Within all was bright and pleasant enough, but without the prospect was anything but cheering. Our windows opened upon a dingy courtyard, surrounded on three sides by dilapidated buildings two stories high; the rickety doors hung loosely on their rusty hinges, the windows were broken or patched with paper or old rags, and the venetian blinds swung outside in a miserably crippled condition--all awry and crooked, every lath splintered or broken, the paint was worn off in rain-stained patches everywhere, and the woodwork was worm-eaten, and rotten. The place had altogether a miserable appearance, as though the ghost of the old dead days was haunting and brooding over it in the poverty of the present. It seemed to be deserted too, for as we looked out upon it in the light of the early morning, we heard no sound, nor saw a human creature anywhere. We learned afterwards that these had been the original slave quarters, and are still occupied by the same inhabitants--the freedmen of to-day, the slaves of yesterday, in many cases still serving their old masters in the old way. The servants of the hotel, waiters, chambermaids, etc, are all coloured, or rather coal-black; for as we go farther South the mixed breeds are more rarely to be met with; it is only here and there we come across the mulatto or others of mixed blood, which is rather a surprise to us, for we expected the half breeds greatly to outnumber the original race. In Charleston two thirds of the population are black, and almost without exception in all Southern cities they largely preponderate over the whites, whose superiority they tacitly acknowledge, and work under their direction with amiable contentment. Their inherent respect for the white race is exemplified in many ways, especially in the small matters of everyday life. In many of the coloured churches they have white preachers, and these are always the most popular. One old “mammy,” who had nursed a friend of mine forty years ago, and who still occupies her old position in the same family, is accustomed to walk three miles to and from church, though she is over seventy years of age. On her mistress inquiring why she went so far, when one of her own people held service close by, “I’se no sit under no nigger preacher!” said the old woman, shaking her head contemptuously. This kind of feeling penetrates even into the nursery. The dark nurse will be most devoted to the white baby, while she utterly neglects her own,--hence the great mortality among the dusky brood, which, comparatively, more than doubles that of the whites. An attempt to secure the services of a young coloured girl for an infant of her own race (whose mother was nursing a white child) was met with the scornful answer, “I’se no tend no nigger babies,” the girl herself being black as coal!