The dreams{262} of my childhood and the purposes of my manhood were now fulfilled.

A free state around me, and a free earth under my feet! What a moment was this to me! A whole year was pressed into a single day.

A new world burst upon my agitated vision.

I have often been asked, by kind friends to whom I have told my story, how I felt when first I found myself beyond the limits of slavery; and I must say here, as I have often said to them, there is scarcely anything about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer.

It was a moment of joyous excitement, which no words can describe.