The following is worthy of Pliny:—­

“In the month of January, 1797, on a pleasant day for the season, I observed my honey-bees to be out of their hives, and they seemed to be very busy, excepting one hive.  Upon examination, I found all the bees had evacuated this hive, and left not a drop behind them.  On the 9th of February ensuing, I killed the neighboring hives of bees, and found a great quantity of honey, considering the season,—­which I imagine the stronger had taken from the weaker, and the weaker had pursued them to their home, resolved to be benefited by their labor, or die in the contest.”

Mr. Benjamin H. Ellicott, who was a true friend of Banneker, and collected from various sources all the facts concerning him, wrote in a letter as follows:—­

“During the whole of his long life he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements.  Although his mode of life was regular and extremely retired,—­living alone, having never married, cooking his own victuals and washing his own clothes, and scarcely ever being absent from home,—­yet there was nothing misanthropic in his character; for a gentleman who knew him thus speaks of him:  ’I recollect him well.  He was a brave-looking, pleasant man, with something very noble in his appearance.  His mind was evidently much engrossed in his calculations; but he was glad to receive the visits which we often paid him.’  Another writes:  ’When I was a boy I became very much interested in him, as his manners were those of a perfect gentleman:  kind, generous, hospitable, humane, dignified, and pleasing, abounding in information on all the various subjects and incidents of the day, very modest and unassuming, and delighting in society at his own house.  I have seen him frequently.  His head was covered with a thick suit of white hair, which gave him a very dignified and venerable appearance.  His dress was uniformly of superfine drab broadcloth, made in the old style of a plain coat, with straight collar and long waistcoat, and a broad-brimmed hat.  His color was not jet-black, but decidedly negro.  In size and personal appearance, the statue of Franklin at the library in Philadelphia, as seen from the street, is a perfect likeness of him.  Go to his house when you would, either by day or night, there was constantly standing in the middle of the floor a large table covered with books and papers.  As he was an eminent mathematician, he was constantly in correspondence with other mathematicians in this country, with whom there was an interchange of questions of difficult solution.’”

Banneker died in the year 1804, beloved and respected by all who knew him.  Though no monument marks the spot where he was born and lived a true and high life and was buried, yet history must record that the most original scientific intellect which the South has yet produced was that of the pure African, Benjamin Banneker.