f, which is certainly rather
more devoid of the conveniences and adornments of modern existence than
anything I ever took up my abode in before. It consists of three small
rooms, and three still smaller, which would be more appropriately
designated as closets, a wooden recess by way of pantry, and a kitchen
detached from the dwelling--a mere wooden outhouse, with no floor but the
bare earth, and for furniture a congregation of filthy negroes, who lounge
in and out of it like hungry hounds at all hours of the day and night,
picking up such scraps of food as they can find about, which they discuss
squatting down upon their hams, in which interesting position and
occupation I generally find a number of them whenever I have sufficient
hardihood to venture within those precincts, the sight of which and its
tenants is enough to slacken the appetite of the hungriest hunter that
ever lost all nice regards in the mere animal desire for food. Of our
three apartments, one is our sitting, eating, and _living_ room, and is
sixteen feet by fifteen. The walls are plastered indeed, but neither
painted nor papered; it is divided from our bed-room (a similarly elegant
and comfortable chamber) by a dingy wooden partition covered all over with
hooks, pegs, and nails, to which hats, caps, keys, &c. &c., are suspended
in graceful irregularity. The doors open by wooden latches, raised by
means of small bits of packthread--I imagine, the same primitive order of
fastening celebrated in the touching chronicle of Red Riding Hood; how
they shut I will not pretend to describe, as the shutting of a door is a
process of extremely rare occurrence throughout the whole Southern
country. The third room, a chamber with sloping ceiling, immediately over
our sitting-room and under the roof, is appropriated to the nurse and my
two babies. Of the closets, one is Mr. ---- the overseer's bed-room, the
other his office or place of business; and the third, adjoining our
bed-room, and opening immediately out of doors, is Mr. ----'s dressing
room and cabinet d'affaires, where he gives audiences to the negroes,
redresses grievances, distributes red woollen caps (a singular
gratification to a slave), shaves himself, and performs the other offices
of his toilet. Such being our abode, I think you will allow there is
little danger of my being dazzled by the luxurious splendours of a
Southern slave residence. Our sole mode of summoning our attendants is by
a packthread bel