fterward learned, the
Colonel's negroes were accustomed to doing "half tasks" at that season,
being paid for their labor as if they were free. They stopped their work
as we rode by, and stared at us with a stupid, half-frightened
curiosity, very much like the look of a cow when a railway train is
passing. It needed but little observation to convince me that their
_status_ was but one step above the level of the brutes.

As we rode along I said to the driver, "Scip, what did you think of our
lodgings?"

"Mighty pore, massa. Niggas lib better'n dat."

"Yes," I replied, "but these folks despise you blacks; they seem to be
both poor and proud."

"Yas, massa, dey'm pore 'cause dey wont work, and dey'm proud 'cause
dey'r white. Dey wont work 'cause dey see de darky slaves doin' it, and
tink it am beneaf white folks to do as de darkies do. Dis habin' slaves
keeps dis hull country pore."

"Who told you that?" I asked, astonished at hearing a remark showing so
much reflection from a negro.

"Nobody, massa; I see it myseff."

"Are there many of these poor whites around Georgetown?"

"Not many 'round Georgetown, sar, but great many in de up-country har,
and dey'm all 'like--pore and no account; none ob 'em kin read, and dey
all eat clay."

"Eat clay!" I said; "what do you mean by that?"

"Didn't you see, massa, how yaller all dem wimmin war? Dat's 'cause dey
eat clay. De little children begin 'fore dey kin walk, and dey eat it
till dey die; dey chaw it like 'backer. It makes all dar stumacs big,
like as you seed 'em, and spiles dar 'gestion. It'm mighty onhealfy."

"Can it be possible that human beings do such things! The brutes
wouldn't do that."

"No, massa, but _dey_ do it; dey'm pore trash. Dat's what de big folks
call 'em, and it am true; dey'm long way lower down dan de darkies."

By this time we had arrived at the "run." We found the bridge carried
away, as the woman had told us; but its abutments were still standing,
and over these planks had been laid, which afforded a safe crossing for
foot-passengers. To reach these planks, however, it was necessary to
wade into the stream for full fifty yards, the "run" having overflowed
its banks for that distance on either side of the bridge. The water was
evidently receding, but, as we could not well wait, like the man in the
fable, for it all to run by, we alighted, and counselled as to the best
mode of making the passage.

Scip proposed that he should wade in to