“The walls of the room were ornamented with portraits of Major-General Pinckney by Stuart, Stuart’s Washington, one by Morris of General Thomas Pinckney, and a portrait of Miss Pinckney’s mother.

“Miss Pinckney is a very plain woman, but much beloved for her benevolence.

“It is said that on looking over her diary which she keeps, recording the reasons for her many gifts to her friends and to her slaves, such entries as these will be found: 

“‘$——­ to Mary, because she is married.’

“‘$——­ to Julia, because she has no husband.’

“Miss Pinckney showed me among her centre-table ornaments a miniature of Washington; one of her grandmother, of exceeding beauty; one of each of the Pinckneys whose portraits are on the walls.

“Charleston is full of ante-Revolution houses, and they please me.  They were built when there was no hurry; they were built to last, and they have lasted, and will yet last for the children of their present possessors.

“Nothing can be happier in expression than the faces of the colored children.  They have what must be the ease of the lower classes in a despotic country.  The slaves have no care, no ambition; their place is a fixed one—­they know it, and take all the good they can get.  The children are fat, sleek, and, inheriting no nervous longings from their parents, are on a constant grin—­at play with loud laughs and high leaps.

“May 1.  It does not follow because the slaves are sleek and fat and really happy—­for happy I believe they are—­that slavery is not an evil; and the great evil is, as I always supposed, in the effect upon the whites.  The few Southern gentlemen that I know interest me from their courtesy, agreeable manners, and ready speech.  They also strike me as childlike and fussy.  I catch myself feeling that I am the man and they are women; and I see this even in the captain of a steamer.  Then they all like to talk sentiment—­their religion is a feeling.

“May 2.  The negroes are remarkable for their courtesy of manner.  Those who belong to good families seem to pride themselves upon their dress and style.

“A lady walking in Charleston is never jostled by black or white man.  The white man steps out of her way, the black man does this and touches his hat.  The black woman bows—­she is distinguished by her neat dress, her clean plaid head-dress, and her upright carriage.  It would be well for some of our young ladies to carry burdens on their heads, even to the risk of flattening the instep, if by that means they could get the straight back of a slave.

“Mrs. W., who takes us out to drive, comes with her black coachman and a little boy.  The coachman wears white gloves, and looks like a gentleman.  The little boy rings door-bells when we stop.