own way with the simple creatures. These negroes are as
near the original wild African type as if a few years instead of more
than a century of contact with civilization had passed over them.
They are all the direct descendants of original importations, chiefly
Ghoolahs and Ashantees; indeed, "Gullah niggah" is a favorite term
of playful reproach among them. Their _male_ names are still largely
Ashantee, as "Cudjo," "Cuffee," "Quarcoo," "Quashee," etc., and
their dialect, a mixture of "pigeon English" and Ghoolah, strongly
impregnated with the French of the Huguenot masters of their
forefathers, is simply incomprehensible to a stranger, whether white
or black. Indeed, when excited and talking rapidly even those who
have grown up among them can scarcely understand the lingo. "Coom,
Hondree," says an old nurse to her little charge at bedtime, "le' we
tek fire go atop:" in English, "Come, Henry, let's take a light and go
up stairs." "Child" is "pickny;" "white man" (or woman), "buckrah;"
"I don't know," "Me no sabbee;" "Is it not?" "Enty?"; "watermelon" is
"attermillion" or "mutwilliam;" and so on.

Paying a medical visit, I enter a house where the patient is a sick
child: the old crone who is sitting in the doorway with a boy's head
between her knees, performing the office of which monkeys are so fond,
calls out, "Lindy! de buckrah coom."

"What's the matter with the child?" I inquire.

"Ki, maussa! me no sabbee wha' do a pickny," replies the intelligent
Lindy, who wishes me to know that she knows nothing about the case.

We shall see more of them before leaving the plantation.

A day on the water and a long drive are excellent preparatives for
a supper of broad rice-waffles toasted crisp and brown before the
crackling hickory fire, of smoking spare-ribs and luscious tripe,
of rich, fragrant Java coffee with boiled milk and cream; nor does a
sound night's sleep unfit one for enjoying at breakfast a repetition
of the same, substituting link sausages and black pudding for the
tripe and spare-ribs, and superadding feathery muffins and soft-boiled
eggs.

It is Sunday morning, but the service to-day is at the other end of
the parish, some twenty miles away. The sky seems brighter and the
grass more green than on the work-days of the week: the birds sing
more cheerily, and seem to know that for one day they are safe from
man's persecution. Certain it is that the wary crow will on that day
eye you saucily as you pass with