Around the table we have before described sit Graspum and some dozen
of his clan. Conspicuous among them is Dan Bengal, and Nath Nimrod,
whom we described as running into the room unceremoniously, holding
by the hair the head of a negro, and exulting over it as a prize of
much value. They are relating their adventures, speculating over the
prospects of trade, comparing notes on the result of making free
trash human property worth something! They all manifest the happiest
of feelings, have a language of their own, converse freely; at times
sprinkle their conversation with pointed oaths. They are conversant
with the business affairs of every planter in the State, know his
liabilities, the condition of his negroes, his hard cases, his bad
cases, his runaways, and his prime property. Their dilations on the
development of wenches, shades of colour, qualities of stock suited
to the various markets-from Richmond to New Orleans-disclose a
singular foresight into the article of poor human nature.
"There's nothing like pushing our kind of business, specially whin
ye gits it where ye can push profitably," speaks Bengal, his fiery
red eyes glaring over the table as he droops his head sluggishly,
and, sipping his whiskey, lets it drip over his beard upon his
bosom; "if 't warn't for Anthony's cunnin' we'd have a pesky deal of
crooked law to stumble through afore we'd get them rich uns upset."
My reader must know that southern law and justice for the poor
succumb to popular feeling in all slave atmospheres; and happy is
the fellow who can work his way through slavedom without being
dependent upon the one or brought under the influence of the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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