Old Virginia and her neighbours

:220 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.rule, no person whose company was at all desirablewas allowed to stop at an inn, for the neighboursvied with one another in offering hospitality.Every planter kept open house, and provided forhis visitors with unstinted hand.Let us put ourselves intothe position of one ofthese visitors, and get some glimpses oft^^® old plantation. Our host we mayVisit to athrnegrcT'quarter.life uponsuppose to be a vestryman, justice of thepeacc, and burgess, dwelling upon aplantation of five or six thousand acres, with hisnext neighbours at a distance of two or threemiles.^ The space is in great part cleared for theplanting of vast fields of tobacco, but here andthere are extensive stretches of woodland andcoppice, with noble forest trees and luxuriantundergrowth, much rougher and wilder than anEnglish park. The cabins for slaves presentthe appearance of a hamlet. These are woodenstructures of the humblest sort, built of logs orundressed planks, and afflicted with chronic dilapidation.An inventory of 1697 shows us that thecabin might contain a bed and a few chairs, twoor three pots and kettles, " a pair of pot-racks, abut the morning meal seems to have made amends :—I did to Planter's Booth repair,And there at Brealifast nobly FareOn rashier broil'd of infant BearI thought the Cub delicious Meat,Which ne'er did ought but Cliesnuts eat.Ebenezer Cook, The Sot-Weed Factor; or, a Voyage to Maryland,London, 1708, pp. 5, 9.^ For the description of the planter's house and its surroundingsI am much indebted to the admirable work of Mr. Bruce,chap. xii.