a certain time, and that not a very remote one, the belief in her assertion took such possession of the people on the estate, that they refused to work; and the rice and cotton fields were threatened with an indefinite fallow, in consequence of this strike on the part of the cultivators.  Mr. K——­, who was then overseer of the property, perceived the impossibility of arguing, remonstrating, or even flogging this solemn panic out of the minds of the slaves.  The great final emancipation which they believed at hand had stripped even the lash of its prevailing authority, and the terrors of an overseer for once were as nothing, in the terrible expectation of the advent of the universal Judge of men.  They were utterly impracticable—­so, like a very shrewd man as he was, he acquiesced in their determination not to work; but he expressed to them his belief that Sinda was mistaken, and he warned her that if, at the appointed time, it proved so, she would be severely punished.  I do not know whether he confided to the slaves what he thought likely to be the result if she was in the right; but poor Sinda was in the wrong.  Her day of judgement came indeed, and a severe one it proved, for Mr. K——­ had her tremendously flogged, and her end of things ended much like Mr. Miller’s; but whereas he escaped unhanged, in spite of his atrocious practices upon the fanaticism and credulity of his country people, the spirit of false prophecy was mercilessly scourged out of her, and the faith of her people of course reverted from her to the omnipotent lash again.  Think what a dream that must have been while it lasted, for those infinitely oppressed people,—­freedom without entering it by the grim gate of death, brought down to them at once by the second coming of Christ, whose first advent has left them yet so far from it!  Farewell; it makes me giddy to think of having been a slave while that delusion lasted, and after it vanished.

* * * * *

Dearest E——.  I received early this morning a visit from a young negro, called Morris, who came to request permission to be baptised.  The master’s leave is necessary for this ceremony of acceptance into the bosom of the Christian Church; so all that can be said is, that it is to be hoped the rite itself may not be indispensable for salvation, as if Mr. ——­ had thought proper to refuse Morris’ petition, he must infallibly have been lost, in spite of his own best wishes to the contrary.  I could not, in discoursing with him, perceive that he had any very distinct ideas of the advantages he expected to derive from the ceremony; but perhaps they appeared all the greater for being a little vague.  I have seldom seen a more pleasing appearance than that of this young man; his figure was tall and straight, and his face, which was of a perfect oval, rejoiced in the grace, very unusual among his people, of a fine high forehead, and the much more frequent one of a remarkably gentle and sweet