a girls' district school, to be established in the town of Henderson, situated in the western part of Kentucky. The invitation seemed to promise useful remunerative work, so it was accepted.
The region of Kentucky, where I then went, was a tobacco-growing district. I there gained my first practical experience of negro slavery and the crude civilisation of a Western slave State.
This being my first separation from the family, a constant correspondence was kept up with home. Some extracts from these letters will give a curious glimpse of Kentucky rural life fifty years ago.
Henderson: March 5, 1844.
No doubt you've reproached me for my silence, after promising to write the second day from my arrival, but we had a very long trip, and it was not till the morning of the fourth day that I set my foot in the mud of Henderson. The 'Chieftain' left Cincinnati at two o'clock Wednesday morning, and in seven hours we made twenty miles. All seemed lazy on board the boat. The first night we laid up, on account of the fog; the second we spent at Louisville, the third at Evansville; we had on board a quantity of green wood, and stopped continually to take in fresh supplies. The captain, a fat, red-faced, good-natured fellow, went to sleep, or took matters very easily. As we entered the canal at Louisville he was standing on the hurricane-deck, at the head of the boat, apparently fast asleep; the helmsman steered immediately for the rough stone wall of the canal, and with a tremendous shock smashed in a great deal of the wood-*work in the fore part of the boat. The captain gave one jump, wrung his hands, spun round, and went to sleep again. In the morning I went with Mr. S. into Louisville;
