Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/245

Rh cool refreshment. I might have gone to the sick room at any time, if I had chosen to do so.

An opinion generally prevails among the people of both colors, that the drug copperas is very poisonous — and perhaps it may be so, if taken in large quantities — but the circumstance, that it is used in medicine, seems to forbid the notion of its poisonous qualities. I believe copperas was mingled with the potion the doctor gave me. Some overseers keep copperas by them, as a medicine, to be administered to the hands whenever they become sick; but this I take to be a bad practice, for although, in some cases, this drug may be very efficacious, it certainly should be administered by a more skillful hand than that of an overseer. It, however, has the effect of deterring the people from complaining of illness, until they are no longer able to work; for it is the most nauseous and sickening medicine that was ever taken into the stomach. Ignorant, or malicious overseer may, and often do, misapply it, as was the case with our overseer, when he compelled poor Lydia to take a draught of its solution. After the restoration of my health, I resumed my accustomed labor in the field, and continued it without intermission, until I left this plantation.

We had this year, as a part of our crop, ten acres of indigo. This plant is worked nearly after the manner of rice, except that it is planted on high and dry