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paring food on the lawn for the pickaninnies (the 

 very small children), whom they keep feeding at 

 all hours of the day ; and all seem to be going to 

 their employments, none to their work, the men 

 and the women just as quietly and leisurely as the 

 pigs and the poultry. The sight is really quite 

 gay and amusing, and I am generally out of bed in 

 time to enjoy it, especially as the continuance of 

 the cool north breezes renders the weather still de- 

 licious, though the pleasure is rather an expensive 

 one. Not a drop of rain has fallen since the 16th 

 of November; the young canes are burning; and 

 the drying quality of these norths is still more 

 detrimental than the want of rain, so that these 

 winds may be said to blow my pockets inside out ; 

 and as every draught of air, which I inhale with 

 so much pleasure, is estimated to cost me a guinea, 

 I feel, while breathing it, like Miss Burney's Citizen 

 at Vauxhall, who kept muttering to him self j with 

 every bit of ham that he put into his mouth, 

 "There goes sixpence, and there goes a shilling !" 



January 18. 



A Galli-wasp, which was killed in the neigh- 

 bouring morass, has just been brought to me. 

 This is the Alligator in miniature, and is even more 

 dreaded by the negroes than its great relation : it 

 is only to be found in swamps and morasses : that 

 which was brought to me was about eighteen 

 inches in length, and I understand that it is sel- 



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