stood leaning against the wall, looking upon the frolic with an air of superiority.  He consented, came forward, demanded a bit of paper to hold in his hand, and harangued the soldiery.  It was evident that Toby had listened to stump-speeches in his day.  He spoke of “de majority of Sous Carolina,” “de interests of de state,” “de honor of ole Ba’nwell district,” and these phrases he connected by various expletives, and sounds of which we could make nothing.  A length he began to falter, when the captain with admirable presence of mind came to his relief, and interrupted and closed the harangue with an hurrah from the company.  Toby was allowed by all the spectators, black and white, to have made an excellent speech.

The blacks of this region are a cheerful, careless, dirty race, not hard worked, and in many respects indulgently treated.  It is, of course, the desire of the master that his slaves shall be laborious; on the other hand it is the determination of the slave to lead as easy a life as he can.  The master has power of punishment on his side; the slave, on his, has invincible inclination, and a thousand expedients learned by long practice.  The result is a compromise in which each party yields something, and a good-natured though imperfect and slovenly obedience on one side, is purchased by good treatment on the other.  I have been told by planters that the slave brought from Africa is much more serviceable, though more high-spirited and dangerous than the slave born in this country, and early trained to his condition.

I have been impatiently waiting the approach of spring, since I came to this state, but the weather here is still what the inhabitants call winter.  The season, I am told, is more than three weeks later than usual.  Fields of Indian corn which were planted in the beginning of March, must be replanted, for the seed has perished in the ground, and the cotton planting is deferred for fine weather.  The peach and plum trees have stood in blossom for weeks, and the forest trees, which at this time are usually in full foliage, are as bare as in December.  Cattle are dying in the fields for want of pasture.

I have thus had a sample of the winter climate of South Carolina.  If never more severe or stormy than I have already experienced, it must be an agreeable one.  The custom of sitting with open doors, however, I found a little difficult to like at first.  A door in South Carolina, except perhaps the outer door of a house, is not made to shut.  It is merely a sort of flapper, an ornamental appendage to the opening by which you enter a room, a kind of moveable screen made to swing to and fro, but never to be secured by a latch, unless for some purpose of strict privacy.  A door is the ventilator to the room; the windows are not raised except in warm weather, but the door is kept open at all seasons.  On cold days you have a bright fire of pine-wood blazing before you, and a draught of cold air at your back.  The reason given for this practice is, that fresh air is wholesome, and that close rooms occasion colds and consumptions.