is one of the principal causes of the slaves being divided among
themselves, and without which they could not be held in bondage one
year, and perhaps not half that time.

I now proceed to describe the unsuccessful attempt of poor Jack to
obtain something from the female slave to satisfy hunger. The
planter's house was situated on an elevated spot on the side of a
hill. The fencing about the house and garden was very crookedly laid
up with rails. The night was rather dark and rainy, and Jack left me
with the understanding that I was to stay at a certain place until he
returned. I cautioned him before he left me to be very careful--and
after he started, I left the place where he was to find me when he
returned, for fear something might happen which might lead to my
detection, should I remain at that spot. So I left it and went off
where I could see the house, and that place too.

Jack had not long been gone, before I heard a great noise; a man,
crying out with a loud voice, "Catch him! Catch him!" and hissing the
dogs on, and they were close after Jack. The next thing I saw, was
Jack running for life, and an old white man after him, with a gun, and
his dogs. The fence being on sidling ground, and wet with the rain,
when Jack run against it he knocked down several panels of it and
fell, tumbling over and over to the foot of the hill; but soon
recovered and ran to where he had left me; but I was gone. The dogs
were still after him.

There happened to be quite a thicket of small oak shrubs and bushes in
the direction he ran. I think he might have been heard running and
straddling bushes a quarter of a mile! The poor fellow hurt himself
considerably in straddling over bushes in that way, in making his
escape.

Finally the dogs relaxed their chase and poor Jack and myself again
met in the thick forest. He said when he rapped on the cook-house
door, the colored woman came to the door. He asked her if she would
let him have a bite of bread if she had it, that he was a poor hungry
absconding slave. But she made no reply to what he said but
immediately sounded the alarm by calling loudly after her master,
saying, "here is a runaway negro!" Jack said that he was going to
knock her down but her master was out within one moment, and he had to
run for his life.

As soon as we got our eyes fixed on the North Star again, we started
on our way. We travelled on a few miles and came to another large
plantation, where Jack was dete