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Have you ever been fox hunting? If you have,
you have seen very respectable, rough and tumble enjoyment;
if you have not, there are yet before you certain
experiences.

I have already spoken of the fine, broadly spread
landscape, visible from the portico of Overton Park
Lodge. In the late autumnal months when the crops
are well gathered, and there is nothing to trample down
in the fields, this wide landscape is converted into a vast
fox hunting ground, full eleven miles across. By concert
the neighboring planters open their fences with
many a gap across the country, and so a clear ride of
ten or twelve miles is left free to the adventurous huntsman
or huntswoman.

Two evenings ago as I was about to mount my beautiful
dapple mule, (don't laugh at my mule, for it is the
dearest little fellow with ears like velvet, and feet and
fetlocks like an antelope's, a special gift to me for its
beauty and gentleness, from Colonel Peyton,) to pace
down the avenue to the turnpike, I was surprised to see
suddenly appear in sight a party of seven young gentlemen.
They were riding at top speed, and in great glee,
and all came dashing up toward the villa at that rapid
rate the Tennesseean loves to ride.

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“Ah, my boys,” cried the colonel, who was about to
ride out with me, removing his foot from the stirrup,
while I hesitated whether to remain on the flight of steps
or fly from such a battalion. “Don't go, Miss Kate.
They are only some of the young fox hunters come over
to make preparations.”

And before I could escape—

“Miss Conyngham, gentlemen!”

The young men, who drew up their horses on seeing a
lady, lifted their caps and hats, and I was struck with
their general appearance; four of them being fine-looking,
yet dressed in blue linsey-woolsey, with boots pulled on
over their pantaloons; and the other three in thick coats
and caps, or broad felt hats slouched behind—a very
common head covering in these parts and not unpicturesque.
Every young man was armed with a gun, and
attended at least by two dogs, and beautiful creatures
some of them were—not the young men, Mr. —, but
the hounds.

“Well, colonel, we have come over to settle upon the
day,” said one of the young gentlemen.

“That is right! I like to see the rising generation
prompt to engage in such noble sports. I think that the
day after to-morrow we will give Reynard our compliments
in person. I will have my men ready, and if you
will meet me at the edge of the wood, by the lion's head
cliff, at six in the morning, we will do our best for a day's
sport.”

“We'll be there, colonel,” was the response; “and
then we shall stand a chance of bringing down a deer or
two,” added one of them. “I saw one on the ridge by
the creek as I rode over.”

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“No doubt we shall see plenty of sport. And you must
accompany us, Miss Kate,” added the colonel turning to
me, as I stood with the bridle of my mule in my hand,
trying to check his restive movements, for the prancing
horses of the young men fired his ambition to prance
too.

After suffering myself to be urged a little by two of
the young gentlemen, I consented to join the party, if
other ladies did so. The cavalcade then escorted us to the
gate of the main road, and the horsemen separated each
to his own home; while the colonel and I took a forest
road, that, after a league's windings, came out near the
villa. As we rode, the colonel entertained me with a
great many anecdotes of hunting, from Bruin to the
Hare. As we approached the mansion on our return,
the avenue was temporarily blocked up by not less than
fifty slaves of both sexes; for it was now twilight, and
they had just completed their day's work, and were
wending their way to their village, or quartier.

The women carried hoes upon their shoulders, and
trudged along, some dull, and with expressionless faces,
others laughing and singing. The men, I remarked, were
more cheerful than the women, and had more lively
countenances. One and all were clad in their coarse
white cloth, known as negro cloth—the men with straw
hats and the women with handkerchiefs upon their heads.
I have not yet seen a negro woman wear a bonnet on
Sundays, it is only a gayer kerchief.

As we passed, they drew up on each side of the narrow
road for us to pass—the men all taking off, or touching
their hats, and replying with a smile to their master's
salutation of “Good evening, boys!” and the women—

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some of them, slightly nodding, but without the smile.
One of them had a huge cotton basket upon her head.

“Peep into it,” said the colonel, as I rode by. I did
so, and beheld four little cunning black babies!—they
were nestled together, and quite naked. These babies
had been taken by their mothers to the field, and while
they were at work, were placed under the care of the girl
who had them in charge.

I am already getting reconciled to slavery, since I find
that it does not, in reality, exhibit the revolting horrors
I was taught in the North to discover in it. There are
many things to admire and to interest one in the social
and domestic condition of the slaves, and I am almost
ready to acknowledge that the African is happier in
bondage than free! At least one thing is certain: nearly
all the free negroes I have ever seen in the North were
miserable creatures, poor, ragged, and often criminal.
Here they are well clad, moral, nearly all religious, and
the temptations that demoralize the free blacks in our
northern cities are unknown to, and cannot approach
them.

As we drew near the front of the villa, my mule, not
liking the shrill cry of a superb peacock, which conceived
the idea of welcoming us with a song, and a resplendent
unfolding of his prismatic-eyed tail, started to run with
me at top speed. I am a tolerable rider, and as I could
not fall far if I were thrown, the mule being so little and
low, I did not feel half the alarm the colonel manifested
for my safety, who began to ride after me; when finding
his horse only gave fresh impetus to the speed of my
mule, he drew rein, and called to a negro man to stop
my career. But the mule was not to be stopped.

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Instead of taking the carriage-way, he bolted across the
lawn, and made straight for the stable. To stop him was
impossible. I found I might as well pull at a granite
column as at his jaws. The door of his stable was open,
and I saw that he would only stop at his crib. I measured
the ground to spring to it, but the dreadful idea that my
skirt might entangle with the horns of the saddle, deterred
me. In another moment the stable was reached!
The door was open. I threw myself forward, clasped
neck and mane, and stooping low went safely in with
him. The suddenness with which he stopped at his
manger, tossed me into the rack, out of which I was taken
unhurt, and with many a joke and laugh upon my mule
race. But a mule race is not a fox hunt, you say! Bide
a wee, sir.

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