When called out upon fire duty, or to quell an incipient insurrection, the inilitia force of South Carolina is cautious, steady, and resolute. The service on which they are engaged is amply sufficient to make them so. But upon other occasions, such as training days and reviews, the disregard of all discipline is quite laughable. The different companies choose their officers by ballot, and the captain, under whose orders I had the honour to serve for a short time, was a comical old Dutchman, especially elected because it was impossible to understand one word he uttered. Shouts of laughter broke from the ranks whenever he attempted to give the word of command. As we marched through the streets, to and from the place of exercise, one file of our warlike company would amuse themselves and the spectators, by closing their right eyes; the next, their left: another would shoulder their muskets with the butt ends uppermost, or would carry their cartridge boxes dangling from the tops of their bayonets.

The whole militia system of the United States is faulty in the extreme. The appointment of the officers by the privates is sufficient of itself to destroy all effective discipline. In the country towns tavern-keepers are generally preferred, on account of the superior facility for meeting afforded by their business. The uniforms of the independent companies are ridiculously expensive and showy; and the frequent trainings serve rather to demoralize than to discipline the men. I have repeatedly on review days seen the greater number too much intoxicated to keep the ranks. It is usual on great occasions, before dismissing the troops, for the commanding officer to deliver a suitable, that is to say a complimentary harangue; and I once heard a Connecticut colonel hold forth in a very exalted strain. He concluded, I recollect, by thanking the privates for their officerlike conduct on that great day-meaning, I suppose, that the men were as drunk as their officers.

I have twice attended reviews when whole divisions have mutinied and marched off the field, because the "right" or post of honour was not assigned to them. Court Martials, &c, were talked of-but the mutineers of course treated the threat with deserved contempt. This disgraceful work is the fault of the system, not of the people; for the Americans, as we know to our cost, under regular dis

cipline, are orderly, effective, and most gallant soldiers.

After having thus borne my willing testimony to the gallantry of the American soldiers, I trust, I shall not be suspected of any wish to detract from it, when I mention a single instance of poltroonery in an officer of the United States' Navy, which fell under my own observation.-I once sailed from Philadelphia to Charleston, in company with the individual alluded to, and as we neared the shore, our vessel, through the mismanagement of the pilot, struck upon the bar, which guards the entrance of the harbour. The captain of the ship was much alarmed, and gave orders to cut the halliards, but the first mate, who was an active, determined fellow, insisted upon our carrying all sail, and "thumping over," as he termed it. The wind was high, and we certainly came into rather rough contact with the bar. At this time, I saw the United States' officer trembling, pale as death, and clinging to a hencoop. His young and very handsome wife, to whom he had only been married the previous week, had secured the arm of an Irish gentleman. He was endeavouring to comfort her. "Oh my God," she exclaimed, we shall all go to the bottom." "We are there already, Madam," said the Irishman, and the idea seemed to reassure her a little. At length, we thumped" accross the bar into deep water, and presently afterwards landed. The lady of course was profuse in her ac knowledgments to her protector; who had behaved, she declared, with true American firmness. "Irish firmness, if you please," he replied, and the unfortunate husband seemed to feel the sting of the remark. Yet, I know, that this man had "sought reputation at the cannon's mouth," and he had fought his way up in his profession with distinguished bravery.

66

There is a street in Charleston called Vendue Range, where commodities of every description, including negroes, are bought and sold by auction. If it were possible for an Englishman to overcome his feelings of sorrow and disgust at seeing his fellow creatures knocked down to the highest bidder, like so many sheep and oxen, the scenes exhibited in the Vendue Range would not be unproductive of amusement.

