through the night as the engine itself. Those 

 who arc not for Haleigh pass on from Gaston 

 directly to Wilmington. 



At various points on the road, I heard anec- 

 dotes and facts illustrative of the loyalty of the 

 blacks, and of the total absence of any general 

 feeling of wrong or churlish discontent at their 

 condition. On occasion of the Court House at 

 Raleigh taking fire sometime since, and endan- 

 gering the public records, the blacks labored 

 with voluntary and indomitable energy and de- 

 votion, and with a spirit of perseverance so des- 

 perate that the whites were obliged, at last, to 

 stone them out of the upper story, lest they 

 should perish by the falling in of the roof. — 

 When, at last, they were forced to retreat, one 

 of them, with evident chagrin, observed to his 

 master — " Lord, .sir ! if the white folks had n't 

 druv ns out, we could ha' saved the vally '/ 

 three nig-s^ets ! " The truth is that the slaves of 

 the South plume themselves very much, each on 

 his own supposed value to his master. On one 

 occasion, a gentleman was going to the west, 

 but was embarra.ssed to kno^v what he should 

 do with a valuable and favorite sei-vant, whose 

 wife belonged to a neighbor. It occurred to 

 him to propose to exchange his man, with the 

 neighboring owner of the man's wife, for one of 

 his men who was unmarried, and perfectly will- 

 ing to so, but made strong objection and pre- 

 sented much difficulty on the ground that his 

 master would lose by the bargain, as he consid- 

 ered himself worth at least SlOO more than the 

 man who was to be taken iu exchange for him ; 

 and was, at la.st, only reconciled when he was 

 given to understand that the boot he named 

 would be given in the swap ! In this matter of 

 exchange and sale of favorite servants, gi-cat 

 sacrifice of feeling and of propertj' is frequently 

 and reciprocally made, and arrangements for 

 removal to other States, promising the most ad- 

 vantageous results to slave owners, are not un- 

 frequently abandoned because of the difficulty 

 of effecting these exchanges or purchases in a 

 way to enable them to go without involving 

 painful separation of favorite family .servants. — 

 And yet it is wonderful to those who are not 

 aware of the short-lived nature of all their emo- 

 tions, how soon absence assuages the pang of 

 separation v/ith these people, especially on the 

 part of tho.se who are removed and " gwine 

 away to the wild-goose country," as their song 

 goes. The voluntarj- and pennancnt rupture of 

 the nearest tics of blood and kindred, on tlic 

 part of white emigrants that throng every mode 

 of conveyance from the east and north to the 

 south and north-west, arc far more numerous 

 than the forced removal of kindred blacks to cli- 

 mates much more congenial to their constitution. 



Inquiring of a negro woman at Raleigh if she 

 supposed the Governor was then in the State- 

 {1131) 



House, she answered, " No, sir, he is at the 

 Palace," in a way so I'amiliar as to show that 

 Palace is there the common designation for the 

 Governor's Hou.se. 



From Raleigh the next day, in one of Col. 

 Guiou's excellent lines of stages, I struck the 

 railroad again at place called Goldsboro', and 

 there took the cars for Wilmington, where you 

 arrive early in the day. Barren as is the road 

 from Raleigh to the Point above mentioned, 

 even that line of observation is not without in- 

 terest to a man whose disposition leads him to 

 find knowledge or amusement as well in a by- 

 path, as on the highway — as well in a hut. as 

 in a palace. Here I was amused and had many 

 a youthful reminiscence revived, by observation 

 of the primitive simplicity and mode of hving 

 kept up .since the first settlement of the country. 

 In the simple habitations we entered to get 

 warm, or to get a gourd of water, or it may be 

 to indulge not ill-intended curiosity, we saw 

 j'onng women dres.sed in " home made," still 

 plying the .shuttle at the rate of about six yards 

 a day, in a loom at least a hundred years old. 

 Not one inch of advance in the art of weaving 

 has been made for a century, and probably an- 

 other will pass before even the flying or spring 

 shuttle will reach them. In the corner of an 

 old fashioned fire place, big enough to roast an 

 ox, .sat the old lady, either knitting or making 

 up cloth of her own spinning, which they say 

 " wears .so much better th^n store-cloth." Over 

 the mantle in its amplitude, and at a goodly 

 hight, hang the turkey's wing, the almanac, 

 some bunches of red pepper, and small bags of 

 seed, with divers other things, which, (or things 

 of the same kind) have hung on the same nails 

 time out of mind. As the light flagged, the old 

 lady would throw on a billet of fat " light 

 wood," which lay conveniently at her feet, and 

 on surprise being expressed that she could 

 v\'ork altogether by fire-light, she remarked with 

 honest simplicity, " Well, if 3-ou haint got no 

 light wood whar j'ou live, how do you see to 

 work ?" Nothing truly can excel the attractive 

 cheerfulness of these bright blazing light wood 

 fires as you pass on a cold night along the pine 

 forest roads of Carolina. At Smithficld we got 

 a dinner that for comeliness and cookery, far ex- 

 celled the fare of the great hotel at the Capital. 

 Here to my agreeable surprise, I met with an 

 old and intelligent Turf-Register acquaintance 

 and coiTespondent of yours, Mr. Editor, in the 

 person of Col. .John M. L . . .,who has much expe- 

 rience in the cultivation, if it may be called, of 

 tar and turpentine, the great staples of this part 

 of the countiy. From him, as from others after 

 him, I learned that I was now passing in fact, 

 through the vcrj' heart of the tar and turpentine 

 region ; .-ind with no little astonishment on my 

 part, at the profitableness of the labor employed 



