erse, often
improvising, and the others, who 'base' him, as it is
called, strike in with the refrain, or even join in the
solo, when the words are familiar. When the 'base' begins,
the leader often stops, leaving the rest of his words to be
guessed at, or it may be they are taken up by one of the
other singers. And the 'basers' themselves seem to follow
their own whims, beginning when they please and leaving off
when they please, striking an octave above or below (in case
they have pitched the tune too low or too high), or hitting
some other note that chords, so as to produce the effect of
a marvellous complication and variety, and yet with the most
perfect time, and rarely with any discord. And what makes it
all the harder to unravel a thread of melody out of this
strange network is that, like birds, they seem not
infrequently to strike sounds that cannot be precisely
represented by the gamut, and abound in 'slides from one
note to another, and turns and cadences not in articulated
notes.'"

How the same songs could be sung equally well at all sorts
of work is explained by another writer,[27] as follows: "Of
course the _tempo_ is not always alike. On the water, the
oars dip 'Poor Rosy' to an even andante, a stout boy and
girl at the hominy-mill will make the same 'Poor Rosy' fly,
to keep up with the whirling stone; and in the evening,
after the day's work is done, 'Heab'n shall-a be my home' [a
line from 'Poor Rosy'] peals up slowly and mournfully from
the distant quarters. One woman--a respectable
house-servant, who had lost all but one of her twenty-two
children--said to me: 'Pshaw! don't har to dese yer chil'en,
misse. Dey just rattles it off,--dey don't know how for sing
it. I likes "Poor Rosy" better dan all de songs, but it
can't be sung widout a full heart and a troubled sperrit!'"

FROM H. W.

_Saturday, May 3._ Directly after breakfast I mounted the pony,
followed by Tom to open the gates. In this way we proceeded to Fripp
Point, the plantation which belongs to this one. Just before we
reached the Point, Tom started my horse, and before I knew it I was on
the ground from the saddle's having turned under me. The horse behaved
perfectly well, and I mounted and rode on towards the quarters (there
is no white people's house here), where I could see St. Helena Village
across the c