the county, horse-breeder, fox-hunter, loafer,
general drinker, and the fashionable beau at
the summer watering-places near by. I am
at once instantly invited by each and every
one of these kind people to come and make
their house my home. No matter how long
I stay; the longer, the better. They insist
on it. "'Twasn't offen they got a
stranger down in those parts and, when they
did, they wanted to behave good to him."
None of them had ever seen my face before,
nor had ever heard of my name. I had no
letter, save one on business to the ex-congressman.
I might have been a burglar, or the
president of the union, or a Methodist parson,
or a member of the swell-mob— it made no
difference. They wanted company. Come I
must. One man can drink mint-juleps as well
as another man, can't he?

I could begin with one; stay a few weeks
or so; and then go on with the rest in rotation.
But my stay could only be three days, so
I was obliged to cast gloom over the hearths
of five Jemimaites, and beglorify the home
of one. That home was the home of the
ex-congressman: so, towards it we went. I
walked; he trailed, he sauntered, he lagged,
he loafed, he pottered. He had a dozen of
half-naked negro cubs and a half-dozen foxhound
pups mingled together in gambols
around his legs, and he amused his toilsome
march with gently switching them with twigs
broken off as he passed along; the cubs and
the pups seemed pretty much of one family
and one stock; and, as they got themselves
mixed up and entangled in one another's
legs and arms on the ground on every side of
him, it was sometimes difficult to distinguish
in the twilight the human from the brute.
We met on the road several persons, all of
whom, without exception, asked me to "put
up at thar shanty, whilst I was down Virginny."

I am not a great man. On the contrary,
I am insignificant in appearance. I am
entirely not notorious. I never had my likeness
published, neither do I resemble, nor am
I likely to be mistaken for, anybody else who
is great. l am therefore naturally astonished
at this extreme desire for my society, which
seems to animate the entire population of
Jemima. I begin to attribute it to some
sinister motive. Perhaps they think I am
an employé of the underground railroad,*
and wish to keep an eye on me. Mayhap
I have speculation in my eye, and they own
a gold-mine which they would like to "prospect."
Am I to be ridden on a rail? or
shall I receive a polite epistle, stating that
my appearance in that county for another
week, will be the signal for disunion and
secession; that the peculiar institution is in
danger; and that the safety of the union demands
my instant departure? No. None
of these kindly manifestations await me.
I am told that it is the custom of the country.
Every man's home is every other man's home.
All the houses seem to be everybody's, and
everything else nobody's.

[* Underground railroad is the cant phrase to express
the means whereby slaves are secretly enabled to escape,
from the south to the north.]

We stop in at a planter's on the road.
There is a long rail, supported at each end
by a post, parallel to the front of the house.
To this are hitched six or eight half-bred
horses, standing up to their fetlocks in a
pool of negroes. I learn that these are the
animals of visitors from around the country—
say within a circle of twenty miles— who have
come to take supper and spend all night.
We enter. The long-room on the ground-floor
is crowded; they are about sitting down
to supper. They greet us as if we were expected.
They don't postpone the repast, or
ask us to partake of it. But we do, nevertheless,
and sit down with the rest, without
anything being said on either side.

I thought I had an acquaintance with corn,*
which I rather flattered myself was intimate.
I find myself mistaken. The conceit is
taken out of me. I never before knew what
corn meant. I have been on the most distant
terms with corn a mere nodding acquaintance
with corn; but now I am introduced to
him, and obliged formally to acknowledge
him. I could not have helped it had I wished
it. Corn in sixteen different modes of preparation.
Corn in mush; corn in hominy; corn
in slap-jacks, in dabs, in slappers, in ashcakes;
corn in hot yellow bread; corn in
wasting ears, and corn under more names and
disguises than even the potatoes in Voltaire's
(wasn't it Voltaire's?) feast with the Irish
lord. You are in a gold country, and you may
fancy that the inhabitants have learned the
use of the metal as an edible. When you
have retired to bed at night, you are confident
that this theory is correct.

[* Corn means, in the United States, Indian corn or
maize.]

The niggers are pulled out of a black
concrete mass, looking something like a
Laocoon in bronze, semi-melted down, into
which they have been fused by the warmth
of a kitchen fire; and we are off.
Half-an-hour's lagging and loitering— I can't call it
walking; ten minutes of that would have
sufficed— brings us to the ex-congressman's
dwelling. Here I spend a charming evening
with himself and family and find him,
notwithstanding his indolence, his pride, his
insolence of caste, his bumptiousness or
proneness to take offence, his opposition to
public schools, and his denial of many of my
cardinal indisputable points of faith a courteous,
gallant, mild-spoken, considerate gentleman,
and posted up to a wonderful degree
in the most minute details of American history
and American government. Politics is
the only labour which is permitted to the
Southern gentleman, and he certainly does
make the most out of it. The most