Our journey was a long and tedious one, especially to those who were compelled to walk the whole distance.  My master rode in a sulky, and I, as his body servant, on horseback:  When we crossed over the Roanoke, and were entering upon North Carolina, I remember with what sorrowful countenances and language the poor slaves looked back for the last time upon the land of their nativity.  It was their last farewell to Old Virginia.  We passed through Georgia, and crossing the Chattahoochee, entered Alabama.  Our way for many days was through a sandy tract of country, covered with pine woods, with here and there the plantation of an Indian or a half-breed.  After crossing what is called Line Creek, we found large plantations along the road, at intervals of four or five miles.  The aspect of the whole country was wild and forbidding, save to the eye of a cotton-planter.  The clearings were all new, and the houses rudely constructed of logs.  The cotton fields, were skirted with an enormous growth of oak, pine, and other wood.  Charred stumps stood thickly in the clearings, with here and there a large tree girdled by the axe and left to decay.  We reached at last the place of our destination.  It was a fine tract of land with a deep rich soil.  We halted on a small knoll, where the tents were pitched, and the wagons unladen.  I spent the night with my master at a neighboring plantation, which was under the care of an overseer named Flincher.

The next morning my master received a visit from a man named Huckstep, who had undertaken the management of his plantation as an overseer.  He had been an overseer on cotton plantations many years in Georgia and North Carolina.  He was apparently about forty years of age, with a sunburnt and sallow countenance.  His thick shock of black hair was marked in several places with streaks of white, occasioned as he afterwards told me by blows received from slaves whom he was chastising.

After remaining in the vicinity for about a week, my master took me aside one morning—­told me he was going to Selma in Dallas County, and wished me to be in readiness on his return the next day, to start for Virginia.  This was to me cheering news.  I spent that day and the next among my old fellow servants who had lived with me in Virginia.  Some of them had messages to send by me to their friends and acquaintances.  In the afternoon of the second day after my master’s departure, I distributed, among them all the money which I had about me, viz., fifteen dollars.  I noticed that the overseer Huckstep laughed at this and called me a fool:  and that whenever I spoke of going home with my master, his countenance indicated something between a smile and a sneer.

Night came; but contrary to his promise, my master did not come.  I still however expected him the next day.  But another night came, and he had not returned.  I grew uneasy, and inquired of Huckstep where be thought my master was.