Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/307

Rh endeavours were made to save the limb from amputation, but in vain; it was in the end obliged to be taken off, to put an end to the great and increasing suffering.

A pretty little village on the plantation is the home of the black nurse of the gentleman of the house, and there she rests from her labours, under circumstances which testify the tenderest care. She has her own neat little house, on a terrace by the river, and within it every convenience that an old person can desire; a comfortable rocking chair is even amongst these, and children and children's children whom she has faithfully nursed, visit her with love and presents. She has had many children of her own, but she acknowledged that the white children were dearest to her; and this affection of the black nurses, or foster-mothers, to the children of the whites is a well-known fact. Another fact also, which is often witnessed in the Slave States, is the tender care which is bestowed upon these faithful black foster-mothers in their old age, by the family, that is to say, when the families are able.

&emsp; In front of my window, runs, broad and clear, the western arm of the Altamahah river, and beside it sits the undersigned upon an island on the coast of Georgia, between the river and the Atlantic ocean. I am now at the house of Mr. J. C., a planter, in the midst of gardens and olive-groves, where the family seeks for its summer pleasure and the salubrious air of the sea, when fevers begin to ravage the large plantation at Darien, the principal residence of the family.

Mr. C. is one of the greatest planters in the south of the United States, and owns about two thousand negro slaves, whom he employs on his rice and cotton plantations. He had been mentioned to me as a reformer who had introduced trial by jury among his slaves, with many