-a-lieve--
I'll git home to heav-en when I die.

Sweet heav-en ain-a-my-ain,
Sweet heav-en ain-a-my-ain,
Sweet heav-en ain-a-my-ain,
I'll git home to _heav-en_ when I die.

Lord wish-ed I was in heav-en,
Fur to see my mudder when she enter,
Fur to see her tri-als an' long white robes:
She'll shine like cristul in de sun.

Sweet heav-en ain-a-my-ain,
Sweet heav-en ain-a-my-ain,
Sweet heav-en ain-a-my-ain,
I'll git home to heav-en when I die."

While visiting a town in Georgia, where the negroes had made some
effort to improve their condition, I made a few notes relating to the
freedman's debating society of the place. Affecting high-sounding
words, they called their organization, "De Lycenum," and its doings
were directed by a committee of two persons, called respectively, "de
disputaceous visitor," and "de lachrymal visitor." What particular
duties devolved upon the "lachrymal visitor," I could never clearly
ascertain. One evening these negroes debated upon the following theme,
"Which is de best--when ye are out ob a ting, or when ye hab got it?"
which was another form of expressing the old question, "Is there more
pleasure in possession than in anticipation?" Another night the
colored orators became intensely excited over the query, "Which is de
best, _Spring-Water_ or Matches?"

The freedmen, for so unfortunate a class, seem to be remarkably well
behaved. During several journeys through the southern states I found
them usually temperate, and very civil in their intercourse with the
whites, though it must be confessed that but few of them can apply
themselves steadily and persistently to manual labor, either for
themselves or their employers.

CHAPTER XV.

DOWN UPON THE SUWANEE RIVER.

THE RICH FOLIAGE OF THE RIVER.--COLUMBUS.--ROLINS' BLUFF.--OLD TOWN
HAMMOCK.--A HUNTER KILLED BY A PANTHER.--DANGEROUS SERPENTS.--CLAY
LANDING.--THE MARSHES OF THE COAST.--BRADFORD'S ISLAND.--MY LAST
CAMP.--THE VOYAGE ENDED.

Some friends, among whom were Colonel George W. Nason, Jr., of
Massachusetts, and Major John Purviance, Commissioner of Suwanee County,
offered to escort the paper canoe down "the river of song" to the Gulf
of Mexico, a distance, according to local authority, of two hundred and
thirty-five miles. While the members of the party were preparing for the
journey, Colonel Nason accompanied me to the river, whic