y tasks of slip have you planted for the Government, and how
many for your own use?" to have to ask also, in variously modified
phrase, "What's your name?" Recognize a negro, remember anything in
which he has any interest, and you have his confidence at once. I not
only surprised but made my fast friend a fellow on one of my places
by calling him by his name the second time I saw him.

The men on the Hope Place are not all of a poor stamp, of course. The
driver, Isaac, is my very ideal of a nigger-driver on a large place,
made alive. Strong of body and up to all the dodges of the plantation
life, he shows the effect--not apparent, in such a disagreeable manner
at least, in Tony and Paris--of having a good many rough fellows to
manage. I do not think he is liked on the place; I doubt his
frankness; I think he is somewhat disposed to kick against the new
authorities, disputing, _e. g._, their right to take away "his" horse,
the little one Mr. Palmer and I foraged from him the first day I came.

Charles, the carpenter, is a man after my own heart. He attracted me
first by his dignified and respectful demeanor, and by his superior
culture. He has a little touch of self-consideration. He, more than
any other negro I know, seems to me like a white person. I forget his
color entirely while talking with him, and am often surprised, on
approaching a black man, to recognize Charles' features. I think he is
a pretty able fellow,--I should like to give him some regular
employment in his trade. It seems an imposition to expect such a man
to work cotton and corn.

Beaufort is neither Bofort nor Boofort nor Biufort, but Bueft, the u
pronounced like the umlauted u in German. Sometimes one hears Biffut.
Hooper, extremist in ridicule, says Biffit. A letter of Mrs.
Philbrick's went, "missent," to Beaufort, N. C., which is, I believe,
Bofort. Had the pronunciation been written on the envelope, as one
hears it among the "black inhabitants," it would have gone to the
Dead Letter Office, unless, by good luck, the S. C. had brought it as
far as Hilton Head.

We get, first or last, a pretty good notion of one another (you
understand I am speaking of the white population only), though we see
very little of each other, except when we are on adjoining
plantations. The Oaks is a rendezvous where we see each other at
times; we meet occasionally in Biffut; but church is the principal
meeting-house on the island, of course, and all the gossip of t