As I did not like my new master's appearance, I at once concluded to please him in all things. But it was all in vain; for the first morning I was severely flogged for not placing his clothes in the proper position on the chair. The second morning I received another severe flogging for not giving his boots as good a polish as he thought they had been accustomed to. Thus he went on in cruelty, and met every new effort of mine to please him with fresh blows from his cowhide, which he kept hung up in his room for that purpose. In a few days he made arrangements for a journey, on which I was to accompany him. The object of his journey was made known to me by some of his servants; and, as that journey turned out to be of great importance to me, I will give it to the world, as I got it from my author. My master was a married man. Although I had never seen my mistress, as she was living with her mother, sixty miles from the city,—she having found out, while living with her husband in the city, that he had made a wife of one of his slaves, had left him, and had gone to her mother; and the object of his journey was to induce her to come back and live with him. I accompanied him on this journey; and, although he made every effort on his part to induce her to return, she refused to do so. He returned to Natchez, enraged at his ill success, and determined never to make another attempt at reconciliation. He concluded to leave the city, and he purchased a farm near Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, upon which he settled. My master always was a cruel man; but ever since his unsuccessful effort at reconciliation with his wife, he became a perfect tyrant, lashing his slaves without mercy. This shows one of the many ways in which the licentious slaveholder inflicts pain on poor slaves; robbing them, by force, of their virtue, then lacerating their backs for having allowed themselves thus to be forced. He had not been long on his farm before he took another of his slave-women to wife, by whom he had two children. These children were not treated any better than any other slave's; the mother being out in the field all the day, and in his room at night. Upon this farm were one hundred field-hands, and two house servants, the cook and myself. For the accommodation of the field-hands there were twenty-seven cabins, one hospital, one jail, one gin-house; at which house, as in the jail, there are two pair of stocks, for the torture of slaves. As the stocks on farms are different in their construction from those commonly used in cities, I will give a description of them. They consisted of two rough logs, generally about twelve feet in length, one of them laid upon the ground, with notches cut in it to fit the neck and arms; the other log, which was cut with corresponding notches, was placed upon the victim to keep him in his position. They were fastened at one end by a massive hinge; and when the sufferer was in them, the other end was secured by a large padlock.