quart bowl of rum toddy made with loaf sugar for two shillings, or with brown sugar for one shilling and sixpence.  In 1779 prices had risen.  Good rum sold for four pounds a gallon.  It was ordered that a warm dinner should cost twelve shillings, a cold dinner nine shillings, and a good breakfast twelve shillings.  But the item that pleased us most, and made us regret our late advent, was that for two shillings we could have had a “good lodging, with clean sheets.”  The colonists were fastidious people.

Abingdon, prettily situated on rolling hills, and a couple of thousand feet above the sea, with views of mountain peaks to the south, is a cheerful and not too exciting place for a brief sojourn, and hospitable and helpful to the stranger.  We had dined—­so much, at least, the public would expect of us—­with a descendant of Pocahontas; we had assisted on Sunday morning at the dedication of a new brick Methodist church, the finest edifice in the region —­a dedication that took a long time, since the bishop would not proceed with it until money enough was raised in open meeting to pay the balance due on it:  a religious act, though it did give a business aspect to the place at the time; and we had been the light spots in the evening service at the most aristocratic church of color.  The irresponsibility of this amiable race was exhibited in the tardiness with which they assembled:  at the appointed time nobody was there except the sexton; it was three quarters of an hour before the congregation began to saunter in, and the sermon was nearly over before the pews were at all filled.  Perhaps the sermon was not new, but it was fervid, and at times the able preacher roared so that articulate sounds were lost in the general effect.  It was precisely these passages of cataracts of sound and hard breathing which excited the liveliest responses,—­“Yes, Lord,” and “Glory to God.”  Most of these responses came from the “Amen corner.”  The sermon contained the usual vivid description of the last judgment—­ah, and I fancied that the congregation did not get the ordinary satisfaction out of it.  Fashion had entered the fold, and the singing was mostly executed by a choir in the dusky gallery, who thinly and harshly warbled the emotional hymns.  It occupied the minister a long time to give out the notices of the week, and there was not an evening or afternoon that had not its meetings, its literary or social gathering, its picnic or fair for the benefit of the church, its Dorcas society, or some occasion of religious sociability.  The raising of funds appeared to be the burden on the preacher’s mind.  Two collections were taken up.  At the first, the boxes appeared to get no supply except from the two white trash present.  But the second was more successful.  After the sermon was over, an elder took his place at a table within the rails, and the real business of the evening began.  Somebody in the Amen corner struck up a tune that had no end, but a mighty power