58 LANDING AT CLAIBORNE. [CHAP. XXIII 



discomfiture, to invite the driver of my gig, a half- 

 caste Indian, who travelled without any change 

 of clothes, to sit down with us at table. He was of 

 a dark shade, but the blood was Indian, not African, 

 and he was therefore one of the Southern aristocracy. 

 The man was modest and unobtrusive, and scarcely 

 spoke ; but it need scarcely be said, that his pre 

 sence checked the freedom of conversation, and I 

 was glad when his duties in the stable called him 



o 



away. 



In the course of the night we were informed that 

 the Amaranth had reached Claiborne. Here we 

 found a flight of wooden steps, like a ladder, lead 

 ing up the nearly perpendicular bluff, which was 

 150 feet high. By the side of these steps was a 

 framework of wood, forming the inclined plane down 

 which the cotton bales were lowered by ropes. 

 Captain Bragdon politely gave his arm to my wife, 

 and two negroes preceded us with blazing torches of 

 pine-wood, throwing their light on the bright shining 

 leaves of several splendid magnolias which covered 

 the steep. We were followed by a long train of 

 negroes, each carrying some article of our baggage. 

 Having ascended the steps, we came to a flat terrace, 

 covered with grass, the first green sward we had 

 seen for many weeks, arid found there a small, quiet 

 inn, where we resolved to spend some days, to make 

 a collection of the fossil tertiary shells, so well 

 known to geologists as abounding in the strata of 

 this cliif. About 400 species, belonging to the 

 Eocene formation, derived from this classic ground, 

 have already been named, and they agree, some of 



