The principal negro settlement was at Contraband, a village of huts on the north side of the river. Its affairs were administered by a colored president and council chosen from among the citizens. These were generally persons of dignity and shrewd sense. They constituted a court for the trial of minor offences, under the supervision of the Bureau. Their decisions, Captain Lucas informed me, were nearly always wise and just. “I have to interfere, sometimes, however, to mitigate the severity of the sentences.” These men showed no prejudice in favor of their own color, but meted out a rugged and austere justice to all. One afternoon I crossed the river to pay a visit to this little village. The huts, built by the negroes themselves, were of a similar character to those I had seen at Hampton, but they lacked the big wood-piles and stacks of corn, and the general air of thrift. Excepting the ravages of the small-pox, the community was in a good state of health. I found but one case of sickness,—that of an old negro suffering from a cold on his lungs, who told me there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t give to “git shet of dis sher misery.” I entered several of these houses; in one of which I surprised a young couple courting by the fire, and withdrew precipitately, quite as much embarrassed as they were. In another I found a middle-aged woman patching clothes for her little boy, who was at play before the open door. Although it was a summer-like December day, there was a good fire in the fireplace. The hut was built of rails and mud; the chimney of sticks and sun-dried bricks, surmounted by a barrel. The roof was of split slabs. There was a slab mantel-piece crowded with bottles and cans; a shelf in one corner loaded with buckets and pans; and another in the opposite corner devoted to plates, cups, and mugs. I noticed also in the room a table, a bed, a bunk, a cupboard, a broom without a handle, two stools, and a number of pegs on which clothing was hung. All this within a space not much more than a dozen feet square. I asked the woman how her people were getting along. “Some are makin’ it right shacklin’,” she replied, “there’s so many of us here. A heap is workin’, and a heap is lazin’ around.” Her husband was employed whenever he could get a job. “Sometimes he talks like he’d hire out, then like he’d sooner take land,—any way to git into work. All have to support themselves somehow.” She knew me for a Northern man. “I’m proud of Northern men! They’ve caused me to see a heap mo’e pleasure ’n I ever see befo’e.” Her husband was a good man, but she was not at all enthusiastic about him. “I had one husband; I loved him! He belonged to a man that owned a power o’ darkeys. He sold him away. It just broke my heart. But I couldn’t live without some man, no how; so I thought I might as well marry again.” She regretted the closing of the schools. “My chap went a little, but not much.” “Are these your chickens?”