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After the literary letter which I sent you last
month, you will no doubt feel particularly grateful to
my learning, if it will dispense with such lofty writing
in future, and give you something more in the descriptive
and gossip way. It isn't every day I get my head
crammed with “book,” but when I do, it must be emptied;
for, as you have before been informed by me, my
head is a very little one, and won't hold a whole library.
Having relieved its fulness in my last, I now begin perfectly
in vacuo (this Latin my brother taught me) to
write you, solemnly averring to you that I havn't read
a book through for a month. This epistle will, therefore,
be about what I have seen, and of that of which I
have been “a part.”

Last week it was resolved, after several days of doubting
and of deliberation, that we would all go and spend
a couple of weeks at Beaver Dam Springs, in this state,
not that we were any of us invalids, but as all our neigh
bors had gone packing either to the North or some of
the watering-places, we had to imitate them, in self-defence,
to get rid of the loneliness of the neighborhood.
One morning, for instance, we would take a gallop over
to Kenton Hall, only to be told that “Massa, and Missus,
and all de young people had gone to de Nort'.” Or, in
the evening we would canter to Bell Park, to find every

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soul away, and the noble halls in charge of an African
housekeeper. In a word, the country was deserted, and
as one might as well be out of the world as out of the
fashion thereof, the order was at length given for our
departure also.

It seemed to me a great pity to quit the elegant mansion,
and beautiful grounds, and sweet retirement of
Overton Park, for unknown inconveniences at some uncomfortable
and crowded watering-place, but as Isabel
insisted that there would be a great many fine beaux
there, and dancing, and all that, I was reconciled to the
change; for, though I don't care much about beaux till
they have got a little gray, and therefore a little wisdom
withal, and seldom dance except with the colonel, or the
tiger captain, at a parlor reunion, yet I knew she would
be very happy there, and so I turned my sighs into
smiles for her sake, and went cheerfully to work packing.
Mr. —, did you ever pack a trunk? If you have not,
and resolutely intend never to pack one, you are an enviable
gentleman. The great art, especially in fixing
away for the springs, is to cram the contents of four
large trunks and a wardrobe into one small trunk; at
least, this was the system Isabel and I went to work
upon, for the colonel said, very positively, that we must
have all baggage put into two trunks, for the traveling
carriages wouldn't carry any more. More than once in
our stowing processes I wished for the aid of the cotton-press,
and believed, at last, we should have to send the
trunk to the gin, to be placed underneath the cotton-bale
screw, in order to consolidate the contents. But,
as this would utterly have demolished cologne and rose-water
bottles, ruined silks and lawns, and generaliy and

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miscellaneously annihilated every thing, we called in
two stout African dames from the laundry, and, making
them stand together upon the top, we caused two negro
boys to draw the straps, one at each strap, and another
to watch the opportunity, when the women on top sprung
up in order to make the cover go down, to turn the key
in the lock. But the efforts of the latter were entirely
unsuccessful, and with the trunk only strapped and buckled
by the extreme ends, we pronounced that it would
do, no rogue would know the difference. The next
question was, what should we do with our hats? The
colonel had forbidden bandboxes, and yet we must carry
our bonnets in some way. It was in vain the colonel
assured us we should have no need of bonnets at the
springs. We did not know what might happen, and determined
to take them. The bandbox finally was safely
smuggled under the feet of Phillip, the driver, the hammer-cloth
scarcely covering it. This important matter
being arranged, we took an early breakfast, and set forth
on our journey, which was to occupy us two days.

