This day concludes my stay in Virginia, and ends a pleasant visit to Richmond. It strikes me that now I have got into a negro country the servants are more numerous than in the North. Their style and manners are something like those of native servants in India. I believe in former days the Southerners were more English in their habits than some of the Northerners. Ladies used to ride on horseback; now they cannot afford many horses, and private property prevailed here so early that there are not the open sectional roads that I saw in Illinois. Ladies who attempt to ride or drive complain of the endless number of gates and want of open country.

NORTH CAROLINA.

From Richmond I travelled to Raleigh, the political capital of North Carolina. It is about 8 hours' run by rail. The country is more or less undulating. A great deal of it seemed rather poor, with a great deal of woodprincipally pine, and some indifferent oaks and other trees. I am told that the original pine of the Southern country is a very good wood; but when these trees have been once cut the second growth, which comes up spontaneously, is generally a tree of an inferior species. Most of the soil seemed to be reddish and rather light, but a good deal of it is cultivated; and as we got South cotton became common. The cotton crop is now ripe upon the ground, and picking is going on. My general impression of the cotton I saw was that it gives one the idea of a great extent of cultivation, rather than of very high cultivation. I am told that the cotton-plant grows very well in this reddish, lightish soil; in fact, it prefers a light soil, if it have only a little manure. This country is rather far North for its cultivation. The largest amount of cotton is by no means produced from the largest plants. Some very small, short plants are very heavy with cotton. There is a great variety in the yield; some fields seeming very heavy, others very poor.

I noticed many very miserable huts scattered about in an isolated way among the fields and the woods. They seem to be mostly of one pattern, and were inhabited both by

white people and by blacks. I remarked to my fellowpassengers on the wretchedness of these houses, and they admitted that the cottages are certainly very poor; but they say in the South people are less in need of good houses, as the climate is more favourable. I understand that these isolated houses have been built since the war. Before the war the people at any rate, the blacks-used to live together in plantation settlements. Since the war both whites and blacks have got land who had it not before. The two first acquaintances I made both came into these Southern parts with the Federal army, and stayed at the end of the war. One of them is an Englishman; they both seem to be on good terms with the people with whom they are engaged in cotton-buying and such business.

In the cotton-fields I several times noticed white people at work, but the majority of the cotton cultivators seemed to be black. White and black children seemed friendly enough together, but intermarriage is prohibited. It seems, however, that there has been a good deal of intermixture of races, and many of the coloured people are not pure blacks. I have heard it said with much truth, that since it is so there is much ground for legalising intermarriage. The cotton is all ginned by machinery, and what is called halfpressed. All over the country there are ginning mills and pressing machines, where the cotton is made up and sent to the great ports, where it is re-pressed for export. Much of the cotton seed is used for manure; in fact, the seed makes the best manure for this crop. I am told the settlers who have come to North Carolina of late years have, in most instances, not succeeded very well; they were very often cheated by land companies, and did not understand the business; but there are some Northern farmers who have done very well.

There was a second class on the train chiefly occupied by negroes, but not exclusively so. I noticed an advertisement of a travelling agent, who wants 150 farmers to go to Texas,' and offers to engage them either on wages or on shares.' Both my travelling acquaintances, though in some sense carpet-baggers themselves, speak strongly of the evils of the carpet-bag government of the Southern States.

Raleigh seems to be a pretty country place, with plenty of flowers and good vegetation. I went to the Yarborough

House Hotel, which I found comfortable. Reading the local papers in the evening, I saw that most of the seats in Congress for this State are contested. I did not see evidence of any great bitterness. In the papers I noticed an account of a local county meeting for Wayne County-not a popular meeting, but only of the County Commissioners, who are five in number. The subjects seemed very like those dealt with by our Local Boards. I remarked the following:-The poorhouse and paupers; the county gaol; roads and bridges, and apportionment of labour-in these States the inhabitants are bound to work on the roads on the system which used to be called 'Statute labour' in Scotland-; spirit licenses; valuation of property; registration of voters; arrangement of school districts; appointment of a local constable on a casual vacancy. It is mentioned that there are nine paupers in the poor-house -four white and five coloured-and then there is a notice of small allowances granted to out-paupers.

Later in the evening I went to a Democratic meeting, but it was very cold, and the meeting was thinly attended. The people were very silent and undemonstrative while the orator exposed financial questions. He went in for an extended currency, without precisely saying that he meant greenbacks. He was against protection. He said that the property of Massachusetts is ten times greater than that of North Carolina, but the United States' taxation is not in the same proportion. Money,' he said, 'was unjustly appreciated, and everything else depreciated.'

