saw
in a little house by itself, where a steam gin worked four stands
tended by one hand each. The funny thing was to see them pack the
bales. There was a round hole in the second-story floor and a bag was
fastened to the edges, into which a man gets and stamps the cotton
down. I saw it swinging downstairs, but did not know what it was till,
on going up, I found a black head just above the floor, which grinned
from ear to ear with pleasure at the sight of a white lady, and ducked
and bobbed in most convulsive fashion.

We drove through the negro quarters, or "nigger-house," as they
themselves call the whole settlement, and they flocked to the doors to
look at us, bowing and smiling as we went by. There were eight or ten
separate houses just raised from the ground so that the air could pass
underneath, and, as we looked in at the doors, apparently with very
little furniture, though in some we saw chairs which were evidently
Massa's. Dirty and ragged they all were, but certainly no more so than
poor Irish, and it seemed to me not so dirty.

I saw palmetto-trees for the first time on this drive near enough to
know what they really looked like. They stand alone in the
cotton-fields like our elms in a meadow, though there are fewer of
them, and they are stiff and straight. The Spanish dagger, looking
like a miniature palmetto, was planted for hedges round the garden and
fish-pond. Mistletoe I saw for the first time.

Mr. Hooper came over in the morning [of the next day] and told us he
should come for us at 12.30, but it was five before we got into the
boat.[21] The negroes sang to us in their wild way as they rowed us
across--I cannot give you the least idea of it. Indeed, I can't give
you the least idea of anything, and you must not expect it. The town
looked very pretty from the boat, some of the houses are large and
quite imposing in appearance. We found Mr. Pierce and his carriage
waiting for us, having been there without any dinner since one
o'clock. (This is the land of waiting, we have discovered--patience is
a virtue our Northern people will have to learn here.) We drove at
once to Pope's plantation, passing Mr. Eustis on the way at his
overseer's house, bedaubed from head to foot with molasses, which he
had been selling all day to the negroes, a pint to a hand. Here Mr.
Philbrick was waiting with his sulky (a two-wheeled jockey-cart), an
ox-team for the baggage, and a dump-cart in which he and H. were to
drive,