These melancholy words, particularly the rather unusual one at
the end of the address, struck me very much. They were uttered by a
creature which _was_ a woman, but looked like a crooked ill-built figure
set up in a field to scare crows, with a face infinitely more like a mere
animal's than any human countenance I ever beheld, and with that peculiar
wild restless look of indefinite and, at the same time, intense sadness
that is so remarkable in the countenance of some monkeys. It was almost
with an effort that I commanded myself so as not to withdraw my dress from
the yellow crumpled filthy claws that griped it, and it was not at last
without the authoritative voice of the overseer that the poor creature
released her hold of me.

We returned home certainly in the very strangest vehicle that ever
civilised gentlewoman travelled in--a huge sort of cart, made only of some
loose boards, on which I lay supporting myself against one of the four
posts which indicated the sides of my carriage; six horned creatures, cows
or bulls, drew this singular equipage, and a yelping, howling, screaming,
leaping company of half-naked negroes ran all round them, goading them
with sharp sticks, frantically seizing hold of their tails, and inciting
them by every conceivable and inconceivable encouragement to quick motion:
thus, like one of the ancient Merovingian monarchs, I was dragged through
the deep sand from the settlement back to the river, where we reembarked
for the island.

As we crossed the broad flood, whose turbid waters always look swollen as
if by a series of freshets, a flight of birds sprang from the low swamp we
were approaching, and literally, as it rose in the air, cast a shadow
like that of a cloud, which might be said, with but little exaggeration,
to darken the sun for a few seconds. How well I remember my poor aunt
Whitelock describing such phenomena as of frequent occurrence in America,
and the scornful incredulity with which we heard without accepting these
legends of her Western experience! how little I then thought that I should
have to cry peccavi to her memory from the bottom of such ruts, and under
the shadow of such flights of winged creatures as she used to describe
from the muddy ways of Pennsylvania and the muddy waters of Georgia!

The vegetation is already in an active state of demonstration, sprouting
into lovely pale green and vivid red-brown buds and leaflets, though 'tis
yet early in January.

After