The value of a negro in the market does not depend so much upon his personal strength, or skill in any mechanical employment, as upon the good

will with wbich he would probably serve his owner. At a slave auction, therefore, it is highly necessary, previously to making a purchase, to ascertain from the poor fellow himself, whether or not he is willing to become your property. If he has any objection to the proposed transfer, as separating him from his wife and family, or from any other cause, he will probably tell some lie about his health, pretend that he is a bad workman, always getting drunk, &c. Should he perceive, that notwithstanding you advance on your bidding, he will say at once-" Massa, if you buy me, Massa, my gum, me be dam bad nigger, me no work a bit, nutting but eat; me be drunk ebbery day; an no wort ten dollars." Money is absolutely thrown away in the purchase of a slave in such a temper as this. He will consume twice as much as he earns. If, on the contrary, the bidder is considered a kind-hearted man, and the slave is desirous of being purchased by him, there is scarcely a quality which a valuable servant ought to possess, which poor Pompey will not claim as his own. His joy at having escaped the clutches of a hard master will know no bounds, and he may be considered a "cheap lot," at a large sum.

It is not unusual for a master to commission a slave to sell himself. To bring a high price in the market is the great ambition of a negro. He will call upon "de good Buckra men," begging them to purchase him, show ing off his best points with the zeal and tact of an experienced auctioneer. The price of a good negro varies from 400 to 1000 dollars. A mulatoo fellow, who was employed as a porter at an auction-room, and was considered trustworthy and sober, brought 1500 dollars (about 3507.) when 1 was in Charleston. This is the largest sum I have ever known to be paid for a slave.

The circumstances which attended my final departure from Charleston were rather singular. And I am tempted to relate them here, as, independently of any interest they may possess in themselves, they afford a mournful proof of the tendency of slavery to debase the human mind, and produce a dogged indifference to the preservation of life itself.

I had taken my passage for England, in a vessel that lay about four miles from the city, waiting for a favourable wind. Being much hurried, I was unable to proceed to her place of anchor

age till late in the evening, and then sailed in the boat which conveyed to her the last supply of fresh water. This boat was manned by two negroes and a mulatto. I soon perceived that it leaked rather alarmingly, and while the mulatto fellow steered, the two blacks were obliged to busy themselves in lading out the water. It was a warm, dull, dark evening, and the atmosphere was very thick and oppressive. Lights gleamed from the casements of the lofty mansions which stretch along the walk called the Battery, and afford an extensive view of the shipping and the bay; on the opposite side of which, the glancing fire-flies illumined the beach of Sullivan's Island. On shore, the silence was only broken by the deep-toned chimes of St. Michael's Church, and in bidding my final adieu to Charleston, I could truly say-Vale in pace.

There was just wind enough to waft us gently along; but a less experienced sailor than my wanderings had made of me, could have surely foretold a coming gale. The negroes, however, worked very lazily, and at length fell asleep. The man at the helm, who alone knew in what direction our vessel lay, was somewhat intoxicated, and mistook the lights on the shore for those of the ship lanthorns. While we were roaming about in this manner, the wind began to rise, and the boat to fill rapidly with water. The heat of a close Carolinian night had unnerved me. My thoughts had wandered to far distant shores; and long buried recollections, coming thick upon me, had hitherto prevented my perceiving our perilous condition. Now, however, I endeavoured to awaken the sleepers, and make the helmsman do his duty; but this was beyond my power. They seemed to consider drowning a matter of no moment, and the preservation of life not worth an effort. I tried the effects of kicks, and blows with my fist, in vain. They merely laughed, with their usual," He, he, he, Massa veby funny." At length I found at the bottom of the boat a piece of board, about two feet long, and rough at the corners; with this I belaboured the "niggers" on their heads and shins; till I awakened them thoroughly, and compelled them to work for my preservation and their own. So at last, after a hazardous sail of four hours, we reached the ship. But never shall I forget the deadly sickness which came over me when, for a time, I despaired of rousing the poor slaves. After an absence of many years, during

k

which labour, anxiety, and some illhealth had rather worn me, I was within half a mile, probably, of a first-rate vessel, ready to sail for home and England, yet was I doomed, as I feared, to perish disgracefully by the sinking of a dirty water-tank, in company with two niggers” and a mulatto! Strange as it may seem, this last consideration was, I believe, the one which stimulated me to exertion. Those of my readers who have resided much among this degraded race, will, I think, understand this feeling; though they may not, any more than myself, be able to justify or admire it. Mon. Mag.

