On entering the cottages I found also a great difference in the manner of living.  Here, indeed, there were few cottages without a slave, but there were fewer still that had their beefsteak and onions for breakfast, dinner, and supper.  The herrings of the bountiful Potomac supply their place.  These are excellent “relish,” as they call it, when salted, and, if I mistake not, are sold at a dollar and a half per thousand.  Whiskey, however, flows every where at the same fatally cheap rate of twenty cents (about one shilling) the gallon, and its hideous effects are visible on the countenance of every man you meet.

The class of people the most completely unlike any existing in England, are those who, farming their own freehold estates, and often possessing several slaves, yet live with as few of the refinements, and I think I may say, with as few of the comforts of life, as the very poorest English peasant.  When in Maryland, I went into the houses of several of these small proprietors, and remained long enough, and looked and listened sufficiently, to obtain a tolerably correct idea of their manner of living.

One of these families consisted of a young man, his wife, two children, a female slave, and two young lads, slaves also.  The farm belonged to the wife, and, I was told, consisted of about three hundred acres of indifferent land, but all cleared.  The house was built of wood, and looked as if the three slaves might have overturned it, had they pushed hard against the gable end.  It contained one room, of about twelve feet square, and another adjoining it, hardly larger than a closet; this second chamber was the lodging-room of the white part of the family.  Above these rooms was a loft, without windows, where I was told the “staying company” who visited them, were lodged.  Near this mansion was a “shanty,” a black hole, without any window, which served as kitchen and all other offices, and also as the lodging of the blacks.

We were invited to take tea with this family, and readily consented to do so.  The furniture of the room was one heavy huge table, and about six wooden chairs.  When we arrived the lady was in rather a dusky dishabille, but she vehemently urged us to be seated, and then retired into the closet-chamber above mentioned, whence she continued to address to us from behind the door, all kinds of “genteel country visiting talk,” and at length emerged upon us in a smart new dress.

Her female slave set out the great table, and placed upon it cups of the very coarsest blue ware, a little brown sugar in one, and a tiny drop of milk in another, no butter, though the lady assured us she had a “deary” and two cows.  Instead of butter, she “hoped we would fix a little relish with our crackers,” in ancient English, eat salt meat and dry biscuits.  Such was the fare, and for guests that certainly were intended to be honoured.  I could not help recalling the delicious repasts which I remembered