table, and whom I
find it impossible, by exhortation or entreaty, to banish from the room,
so great is their amusement and curiosity at my outlandish modes of
proceeding. This morning, upon my entreating them not to persist in
waiting upon us at breakfast, they burst into an ungovernable titter,
and withdrawing from our immediate vicinity, kept poking their woolly
heads and white grinders in at the door every five minutes, keeping it
conveniently open for that purpose.

A fine large new hotel was among the buildings which the late fire at
Charleston destroyed, and the house where we now are is the best at
present in the city. It is kept by a very obliging and civil colored
woman, who seems extremely desirous of accommodating us to our minds;
but her servants (they are her slaves, in spite of her and their common
complexion) would defy the orderly genius of the superintendent of the
Astor House. Their laziness, their filthiness, their inconceivable
stupidity, and unconquerable good humor, are enough to drive one stark,
staring mad. The sitting-room we occupy is spacious, and not
ill-furnished, and especially airy, having four windows and a door, none
of which can or will shut. We are fortunately rid of that familiar
fiend of the North, the anthracite coal, but do not enjoy the luxury of
burning wood. Bituminous coal, such as is generally used in England, is
the combustible preferred here; and all my national predilections cannot
reconcile me to it, in preference to the brilliant, cheerful, wholesome,
poetical warmth of a wood fire. Our bedrooms are dismal dens, open to
"a' the airts the wind can blaw," half furnished, and not by any means
half clean. The furniture itself is old, and very infirm,--the tables
all peach with one or other leg,--the chairs are most of them minus one
or two bars,--the tongs cross their feet when you attempt to use
them,--and one poker travels from room to room, that being our whole
allowance for two fires.

We have had occasion to make only two trifling purchases since we have
been here; but the prices (if these articles are any criterion) must be
infinitely higher than those of the northern shopkeepers; but this we
must expect as we go further south, for, of course, they have to pay
double profits upon all the commonest necessaries of life, importing
them, as they do, from distant districts. I must record a curious
observation of Margery's, on her return from church Tuesday morning. She
as