Do you know what that means? You think it is ugliness. But no; it is a DISEASE. It is a droll sort of malady, to which a learned Louisiana doctor has given a singular name, which I can't spell, and which you wouldn't know how to pronounce; but the symptoms I can describe. Where a slave is attacked with this disease, he acts in a very stupid and careless manner, and does a great deal of mischief, breaking, abusing, and wasting every thing he can lay his hands on. He tears his clothes, throws away food, cuts up plants in the field, breaks his tools, hurts the horses and cattle, and does a vast amount of injury, and in such a way that it seems as if it was all done on purpose. He will neither work, nor eat the food offered him; quarrels with the other slaves and fights with the drivers, and altogether acts in such an ugly way that the overseer says he is "rascally." If it was really ugliness, he would be whipped; but, of course, whipping won't cure disease; so the masters consider it incurable, and sell the slave to go South to work in the rice-swamps and cotton-fields. They, perhaps, think a change of climate will do more for the patient than any other means. The Southern physicians don't have much success, to tell the truth, in curing this difficulty, for they don't seem to understand it. If they would only consult with some of their profession at the North, I have no doubt they would get some valuable suggestions on the subject. I really believe that the liberty-cure, practised by some judicious money-pathic physician, would effectually cure this "rascality." I wish I could see it tried. Tidy found herself, therefore, in very undesirable company on this expedition to Georgia, and made up her mind very shortly that there would not be much enjoyment in it. She did not have to drag wearily along on foot all the way; for Mr. Lee was considerate enough to suggest to Mr. Pervis, that, as she had been brought up as a house-servant, and not accustomed to very hard work, she would not be able to walk much, and if she was not allowed to ride, there would be no Tidy left by the time they got to their journey's end, and the thousand dollars which had just been paid for her would have been thrown away. So Mr. Pervis gave her a permanent place in one of the wagons, and the other women were taken up by turns, whenever the poor creatures could step no longer. The men dragged along, handcuffed in pairs, and their low, brutal, and profane conversation was dreadful to Tidy. Oh, how often she wished she had staid contentedly with Mammy Grace, and not tried to run away. And yet her hope was not utterly gone, for she often caught herself saying, with closed teeth, "Give me a chance, and I'll try it again." Freedom looked too attractive to be entirely relinquished.