r little room upon the verge of despair, all at
once my wife raised her head, and with a smile upon her face, which was
a moment before bathed in tears, said, "I think I have it!" I asked
what it was. She said, "I think I can make a poultice and bind up my
right hand in a sling, and with propriety ask the officers to register
my name for me." I thought that would do.

It then occurred to her that the smoothness of her face might betray
her; so she decided to make another poultice, and put it in a white
handkerchief to be worn under the chin, up the cheeks, and to tie over
the head. This nearly hid the expression of the countenance, as well
as the beardless chin.

The poultice is left off in the engraving, because the likeness could
not have been taken well with it on.

My wife, knowing that she would be thrown a good deal into the company
of gentlemen, fancied that she could get on better if she had something
to go over the eyes; so I went to a shop and bought a pair of green
spectacles. This was in the evening.

We sat up all night discussing the plan, and making preparations. Just
before the time arrived, in the morning, for us to leave, I cut off my
wife's hair square at the back of the head, and got her to dress in the
disguise and stand out on the floor. I found that she made a most
respectable looking gentleman.

My wife had no ambition whatever to assume this disguise, and would not
have done so had it been possible to have obtained our liberty by more
simple means; but we knew it was not customary in the South for ladies
to travel with male servants; and therefore, notwithstanding my wife's
fair complexion, it would have been a very difficult task for her to
have come off as a free white lady, with me as her slave; in fact, her
not being able to write would have made this quite impossible. We knew
that no public conveyance would take us, or any other slave, as a
passenger, without our master's consent. This consent could never be
obtained to pass into a free State. My wife's being muffled in the
poultices, &c., furnished a plausible excuse for avoiding general
conversation, of which most Yankee travellers are passionately fond.

There are a large number of free negroes residing in the southern
States; but in Georgia (and I believe in all the slave States,) every
coloured person's complexion is prima facie evidence of his being a
slave; and the lowest villain in the country, should he be a white m