526 United States of America, and British West Indies. QMAY, 



in a circle, drawing the leaves from the stalk ; " in the centre stood two 

 men, who, on receiving the leaves from the pickers, distributed them in 

 heaps according to their quality. There seem to be three qualities of 

 tobacco ; the lower leaves, or those which touch the ground, are liable 

 to get dirty and torn, but on the higher parts of the same stalk two 

 different sorts of leaves are found, one yellow, and one brown. These 

 being carefully separated, and made up into little bunches, somewhat 

 thicker than a man's thumb, are tied round with a thong, formed out 

 of the leaf itself. The branches are then slung, in pairs, across bars 

 of wood, stretched from side to side of the roof, not unlike herrings 

 in a drying-house. In the course of time, the house becomes so 

 completely filled with those bars, carrying bunches of tobacco, that 

 there is barely left space enough for a man to creep under them to trim 

 the fires, kept constantly burning on the mud floors to dry the leaves. 



" The next process is to pack it into the large hogsheads which every 

 one has seen before the door of a tobacconist's shop. This operation is 

 performed by means of long levers worked by hand, which force it into 

 a compact mass. The slaves looked wonderfully cheerful and healthy, 

 and although scantily clad, were not unseasonably so, for the air was 

 quite mild, notwithstanding it was now the depth of winter. Of a 

 hundred and ten slaves on this plantation, I was told not one could read 

 or write."* 



At Fortress Monroe he had an opportunity of seeing the operation of 

 the punishment substituted in place of flogging. " I found a large party of 

 men, about two hundred in number, each one of whom carried a heavy 

 chain, which hung in a festoon between his legs, one end being riveted 

 to the ancle, while the other trailed a four pound shot along the ground. 

 Most of these persons, it appeared, were deserters from the army, though 

 some had been guilty of disobedience, and other acts of insubordination 

 to military discipline. They were all dressed in party-coloured jackets, 

 on the back part of which was painted ' United States convict ;' and I 

 do not remember to have beheld anywhere a more humiliating, or more 

 unmilitary spectacle." The old method of flogging was abolished in the 

 American army, by Congress, in 1812 ; since which, according to Captain 

 Hall, the discipline of the troops has been gradually declining. We might 

 remark upon the decline of discipline in Hayti, and other quarters, where 

 more severe punishments have also been substituted for flogging ; but we 

 shall content ourselves with referring to vol. iii. chap. 5. for our traveller's 

 reasons at length in favour of continuing the former system, as being the 

 most humane, as well as effectual. 



Proceeding from Norfolk through North Carolina, in February, 1828, 

 he thus describes one part of the road : for about twelve miles it " passed 

 through a dense forest of pines and junipers, rising out of a continued 

 swamp, along which the carriage-way seemed to float on poles, or trunks 

 of small trees, laid across, which, being covered with nothing but a thin 

 stratum of earth and leaves, was fearfully jolty. The evening, moreover, 

 was so dark, that the forest on each side of us stood up to the height of 

 sixty feet like a perpendicular cliff of coal, with a narrow belt of sky 

 above, serving no other purpose than to point out the way by a feeble, 

 ghost-like reflection from the ditches on either side, which looked as if 

 they were filled with ink. It was a sort of guess-work driving, for we 

 came every now and then to pools a quarter of a mile in length, through 



Hall's Travels, vol. iii. p. 97- 



