Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/387

Rh beside? dat de room am so dark him can't see de way to him mout. (At this a chorus of laughter.) Well, him bess feel de way! (Fresh bursts.)

Ginger Snowball (head wag).—Look here! dem 'ere ole country Britishers what is so 'tickler, dey bess stay at hum (home). Well, look here! what 'stonish some, dere is de fust-rate membrums ob Congress neber gives no trouble 'bout de egg, nor de tot, nor muffing—shouldn't wonder! What sort ob tes dis blessed ole man got used to? if am so cruel 'trong, make him legs shake, I guess! no! yah! (Chorus of chucklos.)

My Imp (as he turns to bring me my tea at last).—Bress you—dat not all; yesterday him say de beefsteak was tough as cow-hide, and cold as dog nose, be, be, ho! (Grand chorus of chuckles.)

Of course my fresh cup of tea, which at length my imp brings me, is exactly the same as the last, as with a serene slyness he says, “Massa, dis is true 'Sampson!' you find dis fust-rate any how, I tell you!"

Those idle, laughing creatures, generally paying their real masters so much a month, or year, and getting a sure employment wherever they please, look and feel like anything but slaves! Indeed, one would never suspect it; their wages are very high, and they do the least possible work for it.

I have seen nothing but the outsides of the public buildings; but elaborate description would convey nothing new. The State-house and Town-hall, where the courts are held, is a very handsome pile, opposite the Patent-office and Post-office, all fine buildings, in the next street, east of the Pennsylvania Avenue, near Five or Five-and-a-half-street. I did look in one day at the State-house, but the court had just risen. Nor did I ever get to the observatory, presided over by Lieutenant Maury, of the U. S. navy, who is said to be clever, and very obliging should any stranger ask admittance. But, indeed, there is a most praiseworthy andliberal feeling all over the States on this head; nothing is shut up, and rare indeed do they condescend to take fees—the Irish and the niggers alone ever dreaming of such a thing.

I say nothing of climate. In this situation it should be delightful, and yet the intense heats of summer and freezings of winter are killing. They say, of late years their tremendous frosts are much milder; but I fear this winter may be an exception; and I have to look at Canada before I fly before the north-west blasts to the south, down the Mississippi—I must not lose a moment; and have seen nothing of the great men who are about to pour in—nothing of the Washingtonians, who, a guide-book says, are quite the cream of the Union!—but will they allow it at Baltimore? or even just in sight, down the Potomac, at Alexandria? I guess not. It is nothing to say there is no such thing as a bit of green to be seen, except at the White House and Capitol garden; for the summers here burn up everything—and this has been a perfect furnace of a summer—but I do not see anything like an attempt at a garden anywhere, nor a flower. No wonder! for the slaves would soon kill not only flowers but very caterpillars and worms—if laziness and neglect could do it: so the thing is impossible, as their masters, by the month or for life, are themselves much too lazy to look after them. The only plant particularly cared for is a weed—the Virginien weed—which they chew and smoke with an unwearied industry truly admirable.