11. And Jeph went straightway out of the synagogue to his house, and began to gather his gold and his silver and his stuff. And the thing was noised abroad in the city, and there was great commotion. And the Phiretahs fled from that city and from the villages round about, leaving only their women and children. And Jeph fled southward before them, uttering boastings, and making proclamations.

12. And as Jeph was fleeing out of the city, a company of Niggahs, which had joined themselves unto the armies of Unculpsalm entered it from the other side; and as they entered they lifted up their voices with one accord and sang, saying,

13. Tell unto me, Niggahs, and declare unto me, oh ye of woolly locks and dark countenance, have you seen the lord, have you seen the master?

14. Whose beard is upon his face and above his mouth upon his face?

15. Have you seen him pass this way since the dawning, looking like one who goeth hastily into a far country?

VER. 13-23. This passage, as all oriental scholars will see, is much older in style than the rest of the book, and has traces of the period of the most ancient Hebrew and Chaldee writers. Although it is a song and is rhythmical, a comparison will show that it belongs rather to the period of the author of the song of Deborah, or even of Lamech, than to that of the more cultivated writers of the time of David and SoloIt was probably an ancient song preserved by tradition among that strange and recordless people, the Niggahs. Yet there has been discovered a coincidence of thought between this song and the following stanza :—

mon.

"Say, darkies, have you seen de massa,

Wid de muffstash on he face,

Go 'long de road some time dis mornin',
Like he gwine for leabe de place?

He see de smoke way up de ribber
Whar de Lincum gun-boats lay;

He took he hat and leff berry sudden,
And I 'spose he's runned away.
De massa run, ha! ha!

De darky stay, ho! ho!

It mus' be now de kingdum comin',

An' de yar of Jubilo."

It cannot be denied that the coincidence noticed does exist to a certain degree. This can only be accounted for upon the plausible and ingenious hypothesis of Dr. Trite, that either the former was written before the latter or the latter before the former. RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

16. He saw the smoke, the smoke rose up before him on the river, and he said,

17. O my soul, these are the ships of Father Abraham.

18. Then he covered his head; he put on the covering of his head ; he covered his head speedily; his head-covering he put on with haste. He departed, he went swiftly; he departed covering his head with haste.

19. It seemeth unto me that he hath fled, and my soul saith within herself, he hath skedaddled.

20. Behold the master fleeth, the lord passeth away.

21. But the servant remaineth, the Niggah abideth forever.

22. For he is the everlasting Niggah.

23. Lo, now the kingdom cometh, and the year of Jubilee is at hand; and the Niggah shall rule in the land, and the master shall be cast down under his feet.

24. And the news of the fall of the city was spread abroad over the land upon the lightnings of the heavens. And there were great rejoicings, and feastings, so that that night all the city of Gotham was drunken with wine. Likewise was it in many other cities of the Iangkies. And the Kopur-hedds were abased, and the Oueecneas vanished away, so that not one of them was found thereafter, and the sect of Smalphri among the Dimmichrats was swallowed up in the victory of the Eunyunmen.

25. And Robbutleeh essayed to flee westward with his army among the mountains. But Ulysses pursued after him and overtook him, and fell upon him with great slaughter.

26. And his army saw that their cause was lost, and many of them fell behind, and wandered into the wilderness, or went homeward, for there was no power to keep them. But many were faithful unto the end.

27. And it came to pass that Ulysses with his army got before Robbutleeh with his army, and cut him off and hemmed him in on every side. And he could have fallen upon Robbutleeh and the remnant of his army and put every man to the sword and cut them off from the face of the earth.

28. But he had compassion upon them and respect unto them; for Ulysses was not a man of blood. And he sent a messenger unto Robbutleeh, saying:

29. Behold now the end has come, and thou and thine army are in

the hands of thy servant. Lay down thine arms now, and let there be peace between thee and me; and our Father Abraham shall pardon thee, and receive thee again as one of the children of Unculpsalm, and treat thee with honor, thee and thine officers, and all that are with thee.

30. But at first Robbutleeh would not; for he was stout-hearted and stiff-necked. But afterward he considered the matter, and for the sake of them that were with him he consented.

31. And he and his captains and his officers and his soldiers laid down their arms, and gave themselves up captive.

32. And there was an apple-tree where Robbutleeh gave himself up. That it might be fulfilled as it was written, We will hang Jeph the Repudiator upon a bitter apple-tree. And that tree grew and multiplied so that it filled the whole land of Unculpsalm.

