for having
answered him impertinently, that he had ordered her into the field,
whereupon she had said she was ill and could not work, that he retorted he
knew better, and bade her get up and go to work; she replied, 'Very well,
I'll go, but I shall just come back again!' meaning, that when in the
field, she would be unable to work, and obliged, to return to the
hospital. 'For this reply,' Mr. O---- said, 'I gave her a good lashing; it
was her business to have gone into the field without answering me, and
then we should have soon seen whether she could work or not; I gave it to
Chloe too, for some such impudence.' I give you the words of the
conversation, which was prolonged to a great length, the overseer
complaining of sham sicknesses of the slaves, and detailing the most
disgusting struggle which is going on the whole time, on the one hand to
inflict, and on the other, to evade oppression and injustice. With this
sauce I ate my dinner, and truly it tasted bitter.

Towards sunset I went on the river to take my rowing lesson. A darling
little canoe which carries two oars and a steersman, and rejoices in the
appropriate title of the 'Dolphin,' is my especial vessel; and with Jack's
help and instructions, I contrived this evening to row upwards of half a
mile, coasting the reed-crowned edge of the island to another very large
rice mill, the enormous wheel of which is turned by the tide. A small bank
of mud and sand covered with reedy coarse grass divides the river into two
arms on this side of the island; the deep channel is on the outside of
this bank, and as we rowed home this evening, the tide having fallen, we
scraped sand almost the whole way. Mr. ----'s domain, it seems to me, will
presently fill up this shallow stream, and join itself to the
above-mentioned mud-bank. The whole course of this most noble river is
full of shoals, banks, mud, and sand-bars, and the navigation, which is
difficult to those who know it well, is utterly baffling to the
inexperienced. The fact is, that the two elements are so fused hereabouts,
that there are hardly such things as earth or water proper; that which
styles itself the former, is a fat, muddy, slimy sponge, that, floating
half under the turbid river, looks yet saturated with the thick waves
which every now and then reclaim their late dominion, and cover it almost
entirely; the water, again, cloudy and yellow, like pea-soup, seems but a
solution of such islands, rolling turbid an