Aluctuations in this article came home to the business and bosoms" of the poorest family, since every one is concerned more or less in its cultivation. While my hostess poured out my coffee, I asked her if there were any schools in the neighbourhood. She said, Oh, yes; that there was an academy to which her daughter went when cotton was thirty cents per pound; that she paid three hundred dollars per annum simply for board, and fifty more for learning the pi-a-no! but that, as cotton had fallen to fifteen cents, she could not afford to buy an instrument, and supposed her daughter must forget her music. I could not help thinking of the farmer Mrs. Hannah More mentions in her last work, who said he had "Frenched his daughter, and musicked her, and was now sending her to Paris."

We set off at six o'clock the next morning, and went twelve miles to breakfast. Here, as usual, I found several books on the chimney-piece; among which were a Bible, a Testament, a Hymnbook, a book of Geography, Kett's Elements, Lord Byron's Poems, and the Life of Harriet Newell, the last of which I found, from a note in a blank page, was a gift from the minister of the neighbourhood to the landlord's wife. I mention these books, as they form a sort of average of those which you generally find lying about in the country inns, and which are frequently merely stragglers from no despicable library in the landlord's bed-room. A pleasing young woman, the innkeeper's wife, sate down to make breakfast for me; and I greatly enjoyed this quiet tête-à-tête

in the country, after the promiscuous assemblage of sixty or seventy persons at the taverns in the towns. In stopping to breakfast, however, in the Southern States, you must never calculate on a detention of less than two hours, as your entertainers will prepare dishes of meat or poultry for you, and both make and bake the bread after your arrival.

In the evening, about five o'clock, after travelling thirty-three miles, we arrived at Mr. Shirens's, a neat quiet house, on the Ogechee river. Mr. Shirens is a cotton planter, a miller, a farmer, and an innkeeper. I took a letter of introduction to him, which secured me a good reception. As the following day was Sunday, I remained with this good John Anderson and his help-meet, and their two generations of children, till Monday, but was disappointed to find there would be no service at their church. The minister preaches three Saturdays and Sundays at three churches a few miles distant; but, on the fourth, which was unfortunately the case when I was there, he is beyond their limits. I found out, however, a Negro congregation, who were to assemble in the woods, of which I have already sent an account. In returning from the spot where we had assembled, I passed the church, where, as is usual on those Sundays on which there is no service, there was a meeting of the young persons in the neighbourhood, for the purpose of singing psalms. I did not join them, but counted ninety-five horses under the trees, nearly one half of them with sidesaddles; and yet the country, in passing through

it, seemed by no means thickly settled, our road being on a pine ridge; but the Americans, although enterprising and migratory, have a great aversion to walking.

⚫ In the evening three rough back-woodsmen arrived from the Mississippi with a wretched account of the roads; the bridges over the creeks having been almost all washed away, and the swamps being nearly impassable. Their horses were quite exhausted; and they strongly urged me not to attempt the expedition. Had I seen them before I set out, I should probably have been discouraged, as they appeared to be hardy, resolute, and experienced foresters; but I was now determined that nothing but very formidable obstacles should induce us to return. Heavy rains prevented our proceeding till eight o'clock the following morning; but we arrived at Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia, at half past five o'clock, thirty-six miles, after spending half an hour with Governor who has a good house a few miles distant. We found with him two travellers, quite exhausted, who told us that for many days they had to swim their horses over most of the flooded creeks on the road which we were going. The Governor said that the freshets had not been so great since the celebrated Yayoo freshet, more than twenty years ago. From my window at the inn at Milledgeville I saw the remains of a bridge which broke down a fortnight since with a waggon and six horses upon it, all of which were lost. The Oconee is here nearly

twice as broad as the Lune under Lancaster Bridge.

At Milledgeville there is a very handsome prison or penitentiary, which would do credit even to Gloucester; but the critical situation of the flooded creeks rendered it imprudent to stay to inspect it. And here I recollect that I omitted to mention, that in the Charleston and Savannah jails, besides numerous pirates, there were many slaves in confinement for not giving their masters the wages they had earned. In order that you may understand this, it is necessary to tell you, that when a person has more Negroes than he can employ, he frequently either lets them out on hire, or sends them to seek employment, bringing him a proportion of what they earn. Sometimes he

will set them to obtain for him a certain sum per week, and allow them to keep the remainder. You will be surprised to learn, that children who are thus situated, generally prefer chimney sweeping, as they can earn more by this than by any other employment; at least, so I was informed at Mr.'s plantation, while reading to the ladies after supper the miseries of climbing boys in England, in the last Edinburgh Review,-not indeed to reconcile them to the miseries of slavery, but partly to show them that we do not expend all our critical castigation on their side of the Atlantic. This choice of the children does not speak much for slavery, in which chimney-sweeping is an object of competition, in order, perhaps, to avoid the stripes which would ensue if the required sum was not earned and paid in to the

master. Still the system of allowing the Slaves to select their own work, and to look out for employment for themselves, notwithstanding the frequent hardship and injustice attending it, is a great step toward emancipation, and an admirable preparative for it; and may we not regard it as one of the avenues through which the African will ultimately emerge from his degraded condition, and arrive at the full enjoyment of his violated rights. Surely the warmest and most prejudiced advocates of perpetual slavery will not contend that a man who is capable of taking care of his family while compelled to pay his owner a premium for permission to do so, will become less competent to manage his concerns when exonerated from the tax, or that he will relax in bis efforts to improve his condition, because a stranger no longer divides with him the fruit of his toil. Experience will doubtless prove that slavery is a state which cannot very long consist with a general diffusion of that consciousness of their own strength with which the habit of self-dependence will inspire the Negroes, and which, when combined with a large numerical superiority, must ensure ultimate success to their struggles for freedom. Earnestly is it to be hoped, that long before the arrival of such a crisis, the humanity and justice, or, if not, the self-interest, of the master will spare all parties the horrors usually attendant on such struggles, by laying the foundation for a safe and beneficial emancipation.

We left Milledgeville at eight o'clock, on the 21st, and arrived at Fort Hawkins, 32 miles dis