WE'VE heard of Sarah's Eyes, and Anna's,
Eliza's, Ellen's, Jane's, and Sophy's,
Maria's, Emily's, Susannah's,

And of the broken hearts-their trophies.
Of Sapphire Eyes, and dove-like Eyes,
Love darting Eyes, Eyes sly, and sunny;
Eyes that from Swains draw heavy sighs,
And from a Miser coax his money:
Of Eyes like di'monds, jet, or stars:
Eyes to be envied by the fawn!
Eyes such as Shakspeare gives to Mars,
And Eyes that emulate the dawn:
Eyes cruel, murd'rous Eyes, that pierce
Men's hosoms through-like Polish lances !
And Eyes that scorch with flames so fierce,
And Eyes that slay with side-long glances;
Of sleepy Eyes, too, Poets chaunt;

And Eyes that can't help running riot; And roguish Eyes-that only want

To rob each gazer of his quiet. But all the Eyes recounted here, Could all these Eyes their charms combine, Would, lovely maid, in mine appear Dreary and dim-compar'd with thine. C.

CUBA FISHERMEN.*

It was now five in the afternoon, and the breeze continued to fall, and the sea to go down, until sunset, by which time we had run the corvette hull down, and the schooner nearly out of sight. Right a-head of us rose the high land of Cuba, to the westward of Cape Maise, clear and well-defined against the northern sky, and as we neither hauled our wind to weather the east end of the island, nor edged away for St. Jago, it was evident, beyond all doubt, that we were running right in for some one of the piratical haunts on the Cuba coast.

The crew now set to work, and removed the remains of their late messmate, and the two wounded men, from

* The reader will recognise this as a con

tinuation of the tale, the Chase of the Smug.

gler," in No. 250.

where they lay upon the ballust in the Run, to their own berth forward in the bows of the little vessel; they then replaced the planks which they had started, and arranged the dead body of the mate along the cabin floor, close to where I lay, faint and bleeding, and more heavily bruised than I had at first thought.

The captain was still at the helm ; he had never spoken a word either to me or any of the crew, since he had taken the trifling liberty of shooting me through the neck, and no thanks to him that the wound was not mortal; but he now resumed his American accent, and began to drawl out the necessary orders for repairing damages.

When I went on deck shortly afterwards, I was surprised beyond measure to perceive the injury the little vessel had sustained, and the uncommon speed, handiness, and skill, with which it had been repaired. However lazily the command might appear to have been given, the execution of it was quick as lightning. The crew, now reduced to ten working hands, had, with an almost miraculous promptitude, knotted and spliced the rigging, mended and shifted sails, fished the sprung and wounded spars, and plugged and nailed lead over the shot-holes, and all within half an hour. I don't like Americans; I never did, and never shall like them; I have seldom or never met with an American gentleman; I have no wish to eat with them, drink with them, deal with, or consort with them in any way; but let me tell the whole truth, nor fight with them, were it not for the laurels to be acquired, by overcoming an enemy so brave, determined, and alert, and every way so worthy of one's steel, as they have always proved. One used to fight with a Frenchman, as a matter of course, and for the fun of the thing as it were, never dreaming of the possibility of Johnny Crapeau beating us, where there was any thing approaching to an equality of force; but, say as much as we please about larger ships, and more men, and a variety of ex cuses which proud John Bull, with some truth very often I will admit, has pertinaciously thrust forward to palliate his losses during the short war, a regard for truth and fair dealing, which I hope are no scarce qualities amongst British seamen, compels me to admit, that although I would of course peril my life and credit more readily with an English crew, yet I believe a feather would turn the scale between the two countries, so far as courage and seamanship goes;

and let it not be forgotten, although we have now regained our superiority in this respect, yet, in gunnery, and smallarm practice, we were as thoroughly weathered on by the Americans during the war, as we overtopped them in the bull-dog courage, with which our boarders handled those genuine English weapons, the cutlass and the pike.

