groes of the cities of the Southern parts of the then
United States! My business kept me in the towns; I was but in one
negro-plantation village, and there were only women and little children,
the men being out a-field. But there was plenty of cheerfulness in the
huts, under the great trees--I speak of what I saw--and amidst the dusky
bondsmen of the cities. I witnessed a curious gayety; heard amongst the
black folk endless singing, shouting, and laughter; and saw on holidays
black gentlemen and ladies arrayed in such splendor and comfort as
freeborn workmen in our towns seldom exhibit. What a grin and bow that
dark gentleman performed, who was the porter at the colonel's, when he
said, "You write your name, mas'r, else I will forgot." I am not going
into the slavery question, I am not an advocate for "the institution,"
as I know, madam, by that angry toss of your head, you are about to
declare me to be. For domestic purposes, my dear lady, it seemed to
me about the dearest institution that can be devised. In a house in a
Southern city you will find fifteen negroes doing the work which
John, the cook, the housemaid, and the help, do perfectly in your own
comfortable London house. And these fifteen negroes are the pick of a
family of some eighty or ninety. Twenty are too sick, or too old for
work, let us say: twenty too clumsy: twenty are too young, and have
to be nursed and watched by ten more.** And master has to maintain the
immense crew to do the work of half a dozen willing hands. No, no; let
Mitchell, the exile from poor dear enslaved Ireland, wish for a gang of
"fat niggers;" I would as soon you should make me a present of a score
of Bengal elephants, when I need but a single stout horse to pull my
brougham.

* This refers to an illustrated edition of the work.

** This was an account given by a gentleman at Richmond of
his establishment. Six European servants would have kept
his house and stables well. "His farm," he said, "barely
sufficed to maintain the negroes residing on it."

How hospitable they were, those Southern men! In the North itself the
welcome was not kinder, as I, who have eaten Northern and Southern salt,
can testify. As for New Orleans, in spring-time,--just when the orchards
were flushing over with peach-blossoms, and the sweet herbs came to
flavor the juleps--it seemed to me the city of the world where you can
eat and drink the most and suffer the least. At Bordeaux