He was a negro dwarf of the most frightful appearance; his diminutive body was garnished with legs and arms of enormously disproportionate length; his face was hideous: a pair of tushes projected from either side of a double hare-lip; and taking him altogether, he was the nearest essemblance to the ourang outang mixed with the devil that human eyes ever dwelt upon. I could not look at him without feeling disgust. “Massa Bill sent me with a letter,” was his reply to my asking him his business. Opening it, I found a summons to see a patient, the mother of a man named Disney, living some twenty miles distant by the usual road. It was in no good humour that I told the dwarf to wait until I could swim my horse over, and I would accompany him. By the time I had concluded my preparations, and put a large bottle of brandy in my pocket, my steed was awaiting me upon the opposite shore. “Massa tole me to tell you ef you didn't mine swimming a little you had better kum de nere way.” “Do you have to swim much?” “Oh no, massa, onely swim Plurisy Lake, and wade de back water a few mile, you'll save haf de way at leste.” I looked at the sun. It was only about two hours high, and the roads were in such miserable condition that six miles an hour would be making fine speed, so I determined to go the near way, and swim “Pleurisy slough.” “You are certain you know the road, boy?” “Oh, yes, massa, me know um ebery inch ob de groun'; hunted possum an' coon ober him many a night. Massa, you ain't got any 'baccy, is you?” “There's a chaw--and here's a drink of brandy. I'll give you another if you pilot me safe through, and a good pounding if you get lost.” “Dank you, Massa, um's good. No fere I lose you, know ebery inch of de groun'.” I had poured him out a dram, not considering his diminutive stature, sufficient to unsettle the nerves of a stout man, but he drank it off with great apparent relish; and by this time, everything being ready, we commenced ploughing our way through the muddy roads. We made but slow progress. I would dash on, and then have to wait for the dwarf, who, belabouring his mule with a cudgel almost as large as himself, strove in vain to keep up. The road was directly down the bayou, for some miles. There were few settlers on it then, and the extent of their clearing consisted of a corn-patch. They were the pre-emptioners or squatters; men who settled upon government land before its survey, and awaited the incoming of planters with several negroes to buy their claims, themselves to be bought out by more affluent emigrants. To one of the first-mentioned class--the pre-emptioners--my visit was directed, or rather to his mother, who occupied an intermediate grade between the squatter and the small planter, inasmuch as she possessed one negro, the delectable morsel for whom I was waiting every few hundred yards.