After the captain had given his orders, and seen the men fairly at work, he came down to the cabin, still ghastly and pale, but with none of that ferocity stamped on his grim features, from the outpouring of which I had suffered so severely. He never once looked my way, no more than if I had been a bundle of old junk; but folding his hands on his knee, he sat down on a small locker, against which the feet of the dead mate rested, and gazed earnestly on his face, which was immediately under the open skylight, through which, by this time, the clear cold rays of the moon streamed full on it, the short twilight having already fled, chained as it is in these climates to the chariot wheels of the burning sun. My eye naturally followed his, but I speedily withdrew it. I had often bent over comrades who had been killed by gun-shot wounds, and always remarked what is well known, that the features wore a benign expression, bland, and gentle, and contented as the face of a sleeping infant, while their limbs were composed decently, often gracefully, like one resting after great fatigue, as if nature, like an affectionate nurse, had arranged the deathbed of her departing child with more than usual care, preparatory to his last long sleep. Whereas those who had died from the thrust of a pike or the blow of a cutlasss, however mild the living expression of their countenance might have been, were always fearfully contorted both in body and face.

In the present instance, the eyes were wide open, white, prominent, and glazed like those of a dead fish; the hair, which was remarkably fine, and had been worn in long ringlets, amongst which a large gold ear-ring glittered, the poor fellow having been a nautical dandy of the first water, was drenched and clotted into heavy masses with the deathsweat, and had fallen back on the deck from his forehead, which was well formed, high, broad and massive. His nose was transparent, thin, and sharp, the tense skin on the bridge of it glancing in the silver light, as if it had been glass. His mouth was puckered on one side into angular wrinkles, like a curtain drawn up awry, while a clot

ted stream of black gore crept from it sluggishly down his right cheek, and coagulated on a heap on the deck. His lower jaw had fallen, and there he lay agape with his mouth full of blood.

His legs, indeed his whole body below his loins, where the fracture of the spine had taken place, rested precisely as they had been arranged after he died; but the excessive swelling and puffing out of his broad chest, contrasted shockingly with the shrinking of the body at the pit of the stomach, by which the arch of the ribs was left as well defined as if the skin had been drawn over a skeleton, and the disfortion of the muscles of the cheeks and throat evinced the fearful strength of the convulsions which had preceded his dissolution. It was evident, indeed, that throughout his whole person above the waist, the nervous system had been utterly shattered: the arms, especially, appeared to have been awfully distorted, for when crossed on his breast, they had to be forcibly fastened down at the wrists by a band of spun-yarn to the buttons of his jacket. His right hand was shut, with the exception of the fore-finger, which was extended, pointing upwards; but the whole arm, from the shoulder down, had the horrible appearance of struggling to get free from the cord which confined it.

Obed, by the time I had noticed all this, had knelt beside the shoulder of the corpse, and I could see by the moonlight that flickered across his face as the vessel rolled in the declining breeze, that he had pushed off his eye the uncouth spyglass which he had fastened over it during the chase, so that it now stood out from the middle of his forehead like a stunted horn; but, in truth, "it was not exalted," for he appeared crushed down to the very earth by the sadness of the scene before him, and I noticed the frequent sparkle of a heavy tear as it fell from his iron visage on the face of the dead man. At length he untied the string that fastened the eyeglass round his head, and taking a coarse towel from a locker, he spunged poor Paul's face and neck with rum, and then fastened up his lower jaw with the lanyard. Having performed this melancholy office, the poor fellow's feelings could no longer be restrained by my presence.