33. But Ulysses sent them every man to his own home, saying, See only, that ye obey the laws of the land of Unculpsalm, and have respect unto the proclamations of our Father Abraham. And he gave them horses to ride upon; for the way was long and the road that they had travelled was hard. And he said keep the horses, that ye may till your fields and gather in your harvests.

34. Now, when the other Phiretah captains saw that Robbutleeh had laid down his arms, they laid down their arms, all save one upon the farthest border on the south-west as thou goest into the land of Mecsicho.

35. And it was in the spring time, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, that Robbutleeh laid down his arms; and before the sowing of the latter wheat was accomplished the other captains had done likewise. And about the time of the barley harvest, there was peace in the land of Unculpsalm; so that the men who fought gathered in the latter wheat harvest. For when the war was over each man returned unto his own home.

[Richard Grant White], The New Gospel of Peace according to St. Benjamin (New York, 1866), Book IV, 267–274.

PART VII

RECONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER XXIII-CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTH

141. Among the Freedmen (1864)

BY MRS. ELIZABETH HYDE BOTUME (1892)

In 1864 Mrs. Botume was appointed by the New England Freedmen's Aid Society a teacher to the freed people at Beaufort, South Carolina. This was in the famous Port Royal region, which was occupied by the Federal troops in 1861 and became a headquarters for negroes during the war; great efforts were here made to alleviate the mental, moral, and physical condition of the freedmen. Mrs. Botume remained in charge of her school, and what she called her "parish," for several years. — Bibliography as in No. 124 above.

"THE poor ye have always with you." This was impressed upon

me all the time. It was necessary to inspect my district, now crowded with new-comers, to find out the condition and needs of these people.

I went first to the negro quarters at the "Battery Plantation," a mile and a half away. A large number of Georgia refugees who had followed Sherman's army were quartered here. Around the old plantation house was a small army of black children, who swarmed like bees around a hive. There were six rooms in the house, occupied by thirty-one persons, big and little. In one room was a man whom I had seen before. He was very light, with straight red hair and a sandy complexion, and I mistook him for an Irishman. He had been to me at one time grieving deeply for the loss of his wife, but he had now consoled himself with a buxom girl as black as ink. His sister, a splendidly developed creature, was with them. He had also four sons. Two were as light as himself, and two were very black. These seven persons occupied this one room. A

rough box bedstead, with a layer of moss and a few old rags in it, a hominy pot, two or three earthen plates, and a broken-backed chair, comprised all the furniture of the room. I had previously given one of the women a needle and some thread, and she now sat on the edge of the rough bedstead trying to sew the dress she ought, in decency, to have had on.

In the old kitchen, not far from the house, more refugees had been placed. Two women were very ill, lying on the floor with only moss and corn-husks under them. It was a most pitiful sight. One of these women begged for a blanket, but the other asked for better food.

"I cannot eat only dry hominy, ma'am," she said. "I lived in massa's house, and used to have white bread and coffee, and I want something sweet in my mouth."

She had belonged to kind and careful owners in Georgia, and suffered severely from all these changes.

Both of these women died. Feeling they could not live, to my surprise and consternation, they willed me their children. In one family there were five children, and in the other but one boy. The old feeling, born of slavery, that the white race had a right of possession over the blacks, still clung to them. They not only gave me their children, but tried to exact from me a promise to keep them and take good care of them. When I hesitated, they implored me most piteously not to desert them. . . .

The plantation people lived in "the nigger houses." Most of these people had been carried "up country" by their old owners, but had now got back, delighted to see again the familiar places and the cabins where they were born. They seemed to me, as I talked with them, a superior class; more tidy and self-respecting than most of the newcomers, owing, doubtless, to the care and good management of their former owners.

On the next plantation was a curious collection of the original people and new-comers. All might be called refugees, for they had recently returned" from the main," where they had been carried - not fled to.

In one cabin I found a man in a most wretched condition. Years before he had fallen from a building and broken his back. . . . He was only able to use his hands, and he looked like a human ball rolling over the floor.

I had his cabin cleaned and whitewashed, and fresh, clean clothes put on the poor fellow. He tried in vain to find words to express his grati