cious system of small bribery. I can
hardly stir now without being assailed with cries of 'Missis, missis me
mind chile, me bery clean,' or the additional gratifying fact, 'and chile
too, him bery clean.' This virtue, however, if painful to the practisers,
as no doubt it is, is expensive, too, to me, and I shall have to try some
moral influence equivalent in value to a cent current coin of the realm.
What a poor chance, indeed, the poor abstract idea runs! however, it is
really a comfort to see the poor little woolly heads, now in most
instances stripped of their additional filthy artificial envelopes.

In my afternoon's row to-day I passed a huge dead alligator, lying half in
and half out of the muddy slime of the river bank--a most hideous object
it was, and I was glad to turn my eyes to the beautiful surface of the mid
stream, all burnished with sunset glories, and broken with the vivacious
gambols of a school of porpoises. It is curious, I think, that these
creatures should come fifteen miles from the sea to enliven the waters
round our little rice swamp.

While rowing this evening, I was led by my conversation with Jack to some
of those reflections with which my mind is naturally incessantly filled
here, but which I am obliged to be very careful not to give any utterance
to. The testimony of no negro is received in a southern court of law, and
the reason commonly adduced for this is, that the state of ignorance in
which the negroes are necessarily kept, renders them incapable of
comprehending the obligations of an oath, and yet with an inconsistency
which might be said to border on effrontery, these same people are
admitted to the most holy sacrament of the Church, and are certainly
thereby supposed to be capable of assuming the highest Christian
obligations, and the entire fulfilment of God's commandments--including,
of course, the duty of speaking the truth at all times.

As we were proceeding down the river, we met the flat, as it is called,
a huge sort of clumsy boat, more like a raft than any other species
of craft, coming up from St. Simon's with its usual swarthy freight
of Mr. ----'s dependants from that place. I made Jack turn our canoe,
because the universal outcries and exclamations very distinctly intimated
that I should be expected to be at home to receive the homage of this
cargo of 'massa's people.' No sooner, indeed, had I disembarked and
reached the house, than a dark cloud of black life filled th