f water, I desired Rose to undress the little creatures and give them
a warm bath; the mothers looked on in unutterable dismay, and one of them,
just as her child was going to be put into the tub, threw into it all the
clothes she had just taken off it, as she said, to break the unusual shock
of the warm water. I immediately rescued them, not but what they were
quite as much in want of washing as the baby, but it appeared, upon
enquiry, that the woman had none others to dress the child in, when it
should have taken its bath; they were immediately wrung and hung by the
fire to dry, and the poor little patients having undergone this novel
operation were taken out and given to their mothers. Anything, however,
much more helpless and inefficient than these poor ignorant creatures you
cannot conceive; they actually seemed incapable of drying or dressing
their own babies, and I had to finish their toilet myself. As it is only a
very few years since the most absurd and disgusting customs have become
exploded among ourselves, you will not, of course, wonder that these poor
people pin up the lower part of their infants, bodies, legs and all, in
red flannel as soon as they are born, and keep them in the selfsame
envelope till it literally falls off.

In the next room I found a woman lying on the floor in a fit of epilepsy,
barking most violently. She seemed to excite no particular attention or
compassion; the women said she was subject to these fits, and took little
or no notice of her, as she lay barking like some enraged animal on the
ground. Again I stood in profound ignorance, sickening with the sight of
suffering, which I knew not how to alleviate, and which seemed to excite
no commiseration, merely from the sad fact of its frequent occurrence.
Returning to the house, I passed up the 'street.' It was between eleven
o'clock and noon, and the people were taking their first meal in the day.
By the by, E----, how do you think Berkshire county farmers would relish
labouring hard all day upon _two meals_ of Indian corn or hominy? Such is
the regulation on this plantation, however, and I beg you to bear in mind
that the negroes on Mr. ----'s estate, are generally considered well off.
They go to the fields at daybreak, carrying with them their allowance of
food for the day, which towards noon, _and not till then_, they eat,
cooking it over a fire, which they kindle as best they can, where they are
working. Their second meal in the day