CHAP. XX.] NEGROES IN UPPER COUNTRY. 11 



ously kept up by artificial barriers, unjust laws, and 

 the re-action against foreign interference. In one 

 of the small farms, where I passed the night, I was 

 struck with the good manners and pleasant expres 

 sion of countenance of a young woman of colour, 

 who had no dash of white blood in her veins. She 

 managed nearly all the domestic affairs of the house, 

 the white children among the rest, and, when next 

 day I learnt her age, from the proprietor, I ex 

 pressed surprise that she had never married. &quot; She 

 has had many offers,&quot; said he, &quot; but has declined all, 

 for they were quite unworthy of her, rude and un 

 cultivated country people. I do not see how she 

 is to make a suitable match here, though she might 

 easily do so in a large town like Savannah.&quot; He 

 spoke of her just as he might have done of a white 

 free maid-servant. 



If inter-marriages between the coloured and white 

 races were not illegal here, how can we doubt that 

 as Englishwomen sometimes marry black servants in 

 Great Britain, others, who came out here as poor 

 emigrants, would gladly accept an offer from a well- 

 conducted black artizan or steward of an estate, a 

 man of intelligence and sober habits, preferable in 

 so many respects to the drunken and illiterate Irish 

 settlers, who are now so unduly raised above them 

 by the prejudices of race ! 



In one family, I found that there were six white 

 children and six blacks, of about the same age, and 

 the negroes had been taught to read by their com 

 panions, the owner winking at this illegal proceeding, 

 and seeming to think that such an acquisition would 



