XXX. 



Old SnADR&cH, and the Water Rattlesnaze. — Tucker's notion 

 OF Slavery. — The End or that Institution at last. 



After our return to our shantee in the evening, 

 and after we had supped, I told Tucker an anecdote, 

 concerning an old negro who belonged to my father 

 when I was a boy, and when slavery existed in this 

 State. I repeat it here, only by way of introduction 

 to one of Tucker's peculiar discourses upon a subject 

 which had engaged his attention, and upon which he 

 had evidently bestowed some reflection. 



My father had become security for a friend, in the 

 loau of money, and to indemnify himself against loss, 

 had taken a mortgage upon a negro. The debt fell 

 upon my father, and he became the owner of a man. 

 Old Shadrach was a Yirginian by nurture, but an 

 Ethiopian by birth. He was transfeired in a slave- 

 ship from the jungles of Africa, when a small boy, to 



