case of sickness even these would be alleviated by the assistance of some stout girl of all work, or kindly neighbour, and the tidy parlour or snug bed-room would be her retreat if unequal to the daily duties of her own kitchen.  Think of such a lot compared with that of the head engineer of Mr. ——­’s plantation, whose sole wages are his coarse food and raiment and miserable hovel, and whose wife, covered with one filthy garment of ragged texture and dingy colour, bare-footed and bare-headed, is daily driven a-field to labour with aching pain-racked joints, under the lash of a driver, or lies languishing on the earthen floor of the dismal plantation hospital in a condition of utter physical destitution and degradation such as the most miserable dwelling of the poorest inhabitant of your free Northern villages never beheld the like of.  Think of the rows of tidy tiny houses in the long suburbs of Boston and Philadelphia, inhabited by artisans of just the same grade as this poor Ned, with their white doors and steps, their hydrants of inexhaustible fresh flowing water, the innumerable appliances for decent comfort of their cheerful rooms, the gay wardrobe of the wife, her cotton prints for daily use, her silk for Sunday church-going; the careful comfort of the children’s clothing, the books and newspapers in the little parlour, the daily district school, the weekly parish church:  imagine if you can—­but you are happy that you cannot—­the contrast between such an existence and that of the best mechanic on a Southern plantation.

Did you ever read (but I am sure you never did, and no more did I), an epic poem on fresh-water fish?  Well, such a one was once written, I have forgotten by whom, but assuredly the heroine of it ought to have been the Altamaha shad—­a delicate creature, so superior to the animal you northerners devour with greedy thankfulness when the spring sends back their finny drove to your colder waters, that one would not suppose these were of the same family, instead of being, as they really are, precisely the same fish.  Certainly the mud of the Altamaha must have some most peculiar virtues; and, by the by, I have never anywhere tasted such delicious tea as that which we make with this same turbid stream, the water of which duly filtered, of course, has some peculiar softness which affects the tea (and it is the same we always use) in a most curious and agreeable manner.

On my return to the house I found a terrible disturbance in consequence of
the disappearance from under cook John’s safe keeping, of a ham Mr. -----
had committed to his charge.  There was no doubt whatever that the
unfortunate culinary slave had made away in some inscrutable manner with
the joint intended for our table:  the very lies he told about it were so
curiously shallow, child-like, and transparent, that while they confirmed
the fact of his theft quite as much if not more than an absolute
confession would have done, they provoked at once my pity and my