till the voices and oars were heard no more from the
distance. I believe I have mentioned to you before the peculiar
characteristics of this veritable negro minstrelsy--how they all sing in
unison, having never, it appears, attempted or heard anything like
part-singing. Their voices seem oftener tenor than any other quality, and
the tune and time they keep something quite wonderful; such truth of
intonation and accent would make almost any music agreeable. That which I
have heard these people sing is often plaintive and pretty, but almost
always has some resemblance to tunes with which they must have become
acquainted through the instrumentality of white men; their overseers or
masters whistling Scotch or Irish airs, of which they have produced by ear
these _rifacciamenti_. The note for note reproduction of 'Ah! vous
dirai-je, maman?' in one of the most popular of the so-called Negro
melodies with which all America and England are familiar, is an example of
this very transparent plagiarism; and the tune with which Mr. ----'s
rowers started him down the Altamaha, as I stood at the steps to see him
off, was a very distinct descendant of 'Coming through the Rye.' The
words, however, were astonishingly primitive, especially the first line,
which, when it burst from their eight throats in high unison, sent me into
fits of laughter.

Jenny shake her toe at me,
Jenny gone away;
Jenny shake her toe at me,
Jenny gone away.
Hurrah! Miss Susy, oh!
Jenny gone away;
Hurrah! Miss Susy, oh!
Jenny gone away.

What the obnoxious Jenny meant by shaking her toe, whether defiance or
mere departure, I never could ascertain, but her going away was an
unmistakable subject of satisfaction; and the pause made on the last 'oh!'
before the final announcement of her departure, had really a good deal of
dramatic and musical effect. Except the extemporaneous chaunts in our
honour, of which I have written to you before, I have never heard the
negroes on Mr. ----'s plantation sing any words that could be said to have
any sense. To one, an extremely pretty, plaintive, and original air, there
was but one line, which was repeated with a sort of wailing chorus--

Oh! my massa told me, there's no grass in Georgia.

Upon enquiring the meaning of which, I was told it was supposed to be the
lamentation of a slave from one of the more northerly states, Virginia or
Carolina, where the labour of hoeing the weeds, or gra