Many of them have returned and many have died; numbers of them have died.

Quite a large number went to Washington County Mississippi, just opposite me.
Q.From time to time, at Washington, efforts are being made to secure public lands in the Territories, the Indian Territory and elsewhere, for the purpose of colonizing such tracts with negroes.

Do you think there is any sort of occasion for that?
-- A.

None in the world.

If the alluvial lands on the Mississippi River were protected from overflow and brought into a condition where they could be cultivated they would afford all the homes, and of the best character, that the negroes could possibly want in the South, and the natural tendency is to come to just such lands.
Q.And the negroes prefer to be there to anywhere else?
-- A.