you experienced on visiting some of the cities on the Mediterranean. I had no sooner sat down to breakfast at the hotel, than I found one black slave at my elbow fanning away flies with a flapper, and three or four covering the table with a profusion of dishes. On sallying out after breakfast, I found the streets filled with well-dressed and genteel-looking people, and carriages driving about in every direction. But I must reserve a description of Charleston and its inhabitants till I have become better acquainted with them.

LETTER XII.

Charleston, South Carolina, 26th Feb. 1820.

I WROTE to you on the 19th inst. and soon afterwards received an invitation, which I gladly accepted, to accompany a gentleman to his rice plantation, about thirty miles distant. With the interesting character of this excellent and venerable friend, I have already made you acquainted. Descended from one of the old patrician families, who form as it were the nobility of Carolina, educated at one of our English public schools and universities, and enjoying a high reputation, acquired in arduous military and diplomatic situations, he would be regarded, I am persuaded, as second to a few in Europe, as a statesman, a scholar, and a gentleman. I took an early breakfast with him, at his handsome town-house, whence we proceeded to the ferry. After crossing the bay, we found the General's carriage waiting for

us, with a few periodical publications in it, and with led horses, in case we should wish to vary our mode of conveyance. We stopped at noon to rest the horses, and to take a little refreshment in the woods, and reached the plantation to a late dinner in the evening. The road lay through a pine barren, such as I have already described; and we scarcely passed a creature in the course of the day, except my friend's sister, an old lady, and her two nieces, who were on their way to Charleston, in a large family carriage and four, with a black servant on a mule behind, a negro woman and child on the footboard, and three or four baskets of country provisions hanging from the axle-tree. They inquired how far they were from the spring, where we had been resting, and where they proposed to take their al fresco repast.

In the morning, I strolled out before breakfast into the plantation, and saw about twelve female slaves, from eighteen to twenty-eight years of age, threshing rice on a sort of clay floor, in the same manner as our farmers thresh wheat. It was extremely hot, and the employment seemed very laborious. After breakfast, the General took me over the plantation; and in the course of our walk we visited the little dwellings of the Negroes. These were generally grouped together round something like a farm-yard; and behind each of them was a little garden, which they cultivate on their own account. The huts themselves are not unlike a poor Irish cabin, with the addition of a chimney. The bedding of the Negroes consists simply of blankets, and their clothing is generally

confined to a sort of flannel garments, made up in different forms. Those whom I saw at home were cowering over a fire, although the day was oppressively hot, and the little Negroes were sunning themselves with great satisfaction about the door. They all seemed glad to see my friend, who talked to them very familiarly, and most of them inquired after their mistress. I was told that their provisions were prepared for them, and that twice every day they had as much as they asked for of Indian corn, sweet potato, and broth, with the occasional addition of a little meat.

Besides this, they frequently prepare for themselves a little supper from the produce of their garden, and fish which they catch in the river. On many plantations it is usual to give out their allowance once a week, and to let them cook it for themselves, their fuel costing them nothing but the trouble of gathering it. A nurse and doctor, both negroes I believe, are provided for them: and making allowance for the sick, the children, &c. I was told that on the rice plantations in that neighbourhood, half the gang, as they are hideously called, were effective hands.

I heard my benevolent friend order wine, oranges, &c. for some of the invalids; and I believe that I have seen a very favourable specimen of Negro slavery. Yet the picture must ever be a dark one, and, when presented to an eye not yet familiar with its horrors, must excite reflections the most painful and depressing. Humanity may mitigate the sufferings of the wretched victims of the slave system, and habit render them less sen

sible to their degradation; but no tenderness can eradicate from slavery the evils inherent in its very nature, nor familiarity reconcile man to perpetual bondage, but by sinking him below the level of his kind.

The Negroes usually go to work at sunrise, and finish the task assigned to them at three or four, or sometimes five or six o'clock in the evening. They have Sunday to themselves, three days at Christmas, one day for sowing their little crop in spring, and another for reaping it in autumn. In the West Indies, I understand that the slaves work under the lash a certain number of hours in the day, instead of having task-work; and that they are not generally supplied with food by the masters, but have a certain portion of time to plant their own provisions, during which they are still under the driver's lash. The mode of treatment, however, varies greatly in the different islands.

In the course of the morning we saw several other plantations in their neighbourhood; and on some of which were very handsome residences, with grounds resembling an English park. The live oaks profusely scattered, and often standing alone, contributed greatly to this resemblance. These noble trees form a very striking and interesting feature in a Carolinian landscape, especially when at distant intervals they cast their broad shadows on the level spacious tracts of cleared land, which stretch to the distant forest without a fence, or the smallest perceptible undulation or variety of surface. They are not tall, but from twelve to eighteen feet in girth, and contain a prodigious

quantity of timber. At the distance of fifteen or eighteen feet from the ground, they divide into three or four immense limbs, which grow nearly in a horizontal direction, or rather with a gentle curve, to the length of forty or fifty paces. The wood is almost incorruptible; and on this account as well as from its furnishing, in its natural state, almost every curve which is required in the construction of a vessel, it is invaluable for naval purposes.

We dined at a neighbouring plantation, and after tea I had a pleasant tete-a-tete ride home through the woods with my venerable friend. We spent the evening very agreeably, in general conversation on American and European politics, and in examining various works on the botany and ornithology of America. My friend had an excellent library, comprising many recent and valuable British publications, and a more extensive collection of English Agricultural works than I ever saw in a private library before. The house is a very handsome one, and covers more ground than houses on a similar scale in England, as it is thought desirable in this climate to have only one room deep, with a profusion of windows, which do not put one in good humour with our window-tax. From the windows of the library and dining-room, the eye wandered over extensive rice-fields, the surface of which is levelled with almost mathematical exactness, as it is necessary to overflow them at particular periods from various canals which intersect them, and which communicate with rivers whose waters are