You should have seen our cavalcade, Mr. —. Let
me describe it to you. First and foremost rode Charles,
the colonel's intelligent and well-dressed serving-man,
well mounted on a serviceable traveling horse, and leading
by the bridle his master's noble battle-steed, which
he still keeps as his favorite riding-horse. The horse is
a large, finely-formed animal, and with his gorgeous
Spanish saddle half covered with silver, and his plated
bridle, half of which was massive silver-chain, he moved
on his way, tossing his head, and stepping off as if he
“smelled the battle afar off.” Next came our family
coach, a large, Philadelphia-built carriage, as roomy as

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one could wish, with drab linings, luxuriantly soft, broad,
comfortable seats, that one could almost use as sofas.
There were a dozen pockets in the sides, the two larger
ones crammed for the occasion with books, magazines,
and newspapers, to read on the way, when we should
tire of each other, for the most social folks, with the
most praiseworthy loquacity, can't always talk while
traveling. One of the others was charged with cakes,
and another thoughtfully teemed with peaches and apples,
the foresight of the careful housekeeper, who had
traveled with her mistress in her younger days, and
knew how to make “white folk comfortable.” A fifth,
which was long and narrow, was neatly packed with
cigars, to be conveniently in reach of the colonel, the
only smoker in our party; this care for making “white
folks comfortable” being referable to the attention of
Charles, who was au fait in all things appertaining to
his master's habits. A sixth pocket, in the front, contains
a box of lucifer matches, to light the cigars with;
and from a seventh projected the brass top of a small
spy-glass, with which to view distant prospects as we
rode through the country. In each corner swung a brilliant
feather fan, ready for our use, and in a rack over
Isabel's head was a silver cup with which to drink from
the springs or running brooks. There was an additional
contrivance to the carriage I have never seen in any
other; this was an arrangement by which the lower half
of the front could be let down under the hammer-cloth,
and so make room for an extension of the feet of an invalid
to recline at length; a luxury that the indolence
of voluptuousness, rather than the comforts of indisposition,
originated. Behind our carriage rode a little

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mulatto of fourteen, who is taken along as a pupil to initiate
him into the mysteries of his future duties, as body-servant
to the colonel when Charles grows gray: he is an
intelligent lad, and has a thirst for books that it is my
delight to gratify, and it is amusing to witness the expansion
of his large, handsome eyes at every new idea
his little books give him. He thinks there is no one
like Missy Kate, and says to me frequently: “When
you get marry, Missy Kate, me wait on you' husband—
me love b'long to you, Missy.”

Beyond being in the possession—the property of somebody—
the born slave has no idea. Like the beautiful
daughters of Circassia, who look forward to a harem as
the crowning honor of their sex, and the completion of
their happiness, the Afric youths in slavery, of both
sexes, contemplate only, as a second or rather their first
nature, the condition of servitude: so strong are habits
and the influence of education. The little fellow is in
raptures with his journey and at every thing he sees, putting
his smiling orange-tawny face round the corner of
the coach to speak to me in the window, to point out to me
something strange to his optics, but familiar enough to ours.

In the rear of the carriage, at a sufficient distance to
avoid our dust, and not to lend us theirs, rode on ambling
nags two female slaves, one of them Isabel's maid, who
attends her every where, and Edith, who has been installed
from the first, as my factotum. It was useless
for me to say that I did not wish to take her along, that
I could do without her. Go she must, first because I
should need her; secondly she wanted to go and have the
pleasure of the trip; and thirdly, Jane, Isabel's maid,
would be lonesome without her companion to gossip with;

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and servants are better contented when they are together.
So I had my maid. They were both dressed in well-fitting
pongee riding-dresses, were mounted on side-saddles;
and at the horns thereof hung the neatly tied bundles that
contained their respective wardrobes. They paced along
side by side after us, as merry as two young black crows
in a corn field, and made the air ring with their mirthful
and not unmusical laughter; for musical ever are the
voices of the dark daughters of Afric; and I am not surprised
to hear that there is a prima donna of this race
in Paris, filling it with wonder at the richness of her
notes.

I can name half a score of negresses, on the estate of
the Park, whose voices are charming, and, with cultivation,
would surprise and enchant the cultivated listener.

