I cannot say that the aspect of the country was very picturesque. It was a flat, alluvial plain, through which the rivers and streams had easily worn deep channels, as they poured on towards the sea; and it was only on the banks of these that anything like landscape beauty was to be seen. The one I reached that morning, which was the limit of my walk, much resembled that which had nearly made a supper of Bessy Davenport and me the day before. I know not even now, whether it was the same or not. During the warm night, the water left by the rain had either evaporated into the air or had been sucked up by the light and penetrable soil. Everything had become dry, except where the river, evidently greatly fallen since the preceding evening, wended quietly on its way, no longer hurried by the mass of waters pressed within its narrow banks. By the side of the stream sat a negro, fishing, and as this was the first human being I had seen since I set out, I thought I might as well go down and talk with him. When I came near, I perceived he was one of the finest-formed men I had ever beheld, tall and powerful, with very little of the usual deformity of his race. He had, indeed, the thick lips, the nose flattened,--though not very much,--and the woolly hair of his race; but there was no bowed shins or large hands and feet; yet, as far as I could judge from his colour, he was of unmixed African blood. He did not condescend to lift his head when I came near, but continued his occupation, still gazing upon the glistening but somewhat turbid water. "Have you had good sport?" asked I. "I have caught no fish," he answered abruptly; and then turning round for the first time, he looked to see who was the interrogator. "Is not the water too muddy still?" I inquired, somewhat struck by the man's manner and tone. "Those who would catch large fish must fish in troubled waters," answered he gravely, casting in his line again. "I shall catch when the appointed time comes. Nothing happens, master, but at its appointed time, whether it be great or small." I confess I was not a little surprised at such a reply from such a man. I had heard of negroes who displayed as great natural powers of mind as men of the white races, but I never yet had met with one. In all whom I had seen there was a certain lack of intellect. Quick comprehension there might be--often rapid combination, cunning seeming to supply the place of reasoning powers; but it was more like the comprehension, the cunning of a child, exercised only upon the objects near at hand, without the power of generalization or remote deduction. In fact, this man's words afforded the first attempt at any thing like a grasp of a wide and comprehensive idea which I had ever met with in his race, and they excited my curiosity greatly.