CHAP. XVI.] CHARLESTON. 221 



adorned with evergreens and with artificial flowers, in imitation 

 of magnolias and asters. During the whole service the boys in 

 the streets were firing pistols and letting off fireworks, which re 

 minded me of the liberal expenditure of gunpowder indulged in 

 by the Roman Catholics in Sicily, when celebrating Christmas 

 in the churches. I once heard a file of soldiers at Girgenti fire 

 off their muskets inside a church. Here at least it was on the 

 outside ; but, as it was no part of the ceremony, it was a greater 

 interruption to the service. We saw some of the white race very 

 shabbily dressed, and several mulattoes in the church, separated 

 from the whites, in fashionable attire, which doubtless they were 

 fully entitled to wear, being much richer, j Instead of growing 

 reconciled to the strong line of demarkation drawn between the 

 two races, it appears to me more and more unnatural, for I some 

 times discover that my American companions can not tell me, 

 without inquiry, to which race certain colored individuals belong ; 

 and some English men and women, of dark complexion, might 

 occasionally be made to feel aivkward, if they were traveling with 

 us here. On one occasion, the answer to my query was, &quot; If I 

 could get sight of his thumb nail I could tell you.&quot; It appears 

 that the white crescent, at the base of the nail, is wholly want 

 ing in the full blacks, and is that peculiarity which they acquire 

 the last as they approximate by intermixture, in the course of 

 generations, toward the whites. 



I have just seen the following advertisement in a newspaper : 

 &quot; Runaway. Reward. A liberal reward will be given for 

 the arrest of a boy named Dick. He is a bright mulatto so 

 bright, that he can readily, as he has done before, pass himself 

 for a white. He is about thirty years of age,&quot; &c. Another ad 

 vertisement of a runaway negro ; states, &quot; his color is moderated 

 by in-door work.&quot; 



So long as the present system continues, the idea of future 

 amalgamation must be repugnant to the dominant race. They 

 would shrink from it just as a European noble would do, if he 

 were told that his grandchild or great grandchild would inter 

 marry with the direct descendant of one of his menial servants. 

 That the alleged personal dislike of the two races toward each 



