ea a ee 
DAVIS’S TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 
noublie jamais de mettre un pot de chambre 
sous le lit.” 
Here the yellow fever broke out. One 
evening, Mr. Davis had met an ac- 
quaintance in the street. 
«JT accompanied him, he says, into Areh- 
street, where taking possession of the porch 
of an abandoned dwelling, we sat conyers- 
ing till a late hour. The most gloomy ima- 
gination cannot conceive a scene more dis- 
mal than the street before us: every house 
was deserted by those who had strength to 
seek a less baneful atmosphere; unless 
where parental fondness prevailed over self- 
love. Nothing was heard but either the 
groans of the dying, the lamentations of the 
survivors, the hainmers of the coffin-makers, 
er the howling of the domestic animals, 
whieh those who fled from the: pestilence 
had left behind, in the precipitancy of their 
flight. A poor cat came to the porch where 
T was sittiny with the docter, and demon- 
Strated her joy by the caresses of fondness. 
An old negro-woman was passing by at the 
same moment with some pepper-pot* on 
her head. With this we fed the cat that 
was nearly reduced to a skeleton; and 
prompted by a desire to know the senti- 
ments of the old negro-woman, we asked, 
her the news. God help us, cried the poor 
ereature, very bad news. Buckra die in 
heaps. By and bye nobody live to buy pep- 
per-pot, and old black woman die too.” 
What a picture! the effects of pesti- 
lence have never been so well delineated 
since Daniel Defoe’s history of the 
plague of London. 
_Leaving Philadelphia to escape from 
this dreadful visitation, the author sailed 
for Charlestown, and for a short time 
officiated there as assistant tutor in the 
college. His next removal was to un- 
dertake the tuition of a wealthy plan- 
ter’s children, at Coosohatchie, a village 
about half way between Charlestown 
and Savannah, consisting of a black- 
smith’s shop, a court-house, and a jail. 
The sesquepedalian deformity of Ame- 
rican names was well noticed in a paras 
graph which Mr. Davis quotes from the 
Aurora gazette ; “ Exult ye white hills 
‘of. New Hampshire, redoubtable Moe 
madnock and Tuckaway! Laugh ye 
waters of the Winiseopee and Umbagog 
lakes! Flow smooth in heroic verse ye 
streams of Amorioosack and Androse 
eoggin, Cockhoka and Coritocook ! and 
you Merri-Merrimack be now more 
merry.” Yet these barbarous and wig- 
wam names are far better than the mean 
@nd ridiculous appellations with which 
os 
Englishmen so often nick-name the ob- 
jects of nature; one of the highest 
mountains in the island is called the 
Cobler, and in one of our finest lakes 
we have Shoulder-of-Mutton Bay. A. 
similar name is introduced very happily 
by Mr. Davis. After walking a mile 
and a half, I met a boy sauntering 
along, and whistling, probably, for 
want of thought. ‘ How far my boy,” 
said I, “is it to Frying Pan.” You be 
in the pan now, replied the oaf. <««¥ 
be, be I, said I; very well.”? On the 
Indian words he writes with feeling. 
«« In journeying through America, the 
Tndian names of places have always awak- 
ened in my breast a train of reflection; 2 
single word will speak volumes to a specula- 
tive mind; and the names of Pocotaligo, 
and Coosohatchie, and Occoquan, have pic- 
tured to my fancy the havoc of time, the 
decay and succession of generations, toge- 
ther with the final extirpation of savage na~ 
tions, who, unconscious of the existence 
of another people, dreamt not of invasions 
from foreign enemies, or inroads from colo- 
nists, but believed their power invincible, 
and their race eternal.” 
Of the treatment of slaves in South 
Carolina, Mr. Davis has communicated 
some interesting particulars. Negur day 
time is the term these poor wretches have 
for night, because they are then at 
leisure. 
’ 
«° Tt is indeed grating to an English= 
man to mingle with society in Carolina ; for 
the people, however well-bred in other re- 
spects, have no delicacy before a stranger um 
what relates to their slaves. These wretches 
are execrated for every involuntary offence ; 
but negroes endure execrations without 
emotion, for they say, when Mossa eurse, 
he break no bone. But every master does. 
not confine himself to oaths; and I have 
heard a man say, By heaven, my Negurs. 
talk the worst English of any in Carolina = 
that boy just now called a bason a round- 
something : take him to the driver! let him 
have a dozen! ° 
«+ Exposed to such wanton cruelty the 
negroes frequently run away ; they fice into 
the woods, where they are» wet with the 
rains of heaven, and embrace the rock for 
want ofa shelter. Life must be supported ; 
hunger incites to depredation, and the poor 
wretches are often shot like the beasts of 
rey. When taken, the men ure put in 
irons, and the boys have their necks encir 
cled witha ‘* pot-hook.” 
«©The Charlestown papers abound with 
advertisements for fugitive slaves. 1 have a 
curious advertisement now before me 
* Tripe seasoned with pepper. 
E 4 
