ALABAMA. 143 



is like a huge deadly serpent, which is kept down by 

 incessant vigilance, and by the strain of every nerve and 

 muscle ; while the dreadful feeling is ever present that, 

 some day or other, it will burst the weight that binds it, 

 and take a fearful retribution." 



It was in September, however, when the bustle of cotton- 

 picking made an unusual strain upon the native laziness of 

 the negro, that Gosse was made physically ill by the ruth- 

 less punishments which were openly inflicted on all sides 

 of him. The shrieks of women under the cow-hide whip, 

 cynically plied in the very courtyard beneath his windows 

 at night, would make him almost sick with distress and 

 impotent anger, and I have heard him describe how he 

 had tried to stuff up his ears to deaden the sound of the 

 agonizing cries which marked the conventional progress 

 of this very peculiar "domestic institution." With the 

 Methodist preachers and other pious people with whom he 

 specially fraternized, he would occasionally attempt, very 

 timidly, to discuss the ethics of slavery, but always to find 

 in these ministers and professors of the gospel exactly the 

 same jealousy of criticism and determination to applaud 

 existing conditions, that could characterize the most dis- 

 solute and savage overseer, as he sat and flicked his boots 

 with his cow-hide on the verandah of a rum-shop. My 

 father saw no escape from this condition of things. He 

 was obliged to admit that slaves seemed indispensable in 

 Alabama, and that "free labour is out of the question." 

 But it sickened him, and it had much to do with his abrupt 

 departure. 



From the day of his arrival he had kept a copious 

 scientific journal, but in September this begins to fall off, 

 and early in October it ceases altogether. For the last 

 three months of his stay in Alabama there scarcely exists 

 any record, except a private diary which is painful reading. 



