"'Well, mate, arter that I kept close enough--says no more, but mumbles a lot o' no-man's jargon, as makes 'em all log me down for a sort o' double-Guinea savitch--'cause why, I were hanged afeard for my tongue, seein', if so be I lost it, I'd be a nigger for ever, sure enough. So the blacks, for most part being country-bred, they talks nothin' but a blessed jumble, for all the world like babbies at home; an' what does they do but they fancies me a rig'lar African nigger, as proud as Tommy, an' a'most ready for to washup me they wor--why, the poor divvles 'ud bring me yams and fish; they kisses my flippers an' toes as I'd been the Pope; an' as for the young girls, I'm blowed if I warn't all the go amongst 'em--though I carn't say the same where both's white, ye know! What with the sun an' the cocoa-nut ile, to my thinkin', I gets blacker an' blacker--blessed if I didn't fancy a feller's very mind turned nigger. I larns their confounded lingo, an' I answers to the name o' Pumpey, blast it, till I right-down forgets that I'd ever another. As for runnin', look ye, I knowed 'twas no use thereaway, as long as my skin tould against me, an' as long as Africay wor where it wor. So, my boy, I see'd pretty clear, ye know, as this here world 'ud turn a man into a rig'lar built slave-nigger in the long run if he was an angel out o' heaven! "'Well, mate, one day I'm in the woods amongst a gang, chopping firewood for the sugar-mill, when, what does I light on betwixt some big ground-leaves and sich like, but a lot o' them very same red mushrooms as the fittish-man shows me in Africay!--blowed if there warn't a whole sight o' them round about, too! So I pulls enough for ten, ye may be sure, stuffs 'em in my hat, an' that same night, as soon as all's dark, off I goes into the woods, right by the stars, for the nearest town 'twixt there and New Orleans. As soon as I got nigh-hand it, there I sits down below a tree amongst the bushes, hauls off my slops, an' I turns to for to rub myself all over, from heel to truck, till daybreak. So, in course, I watches for the light angshis enough, as ye may suppose, to know what colour I were. Well, strike me lucky, Jack, if I didn't jump near a fadom i' the air, when at last I sees I'm _white_ wonst more!--blessed if I didn't feel myself a new man from stem to starn! I makes right for a creek near by, looks at my face in the water, then up I comes again, an' every yarn o' them cussed slave-togs I pulls to bits, when I shoves 'em under the leaves. Arter that I took fair to the water for about a mile, jist to smooth out my wake, like; then I shins aloft up a tree, where I stowed myself away till noon--'cause, d'ye see, I knowed pretty well what to look for next. An' by this time, mind ye, all them queer haps made a fellow wonderful sharp, so I'd scheme out the whole chart aforehand how to weather on them cussed Yankees.