thoughtful, he had time to think. Slaves are generally expected to sing
as well as to work. A silent slave is not liked by masters or overseers.
_"Make a noise," "make a noise,"_ and _"bear a hand,"_ are the words
usually addressed to the slaves when there is silence amongst them. This
may account for the almost constant singing{76} heard in the southern
states. There was, generally, more or less singing among the teamsters,
as it was one means of letting the overseer know where they were, and
that they were moving on with the work. But, on allowance day, those who
visited the great house farm were peculiarly excited and noisy. While
on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around,
reverberate with their wild notes. These were not always merry because
they were wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a plaintive cast,
and told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most boisterous outbursts of
rapturous sentiment, there was ever a tinge of deep melancholy. I have
never heard any songs like those anywhere since I left slavery, except
when in Ireland. There I heard the same _wailing notes_, and was much
affected by them. It was during the famine of 1845-6. In all the songs
of the slaves, there was ever some expression in praise of the great
house farm; something which would flatter the pride of the owner, and,
possibly, draw a favorable glance from him.

_I am going away to the great house farm,
O yea! O yea! O yea!
My old master is a good old master,
O yea! O yea! O yea!_

This they would sing, with other words of their own improvising--jargon
to others, but full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought,
that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress truly
spiritual-minded men and women with the soul-crushing and death-dealing
character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of its mere
physical cruelties. They speak to the heart and to the soul of the
thoughtful. I cannot better express my sense of them now, than ten years
ago, when, in sketching my life, I thus spoke of this feature of my
plantation experience:

I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and
apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I
neither saw or heard as those without might see and hear. They told a
tale which was{77} then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they
were tones, loud,