Adjoining These Habitations, We Found Line Peach Orchards, Teeming With Fruit Of The Richest Description, Which Lay In Bushels On The Ground, And With Which We Regaled Ourselves.

Enclosed maize fields overgrown with brambles, and cotton fields with the gins and apparatus for packing the produce in bales for the market, presented to the eye the very picture of desolation.

Owing to cross roads we were at one time completely at fault, and there being no house in sight, I volunteered to ride off to the right and endeavour to obtain the information we were in need of. After riding about half-a-mile, I heard voices through a road-side coppice, which I took to be those of field-hands at work; going farther on I dismounted, and climbing the zigzag rail fence approached a negro at work in the field. I inquired if he could put me on the road to Tallahassee; he appeared much frightened at the intrusion, but stated he did not know, but his mas'r did, at the same time pointing to the plantation-house, situate the greater part of a mile distant; being averse to going there, for fear of impudent interrogation, I offered him money to go with me to the point where I had left my companions, and show us the way to the next house; he did not even know what it was I offered him, and in apparent amazement inquired what that was for; I explained, buy tobacco, buy whiskey; he appeared totally ignorant of its use, and I have no doubt he had never had money in his possession, or learned its use. Still, he refused to leave the field, a wise precaution, as I afterwards found, both for himself and me. The negro being resolute, there was now no alternative but to go to the house, on arriving at which, I met with such a reception as I had feared and anticipated. Three fierce dogs of the mastiff breed, regularly trained to hunting fugitive negroes, rushed out upon me. I had only a small riding whip with me, having left my fire-arms with a friend at Fort Andrews, and much dreaded laceration. Their noise soon brought out a ferocious, lank-visaged-looking man, about forty years of age, who immediately called off the dogs; but before I had time to make the inquiry that brought me there, he began in about the following strain,

"What dye yer waunt up yar, stranger? Arter no good, I guess; you'd better put it 'bout straight. I see'd yer torking to the hands yonder - none o' yer 'mancipator doctrines yar."

The fellow's address "struck me all of a heap," as he would himself have said, had he been in my situation; he spoke so fast, that I could not edge in a word; at last I stated the cause of my intrusion, but he would not believe a word, ordered me to quit the plantation or he would set the dogs on me, and was getting into such an ungovernable rage, that I thought it would be wise to follow his advice. So I slowly retreated to the yard entrance by which I had come in. Returning to my companions at the cross-roads, I found that, in my absence, a passer-by had given them the wished-for information, and we pushed on to a house of call, a few miles distant.

As the ride was a long one, we halted at this house for refreshment, and, after baiting our horses, regaled ourselves upon some choice ham and eggs. At the table, three little negroes, one girl and two boys, under fourteen years of age, served as waiters. Their clothing was supplied by nature, being solely the primitive habiliments worn in Eden before the fall. This is quite customary in the south, where the rules of decency are commonly set at defiance, as if the curse of Adam's transgression applied not in this respect to the African race. The little creatures did not seem to be in the least aware of their degraded state; they were as agile as fawns, and their tact in administering to the wants of the company was quite remarkable.

Just as we were about to proceed on our journey, a party of some half-a-dozen planters or overseers of neighbouring estates, mounted on fine mules, who had been searching for fugitive field-hands, rode up. I could see they were greatly excited, and one of them had a negro lassoed by the neck, one end of the rope being fastened to his high Spanish saddle. On coming up to the entrance gate, the one most in advance dismounted to open it; the mule, eager, perhaps, to get to a crib, or, what is more likely, to evade a brutal kick or blow, trotted through; this did not please its owner, who bellowed loudly to it to stop. The mule, however, still kept on, when the ruffian, in demoniac anger, drew from his belt a long bowie knife, and darting after the animal, hurled it at him with all his force. The blade of the weapon, which was six or seven inches long, entered and stuck fast in the abdomen of the agonized creature, which, for about twenty yards, ran on furiously, with the murderous knife in its vitals. It then fell-with a deep groan, while the fiend who had perpetrated this wanton act of barbarity and his companions watched its fall, and loudly exulted in it. I noticed that there was a deep scowl of hatred on the countenance of the negro prisoner as this drama was being enacted, and when the knife struck the poor mule he cried out, "Oh, mas'r, mas'r!" Societies for the suppression of cruelty to animals, are, as might be supposed, unknown in such remote situations, nor do they exist in any of the slave States and territories of America; so that redress in such a case was out of the question.

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