In the rear of these two “ladies,” who only cease
their talk with each other, to switch up their nags, comes
the coachman's boy, a fat-faced, oily, saucy-lipped son
of Ham, black and brilliant as a newly japanned boot.
He is the coachman's page, and boy of all work about
the stable and horses; and rubber-down and harnesser-up;
the polisher of the stable plate and the waterer of the
horses; for your true “gentleman's coachman,” is a gentleman
in his way, and there are the “meaner things”
of his profession, which he leaves to the “low ambition”
of such coarser colored clay as Dick. In a word, the
theory of division of labor is completely carried out into
practical working system on a southern estate with its
hundred slaves. The carriage-driver must not only have
his deputy ostler, but the laundress must be waited on
by a little negress, to kindle her fires, heat her irons,
and do every thing that the dignity of the “lady” in

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question deems it “derogatorum” for her to put her
hands to. The chief washer-woman has from two to four
ebony maids, who do the grosser work while she does
the “fancy washing.” The cook must have a strapping
negress, with eyes like anthracite, to peel and pick; a
strapping lad, with feet like two copies of Mitchell's
School Atlas for breadth, to chop the wood, bring water,
and be at hand whenever he is wanted; and two or three
small fry to catch the poultry, turn the spit, and steal
all they can. The gardener has his aids; the “marmnurse”
hers to tote the children; the housekeeper hers;
and all this army of juveniles are thus in full training to
take the places, by-and-by, of those to whom they are
appended.

Thus every negro child is brought up (educated shall
I say?) to one thing, and comes to understand that particular
branch perfectly by the time it gets to be a man
or a woman, hence the admirable, the perfect servants,
one always finds on a well-regulated plantation. Out
of their particular province they know nothing—absolutely
nothing; and no judicious master ever thinks of
exacting of them, duties out of their regular work.
Dick, the ostler's boy, doesn't know horse-radish from a
pumpkin-vine; and Bob, the gardener's boy, could solve
a problem in Euclid as easily as he could place the
harness on the carriage horses. The cook never enters
the house, and the nurse is never seen in the kitchen;
the wash-woman is never put to ironing, nor the woman
who has charge of the ironing-room ever put to washing.
Each one rules supreme in her wash-house, her ironing-room,
her kitchen, her nursery, her housekeeper's room;
and thus, none interfering with the duties of the other,

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a complete system of domesticdom is established to the
amazing comfort and luxury of all who enjoy its advantages.

This, however, is a digression; but, as I am not
writing by the rule, whatever ramblings my pen takes
should be regarded as a regular part of my letter, as a
deviation contemplated in the beginning. I will now return
to Dick, or Dickon as he was called “for short,” as
Charles saith.

Dick was mounted on the same low, black, shaggy, Mexican
pony I have before described, his feet dangling as if
they were two weights to balance him, and encased with a
pair of brogans, the bottoms of which were still of that fresh
polished leather-brown, which showed they had not yet
touched mother earth, but were span new. Indeed, I had
seen Dickon mount his Mexican bare-footed, and then cause
one of his black companions to put his shoes on for him,
in order that they might shine with newness, and as long
as possible delight the eyes, and kindle envy in the
bosoms of all “darkies” whom he might encounter on
the road. In this vanity, Dickon was not peculiar, for
the whole race are more pleased with a pair of new boots
or shoes than any other portion of apparel. I have seen
both men and women, in going to meeting with new Christmas-gift
shoes, walk half the distance on the Virginia
fence, in order that they might reach the “meetin' hus”
with the bottoms of their brogans “spick and span.”
White “gemmen,” I believe, think most of a new hat,
if one might judge from the habit of betting a hat, and
the gentle pleasure they seem to enjoy in smoothing its
glossy coat down with their palm or a kid glove, and
the jealousy with which they protect it, when it is new,

