has spread, I have
had repeated eager entreaties for presents of Bibles and Prayer Books, and
to my demurrer of 'But you can't read; can you?' have generally received
for answer a reluctant acknowledgement of ignorance, which, however, did
not always convince me of the fact. In my farewell conversation with
London I found it impossible to get him to tell me how he had learned to
read: the penalties for teaching them are very severe, heavy fines,
increasing in amount for the first and second offence, and imprisonment
for the third.[4] Such a man as London is certainly aware that to teach
the slaves to read is an illegal act, and he may have been unwilling to
betray whoever had been his preceptor even to my knowledge; at any rate, I
got no answers from him but 'Well, missis, me learn; well, missis, me
try,' and finally, 'Well, missis, me 'spose Heaven help me;' to which I
could only reply, that I knew Heaven was helpful, but very hardly to the
tune of teaching folks their letters. I got no satisfaction. Old Jacob,
the father of Abraham, cook John, and poor Psyche's husband, took a most
solemn and sad leave of me, saying he did not expect ever to see me again.
I could not exactly tell why, because, though he is aged and infirm, the
fifteen miles between the rice plantation and St. Simon's do not appear so
insuperable a barrier between the inhabitants of the two places, which I
represented to him as a suggestion of consolation.

[Footnote 4: These laws have been greatly increased in stringency and
severity since these letters were written, and _death_ has not been
reckoned too heavy a penalty for those who should venture to offer these
unfortunate people the fruit of that forbidden tree of knowledge, their
access to which has appeared to their owners the crowning danger of their
own precarious existence among their terrible dependents.]

I have worked my fingers nearly off with making, for the last day or two,
innumerable rolls of coarse little baby clothes, layettes for the use of
small new-born slaves; M---- diligently cutting and shaping, and I as
diligently stitching. We leave a good supply for the hospitals, and for
the individual clients besides who have besieged me ever since my
departure became imminent.

Our voyage from the rice to the cotton plantation was performed in the
Lily, which looked like a soldier's baggage wagon and an emigrant
transport combined. Our crew consisted of eight men. Forward in the bow
wer