As you walk the streets of Charleston, rows of greedy vultures, with sapient look, sit on the parapets of the houses, watching for offal.  These birds are great blessings in warm climates, and in Carolina a fine of ten dollars is inflicted for wantonly destroying them.  They appeared to be quite conscious of their privileges, and sailed down from the house-tops into the streets, where they stalked about, hardly caring to move out of the way of the horses and carriages passing.  They were of an eagle-brown colour, and many of them appeared well conditioned, even to obesity.  At night scores of dogs collect in the streets, and yelp and bark in the most annoying manner.  This it is customary to remedy by a gun being fired from a window at the midnight interlopers, when they disperse in great terror.  I should remark that this is a common nuisance in warm latitudes.  Some of these animals live in the wilds, and, like jackals, steal into the towns at night to eke out a scanty subsistence.  At first my rest was greatly disturbed by their noisy yelpings, but I soon became accustomed to the inconvenience, and thought little of it.

The warmth of the climate induces great lassitude and indisposition to exertion, alias indolence.  I began to experience this soon after arriving in the south.  This, which in England would be called laziness, is encouraged by the most trifling offices being performed by slaves.  The females in particular give way to this inertness, and active women are seldom to be met with, the wives of men in affluent circumstances being in general like pampered children, and suffering dreadfully from ennui.  On one occasion an English gentleman at Charleston, with whom I became acquainted, and whose hospitality I shall never forget, when conversing on the subject, addressed me thus:  “Good, active wives are seldom to be met with in this state, amongst the natives; I may say, hardly ever; the females are nurtured in indolence, and in seeking what they term a settlement, look more to the man’s means than the likelihood of living happily with him.  There is no disguising it—­the considera—­with them is a sine qua non.  Few girls would refuse a man who possessed a goodly number of slaves, though they were sure his affections would be shared by some of the best-looking of the females amongst them, and his conduct towards the remainder that of a very demon.”  These sentiments I very soon ascertained to be in no way libellous.  A southern wife, if she is prodigally furnished with dollars to “go shopping,” apparently considers it no drawback to her happiness if some brilliant mulatto or quadroon woman ensnares her husband.  Of course there are exceptions, but the patriarchal usage is so engrafted in society there, that it elicits little notice or comment.  Nor, from what I gleaned, are the ladies themselves immaculate, as may be inferred from the occasional quadroon aspect of their progeny.