going at such times, for the people had quantities of money and gave
it to the slaves.

The negro quarters consisted of six log cabins, which had once
been whitewashed, but now were extremely wretched in appearance,
both without and within. It is customary on the plantations
of the South to have the houses of the negroes a little removed,
perhaps a quarter of a mile, from the family mansion.
Thus, with the exception of the house servants, who must be
within call, the slave portion of the family live by themselves,
and generally in a most uncivilized and miserable way.
In some cases their houses are quite neatly built and kept;
but it was not so on Mr. Lee's estate.

In front of these old huts was a spring, the water bubbling up
and running through a dilapidated, moss-covered spout, into a tub
half sunk in the earth, which in the daytime served as a drinking
trough for the animals, and a bathing-pool for the babies.
Brushwood and logs were lying around in all directions, and here and there
a fire was burning, at which the negroes were cooking their supper.
Dogs and a few stray babies were roaming about, seeming lonely
for want of the pigs and chickens which kept company with them
all day, but had now gone to rest. Boys and girls of larger growth
were rollicking and careering over the place, dancing and singing
and entertaining themselves and the whole settlement with their
jollities and noise.

Is it surprising, we must stop to ask, that the colored people are
a degraded class, when we consider the way in which the children live
from their very infancy. No work for them to do, nothing to learn,