XXX. 



OLD SITADRACH, AND THE WATER RATTLESNAKE. TUCKER'S NOTION 

 OF SLAVERY. THE END OF 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 

 loan 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 Virginian by nurture, but an 

 Ethiopian by birth. He was transfeired in a slave- 

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



