they did not
make any complaint about it, though I should think the aspect of my
countenance, as I surveyed their abode and heard their numbers, might have
given them a hint to that effect; but I really do find these poor
creatures patient of so much misery, that it inclines me the more to heed
as well as hear their petitions and complaints, when they bring them to
me.

After my return home, I had my usual evening reception, and, among other
pleasant incidents of plantation life, heard the following agreeable
anecdote from a woman named Sophy, who came to beg for some rice. In
asking her about her husband and children, she said she had never had any
husband, that she had had two children by a white man of the name of
Walker, who was employed at the mill on the rice island; she was in the
hospital after the birth of the second child she bore this man, and at the
same time two women, Judy and Sylla, of whose children Mr. K---- was the
father, were recovering from their confinements. It was not a month since
any of them had been delivered, when Mrs. K---- came to the hospital, had
them all three severely flogged, a process which _she_ personally
superintended, and then sent them to Five Pound--the swamp Botany Bay of
the plantation, of which I have told you--with further orders to the
drivers to flog them every day for a week. Now, E----, if I make you sick
with these disgusting stories, I cannot help it--they are the life itself
here; hitherto I have thought these details intolerable enough, but this
apparition of a female fiend in the middle of this hell I confess adds an
element of cruelty which seems to me to surpass all the rest. Jealousy is
not an uncommon quality in the feminine temperament; and just conceive the
fate of these unfortunate women between the passions of their masters and
mistresses, each alike armed with power to oppress and torture them. Sophy
went on to say that Isaac was her son by driver Morris, who had forced
her while she was in her miserable exile at Five Pound. Almost beyond my
patience with this string of detestable details, I exclaimed--foolishly
enough, heaven knows--'Ah, but don't you know, did nobody ever tell or
teach any of you, that it is a sin to live with men who are not your
husbands?' Alas, E----, what could the poor creature answer but what she
did, seizing me at the same time vehemently by the wrist: 'Oh yes, missis,
we know--we know all about dat well enough; but we do anything