ation; and so comes all by
which I am here surrounded--pride, profligacy, idleness, cruelty,
cowardice, ignorance, squalor, dirt, and ineffable abasement.

When I returned home, I found that Mrs. F---- had sent me some magnificent
prawns. I think of having them served singly, and divided as one does a
lobster--their size really suggests no less respect.

_Saturday, 31st._--I rode all through the burnt district and the bush to
Mrs. W----'s field, in making my way out of which I was very nearly
swamped, and, but for the valuable assistance of a certain sable Scipio
who came up and extricated me, I might be floundering hopelessly there
still. He got me out of my Slough of Despond, and put me in the way to a
charming wood ride which runs between Mrs. W----'s and Colonel H----'s
grounds. While going along this delightful boundary of these two
neighbouring estates, my mind not unnaturally dwelt upon the terms of
deadly feud in which the two families owning them are living with each
other. A horrible quarrel has occurred quite lately upon the subject of
the ownership of this very ground I was skirting, between Dr. H---- and
young Mr. W----; they have challenged each other, and what I am going to
tell you is a good sample of the sort of spirit which grows up among
slaveholders. So read it, for it is curious to people who have not lived
habitually among savages. The terms of the challenge that has passed
between them have appeared like a sort of advertisement in the local
paper, and are to the effect that they are to fight at a certain distance
with certain weapons--firearms, of course; that there is to be on the
person of each a white paper, or mark, immediately over the region of the
heart, as a point for direct aim; and whoever kills the other is to have
the privilege of _cutting off his head, and sticking it up on a pole on
the piece of land which was the origin of the debate_; so that, some fine
day, I might have come hither as I did to-day and found myself riding
under the shadow of the gory locks of Dr. H---- or Mr. W----, my peaceful
and pleasant neighbours.

I came home through our own pine woods, which are actually a wilderness
of black desolation. The scorched and charred tree trunks are still
smoking and smouldering; the ground is a sort of charcoal pavement, and
the fire is still burning on all sides, for the smoke was rapidly rising
in several directions on each hand of the path I pursued. Across this
dismal scen