LETTEKS FROM ALABAMA, 
153 
and then to push the chair a few inches from it^ 
the hands (hut not of the ladies) engaged in fashion- 
ing with a pocket-knife a piece of pine- wood, into 
some uncouth and fantastic form ; the tongue dis- 
cussing the probability of a war with the British,” 
and indulging a little national egotism, in anti- 
cipating the consequences to follow thereupon, 
whipping the British” being, of course^ assumed.”^ 
Very many of the houses, even of wealthy and 
respectable planters, are built of rough and unhewn 
logs, and to an English taste are destitute of com- 
fort to a surprising degree. There is one about a 
mile distant, belonging to a very worthy man whom 
I have often visited, which is of this character, 
I will try to give you an idea of it. It is a ground- 
floor house of two rooms. Fancy the walls full of 
crevices an inch or more in width, some of them 
running the whole length of the rooms, caused by 
the warping of the logs, the decay of the bark, or 
the dropping out of the clay which had been put 
in to fill up. There is no window in the whole 
house ; in one room there is a square hole about 
* This jealousy of ^Hhe British shows itself continually; nor 
do the good people seem to imagine that it can be at all un- 
pleasing to their guest, who is so unlucky as to be himself a 
Britisher.” Their ignorance of our peculiar manners and local 
relations, superimposed on this propensity, occasionally has a 
ludicrous effect. The other day the papers had, among the 
European news, an account of some trumpery factory row in 
Paisley or Glasgow ; and one of my neighbours, a wealthy planter, 
and a very worthy man, called me aside to tell me, with a sym- 
pathy and condolence I fear not quite sincere, how “ the 
Scotch had risen to throw off the British yoke ! ” The universal 
notion of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, is that they are con- 
quered provinces, on a par with Poland, kept in a state of galling 
servitude by the presence of a powerful British” army, and 
ever watching for an opportunity to assert their freedom as 
independent nations. 
