Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/106

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The Scotch people, of whom there are many in this city and state, are the most successful merchants; yet they abuse America violently, and never become citizens. In time of war, they are therefore very properly deemed and treated as aliens and prisoners, and ordered out of the seaports into the interior, where they must quietly continue until peace is made.

My landlord, Mr. Calder, during his last visit to Scotland, was imprisoned on a charge of endeavouring to force his negro back to America. The poor negro's chains fell off, when he reached old Scotland, where he now lives, a free man.

At sunset, a few evenings since, while among plantations, suddenly burst upon my ear an earth-rending shout. It proceeded from negroes shouting three times three, on finishing their task.

20th.—The ladies of Carolina, it is said, prefer a fair effeminate kind of man to one of a robust habit, and swarthy dark complexion. This preference of delicate complexions originates in their antipathy to any colour approaching to that of the negro or mulatto, or yellow man, whom it is sometimes difficult to distinguish from a white or brown person.

Squatters are natives who squat or settle on {85} vacant, unoccupied lands in the interior of the country, and claim a title thereto by long undisturbed possession, in which the government protects them. The heirs of the late R. and H. Rugeley have lost 80,000 acres, now in the hands of Squatters. On the verge of barbarism, near the Indian Territory, when a respectable settler comes with authority to occupy the lands, these squatters are known to dress and disguise themselves as Indians, and present themselves, with the rifle and tomahawk, to the servants