Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/329

Rh so greatly was I pleased with the persons who gave it, a Mrs. Van L., a widow and her daughter; intellect, kindness, and refinement of feeling, were evident in their gentle countenances. The daughter, a pleasing, pale blonde, expressed so much compassion for the sufferings of the slave that I was immediately attracted to her. She drove me out yesterday to see the lovely environs of Richmond; the large parklike church-yard, with its hills and dales, was among these. The whole country around Richmond is undulating, and everywhere is the River St. James a remarkable and refreshing feature in this landscape, through which it flows in manifold sinuosities. Although it is so near midsummer it is cold, and I was really starved in the open carriage, and the air felt keen and ungenial.

We next drove to a large tobacco manufactory, as I wish to see one of the works in which this staple of Virginia was prepared. Here I heard the slaves, about a hundred in number, singing at their work in large rooms; they sung quartettes, chorusses, and anthems, and that so purely, and in such perfect harmony and with such exquisite feeling, that it was difficult to believe them self-taught. But so they were. God has given these poor creatures the gift of song for their consolation in the time of their probation. And their life in the tobacco manufactory is no life of Canaan. One part of their work, the rolling of the tobacco-leaf, in which they were at this moment employed, appears easy enough; but the packing of it in solid masses, by means of screw-machinery which is turned by the hand and the chest, is so laborious that it not unfrequently produces diseases of the lungs, and costs the labourer his health and life. I suppose they become accustomed to the smell and the dirt which always prevails in a tobacco manufactory, and which to me seems murderous, as they are employed in it from their very childhood. As the work in the manufactory ceases, and