immediate circle of our torch-bearers). There was something painful to me in's standing while we all knelt on the earth; for, though in any church in Philadelphia he would have stood during the praying of any minister, here I wished he would have knelt, to have given his slaves some token of his belief that—at least in the sight of that Master to whom we were addressing our worship -all men are equal. The service ended with a short address from London upon the subject of Lazarus, and the confirmation which the story of his resurrection afforded our hopes. The words were simple and rustic, and of course uttered in the peculiar sort of jargon which is the habitual negro speech; but there was nothing in the slightest degree incongruous or grotesque in the matter or manner, and the exhortations not to steal, or lie, or neglect to work well for massa, with which the glorious hope of immortality was blended in the poor slave preacher's closing address, was a moral adaptation, as wholesome as it was touching, of the great Christian theory to the capacities and consciences of his hearers. When the coffin was lowered the grave was found to be partially filled with water -naturally enough, for the whole island is a mere swamp, off which the Altamaha is only kept from sweeping by the high dikes all round it. This seemed to shock and distress the people, and for the first time during the whole ceremony there were sounds of crying and exclamations of grief heard among them. Their chief expression of sorrow, however, when Mr. and myself bade them. good-night at the conclusion of the service, was on account of my crying, which appeared to affect them very much, many of them mingling with their "Farewell, good-night, massa and missis," affectionate exclamations of "God bless you, missis; don't cry!" "Lor, missis, don't you cry so!" Mr. declined the assistance of any of the torch-bearers home, and bade them all go quietly to their

quarters; and as soon as they had dispersed, and we had got beyond the fitful and unequal glaring of the torches, we found the shining of the stars in the deep blue lovely night sky quite sufficient to light our way along the dikes. I could not speak to but continued to cry as we walked silently home; and, whatever his cogitations were, they did not take the usual form with him of wordy demonstration, and so we returned from one of the most striking religious ceremonies at which I ever assisted. Ar. rived at the door of the house, we perceived that we had been followed the whole way by the naked, noiseless feet of a poor half-witted creature, a female idiot, whose mental incapacity, of course, in no respect unfits her for the life of toil, little more intellectual than that of any beast of burden, which is her allotted portion here. Some small gratification was given to her, and she departed gibbering and muttering in high glee. Think, E, of that man London, who, in spite of all the bitter barriers in his way, has learned to read, has read his Bible, teaches it to his unfortunate fellows, and is used by his owner and his owner's agents, for all these causes, as an effectual influence for good over the slaves of whom he is himself the despised and injured companion. Like them, subject to the driver's lash; like them, the helpless creature of his master's despotic will, without a right or a hope in this dreary world. But, though the light he has attained must show him the terrible aspects of his fate hidden by blessed ignorance from his companions, it reveals to him also other rights and other hopes-another world, another lifetoward which he leads, according to the grace vouchsafed to him, his poor fellow-slaves. How can we keep this man in such a condition? How is such a cruel sin of inof course, sees and

justice to be answered? Mr. feels none of this as I do, and, I should think, must regret that he ever brought me here, to have my abhorrence of

the theory of slavery deepened, and strengthened every hour of my life, by what I see of its practice.

This morning I went over to Darien upon the very female errands of returning visits and shopping. In one respect (assuredly in none other) our life here resembles existence in Venice: we can never leave home for any purpose or in any direction but by boat-not, indeed, by gondola, but the sharp-cut, well-made light craft in which we take our walks on the water is a very agreeable species of conveyance. One of my visits this morning was to a certain Miss, whose rather grandiloquent name and very striking style of beauty exceedingly well became the daughter of an ex-governor of Georgia. As for the residence of this princess, it was like all the planters' residences that I have seen, and such as a well-to-do English farmer would certainly not inhabit. Occasional marks of former elegance or splendor survive sometimes in the size of the rooms, sometimes in a little carved woodwork about the mantel-pieces or wainscotings of these mansions; but all things have a Castle Rackrent air of neglect, and dreary, careless untidiness, with which the dirty, barefooted negro servants are in excellent keeping. Occasionally a huge pair of dazzling shirt-gills, out of which a black visage grins as out of some vast white paper cornet, adorns the sable footman of the establishment, but unfortunately without at all necessarily indicating any downward prolongation of the garment; and the perfect tulip-bed of a headhandkerchief with which the female attendants of these "great families" love to bedizen themselves frequently stands them instead of every other most indispensable article of female attire.

As for my shopping, the goods, or rather "bads," at which I used to grumble, in your village emporium at Lenox, are what may be termed "first rate," both in excellence and elegance, compared with the vile products of

every sort which we wretched Southerners are expected to accept as the conveniences of life in exchange for current coin of the realm. I regret to say, moreover, that all these infamous articles are Yankee made-expressly for this market, where every species of thing (to use the most general term I can think of), from list shoes to piano-fortes, is procured from the North-almost always New England, utterly worthless of its kind, and dearer than the most perfect specimens of the same articles would be any where else. The incredible variety and ludicrous combinations of goods to be met with in one of these Southern shops beats the stock of your village omnium-gatherum hollow: to be sure, one class of articles, and that probably the most in demand here, is not sold over any counter in Massachusetts-cowhides and man-traps, of which a large assortment enters necessarily into the furniture of every Southern shop.

In passing to-day along the deep sand road calling itself the street of Darien, my notice was attracted by an extremely handsome and intelligent-looking poodle, standing by a little wizen-looking knife-grinder, whose features were evidently European, though he was nearly as black as a negro, who, strange to say, was discoursing with him in very tolerable French. The impulse of curiosity led me to accost the man at the grindstone, when his companion immediately made off. The itinerant artisan was from Aix, in Provence: think of wandering thence to Darien in Georgia! I asked him about the negro who was talking to him; he said he knew nothing of him but that he was a slave belonging to somebody in the town. And upon my expressing surprise at his having left his own beautiful and pleasant country for this dreary distant region, he answered, with a shrug and a smile, "Oui, madame, c'est vrai; c'est un joli pays, mais dans ce pays-là, quand un homme n'a rien, c'est rien pour toujours." A property

which many, no doubt, have come hither, like the little French knife-grinder, to increase, without succeeding in the struggle much better than he appeared to have done.

DEAR E-Having made a fresh, and, as I thought, more promising purchase of fishing-tackle, Jack and I betook ourselves to the river, and succeeded in securing some immense catfish, of which, to tell you the truth, I am most horribly afraid when I have caught them. The dexterity necessary for taking them off the hook so as to avoid the spikes on their backs, and the spikes on each side of their gills, the former having to be pressed down, and the two others pressed up, before you can get any purchase on the slimy beast (for it is smooth skinned and without scales, to add to the difficulty)-these conditions, I say, make the catching of catfish questionable sport. Then, too, they hiss, and spit, and swear at one, and are altogether devilish in their aspect and demeanor; nor are they good for food, except, as Jack with much humility said this morning, for colored folks-"Good for colored folks, missis; me 'spect not good enough for white people." That 'spect, meaning expect, has sometimes a possible meaning of suspect, which would give the sentence in which it occurs a very humorous turn, and I always take the benefit of that interpretation. After exhausting the charms of our occupation, finding that catfish were likely to be our principal haul, I left the river and went my rounds to the hospitals. On my way I encountered two batches of small black fry, Hannah's children and poor Psyche's children, looking really as neat and tidy as children of the bettermost class of artisans among ourselves. These people are so quick and so imitative that it would be the easiest thing in the world to improve their physical condition by appealing to their emulative propensities.