Page:The cotton kingdom (Volume 2).djvu/182

 white labourers. They had only been used to have niggers do their work, and they did not know how to manage with white labourers; but he had no difficulty.

I asked if eight dollars would cover the cost of a man's board? He supposed it might cost him rather more than that to keep the white man; eight dollars was what it was generally reckoned in town to cost to keep a negro; niggers living in town or near it were expected to have "extras;" out on the plantations, where they did not get anything but bacon and meal, of course it did not cost so much. Did he know what it cost to keep a negro generally upon the plantations? It was generally reckoned, he said, that a nigger ought to have a peck of meal and three pounds of bacon a week; some didn't give so much meat, but he thought it would be better to give them more.

"You are getting rich," I said. "Are the Germans generally, hereabouts, doing well? I see there are a good many in Natchez."

"Oh yes; anybody who is not too proud to work can get rich here."

The next day, having ridden thirty tedious miles through a sombre country, with a few large plantations, about six o'clock I called at the first house standing upon or near the road which I have seen for some time, and solicited a lodging. It was refused, by a woman. How far was it to the next house? I asked her. Two miles and a half. So I found it to be, but it was a deserted house, falling to decay, on an abandoned plantation. I rode several miles further, and it was growing dark, and threatening rain, before I came in sight of another. It was a short distance off the road, and approached by a private lane, from which it was separated by a grass plat. A well dressed man stood between the gate and the house. I stopped and bowed to him, but he turned