in the ashes,
carefully covered with the same, where it remained until done. Bread baked
in this way is very sweet and good. But cabbage leaves could not always be
obtained. When this was the case, the bread was little better than a
mixture of dough and ashes, which was not very palatable. The time allowed
for breakfast, was one hour. At the signal, all hands were obliged to
resume their toil. The overseer was always on hand to attend to all
delinquents, who never failed to feel the blows of his heavy whip.

The usual mode of punishing the poor slaves was, to make them take off
their clothes to the bare back, and then tie their hands before them with
a rope, pass the end of the rope over a beam, and draw them up till they
stood on the tips of their toes. Sometimes they tied their legs together
and placed a rail between. Thus prepared, the overseer proceeded to punish
the poor, helpless victim. Thirty-nine was the number of lashes ordinarily
inflicted for the most trifling offence.

Who can imagine a position more painful? Oh, who, with feelings of common
humanity, could look quietly on such torture? Who could remain unmoved,
to see a fellow-creature thus tied, unable to move or to raise a hand in
his own defence; scourged on his bare back, with a cowhide, until the
blood flows in streams from his quivering flesh? And for what? Often for
the most trifling fault; and, as sometimes occurs, because a mere whim or
caprice of his brutal overseer demands it. Pale with passion, his eyes
flashing and his stalwart frame trembling with rage, like some volcano,
just ready to belch forth its fiery contents, and, in all its might and
fury, spread death and destruction all around, he continues to wield the
bloody lash on the broken flesh of the poor, pleading slave, until his
arm grows weary, or he sinks down, utterly exhausted, on the very spot
where already stand the pools of blood which his cruelty has drawn from
thee mangled body of his helpless victim, and within the hearing of those
agonized groans and feeble cries of "Oh do, Massa! Oh do, Massa! Do, Lord,
have mercy! Oh, Lord, have mercy!" &c.

Nor is this cruel punishment inflicted on the bare backs of the male
portion of slaves only. Oh no! The slave husband must submit without a
murmur, to see the form of his cherished, but wretched wife, not only
exposed to the rude gaze of a beastly tyrant, but he must unresistingly
see the heavy cowhide descend upon her shrinking flesh,