A ramble through the negro-quarters, which followed our visit to the stables, gave me some further glimpses of plantation life. Many of the hands were still away in pursuit of Moye, but enough remained to make it evident that Sunday is the happiest day in the darky calendar. Groups of all ages and colors were gathered in front of several of the cabins, some singing, some dancing, and others chatting quietly together, but all enjoying themselves as heartily as so many young animals let loose, in a pasture. They saluted the Colonel and me respectfully, but each one had a free, good-natured word for 'Massa Tommy,' who seemed an especial favorite with them. The lad took their greetings in good part, but preserved an easy, unconscious dignity of manner that plainly showed he did not know that _he_ too was of their despised, degraded race. The Colonel, in a rapid way, gave me the character and peculiarities of nearly every one we met. The titles of some of them amused me greatly. At every step we encountered individuals whose names have become household words in every civilized country.[L] Julius Cæsar, slightly stouter than when he swam the Tiber, and somewhat tanned from long exposure to a Southern sun, was seated on a wood-pile, quietly smoking a pipe; while near him, Washington, divested of regimentals, and clad in a modest suit of reddish-gray, his thin locks frosted by time, and his fleshless visage showing great age, was gazing, in rapt admiration, at a group of dancers in front of old Lucy's cabin. In this group about thirty men and women were making the ground quake and the woods ring with their unrestrained jollity. Marc Antony was rattling away at the bones, Nero fiddling as if Rome were burning, and Hannibal clawing at a banjo as if the fate of Carthage hung on its strings. Napoleon, as young and as lean as when he mounted the bridge of Lodi, with the battle-smoke still on his face, was moving his legs even faster than in the Russian retreat; and John Wesley was using his heels in a way that showed _they_ didn't belong to the Methodist church. But the central figures of the group were Cato and Victoria. The lady had a face like a thunder-cloud, and a form that, if whitewashed, would have outsold the 'Greek Slave.' She was built on springs, and 'floated in the dance' like a feather in a high wind. Cato's mouth was like an alligator's, but when it opened, it issued notes that would draw the specie even in this time of general suspension. As we approached he was singing a song, but he paused on perceiving us, when the Colonel, tossing a handful of coin among them, called out, 'Go on, boys; let the gentleman have some music; and you, Vic, show your heels like a beauty.'