among the arrivers and welcomers, and the heaven-defying combinations of
colour in the gala attire of both, surpass all my powers of description.
The ball, to which of course we went, took place in one of the rooms of
the Infirmary. As the room had, fortunately, but few occupants, they were
removed to another apartment, and, without any very tender consideration
for their not very remote, though invisible, sufferings, the dancing
commenced, and was continued. Oh, my dear E----! I have seen Jim Crow--the
veritable James: all the contortions, and springs, and flings, and kicks,
and capers you have been beguiled into accepting as indicative of him are
spurious, faint, feeble, impotent--in a word, pale northern reproductions
of that ineffable black conception. It is impossible for words to describe
the things these people did with their bodies, and, above all, with their
faces, the whites of their eyes, and the whites of their teeth, and
certain outlines which either naturally and by the grace of heaven, or by
the practice of some peculiar artistic dexterity, they bring into
prominent and most ludicrous display. The languishing elegance of some,
the painstaking laboriousness of others, above all, the feats of a certain
enthusiastic banjo-player, who seemed to me to thump his instrument with
every part of his body at once, at last so utterly overcame any attempt at
decorous gravity on my part that I was obliged to secede; and, considering
what the atmosphere was that we inhaled during the exhibition, it is only
wonderful to me that we were not made ill by the double effort not to
laugh, and, if possible, not to breathe.

* * * * *


Monday, 20th.

My Dearest E----. A rather longer interval than usual has elapsed since I