LECTURES IN SOUTHERN CITIES. 13 



Our visit in this celebrated city had been most agreeable. 

 Our friends, the Shepards, had treated us with all possible 

 kindness, and we had met similar treatment from all with 

 whom we were conversant. Of their peculiar institution I 

 thought not more favorably from seeing it more intimately, 

 and it was no very pleasant comment upon it that a strong 

 guard-house was maintained next to the house where we 

 lodged. Here a corps of armed men are always found with 

 weapons in their hands. At night a sentinel in St. Michael's 

 tower, near by, is ready to give the alarm, and caparisoned 

 horses are waiting for riders to vault into the saddle the 

 moment the bell strikes ; and thus the messenger flies to 

 the suspected place, and returns with the tidings. All this 

 passes under the name of the city police, but it has servile 

 insurrection for its immediate object. 



Remarks. April 29, 1861. I have sketched the state 

 of society in Charleston as we saw it sixteen years ago, be- 

 fore it was demoralized by agitations on slavery and the 

 subjects with which it is connected. It is pleasant to me 

 to look at the picture as it then appeared, and it is but 

 justice to view the favorable side, although it is now pain- 

 fully reversed. 



From Charleston he proceeded to a city which has 

 since become more famous. 



Montgomery stands on a bluff of land at the head of 

 steam navigation on the Alabama River. The morning 

 showed all the trees white as snow, being frosted by the 

 night air. In 1845 it contained three thousand inhabitants, 

 and the aspect of the place was agreeable, except the slave- 

 market, so revolting to behold. In a walk, otherwise pleas- 

 ant, on Monday morning, we saw a collection of slaves of 

 both sexes and different ages, but chiefly young, in their 

 best dress, standing to tempt purchasers. The same spec- 

 tacle was exhibited in Charleston, and we saw it again in 