"God help me, I have not now one friend in the wide world. When I had neither home, nor food, nor clothing, he sheltered me, and fed me, and clothed me, when a single word would have gained him five hundred dollars,

and run me up to the fore yard-arm in a wreath of white smoke; but he was true as steel; and oh that he was now doing for me what I have done for him! who would have moaned over me, me, who am now without wife or child, and have disgraced all my kin! alack-a-day, alack-a-day!"-And he sobbed and wept aloud, as if his very heart would have burst in twain.

"But I will soon follow you, Paul, I have had my warning already; I know it, and I believe it." At this instant the dead hand of the mate burst the ligature that kept it down across his body, and slowly rose up and remained in a beckoning attitude.

I was seized with a cold shivering from head to foot, and would have shrieked aloud, had it not been for very shame, but Obed was unmoved. I know it, Paul. I know it. I am ready, and I shall not be long behind you.' He fastened the arm down once more, and having called a couple of hands to assist him, they lashed up the remains of their shipmate in his hammock, with a piece of iron ballast at his feet, and then, without more ado, handed the body up through the skylight; and I heard the heavy splash as they cast it into the sea. When this was done, the captain returned to the cabin, bringing a light with him, filled and drank off a glass of strong grog. Yet he did not even now deign to notice me, which was by no means soothing; and I found, that, since he would'nt speak, I must, at all hazards.

"I say, Obed, do you ever read your Bible?" He looked steadily at me with his lacklustre eyes. "Because, if you do, you may perhaps have fallen in with some such passage as the following:-"Behold I am in your hand; but know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves.""

"It is true, Mr. Cringle, I feel the truth of it here," and he laid his large bony hand on his heart. "Yet I do not ask you to forgive me; I don't expect that you can or will; but unless the devil gets possession of me againwhich, so sure as ever there was a demoniac in this world, he had this afternoon when you so tempted me-1 hope soon to place you in safety, either in a friendly port, or on board of a British vessel; and then what becomes of me is of little consequence now, since the only living soul who cared a dollar for me is at rest among the coral branches at the bottom of the deep green sea."

Why, man," rejoined I, "leave off this stuff; something has turned your brain, surely; people must die in their beds, you know, if they be not shot, or put out of the way somehow or other; and as for my small affair why I forgive you, man-from my heart I forgive you; were it only for the oddity of your scantling, mental and corporeal, I would do so; and you see I am not much hurt,-so lend me a hand like a good fellow, to wash the wound with a little spirits--it will stop the bleeding, and the stiffness will soon go offso"

"Lieutenant Cringle, I need not tell what I know you have found out, that I am not the vulgar Yankee smuggler, fit only to be made a butt of by you and your friends, that you no doubt at first took me for; but who or what I am, or what I may have been, you shall never know-but I will tell you this much”

"Devil confound the fellow!-why this is too much upon the brogue, Obed. Will you help me to dress my wound, man, and leave off your cursed sentimental speeches, which you must have gleaned from some old novel or another? I'll hear it all by and by."

At this period I was a reckless young chap, with strong nerves, and my own share of that animal courage, which generally oozes out at one's finger ends when one gets married and turned of thirty; nevertheless I did watch with some anxiety the effect which my unceremonious interruption was to have upon him. I was agreeably surprised to find that he took it all in good part, and set himself, with great alacrity and kindness even, to put me to rights, and so succesfully, that when I was washed and cleansed, and fairly coopered up, I found myself quite able to take my place at the table; and having no fear of the College of Surgeons before my eyes, I helped myself to a little of the needful, and in the plentitude of my heart, I asked Obed's pardon for my ill-bred interruption.

"It was not quite the thing to cut you short in the middle of your Newgate Calendar, Obed-beg pardon, your story, I mean; no offence now, none in the world-eh? But where the deuce, man, got you this fine linen of Egypt?" looking at the sleeves of the shirt Obed had obliged me with, as I sat without my coat. "I had not dreamt you had any thing so luxurious in your kit."

I saw his brow begin to lower again, so the devil prompted me to advert, by way of changing the subject, to a file of