Among men so much
resembling demons I had never before been. However, my wife being with
me, I had the _entree_ of the ladies' cabin. This was the abode of
quiet and decency, there being but three other ladies besides. Of
these, one had her husband with her, a respectable farmer from
Pennsylvania, who shipped all his last year's produce in a flat boat,
came down in it with his wife, sold his cargo in New Orleans, bought
there what he might want during the year, and was now on his way home
again by steam. Another lady, who was from Philadelphia, had come all
the way to New Orleans in the hope of having a last glance of her
husband before he was ordered off to Mexico,--was just too late,--and
was returning home alone, with a heavy heart and an anxious mind. The
third lady was a German girl from Baden, who had lived in New Orleans
for three years, and was now on her way to Cincinnati to see her
brother. We had also the boat's washer-woman, an old lady from New
England, who sat in the ladies' cabin with as much composure as if she
thought herself quite as good as any of the rest. Such is American
society! So terribly afraid are they of anything that looks like
aristocracy, except towards the coloured people!
I found on board a Baptist minister from the State of Maine, in New
England, a thorough anti-slavery man.
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