The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-10 00:00:00

mile and a half broad. The tomb is a sad affair for
such a man; it has an inscription upon it denoting that I
it was erected by John Strutters, marble mason! It is
placed under a glaring red building, something between
a coach-house and a cage; the Senate had once procured
the consent of the family to have it removed to the ca-
pitol, when a bricklayer, a labourer, and a cart arrived
to take it off one morning, at which their indignation na-
turally rose. There are few) hings remarkable in the
house, except the key of the Bastille sent by General
Lafyyetts to General Washington, and a sword sent to
him by Frederick tbet Great, with this address, " From
1114 general of the sue to the best." I
made a raid jitalrney, by steamboat and railroad,
through the sales of Virginia and North Ca-
rolian; 111.. e Malay wore a universal impress of
eelluitutitiom clesertiost slavery. I spent a fortnight
at Chat-kilt:A, the capital of her more energetic
sister, South Ourolina. This town and state may be
Tasked upon- as the head-varters of the slave-holding
interest. lam bound to say that I spent my time there
very pleasantly; therm was much gaiety and unbounded
hospitality. I have made no disguise of what my opi-
nions upon slavery were, are, and ever must be; but it
would be uncandid to deny that the planter in the sou-
thern states has much more in his manner and mode of
intercourse that resembles the English country gentle-
men than any other class of his countrymen; he is more
easy, companionable, fond of his country life, and out of
door pursuits. While I was willing not to shut my eyes
to any of the more favourable external symptoms or mi-
tigations of slavery, other indications could not come
across my path without producing deep repugnance. On
the very first night of my arrival I heard the deep sound
of a curfew bell; on inquiry I was told that after it had
sounded every night about nine o'clock, 110 coloured per-
son, slave or free, mark that, must be seen in the
streets. One morning, accordingly, I saw a great crowd
of coloured persons in the sireet, and I found they were
waitingeo see a large number of their colour, who
had been taken up the night before on their return
from a ball, escorted in their ball dresses from the gaol
to the court-house. Indeed it was almost principally
with relation to the free blacks that the anomalous and
indefensiale working of the system appeared there to de-
velop itself. I was told that the slaves themselves looked
down upon the free blacks, arid called them rubbish. I
must not omit to state that I saw one slave auction in
the open street, arising from the insolvency of the pre-
violet owner: a crowd stood round the platform, on
which sat the auctioneer; and beside him were placed
in succession the lots of frond one to five negroes. The
families seemed to be all put up together, but I imagine
they must often be separated; they comprised infants
and all ages. A 3 far as I could judge, they exhibited
great incelference to their changing destiny. I attended
a meeting of the convention of the Episcopal Church of
South Carolina. Whether it may bo for encouragement
or werning to those who wish for the introduction or re-
vi el of such synods at home, I mention the point then
unclsr ditcutsion. I: was—How far it was proper treshow
deference for the opioioa of the bishop. Ie . point of
riseteess, cleanliness, and order, the elave-holdieg states
appeared to stand in shout the 'same relation to the free
' a.- Irelaeid dries to England. Everything appears
elet sely, ill-arraeged. incomplete. Windoes do not
flp, doors do not fasten. There is a superabueti-
acc,3 of bends to do everything, and little is thoroughly
done. [His Lordship having left Charleston arrives at
the ITaNaneah after a voyage of 12 days.] How en-
chtne !,3t; to the senses at Meet were the three weeks I
ep nt in Cuba! How my memory turns to its pieta-
resciee .eenes and balmy skies. During my whole stay,
the d.eionometer scarcely varied from 76 deg. to 78 deg.
in the shads. lam disposed to wonder that these re-
gions are not Isidro resorted to by ens country men for
erjerneet of life and escape from death. Nothing was
ever so Unlike either Europe or America a; tho Ila-
vennih; at least I had never been in Spain, the mother
country, which I suppose it most resenables. The courts
of the gleaming white houses have a -Moorish look, the
- into-risers ere much covsred with arabesques, and on the
outeide tewards the street they have immense open
tasatess tar windows, in which they generally find it
sup;'; aeons to put any glass; the carriagre uro called
volautee, and look as if they hail been intended to carry
Dan Qiixote. Then how delicious it used to be, late in
the evening, under a moonlight we can scarcely imagine,
to sit in the square called the Place of Arms, where, in
a space flanked by some gleaming palm trees and four
small fountains, a gily crowd listened to excellent
music from a Spanish military band. It is certainly the
hatelsoreest town I saw in the new a. orld, end gives a
great idea of the luxury and splendour of Spain in her
palmy days. The billiard-rooms arid ice-saloons streamed
with ligho; the great theatre is as large and brilliant ES
almost any in Europe. Again, how full of interest were
some visite I paid in the interior both to Spanish and
Aoaericen households. I cannot condense my impres-
sions of the scenery better than by repeating some short
starves which, with such influences around me, I could
net help perpetrating. I hope that, while they bear
winless to the iatexicating effects of the landscape and
the climate, they do nut wholly leave out of view the at-
' tendant moral:—
Ye tropic forests of unfading green,
NVlire the palm tapers, and the orange glows,
Where the light bamboo weaves her feathery screen,
And her tall shade the matchless seyba throws:
Ye cloudless ethers of unchanging blue,
Save as its rich varieties give way
To the clear sapphire of your midnight hue,
The burnished aline of your perfect day.
