use of the people on the Hampton estate, experiments which he had tried with excellent success on his own; but all these plans for the amelioration and progress of the people’s physical condition had been obstructed and finally put entirely aside by old Mr. K——­ and his son, who, as Mr. C——­ said, appeared to give satisfaction to their employers, so it was not his business to find fault with them; he said, however, that the whole condition and treatment of the slaves had changed from the time of Major ——­’s death, and that he thought it providential for the poor people that Mr. K——­ should have left the estate, and the young gentleman, the present owner, come down to look after the people.

He showed me his garden, from whence come the beautiful vegetables he had more than once supplied me with; in the midst of it was a very fine and flourishing date palm tree, which he said bore its fruit as prosperously here as it would in Asia.  After the garden, we visited a charming nicely-kept poultry yard, and I returned home much delighted with my visit and the kind good humour of my host.

In the afternoon, I sat as usual at the receipt of custom, hearing of aches and pains, till I ached myself sympathetically from head to foot.

Yesterday morning, dear E——­, I went on horseback to St. Annie’s, exploring on my way some beautiful woods, and in the afternoon I returned thither in a wood waggon with Jack to drive and a mule to draw me, Montreal being quite beyond his management; and then and there, the hatchet and saw being in company, I compelled my slave Jack, all the rattlesnakes in creation to the contrary notwithstanding, to cut and clear a way for my chariot through the charming copse.

My letter has been lying unfinished for the last three days.  I have been extraordinarily busy, having emancipated myself from the trammels of Jack and all his terror, and as I fear no serpents on horseback, have been daily riding through new patches of woodland without any guide, taking my chance of what I might come to in the shape of impediments.  Last Tuesday, I rode through a whole wood, of burned and charred trees, cypresses and oaks, that looked as if they had been each of them blasted by a special thunderbolt, and whole thickets of young trees and shrubs perfectly black and brittle from the effect of fire, I suppose the result of some carelessness of the slaves.  As this charcoal woodland extended for some distance, I turned out of it, and round the main road through the plantation, as I could not ride through the blackened boughs and branches without getting begrimed.  It had a strange wild desolate effect, not without a certain gloomy picturesqueness.