478 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



here let me correct an error that prevails to some extent 

 at the north about the luxurious and extravagant man- 

 ner of living in this cotton growing region. 



You nor I, Messrs. Editors, never saw a table set in 

 our houses for hireling or even a beggar, with so little 

 variety of eatables as I have often found in public houses 

 and on plantations where negroes were as "plenty as 

 blackberries." Instead of palaces, log cabins, that among 

 the yankee race would be considered anything but "com- 

 fortable," and the living, whew ! let us say no more about 

 it. The very thought makes me feel thankful that my 

 present resting place is not among that order — else my 

 visit would be a short one. Whenever you hear any of 

 our northern friends complaining of "hard fare" in a 

 new country, beg of them to follow my footsteps to the 

 south, and if they don't return to their own homes per- 

 fectly cured of grumbling, they are certainly incurable, 

 and I shall not undertake to prescribe for their malady 

 again. Notwithstanding what I have stated of early 

 vegetables and warm winter weather here now, and to 

 me the singular appearance of persons going about bare- 

 foot and without coats, and as I sit writing in a room 

 with windows all open and the family enjoying the cool 

 shade of the piazza, I know from what I have seen some 

 frosty mornings, that they suffer more with the cold 

 than we do in our frozen country. There we are tem- 

 pered to the storm — here a chilling blast seems to search 

 them to the heart. An atmosphere at 30 degrees seems 

 colder than it does with us at zero. And then the heat 

 of summer is undoubtedly more severe, certainly harder 

 upon the constitution of man than are the rigors of a 

 northern winter to the inhabitants of the north. 



I would like to say something to our Abolition friends 

 of what I have seen in traveling through Missouri, Ken- 

 tucky, Tennessee and Mississippi, but it is a subject that 

 must be kept out of your columns. But at some con- 

 venient time after my return, I should be pleased to "tell 

 my experience" before any audience that would be pleased 



