squatting down upon their hams, in which interesting position and
occupation I generally find a number of them whenever I have sufficient
hardihood to venture within those precincts, the sight of which and its
tenants is enough to slacken the appetite of the hungriest hunter that
ever lost all nice regards in the mere animal desire for food. Of our
three apartments, one is our sitting, eating, and _living_ room, and is
sixteen feet by fifteen. The walls are plastered indeed, but neither
painted nor papered; it is divided from our bed-room (a similarly elegant
and comfortable chamber) by a dingy wooden partition covered all over with
hooks, pegs, and nails, to which hats, caps, keys, &c. &c., are suspended
in graceful irregularity. The doors open by wooden latches, raised by
means of small bits of packthread--I imagine, the same primitive order of
fastening celebrated in the touching chronicle of Red Riding Hood; how
they shut I will not pretend to describe, as the shutting of a door is a
process of extremely rare occurrence throughout the whole Southern
country. The third room, a chamber with sloping ceiling, immediately over
our sitting-room and under the roof, is appropriated to the nurse and my
two babies. Of the closets, one is Mr. ---- the overseer's bed-room, the
other his office or place of business; and the third, adjoining our
bed-room, and opening immediately out of doors, is Mr. ----'s dressing
room and cabinet d'affaires, where he gives audiences to the negroes,
redresses grievances, distributes red woollen caps (a singular
gratification to a slave), shaves himself, and performs the other offices
of his toilet. Such being our abode, I think you will allow there is
little danger of my being dazzled by the luxurious splendours of a
Southern slave residence. Our sole mode of summoning our attendants is by
a packthread bell-rope suspended in the sitting-room. From the bed-rooms
we have to raise the windows and our voices, and bring them by power of
lungs, or help ourselves--which, I thank God, was never yet a hardship to
me.