Ye tell me not my native skies are bleak,
That, flashed with liquid wealth, no cane-fields wave;
For Virtue pines, and Manhood dares not speak,
And Nature's glories brighten round the Slave.
A rnong the country houses I visited was the sugar estate
of cue of the chief creole nobles of the island—(l do not
know whether my hearers will he aware that the proper
• meaaieg of a creole is a psrion of European descent
• born in America). I was treated there with the most
unit ve-a, tcoos ; and what a view it
. was from the terrace of golden corn-fields, and fringing
wools, and azure sea! The treatment of the domestic
slevee !,rpe.,.tred kind and affectionate, and all the negro
children on the estate repeated their catechism to the
rrieet, and were then brought in to dance and romp in
the drawing-room. Generally there doss not appear to
be the same amount of repulsion between the white and
coloured races as in the United States, and there is the
pleasant spectacle of their being mixed together in the
churches. Still the crying conclusive fact remains, that
the average negro population died off in ten years, and
had to be recruited by continuous importations, which
• are SO many breeches of the solemn treaties between
Spain ,and us. On one coffee estate which I visited--
and generally the coffee cultivation is far lighter than
that of the sugar cane—a still darker shade was thrown
- upon the system, as I was told from a most authentic
source that there was great difficulty in preventing
mothers from killing their offspring. General Valdez,
who was captain-general of the island during my
visit, is thought to barn exerted himself ho-
nestly in putting down the slave trade. I
believe it has been as much encouraged as ever
under some of his successors. [Lord Carlisle, after al-
luding to tho state of political parties in Cuba, describes
his departure from the island and arrival at New
Orleans.] The good I have to say of New Orleans
mutt be chiefly confined to the St. Charles Hotel, which
is the most splendid of its kind that I saw even in the
-United States. When it is at its full complement 560
• thee there every day-350 of whom sleep in tho house;
there are 160 servants, 7 French cooks; all the waiters
whites, Irish, English, French, German, American. The
very intelligent proprietor of the hotel told me he thought
the Irish made the best; ho has them all together every
day at noon, when they go through a regular drill, and
rehearse the service of a dinner. I went from New
Orleans to Louisville, on board the Henry Clay steamer.
1,500 miles, which lasted six days. The first 1,100
miles were on the Mississippi. (After a voyage of 400
miles up the Ohio his Lordship describes a visit that he
paid to Mr. Clay, at his residence in Kentucky.) The
qualities which rivet the Senate and captivate his ad-
herents seemed to me both heightened and softened by
his frank, courteous, simple intercourse. He lives with
his family in a modest house, among fields of deep red
soil and the most luxuriant grass, growing under very
thriving and varied timber—the oak, sycamore, locust
tree, cedar, and that beautiful ornament of American
woods, the sugar maple. He likes showing
some English cattle. His countrymen seem to
be in the habit of calling upon him without any
kind of previous introduction. Slavery, generally mild
in the pastoral state of Kentucky, was certainly seen
here in its least repulsive guise; Mr. Clay's own negro
servant, Charles, was much devoted to him ; he took
him with him on a tour into Canada, and when some
Abolitionists there wanted him to leave his master, " Not
if you were to give me both your provinces," was the reply.
My next halt was at the White Sulphur Springs, in the
western portion of Virginia. The season had not yet
4 commenced, early in May, so I was in sole possession of
the place. One of my southern friends had kindly
placed a delightful little cottage at my disposal, and I
enjoyed in the highest degree the unwonted repose in the
solitude of virgin forests, and the recesses of the green
Alleghenies. Hgre were my brief farewell lines to the
small temple-like cupola over the bright sulphur-well
from which I used to drink many times in the day:—
Hail dome, whose unpresuming circle guards
Virginia's flowing fountain ; still may health
.Hover about thy crystal urn, and bring
To cheeks unused their bloom ! may beauty still
Dwell on thy billowy swell of wooded hills,
And deep ravines of verdure; may the axe,
Improvement's necessary pioneer,
l!did forest solitudes, still gently Pierce,
Not bare their leafy bowers! This votive
i la
Like wreath of old, on thy white columns
s hung,
Albeit of scentless flowers from foreiouo
Scorn not, and bid the pilgrim pass in peace."
I again turned my face to the west, and pas.sed Cincin-
nati, which, together with all that I sew of the State of
Ohio seemed to me the part of the Union where, if
obliged to snake the choice, I should like best to fix my
. abode. It has a great share of all the civilisation and
appliances of the old settled states of the east, with the
richer soil, the softer climate, the fresher spring of life,
which distinguish the west. It had besides to me the
great attraction of being the first free state which I
reached on my return from the region of slavery,
and the contrast in the appearance of prosperity
and progress is just what a friend of freedom would
always wish it to be. I embarked at Chicago on the
-great lakes; but here I must desist from pursuing my
devious wanderings on those large inland seas, and on the
opposite shore of Canada. Many thousands of miles
have steamed away over Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie',
-Ontario; the Rideau Canal, the St. Lawrence and Ot-
tsaia rivers.. Some• of these I traversed twice, and they
e dllast interesting and picturesque
journeying's. I should have scru-
ouch upon the polities of Canada,
saat any fixed spot were too short
ie • attempt, -even if it had been de-
magnificeeteVegion: especially its
.ppy in elimate, soil, and scenery.
iy attempted to dash off two slight.
inadhin Here is the
terraced garden on the summit of a

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