he beat her, uttering fearful curses.  If he caught her praying, he said, he would “give her hell.”  Mary was a member of the Methodist Church in Washington.  There were several pious people in the company; and at night, when the driver found them melancholy and disposed to pray, he had a fiddle brought, and made them dance in their chains, whipping them till they complied.  Mary at length became so weak that she really could travel on foot no further.  Her feeble frame was exhausted, and sank beneath accumulated sufferings.  She was seized with a burning fever; and the diabolical trader—­not moved with pity, but only fearing he should lose her—­placed her for the remainder of the way in a waggon.  Arriving at Natchez, they were all offered for sale.  Mary, being still sick, begged she might be sold to a kind master.  Sometimes she made this request in the hearing of purchasers, but was always insulted for it, and afterwards punished by her cruel master for her presumption.  On one occasion he tied her up by the hands so that she could barely touch the floor with her toes.  He kept her thus suspended a whole day, whipping her at intervals.  In any other country this inhuman beast would have been tried for the greatest crime, short of murder, that man can commit against woman, and transported for life.  Poor Mary Brown was at length sold, at 450 dollars, as a house-servant to a wealthy man of Vicksburgh, who compelled her to cohabit with him, and had children by her,—­most probably filling up the measure of his iniquity by selling his own flesh.  Wrongs like these must have inspired our poet when he exclaimed,—­

“To think that man—­them just and gentle God—­Should stand before Thee with a tyrant’s rod O’er creatures like himself, with souls from Thee, Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty!  Away! away!  I ’d rather hold my neck In doubtful tenure from a sultan’s beck, In climes where Liberty has scarce been named, Nor any right but that of ruling claimed, Than thus to live where bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves!”

As we advanced, we continually met with flat boats, laden with produce, and floating sluggishly down.  In the vernacular phrase, these boats are called “Kentucky flats,” or “broad-horns.”  They are curiously constructed.  At a distance, they appear like large chests or trunks afloat.  They are from 50 to 100 feet long, and generally about 15 or 20 feet wide.  The timbers of the bottom are massive beams.  The sides are boarded up square to the height of 6 feet above the water; the roof being slightly curved, like a trunk lid, to throw off rain.  They are adapted to carry from 200 to 400 barrels.  Great numbers of cattle, hogs, and horses are conveyed to market in them.  Coals, too, are thus brought down from the upper parts of the valley.  Some of these barges have apartments fitted up for the accommodation of a family, with a stove, beds, tables, &c.  You may sometimes see in them ladies,