“Colonel Gillin, over here to the store, ’s got a right nice saddle-horse, if he’ll let you take her. I’ll go over there with you, and see if he will.... Mornin’, Colonel;—here’s a gentleman that wants to go to Thomas W.’s: couldn’t you let him have your saddle-horse?”
“How do you do, sir; I suppose you’d come back to-night?”
“That’s my intention; but I might be detained till to-morrow, unless it would be inconvenient to you to spare your horse.”
“Well, yes, sir, I reckon you can have her;—Tom!—Tom!—Tom! Now, has that devilish nigger gone again? Tom! Oh, Tom! saddle the filly for this gentleman.——Have you ever been to Mr. W.’s, sir?”
“No, I have not.”
“It isn’t a very easy place for strangers to go to from here; but I reckon I can direct you, so you’ll have no difficulty.”
He accordingly began to direct me; but the way appeared so difficult to find, I asked him to let me make a written memorandum, and, from this memorandum, I now repeat the directions he gave me.
“You take this road here—you’ll see where it’s most travelled, and it’s easy enough to keep on it for about a mile; then there’s a fork, and you take the right; pretty soon, you’ll cross a creek and turn to the right—the creek’s been up a good deal lately, and there’s some big trees fallen along there, and if they ha’n’t got them out of the way, you may have some difficulty in finding where the road is; but you keep bearing off to the right, where it’s the most open (i.e., the wood), and you’ll see it again pretty soon. Then you go on, keeping along in the road—you’ll see where folks have travelled before—for may be a quarter of a mile, and you’ll find a cross road; you must take that to the left; pretty soon you’ll pass two cabins; one of ’em’s old and all fallen in, the other one’s new, and there’s a white man lives into it: you can’t mistake it. About a hundred yards beyond it, there’s a fork, and you take the left—it turns square off, and it’s fenced for a good bit; keep along by the fence, and you can’t miss it. It’s right straight beyond that till you come to a school-house, there’s a gate opposite to it, and off there there’s a big house—but I don’t reckon you’ll see it neither, for the woods. But somewhere, about three hundred yards beyond the school-house, you’ll find a little road running off to the left through an old field; you take that, and in less than half a mile you’ll find a path going square off to the right; you take that, and keep on it till you pass a little cabin in the woods; ain’t nobody lives there now: then it turns to the left, and when you come to a fence and a gate, you’ll see a house there, that’s Mr. George Rivers’ plantation—it breaks in two, and you take the right, and when you come to the end of the fence, turn the corner—don’t keep on, but turn there. Then it’s straight, till you come to the creek again—there’s a bridge there; don’t go over the bridge, but turn to the left, and keep along nigh the creek, and pretty soon you’ll see a meeting-house in the woods; you go to that, and you’ll see a path bearing off to the right—it looks as if it was going right away from the creek, but you take it, and pretty soon it’ll bring you to a saw-mill on the creek, up higher a piece; you just cross the creek there, and you’ll find some people at the mill, and they’ll put you right straight on the road to Mr. W.’s.”
“How far is it all, sir?”
“I reckon it’s about two hours’ ride, when the roads are good, to the saw-mill. Mr. W.’s gate is only a mile or so beyond that, and then you’ve got another mile, or better, after you get to the gate, but you’ll see some nigger-quarters—the niggers belong to Mr. W., and I reckon ther’ll be some of ’em round, and they’ll show you just where to go.”