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.

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. — Bibliog raphy as in No. 124 above.

"THE

HE 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

tude. In all my interviews with him I never heard a word of complaint, although his sufferings must have been extreme.

"Bless the Lord, missis!" he said, “'tain't no use to fret about it, for it can't be helpt; an' I ain't all the time so racket about wid pain as I used to bin. Sometimes at night I'se so painful I can't shet my eye, an' den I look out de doah, up at the stars, an' t'ink dem de eyes of de Lord looking straight down at me one. An' I 'member what de white folks tell me, 'De Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want;' for in course I is His little sheep, an' I is so glad! It 'pears like the pain don't hurt me no more. I done forget it altogedder.” . . .

...

In my district there were over five hundred contrabands, men, women, and children. All expressed a desire to have their children learn something, if they themselves knew nothing. But all, from the oldest to the

youngest, were eager to "come fur larn too."

I found but one person, a young soldier, who disdained to attempt anything, saying, almost with insolence, that he had a right to learn when young, like other boys; this was denied him then, and he was not allowed to touch a book, and now it was too late. This man had indomitable will, with boldness, unceasing activity, and great physical strength. He was a power with his race. I wished to gain his influence for the school, as well as his own good, but could never do it.

One contraband said to me, "Liberty is as good for us as for the birds of the air. Slavery is not so bad, but liberty is so good."

He spoke with great affection of his master, who he said had gone to live in Delaware. . .

Seeing so much destitution around us made our own lives, meagre as they were, seem luxurious by comparison. But we were not posing as "saints without bodies," and it was sometimes a desperate struggle to keep ourselves comfortable. At first there was nothing by which to note time; no clocks nor bells nor steam-whistles. There were two watches belonging to our "mess." When one was at the schoolhouse there was nothing to guide the cook at home.

The dial of the contrabands was: "When the first fowl crow "—"At crack o' day"-"W'en de sun stan' straight ober head""At frog peep" "When fust star shine"-"At flood tide," or "ebb tide," or "young flood"-"On las' moon," or "new moon." Now they add to this list "quarterly meeting."

But these data did not help our cook to work, nor us to regular meals. . .