thanks to my passionate appeals to him, gives me little credit for
prudence or self-command, I have some, and I exercise it too when I listen
to such tales as these with my teeth set fast and my lips closed. Whatever
I may do to the master, I hold my tongue to the slaves, and I wonder how I
do it.

In the afternoon I rowed with Mr. ---- to another island in the broad
waters of the Altamaha, called Tunno's Island, to return the visit of a
certain Dr. T----, the proprietor of the island, named after him, as our
rice swamp is after Major ----. I here saw growing in the open air the
most beautiful gardinias I ever beheld; the branches were as high and as
thick as the largest clumps of Kalmia, that grow in your woods, but
whereas the tough, stringy, fibrous branches of these gives them a
straggling appearance, these magnificent masses of dark shiny glossy green
leaves were quite compact; and I cannot conceive anything lovelier or more
delightful than they would be starred all over with their thick-leaved
cream-white odoriferous blossoms.

In the course of our visit a discussion arose as to the credibility of any
negro assertion, though, indeed, that could hardly be called a discussion
that was simply a chorus of assenting opinions. No negro was to be
believed on any occasion or any subject. No doubt they are habitual liars,
for they are slaves, but there are some thrice honourable exceptions who,
being slaves, are yet not liars; and certainly the vice results much more
from the circumstances in which they are placed than from any natural
tendency to untruth in their case. The truth is that they are always
considered as false and deceitful, and it is very seldom that any special
investigation of the facts of any particular case is resorted to in their
behalf. They are always prejudged on their supposed general
characteristics, and never judged after the fact on the merit of any