tition, and now on view. As the privilege of
viewing in this instance was confined to those who possessed tickets, I
did not apply for one, as I knew that the wish would be attributed to
curiosity, and possibly a worse construction be put upon it, through my
being a stranger in the place.

Passing onwards through the assembled throng, I got into a more secluded
part of the city, and came upon a large burial-ground, in which many of
the monuments erected to the memory of the dead were of a very expensive
description. One in particular attracted my notice; this, on inquiry of
a gentlemanly-looking man, who, like myself, was inclined to "meditate
among the tombs," I ascertained had been erected by the relatives of a
planter, who had resided in an adjoining state, but who had several
cotton plantations within ten miles of Charleston; these he occasionally
visited, but in general confided to the care of an overseer, who lived
with his family on one of them. The season anterior to his last visit
had been a very unpropitious one, and he was much dissatisfied with the
management. To prevent a recurrence of this loss, and, under the strong
impression that the hands were not worked as they should be, he resolved
to inspect the plantations himself, and administer some wholesome
discipline in _propria persona;_ for this purpose, he visited one of the
plantations, intending afterwards to proceed to the others in rotation.
It so happened that he arrived when not expected; and, finding his
overseer absent, and many of the hands not as closely engaged as he
wished, he became violently enraged. Summoning the overseer, he ordered
all hands in front of the house to witness a punishment, and causing
eight or ten of those whom he pointed out to be tied up at once and well
whipped, stood by the while in uncontrollable anger to give directions.
In the midst of the scene, and while urging greater severity, he was
seized with a fit of apoplexy, which was of such a nature, that it at
once closed his career, and he died instantaneously. Directly the man
fell, the negroes collected round him and uttered cries and
lamentations, and the poor wretch who was at the moment the victim of
his brutality, on being untied, which was immediately done, joined in
it. Notwithstanding that my companion had a decided leaning towards the
extinction of slavery, (although he started various objections to its
abolition,) I was quite inclined to believe his relation, h