As I left the place, I thought that perhaps similar to this was the cave of Horeb, where dwelt Elijah, when he heard the still small voice, after the great and strong wind which rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; the cave to the entrance of which he went out and stood with his face wrapped in his mantle, when he heard the voice say unto him, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” {330} And what am I doing here, I inquired of myself, as, vexed at my detention, I descended into the town. That afternoon I dined in the company of a young American, a native of South Carolina. I had frequently seen him before, as he had been staying for some time at the inn previous to my arrival at Gibraltar. His appearance was remarkable: he was low of stature, and exceedingly slightly made; his features were pale, but very well formed; he had a magnificent head of crispy black hair, and as superb a pair of whiskers of the same colour as I ever beheld. He wore a white hat, with broad brim and particularly shallow crown, and was dressed in a light yellow gingham frock, striped with black, and ample trousers of calico. In a word, his appearance was altogether queer and singular. On my return from my ramble to the cave, I found that he had himself just descended from the mountain, having since a very early hour been absent exploring its wonders. A man of the rock asked him how he liked the excavations. “Liked them?” said he; “you might just as well ask a person who has just seen the Niagara Falls how he liked them—like is not the word, mister.” The heat was suffocating, as it almost invariably is in the town of Gibraltar, where rarely a breath of air is to be felt, as it is sheltered from all winds. This led another individual to inquire of him whether he did not think it exceedingly hot? “Hot, sir?” he replied, “not at all; fine cotton-gathering weather as a man could wish for. We couldn’t beat it in South Carolina, sir.” “You live in South Carolina, sir—I hope, sir, you are not a slave proprietor,” said the short, fat Jewish personage in the snuff-coloured coat, who had offered me the bitters on a previous occasion; “it is a terrible thing to make slaves of poor people, simply because they happen to be black; don’t you think so, sir?” “Think so, sir?—no, sir, I don’t think so—I glory in being a slave proprietor; have four hundred black niggers on my estate—own estate, sir, near Charleston—flog half a dozen of them before breakfast, merely for exercise. Niggers only made to be flogged, sir; try to escape sometimes; set the bloodhounds in their trail, catch them in a twinkling; used to hang themselves formerly—the niggers thought that a sure way to return to their own country and get clear of me; soon put a stop to that; told them that if any more hanged themselves I’d hang myself too, follow close behind them, and flog them in their own country ten times worse than in mine.