you see?"--I looked in the direction he pointed, and saw a human
head stuck up on a high pole. On inquiry, I found that a runaway
slave, who was outlawed, had been shot there, his head severed from
his body, and put upon the public highway, as a terror to deter slaves
from running away.

On a plantation in North Carolina, where I was visiting, I happened
one day, in my rambles, to step into a negro cabin; my compassion was
instantly called forth by the object which presented itself. A slave,
whose head was white with age, was lying in one corner of the hovel;
he had under his head a few filthy rags but the boards were his only
bed, it was the depth of winter, and the wind whistled through every
part of the dilapidated building--he opened his languid eyes when I
spoke, and in reply to my question, "What is the matter?" He said, "I
am dying of a cancer in my side."--As he removed the rags which
covered the sore, I found that it ext