as to who was the paternal ancestor of our
author; a fact which generally holds good of the Romuluses and Remuses
who are to inaugurate the new birth of our republic. In the absence of
testimony from the Caucasian side, we must see what evidence is given on
the other side of the house.

"My grandmother, though advanced in years, * * * was yet a woman of
power and spirit. She was marvelously straight in figure, elastic and
muscular." (p. 46.)

After describing her skill in constructing nets, her perseverance in
using them, and her wide-spread fame in the agricultural way he adds,
"It happened to her--as it will happen to any careful{19} and thrifty
person residing in an ignorant and improvident neighborhood--to enjoy
the reputation of being born to good luck." And his grandmother was a
black woman.

"My mother was tall, and finely proportioned; of deep black, glossy
complexion; had regular features; and among other slaves was remarkably
sedate in her manners." "Being a field hand, she was obliged to walk
twelve miles and return, between nightfall and daybreak, to see her
children" (p. 54.) "I shall never forget the indescribable expression of
her countenance when I told her that I had had no food since morning.
* * * There was pity in her glance at me, and a fiery indignation at Aunt
Katy at the same time; * * * * she read Aunt Katy a lecture which she
never forgot." (p. 56.) "I learned after my mother's death, that she
could read, and that she was the _only_ one of all the slaves and
colored people in Tuckahoe who enjoyed that advantage. How she acquired
this knowledge, I know not, for Tuckahoe is the last place in the world
where she would be apt to find facilities for learning." (p. 57.) "There
is, in _Prichard's Natural History of Man_, the head of a figure--on
page 157--the features of which so resemble those of my mother, that I
often recur to it with something of the feeling which I suppose others
experience when looking upon the pictures of dear departed ones." (p.
52.)

The head alluded to is copied from the statue of Ramses the Great, an
Egyptian king of the nineteenth dynasty. The authors of the _Types of
Mankind_ give a side view of the same on page 148, remarking that the
profile, "like Napoleon's, is superbly European!" The nearness of its
resemblance to Mr. Douglass' mother rests upon the evidence of his
memory, and judging from his almost marvelous feats of recollection
of forms and outlines recorde