Next day I called on the Governor of the State, Mr. Vance, who received me very civilly, and with him I found an old Mr. C, of Scotch descent, and formerly a rich proprietor, who had at least a thousand slaves, but who now talks as if he was terribly reduced. He said that what has protected people in this State is the homestead law. I afterwards, however, heard that he is understood to be quite rich, and that he does not like the homestead law, because it protects debtors too much. That homestead law is certainly very much in force here; and Mr. C described it as saving to a man just as much land as his neighbours choose to lay out for him under the valuation clauses, so that, he says, creditors have suffered more than debtors. I also made the acquaintance of Mr. D, one of the principal residents, also of his son, and some other gentlemen. Messrs. D claim to hold

their land under a royal grant, and are Episcopalians, but I understand that there are comparatively few Episcopalians in North Carolina, which was not so aristocratic in its origin as Virginia on the one side, and South Carolina on the other. Different parts of the State are still held by the descendants of the original settlers; very few foreigners have come in of late years. The part near the sea was principally occupied by Englishmen, with blacks under them. Then a great part of the low-lying country inland towards the borders of South Carolina is occupied by a large Scotch-Highland settlement, who, I am told, still speak Gaelic. They are a hard-working population, who never had many slaves, but worked themselves, getting out timber and growing corn and cotton. Materially speaking, they have not prospered exceedingly; but they have educated themselves, and do well on the whole. They are said to have come after the rebellion of '45, and among them Flora Macdonald. They are Presbyterians. In another part of the State there is a strong colony of ScotchIrish. Further West there are many Germans, and much of the mountainous country in the extreme West is occupied by Moravians and other such settlers, who used to live a very rough and isolated life. These people it was who, aided by a great many deserters and others, rebelled against the Confederate Government during the war, as did many of the people in Andrew Johnson's country in East Tennessee. In those days they used to be called Bush Whackers.' They were influenced partly by the old Whig spirit, partly by a dislike of the war, and partly by a dislike of the compulsory service which it was sought to impose upon them. The black population is most numerous in the low-lying lands in the eastern part of the State. In the rest, whites are more nu

merous.

Before the war the most valuable property consisted of slaves. The direct profit from their work did not suffice to pay the interest on the capital sunk upon them, and the real profit was in the increase of the slaves and selling them away. Old Mr. C says, with evident pride in his good management, that by feeding his slaves well and marrying them judiciously, he used to double their number in twenty years. After the war the people had neither money nor stock, and were very badly off indeed. Some of the low lands, protected by dykes which needed care and labour,

have now been flooded and disused, and in that part of the country the negroes live by fishing, etc., and only grow a very moderate amount of cotton and corn. It has been found, however, of late years that the higher red land, which was not before supposed to be good for cotton, does grow it exceedingly well, and very much land has been brought under cotton which was not so cultivated before, partly by breaking up new land and partly by substituting cotton for corn, grass, and pigs. Bacon is now brought from the West very cheap. This change has especially taken place in the district about Raleigh, in which very little cotton was grown before, whereas Raleigh is now a very large cotton mart. I am told that few large farmers succeed, though some do more or less, chiefly those who have a knack of managing the negroes. Generally speaking, the most successful are the smaller farmers, who work themselves with their families. At first these people were obliged to get advances from factors and commission agents. Now they are getting more independent, and would do very well if they could only get a tolerable price for their cotton. Cotton is in these parts the only crop that brings money, except tobacco, which is cultivated to a considerable extent in one part of this State. A good deal of the land has changed hands since the war, and every man who has prudence can get land. Still although some small people, both white and black, get land of their own, much more is rented on various terms. Many proprietors cultivate some land themselves, and rent out the rest. Some proprietors (old Mr. C-, for instance) rent out the land in large blocks to white farmers, who pay them one-third of the corn and one-fourth of the cotton, and these white farmers again (who seem to be a sort of middle men) make arrangements with the blacks; perhaps they find the mules, etc., and get two-thirds of the crop. Many blacks again take farms direct from the proprietors; and these, Mr. C- says, are the best farmers. Very often rent is paid in the shape of a fixed quantity of cotton; there is very seldom a money rent. I have seen a good many cotton-fields near the town, and talked over the system of cultivation. One mule is sufficient, the plough being a light one. The crop requires much ploughing, and hoeing and labour, but little machinery. The seed is drilled in, then ploughed between the drills, and the plants are thinned out by hoeing like our turnips; in fact, the culti