38 ABOLITIONIST &quot; WRECKER.&quot; [CHAP. XXII. 



sissippi, and some other States which I had not yet 

 visited. For a time I took for granted all he said of 

 the sufferings of the coloured race in those regions, 

 the cruelty of the overseers, their opposition to the 

 improvement and education of the blacks, and espe 

 cially to their conversion to Christianity. I began 

 to shudder at what I was doomed to witness in the 

 course of my further journey ings in the South and 

 West. He was very intelligent, and so well in 

 formed on politics and political economy, that at first 

 I thought myself fortunate in meeting with a man so 

 competent to give me an unprejudiced opinion on 

 matters of which he had been an eye-witness. At 

 length, however, suspecting a disposition to exag 

 gerate, and a party-feeling on the subject, I gradually 

 led him to speak of districts with which I was already 

 familiar, especially South Carolina and Georgia. I 

 immediately discovered that there also he had every 

 where seen the same horrors and misery. He went 

 so far as to declare that the piny woods all around 

 us were full of hundreds of runaways, w r ho subsisted 

 on venison and wild hogs ; assured me that I had 

 been deceived if I imagined that the coloured men in 

 the upper country, where they have mingled more with 

 the w r hites, were more progressive ; nor was it true 

 that the Baptists and Methodists had been successful 

 in making proselytes. Few planters, he affirmed, 

 had any liking for their negroes ; and, lastly, that a 

 war with England about Oregon, unprincipled as 

 would be the measure on the part of the democratic 

 faction, would have at least its bright side, for it 

 might put an end to slavery. &quot; How in the world,&quot; 



