264 HOSPITAL FOR NEGROES. [CHAP. XIX. 



in Scotland (no flattering compliment it must be confessed), are 

 provided always with a back door, and a hall, as they call it, in 

 which is a chest, a table, two or three chairs, arid a few shelves 

 for crockery. On the door of the sleeping apartment they keep 

 a large wooden padlock, to guard their valuables from their 

 neighbors when they are at work in the field, for there is much 

 pilfering among them. A little yard is often attached, in which 

 are seen their chickens, and usually a yelping cur, kept for their 

 amusement. 



The winter, when the whites enjoy the best health, is the 

 trying season for the negroes, who are rarely ill in the riqe- 

 grounds in summer, which are so fatal to the whites, that when 

 the planters who have retreated to the sea-islands revisit their 

 estates once a fortnight, they dare not sleep at home. Such is 

 the indifference of the negroes to heat, that they are often found 

 sleeping with their faces upward in a broiling sun, instead of 

 lying under the shade of a tree hard by. We visited the hos 

 pital at Hopeton, which consists of three separate wards, all per 

 fectly clean and well- ventilated. One is for men, another for 

 women, and a third for lying-in women. The latter are always 

 allowed a month s rest after their confinement, an advantage 

 rarely enjoyed by hard-working English peasants. Although 

 they are better looked after and kept more quiet, on these occa 

 sions, in the hospital, the planters are usually baffled ; for the 

 women prefer their own houses, where they can gossip with their 

 friends without restraint, and they usually contrive to be taken 

 by surprise at home. 



The negro mothers are often so ignorant or indolent, that they 

 can not be trusted to keep awake and administer medicine to 

 their own children ; so that the mistress has often to sit up all 

 night with a sick negro child. In submitting to this, they are 

 actuated by mixed motives- a feeling of kindness, and a fear of 

 losing the services of the slave; but these attentions greatly at 

 tach the negroes to their owners. In general, they refuse to 

 take medicine from any other hands but those of their master or 

 mistress. The laborers are allowed Indian meal, rice, and milk, 

 and occasionally pork and soup, As their rations are more than 



