his brother. The deer passing on, the wounded brother discharged his gun which had been prepared, killed the animal, and staggering a few paces, expired himself. This disaster was related to me by Colonel Pastell and his son; Major Warley, and Captain Pelotte, who lived on the neighbouring plantations, and composed our hunting party.

After killing half a dozen deer, we assembled by appointment at some planter's house, whither the mothers, and wives, and daughters of the hunters had got before us in their carriages. A dinner of venison, killed the preceding hunt, smoked before us; the richest Madeira sparkled in the glass, and we forgot, in our hilarity, there was any other habitation for man but that of the woods.

In this hunting party was always to be found my pupil William Henry, who gallopped through the woods, however thick or intricate; summoned his beagles, after the toil of the chase, with his horn; caressed the dog that had been the most cager in pursuit of the deer, and expressed his hope there would be good weather to hunt again the following Saturday.

I did not repress this ardour in my pupil. I 'beheld it with satisfaction; for the man doomed to pass every winter in the woods, would find his life very irksome, could he not partake, with his neighbours, in the diversions they afford.

Ludere qui nescit, campestribus abstinet armis,
Indoctusque Pile, Discive, Trochive quiescit,
Ne spissa risum tollant impune Corona.

HOR.

Wolves were sometimes heard on the plantation in the night; and, when incited by hunger, would attack a calf and devour it. One night, however, some wolves endeavouring to seize on a calf, the dam defended her offspring with such determined resolution, that the hungry assailants were compelled to retreat with the tail only of the calf, which one of them had bitten off.

Wild cats are very common and mischievous in the woods. When a sow is ready to litter, she is always enclosed with a fence or rails, for, otherwise, the wild cats would devour the pigs.

I generally accompanied my pupil into the woods in his shooting excursions, determined both to make havoc among birds and beasts of every description. Sometimes we fired in vollies at the flocks of doves that frequent the corn fields; sometimes we discharged our pieces at the wild geese, whose empty cackling betrayed them; and once we brought down some paroquets, that were directing their course over our heads to Georgia. Nor was it an undelightful task to fire at the squirrels on the tops of the highest trees, who, however artful, could seldom elude the shot of my eager companion.

The affability and tenderness of this charming family in the bosom of the woods, will be ever

cherished in my breast, and long recorded, I hope, in this page. My wants were always anticipated. The family Library was transported without entreaty into my chamber; paper and the apparatus for writing, were placed on my table; and once having lamented that my stock of segars was nearly exhausted, a negro was dispatched seventy miles to Charleston, for a supply of the best Spanish.

I conclude my description of this elegant fa family, with an observation that will apply to every other that I have been domesticated in, on the Western Continent;-that cheerfulness and quiet always predominated, and that I never saw a brow clouded, or a lip opened in anger.

One diminution to the happiness of an European in the woods of Carolina, is the reflection that every want is supplied him by slaves. Whatever may be urged on the subject of negroes, as the voice of millions could lend no support to falsehood, so no casuistry can justify the keeping of slaves. That negroes are human beings, is confessed by their partaking with the rest of mankind the faculty of speech, and power of combination. Now no man being born a slave, but with his original rights, the supposed property of the master in the slave, is an usurpation and not a right; because no one from being a person can become a thing. From this conviction should every good citizen promote the emancipation of Negroes in America.

The negroes on the plantation, including house-servants and children, amounted to a hundred; of whom the average price being respectively seventy pounds, made them aggregately worth seven thousand to their possessor.

Two families lived in one hut, and such was their unconquerable propensity to steal, that they pilfered from each other. I have heard masters lament this defect in their negroes. But what else can be expected from man in so degraded a condition, that among the ancients the same word implied both a slave and a thief.

Since the introduction of the culture of cotton in the State of South Carolina, the race of negroes has increased. Both men and women work in the field, and the labour of the rice-plantation formerly prevented the pregnant Negress from bringing forth a long-lived offspring. It may be established as a maxim that, on a plantation where there are many children, the work has been moderate.

It may be incredible to some, that the children of the most distinguished families in Carolina, are, suckled by negro-women. Each child has its Momma, whose gestures and accent it will necessarily copy, for children we all know are imitative beings. It is not unusual to hear an clegant lady say, Richard always grieves when Quasheehaw is whipped, because she suckled him! If Rousseau in his Emile could inveigh against the French mother, who consigned her child to a

woman of her own colour to suckle, how would his indignation have been raised, to behold a smiling babe tugging with its roseate lips at a dug. of a size and colour to affright a Satyr?

Of genius in negroes many instances may be recorded. It is true, that Mr. Jefferson has pronounced the Poems of Phillis Whately, below the dignity of criticism, and it is seldom safe to differ in judgment from the Author of Notes on Virginia. But her conceptions are often lofty, and her versification often surprises with unexpected refinement. Ladd, the Carolina poet, in enumerating the bards of his country, dwells with encomium on "Whately's polished verse;" nor is his praise undeserved, for often it will be found to glide in the stream of melody. Her lines on Imagination have been quoted with rapture by Imlay of Kentucky, and Steadman the Guiana Traveller; but I have ever thought her happiest production, the Goliah of Gath.

Of Ignatius Sancho, Mr. Jefferson also speaks neglectingly; and remarks, that he substitutes sentiment for argumentation. But I know not that argumentation is required in a familiar Epistle; and Sancho, I believe, has only published his Correspondence.

Before I quit the woods of Coosohatchie, it will be expected from me to fill the imagination of my reader with the vengeful terrors of the rattlesnake, that meditates destruction to the unwary. Were I really pleased with such tales, I would