The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor, and to dispense with religion altogether.{50} In its isolation, seclusion, and self-reliant independence, Col.

Lloyd's plantation resembles what the baronial domains were during the middle ages in Europe.

Grim, cold, and unapproachable by all genial influences from communities without, _there it stands;_ full three hundred years behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and morals.
This, however, is not the only view that the place presents.
Civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be.

Though separated from the rest of the world; though public opinion, as I have said, seldom gets a chance to penetrate its dark domain; though the whole place is stamped with its own peculiar, ironlike individuality; and though crimes, high-handed and atrocious, may there be committed, with almost as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship--it is, nevertheless, altogether, to outward seeming, a most strikingly interesting place, full of life, activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable contrast to the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe.

Keen as was my regret and great as was my sorrow at leaving the latter, I was not long in adapting myself to this, my new home.