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from all soiling. The new coat may sit down in a dusty
chair without much compunctious visitings to the trembling
conscience of the wearer; but did any lady ever see
a gentleman deposit his hat upon a table barely susceptible
of dust? Between us, Mr. —, fear of such contact with
its immaculate ebon causes gentlemen to keep their hats
in hand in parlor visitations, protesting, with a hypocritical
smile, if you try to deprive them of it, that it is really
the fashion! Bless me! If the fashion should change,
what would be the substitute? There can be none; for I
have seen fine beaux use their castors as if they were pet
kittens, stroking down and stroking down the soft fur
with affectionate endearment, as if it were a baby, tapping
and smoothing its glossy crown, as if it were a fan,
with which to cool their be-whiskered faces, or a pocket
handkerchief, to hide a temporarily missing tooth, or
wine-tainted (more's the pity) exhalations of breath,
or an escritoire to pencil a letter upon, and as a mail-bag,
to put one in!—as a weapon of war to drive a wasp or
a bat out of the room, as an individual fire-screen, and
for illustrating any ideas in conversation: as, for instance,
I have seen a hat called (only for the sake of illustration,
Mr. —,) a steam boiler, a new novel, a church, the
Mexican general Santa Anna; while the coal-scuttle stood
for General Taylor, Mount Vesuvius, the tomb of Mahomet,
a patent coffee-mill, a newly invented horse-shoe,
and a negro's head. It has enabled many a diffident
gentleman to retain his self-possession, and give a use
for his hands for a whole evening, who, otherwise, would
have suffered excruciatingly from the embarrassment of
being alone with himself. You might as well ask some

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nervous gentlemen if you should take their boots, as to
ask them if you should “take their hats.”

It occurs to me, Mr.—, that only one thing is wanted
to perfect the drawing-room hat. This idea has been
suggested to my mind more than once, when I have seen
gentlemen, during a pause in the conversation, gaze abstractedly
down into the recesses of their castors, as if
they were trying to discover stars at noon-day in a well.
The idea is this: That in the next issue of fashionable
hats by your tonish artistes, Oakford of Chestnut street,
or Genin of Broadway, there should be elegantly inserted
within the crown, where the maker's name usually is
found, a small mirror, encircled by the manufacturer's
name.* Ladies have them in their fans, and the hat is
the gentleman's fan. Such an arrangement would meet
with favor, I have no doubt. The gentlemen at a loss
for ideas could catch inspiration from the depth of their
castors; for what will inspire a person with such a flow
of agreeable ideas as the contemplation of himself?

The introduction of this hat would be productive of
the highest social benefits, and impart a charm and
vivacity to drawing-room conversations that cannot now
be properly estimated. Dear me! Let us go back to
Dickon, whom I have fairly taken for my text; for
what I understand by a text, is some point which gives
the preacher a starting vantage, like the starting pole to
the foot-racer, who, once leaving it at his back, never
expects to behold it more.

But we won't lose sight of Dickon, nor of his brogans.
When we came near any dwelling, to the front of which
any of his sooty brethren might be drawn to gaze on us,

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he would throw out his legs horizontally, in order to
display the full glory and splendor of his pegged shoes,
the soles of which were three-quarters of an inch in
thickness, and the leather of which they were made, as
thick as the hide of a rhinoceros; yet they filled his
dark soul with delight, and he rejoiced in them as if they
had been as beautiful as the slippers of Cinderella.

He led by the bridle Isabel's riding horse, the handsome
creature I have before described, fully caparisoned,
and my beautiful mule, accoutred with Mexican magnificence.
These accompany us in order that, when we
are tired of the carriage, we can ride, and also for our
convenience while at the Springs. My mule is a perfect
beauty! He is none of the Sancho Panza donkey race,
but as symmetrical as a deer, with an ankle like a hind
of the forest, or like a fine lady's; with hide as glossy as
that of a mouse, ears not too large, and well cut; a
pretty head, a soft and affectionate eye, with a little
mischief in it, (observable only when Isabel would try to
pass him,) and as swift as an antelope, and thirteen and
a half hands high. It comes at my voice, and does not
like for any one but me to be in the saddle. The value
of this mule, Mr. —, is three hundred dollars. You
have no idea of the beauty and cost of these useful creatures
in this country, and how universally they are used.
Out of nine private carriages at the Church last Sabbath,
four of them were drawn by beautiful spans of
mules. Even our own traveling carriage, which I have
described to you, is drawn by a pair of large mules, sixteen
hands, and which the colonel has been offered one
thousand dollars for. It is only the rich that can afford
the luxury of the use of these elegant animals. So

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don't smile at my saddled mule, which I have named
“Jenny Lind.”

Having now introduced you to our traveling party,
Mr. —, I will in my next give you some account of
what events took place on our journey.

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