When they started to New Orleans their boat got stuck on a dam in the Sangamon River at New Salem, but Mr. Lincoln thought out a good plan for getting it off and they finally reached New Orleans in May 1831. They remained there a month. It was a large city and was very interesting to Abraham. It was the great business center of the South, and as negro slavery was a very prominent feature of the South, they saw it in all its wickedness. At New Orleans one day, John Hanks and Abraham were walking along the street and came to a slave market. They saw a beautiful slave girl put up for sale. They pinched her and trotted her up and down the street just as you would a horse to show its fine parts. This disgusted Abraham so much that he turned to Hanks and said, "John, if I ever get a chance to hit that thing (slavery) I will hit it hard." Strange was it not that he should be the man that would hit it so hard that it died. When he returned from New Orleans, Mr. Offut hired him to take charge of a little store at New Salem, which he started. This town was a very little village twenty miles north-west of Springfield. The place where it was located is now simply a pasture for cattle and sheep, the town having entirely passed away; but it will always be noted in history as the place where Abraham Lincoln, the great man lived and conducted a store. Thus you see that men are so much more important than places, and it is _their deeds_ that make history. In after years when Mr. Douglas was debating with Mr. Lincoln he joked him about this store keeping, and said that he sold liquor over the New Salem bar. When it came Mr. Lincoln's turn to reply, he was just as witty in his reply and said that if he did sell liquor over the New Salem bar as his friend had said, he could assure his audience that the best patron he had was Stephen A. Douglas. This was simply a joke between these two debaters; but it illustrates how quick Mr. Lincoln's wit was.