So calmly was it done, so imperturbable were all the black countenances, that I half began to conjecture that the chaplain himself intended it for a hymn, though I could imagine no prospective rhyme for _trouble_ unless it were approximated by _debbil_, which is, indeed, a favorite reference, both with the men and with his Reverence.
But the chaplain, peacefully awaiting, gently repeated his text after the chant, and to my great relief the old chorister waived all further recitative, and let the funeral discourse proceed.
Their memories are a vast bewildered chaos of Jewish history and biography; and most of the great events of the past, down to the period of the American Revolution, they instinctively attribute to Moses.
There is a fine bold confidence in all their citations, however, and the record never loses piquancy in their hands, though strict accuracy may suffer.

Thus, one of my captains, last Sunday, heard a colored exhorter at Beaufort proclaim, "Paul may plant, _and may polish wid water_, but it won't do," in which the sainted Apollos would hardly have recognized himself.
Just now one of the soldiers came to me to say that he was about to be married to a girl in Beaufort, and would I lend him a dollar and seventy-five cents to buy the wedding outfit?
It seemed as if matrimony on such moderate terms ought to be encouraged in these days; and so I responded to the appeal.
December 16.
To-day a young recruit appeared here, who had been the slave of Colonel Sammis, one of the leading Florida refugees.

Two white companions came with him, who also appeared to be retainers of the Colonel, and I asked them to dine.

Being likewise refugees, they had stories to tell, and were quite agreeable: one was English born, the other Floridian, a dark, sallow Southerner, very well bred.

After they had gone, the Colonel himself appeared, I told him that I had been entertaining his white friends, and after a while he quietly let out the remark,-- "Yes, one of those white friends of whom you speak is a boy raised on one of my plantations; he has travelled with me to the North, and passed for white, and he always keeps away from the negroes." Certainly no such suspicion had ever crossed my mind.
I have noticed one man in the regiment who would easily pass for white,--a little sickly drummer, aged fifty at least, with brown eyes and reddish hair, who is said to be the son of one of our commodores.
I have seen perhaps a dozen persons as fair, or fairer, among fugitive slaves, but they were usually young children.