Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/296

 resembles our large seed-cucumbers; in colour and in flesh it is like a melon, but less juicy. I could have fancied I was biting into soap. I have a notion that we shall not become good friends, the banana and I.

My Quaker friends left early this morning to go still farther south, in the hope of reaching summer air. It was too cold for them here. The month of February was here very warm, and the yellow jasmine which then flowers is now nearly over.

I must now bid you adieu, as I must go out and call on Mrs. W. H., and see whether I could be happy with her. If not, I shall remain quietly here, although it is certainly no Eldorado. The hotel is probably not one of the best in the city. A chaos of negro lads throng about the dinner and supper table, pretending to be waiters, but they do nothing more than spring hither and thither, round one another, without either dexterity or order, and move about everything on the table, without rhyme or reason which I can discover. I am waited on in my room by a pretty mulatto girl, very ragged, yet with such a good and patient look,—that it makes me unhappy. I asked her how much wages she had; she looked at me with astonishment, and replied, “that she belonged to Missis.” But “Missis” is a lady, of a stern mien, and keen-eyed, whose property I would not willingly be, and—poor girl! Miss D. told me that a young servant girl of the house had last year been flogged by the gentleman of the house, the son of the lady.

I could remain here very well a few days longer, and then proceed further south, to Savannah and to Augusta in Georgia, whither I am invited by my fellow passengers of the “Canada,” the family of the name of B. and Miss L. I ought to remain there through the month of April, for there one sees the paradise of the South. And I ought to take the opportunity of seeing something of the plantations there. If the Southerners knew with