h we clothe our negroes.' They had
negro slaves in those times, and old Tone, a faithful black servant of
theirs, who has seen more than a hundred years, is alive yet.

"They practiced one very peculiar piece of economy. The white hickory you
know, yields the purest and sweetest of saccharine juices. They had their
hickory fuel cut into short billets, which before placing on the fire they
laid on the andirons, a little in front of the blaze, so as to subject it
to a pretty strong heat. This caused the syrup in the wood to drop from
each end of the billet, where it was caught in a cup, and in this way a
gallon or two was collected in the course of a fortnight. With this they
flavored their finest cakes.

"They died about thirty years since, one at the age of eighty-nine, and
the other at the age of ninety. On the tomb-stone of one of them, it was
recorded that she had been a member of the church for seventy years. Their
father was a remarkable man in his way. He was a rich man in his time, and
kept a park of deer, one of the last known in Connecticut, for the purpose
of supplying his table with venison. He prided himself on the strict and
literal fulfillment of his word. On one occasion he had a law-suit with
one of his neighbors, before a justice of the peace, in which he was cast
and ordered to pay ten shillings damages, and a shilling as the fees of
court. He paid the ten shillings, and asked the justice whether he would
allow him to pay the remaining shilling when he next passed his door. The
magistrate readily consented, but from that time old Comstock never went
by his house. Whenever he had occasion to go to church, or to any other
place, the direct road to which led by the justice's door, he was careful
to take a lane which passed behind the dwelling, and at some distance from
it. The shilling remained unpaid up to the day of his death, and it was
found that in his last will he had directed that his corpse should be
carried by that lane to the place of interment."

When we left the quarantine ground on Thursday morning, after lying moored
all night with a heavy rain beating on the deck, the sky was beginning to
clear with a strong northwest wind and the decks were slippery with ice.
When the sun rose it threw a cold white light upon the waters, and the
passengers who appeared on deck were muffled to the eyes. As we proceeded
southwardly, the temperature grew milder, and the day closed with a calm
and pleasant su