upon him, he was visible a long way off, glowing like a crimson
spar,--the only bit of color in the whole landscape.

Maryland is here rather a level, unpicturesque country,--the gaze of
the traveler bounded, at no great distance, by oak woods, with here and
there a dark line of pine. We saw few travelers, passed a ragged squad
or two of colored boys and girls, and met some colored women on their
way to or from church, perhaps. Never ask a colored person--at least
the crude, rustic specimens--any question that involves a memory of
names, or any arbitrary signs; you will rarely get a satisfactory
answer. If you could speak to them in their own dialect, or touch the
right spring in their minds, you would, no doubt, get the desired
information. They are as local in their notions and habits as the
animals, and go on much the same principles, as no doubt we all do,
more or less. I saw a colored boy come into a public office one day,
and ask to see a man with red hair; the name was utterly gone from him.
The man had red whiskers, which was as near as he had come to the mark.
Ask your washerwoman what street she lives on, or where such a one has
moved to, and the chances are that she cannot tell you, except that it
is a "right smart distance" this way or that, or near Mr. So-and-so, or
by such and such a place, describing some local feature. I love to
amuse myself, when walking through the market, by asking the old
aunties, and the young aunties, too, the names of their various
"yarbs." It seems as if they must trip on the simplest names. Bloodroot
they generally call "grubroot;" trailing arbutus goes by the names of
"troling" arbutus, "training arbuty-flower," and ground "ivory;" in
Virginia they call woodchucks "moonacks."

On entering Pumpkintown--a cluster of five or six small, whitewashed
blockhouses, toeing squarely on the highway--the only inhabitant we saw