rode through a whole wood, of burned and charred trees, cypresses and
oaks, that looked as if they had been each of them blasted by a special
thunderbolt, and whole thickets of young trees and shrubs perfectly black
and brittle from the effect of fire, I suppose the result of some
carelessness of the slaves. As this charcoal woodland extended for some
distance, I turned out of it, and round the main road through the
plantation, as I could not ride through the blackened boughs and branches
without getting begrimed. It had a strange wild desolate effect, not
without a certain gloomy picturesqueness.

In the afternoon, I made Israel drive me through Jack's new-made path to
break it down and open it still more, and Montreal's powerful trampling
did good service to that effect, though he did not seem to relish the
narrow wood road with its grass path by any means as much as the open way
of what may be called the high road. After this operation, I went on to
visit the people at the Busson Hill settlement. I here found, among other
noteworthy individuals, a female named Judy, whose two children belong to
an individual called (not Punch) but Joe, who has another wife, called
Mary, at the Rice Island. In one of the huts I went to leave some flannel
and rice and sugar for a poor old creature called Nancy, to whom I had
promised such indulgences: she is exceedingly infirm and miserable,
suffering from sore limbs and an ulcerated leg so cruelly that she can
hardly find rest in any position from the constant pain she endures, and
is quite unable to lie on her hard bed at night. As I bent over her
to-day, trying to prop her into some posture where she might find some
ease, she took hold of my hand, and with the tears streaming over her
face, said, 'I have worked every day through dew and damp, and sand and
heat, and done good work; but oh, missis, me old and broken now, no tongue
can tell how much I suffer.' In spite of their curious thick utterance and
comical jargon, these people sometimes use wonderfully striking and
pathetic forms of speech. In the next cabin, which consisted of an
enclosure, called by courtesy a room, certainly not ten feet square, and
owned by a woman called Dice--that is, not owned, of course, but inhabited
by her--three grown up human beings and eight children stow themselves by
day and night, which may be called close packing, I think. I presume that
they must take turns to be inside and outside the house, but