and dwarf palms and bayonet palmettoes, with the small pointed leaf of
the "live oak," combined to make the scenery look foreign and unfamiliar.
There was a soft haze in the air, and the sun's beams only painted, as it
were, the capitals of the tall pillar-like pines, while the road was
canopied and shaded by the skeins of grey moss that hung thickly on all
the boughs.

The trees grew thinner as the road approached the town. Dusty were the
ways, and sultry the air, when we rode into Clayville and were making for
"the noisy middle market-place." Clayville was but a small border town,
though it could then boast the presence of a squadron of cavalry, sent
there to watch the "border ruffians." The square was neither large nor
crowded, but the spectacle was strange and interesting to me. Men who
had horses or carts to dispose of were driving or riding about, noisily
proclaiming the excellence of their wares. But buyers were more
concerned, like myself, with the slave-market. In the open air, in the
middle of the place, a long table was set. The crowd gathered round
this, and presented types of various sorts of citizens. The common "mean
white" was spitting and staring--a man fallen so low that he had no
nigger to wallop, and was thus even more abject, because he had no
natural place and functions in local society, than the slaves themselves.
The local drunkard was uttering sagacities to which no mortal attended.
Two or three speculators were bidding on commission, and there were a few
planters, some of them mounted, and a mixed multitude of tradesmen,
loafers, bar-keepers, newspaper reporters, and idlers in general. At
either end of the long table sat an auctioneer, who behaved with the
traditional facetiousness of the profession. As the "lots" came on for
sale they mounted the platform, generally in family parties. A party
would fetch from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars, according to
its numbers and "condition." The spectacle was painful and monstrous.
Most of the "lots" bore the examination of their points with a kind of
placid dignity, and only showed some little interest when the biddings
grew keen and flattered their pride.

The sale was almost over, and we were just about to leave, when a howl of
derision from the mob made us look round. What _I_ saw was the
apparition of an extremely aged and debilitated black man standing on the
table. What Moore saw to interest him I could not guess, but he gr