other part of Virginia. Here runaway negroes usually seek
a hiding-place, and some have been known to reside here for years.
The revolters were joined by one of these. He was a large,
tall, full-blooded negro, with a stern and savage countenance;
the marks on his face showed that he was from one of the barbarous
tribes in Africa, and claimed that country as his native land.
His only covering was a girdle around his loins, made of
skins of wild beasts which he had killed. His only token
of authority among those that he led was a pair of epaulettes,
made of the tail of a fox, and tied to his shoulder by a cord.
Brought from the coast of Africa, when only fifteen years of age,
to the island of Cuba, he was smuggled from thence into Virginia.
He had been two years in the swamps, and considered it
his future home. He had met a negro woman, who was also
a runaway, and, after the fashion of his native land, had gone
through the process of oiling her, as the marriage ceremony.
They had built a cave on a rising mound in the swamp,
and this was their home. This man's name was Picquilo.
His only weapon was a sword made from a scythe which he had
stolen from a neighboring plantation. His dress, his character,
his manners, and his mode of fighting were all in keeping with
the early training he had received in the land of his birth.
He moved about with the activity of a cat, and neither the thickness
of the trees nor the depth of the water could stop him.
He was a bold, turbulent spirit; and, from motives of revenge,
he imbrued his hands in the blood of all the whites he could meet.
Hunger, thirst, and loss of sleep, he seemed made to endure,
as if by peculiarity of constitution. His air was fierce,
his step oblique, his look sanguinary.