s carried off by the fevers incident to the
climate, they generally reach a good old age, while the rice-negro
seldom lives to be over forty, and the cotton-slave very rarely attains
sixty. Cotton-growing, however, my host thought, is not, in itself, much
more unhealthy than turpentine-gathering, though cotton-hands work in
the sun, while the turpentine-slaves labor altogether in the shade.

'But,' he said, 'the' work 'em harder nor we does, an' doan't feed 'em
so well. We give ourn meat and whisky ev'ry day, but them articles is
skarse 'mong th' cotton blacks, an' th' rice niggers never get 'em
excep' ter Christmas-time, an' thet cums but onst a yar.'

'Do you think the white could labor as well as the black, on the rice
and cotton-fields?' I asked.

'Yas, an' better--better any whar; but, in coorse, 'tain't natur' fur
black nor white ter stand long a workin' in th' mud and water up ter
thar knees; sech work would kill off th' very devil arter a while. But
th' white kin stand it longer nor the black, and it's 'cordin' ter
reason that he shud; for, I reckon, stranger, that the spirit and pluck
uv a man hev a durned sight ter du with work. They'll hole a man up when
he's clean down, an' how kin we expec' thet th' pore nig, who's nary a
thing ter work fur, an who's been kept under an' 'bused ever sense Adam
was a young un'--how kin we expec' he'll work like men thet own
'emselfs, an' whose faders hev been free ever sense creation? I reckon
that the parient has a heap ter du with makin' th' chile. He puts the
sperit inter 'im: doan't we see it in hosses an' critters an' sech like?
It mayn't crap eout ter onst, but it's shore ter in th' long run, and
thet's th' way th' black han't no smarter nor he is. He's been a-ground
down an' kept under fur so long thet it'll take more'n 'un gin'ration
ter bring him up. 'Tan't his fault thet he's no more sperit, an' p'raps
'tan't ourn--thet is, them on us as uses 'em right--but it war the fault
uv yer fader an' mine--yer fader stole 'em, and mine bought 'em, an'
the' both made cattle uv 'em.'

'But I had supposed the black was better fitted by nature for hard
labor, in a hot climate, than the white.'

'Wal, he arn't, an' I knows it. Th' d----d parsons an' pol'tishuns say
thet, but 'tan't so. I kin do half agin more work in a day then th' best
nig I've got, an' I've dun it, tu, time an' agin, an' it didn't hurt me
nuther. Ye knows ef a man hev a wife and young 'uns 'pendin' on him, a