have been
pouring such increasing radiance upon every part of the country,
have illumined the huts of the slaves, and have dawned in the
hearts of their masters. Certain it is, that in visiting great
numbers of plantations, I have generally discovered in the slaves
affection for their masters, and sometimes, though not so
generally, for the overseers. It appears to be a growing desire
among masters, to be popular with their slaves, and they have
finally become impressed, that humanity is their best interest,
that cheerful, well fed and clothed slaves, perform so much more
productive labour, as to unite speculation and kindness in the
same calculation. In some plantations they have a jury of negroes
to try offences under the eye of the master, as judge, and it
generally happens that he is obliged to mitigate the severity of
their sentence. The master too has hold of the affection of the
slaves, by interposing his authority in certain cases between the
slave and the overseer. Where the master is really a considerate
and kind man, the patriarchal authority on the one hand, and the
simple and affectionate veneration on the other, render this
relation of master and slave not altogether so forbidding, as we
have been accustomed to consider it.

The negro village that surrounds a planter's house, is, for the
most part, the prototype of the village of Owen of Lanark. It is
generally oblong rows of uniform huts. In some instances I have
seen them of brick, but more generally of cypress timber, and
they are made tight and comfortable. In some part of the village
is a hospital and medicine chest. Most masters have a physician
employed by the job, and the slave, as soon as diseased, is
removed there. Provision is also made for the subsistence and
comfort of those that are aged and past their labour. In this
village by night you hear the hurdy-gurdy, and the joyous and
unthinking laugh of people, who have no care nor concern for the
morrow. I enter among them, and the first difficulty appears to
arise from jealousy, and mutual charges of inconstancy, between
the husbands and wives. In fact, the want of any sanction or
permanence to their marriage connexions, and the promiscuous
intimacies that subsist among them, are not only the sources of
most of t