gratuity to persons to undertake the charge in their absence.

The heat, although the summer was not far advanced, was excessive, and
the thousands of mosquitoes that filled the air, especially after a fall
of rain, when they seemed to burst into life in myriads spontaneously,
kept up an increasing annoyance. At night this was ten-fold, for
notwithstanding the gauze awnings, or bars, as they are called, which
completely enveloped the bedstead, to the floor of the room, they found
admittance with pertinacious audacity, and kept up a buzzing and humming
about my ears that almost entirely deprived me of rest. This unceasing
nuisance in the hot season, makes it difficult to keep one's equanimity
of temper, and has, probably, much to do with that extreme irascibility
shown by the southern inhabitants of the American continent.

The appearance and situation of hundreds of quadroon females in this
city, soon attracted my attention, and deserve notice. I saw numbers of
them not only at the bazaars or shops making purchases, but riding in
splendid carriages through the streets. So prodigal are these poor
deluded creatures of their money, that, although slaves and liable to
immediate sale at the caprice of their keepers, they have often been
known to spend in one afternoon 200 dollars in a shopping excursion.
Endowed with natural talents, they are readily instructed in every
accomplishment, requisite to constitute them charming companions. Often
as a carriage dashes by, the pedestrian is able to catch a glimpse of
some jewelled and turbaned sultana, of dazzling beauty, attended by her
maid, who does not always possess a sinecure, for the mistress is often
haughty, proud, and petulant, very hard to please, and exacts great
deference from her inferiors. Many of them live in regal splendour, and
everything that wealth and pampered luxury can bestow is theirs, as long
as their personal charms remain; but when their beauty has ceased to
gratify the passions of their masters, they are, in most instances, cast
off, and frequently die in a condition which presents the greatest
possible contrast to their former gay but not happy life.

"Oh that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly side by side,
Where the tyrant's power is o'er,
And the fetter galls no more."

Many of such poor outcasts are to be found scattered all over the slave
states, some employed as field hands, but in general they are selected
as domestics, their forme