tle,
or sitting upon the ground, as best suited their convenience. When
they had potatoes they took them out with their hands, and ate them.
As soon as it was thought they had had sufficient time to swallow
their food they were called to their work again. _This was the only
meal they ate through the day._ now think of the little, almost naked
and half starved children, nibbling upon a piece of cold Indian cake,
or a potato! Think of the poor female, just ready to be confined,
without any thing that can be called convenient or comfortable! Think
of the old toil-worn father and mother, without anything to eat but
the coarsest of food, and not half enough of that! then think of
_home_. When sick, their physicians are their masters and overseers,
in most cases, whose skill consists in bleeding and in administering
large potions of Epsom salts, when the whip and _cursing_ will not
start them from their cabins.

III. HOUSES.

The huts of the slaves are mostly of the poorest kind. They are not as
good as those temporary shanties which are thrown up beside railroads.
They are erected with posts and crotches, with but little or no
frame-work about them. They have no stoves or chimneys; some of them
have something like a fireplace at one end, and a board or two off at
that side, or on the roof, to let off the smoke. Others have nothing
like a fireplace in them; in these the fire is sometimes made in the
middle of the hut. These buildings have but one apartment in them; the
places where they pass in and out, serve both for doors and windows;
the sides and roofs are covered with coarse, and in many instances
with refuse boards. In warm weather, especially in the spring, the
slaves keep up a smoke, or fire and smoke, all night, to drive away
the gnats and musketoes, which are very troublesome in all the low
country of the south; so much so that the whites sleep under frames
with nets over them, knit so fine that the musketoes cannot fly
through them.

Some of the slaves have rugs to cover them in the coldest weather, but
I should think _more have not_. During driving storms they frequently
have to run from one hut to another for shelter. In the coldest
weather, where they can get wood or stumps, they keep up fires all
night in their huts, and lay around them, with their feet towards the
blaze. Men, women and children all lie down together, in most
instances. There may be exceptions to the above statements in regard
to their hou