and the delicious "pepper pot" that
any one of those "aunts" can make out of the aforesaid green and red
capsicums, assisted by a few other ingredients from the little garden
"patch" in the rear of the cabin, would bring water to the teeth of an
epicure.

Perhaps on the cabin walls you will see suspended representatives of the
animal kingdom--perhaps the skin of a rabbit, a raccoon, an opossum, or
the grey fox--perhaps also that of the musk-rat (_Fiber zibethicus_),
or, rarer still, the swamp wild-cat (bay lynx--_Lynx rufus_). The owner
of the cabin upon which hangs the lynx-skin will be the Nimrod of the
hour, for the cat is among the rarest and noblest game of the
Mississippi _fauna_. The skin of the panther (_cougar_) or deer you
will not see, for although both inhabit the neighbouring forest, they
are too high game for the negro hunter, who is not permitted the use of
a gun. The smaller "varmints" already enumerated can be captured
without such aid, and the pelts you see hanging upon the cabins are the
produce of many a moonlight hunt undertaken by "Caesar," or "Scipio," or
"Hannibal," or "Pompey." Judging by the nomenclature of the negro
quarter, you might fancy yourself in ancient Rome or Carthage!

The great men above-named, however, are never trusted with such a
dangerous weapon as a rifle. To their _skill_ alone do they owe their
success in the chase; and their weapons are only a stick, an axe, and a
"'coon-dog" of mongrel race. Several of these last you may see rolling
about in the dust among the "piccaninnies," and apparently as happy as
they. But the hunting trophies that adorn the walls do not hang there
as mere ornaments. No, they are spread out to dry, and will soon give
place to others--for there is a constant export going on. When uncle
Ceez, or Zip, or Hanny, or Pomp, get on their Sunday finery, and repair
to the village, each carries with him his stock of small pelts. There
the storekeeper has a talk with them, and a "pic" (picayune) for the
"mussrat," a "bit" (Spanish real) for the "'coon," and a "quarter" for
the fox or "cat," enable these four avuncular hunters to lay in a great
variety of small luxuries for the four "aunties" at home; which little
comforts are most likely excluded from the regular rice-and-pork rations
of the plantation.

So much is a little bit of the domestic economy of the negro quarter.

On entering the little village,--for the negro quarter of a grand
plantation