so, but never do it."--"Have you not," rejoined
the master, "two grandsons who can mend it for you?"--"But are
they mine," said the old woman, "do they not work for you, and
are you not my son yourself? who suckled and raised your two
brothers? who was it but Irrouba? Take pity then on me, in my old
age. Mend at least the roof of my hut, and God will reward you
for it."

I was sensibly affected; it was _le cri de la bonne nature_. And
what repairs did the poor creature's roof require? What was
wanting to shelter her from the wind and rain of heaven? A few
shingles!--"I will think of it," repeated her master, and
departed.

The ordinary punishment inflicted on the negroes of the colony is
a whipping. What in Europe would condemn a man to the galleys or
the gallows incurs here only the chastisement of the whip. But
then a king having many subjects does not miss them after their
exit from this life, but a planter could not lose a negro without
feeling the privation.

I do not consider slavery either as contrary to the order of a
well regulated society, or an infringement of the social laws.
Under a different name it exists in every country. Soften then
the word which so mightily offends the ear; call it dependence.

The most common maladies of the negroes are slight fevers in the
spring, more violent ones in the summer, dysenteries in autumn,
and fluxions of the breast in winter. Their bill of mortality,
however, is not very considerable. The births exceed the deaths.

The language of the negro slaves, as well as of a great number of
the free mulattoes, is a patois derived from the French, and
spoken according to rules of corruption. There are some
house-slaves, however, who speak French with not less purity than
their masters: their language, it may be presumed, is depraved
with many words not to be found in a Voltaire, a Thomas or a
Rousseau.--_Travels in Louisiana and The Floridas, in the Year,
1802_, by Berquin Duvallon, pp. 79-94. Trans. by Davis.

JOHN DAVIS, 1806

TIMOTHY FLINT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF CONDITIONS IN LOUISIANA IN 1826

In the region where I live, the masters allow entire liberty to
the slaves to attend public worship, and as far as my knowledge
extends, it is generally the case in Lo