life, but to open the body, and thereby ascertain whether the slave died from unsoundness and old diseases, or from recent sickness. If from the former cause, the purchase money is returned. Negroes occasionally ride their master's horses all night, to the distance of many miles, on trading excursions, selling what they have stolen during the week. About three weeks since, a gentleman planter of this neighbourhood, had one of his slaves, a strong fellow, whipped to death for stealing. The party who presided over this horrid execution, were all, as well as the owner, drunk, a circumstance which is here offered as an excuse for murder; or rather for whipping away 1,000 dollars, the prime cost of the victim.
26th.—Much alarmed last night, while in my bed in the state-room. Something jumped on my dressing table, drank up the water, broke the glass, and disappeared. It was a rascally rat. I was {66} awakened again by a singular rustling, rattling noise underneath my bed, and suspected it must be a huge rattle-snake. What a bedfellow! It came not however into bed, but continued to annoy me all night with intermitting noises. What, gentle reader, dost thou think it proved to be? A good motherly old hen on her nest, full of hatching eggs, which she found it necessary to turn over frequently. She disturbed me no more, but remained my well-known companion.
27th.—Dined this day with Mr. J. Rochell, a fine hearty Carolinian, who promises me a handsome cane of ironwood as a keepsake. Here, where slavery prevails in perfection, which Carolinians call their curse, it is calculated that the labour on a plantation costs nothing; and that by breeding freely, and by the consequent increase of saleable slaves, the planter is even a gainer, exclusive
