It
is not, however, as the reader will have observed, commiseration that
saves them from that degradation. As soon as beauty begins to fade,
which in southern climes it does prematurely, the unfeeling owners of
these unfortunates succeed in ridding themselves of what is now
considered a burden, by disposing of the individual to some heartless
trader. This is done unknown to the victim, and the news, when it
reaches her, drives her almost frantic; she at once seeks her
perfidious paramour, and finds to her dismay, that he has been gone
some days on a tour to the provinces, and is, perhaps, a thousand miles
off. Tears and protestations avail her nothing, the trader is
inexorable, she belongs to him by law, and go she must; at length,
having vainly expended her entreaties, she becomes calm, and submits in
sullen apathy to her wretched fate. This is the ordinary history of such
cases.
Considering it unsafe to remain longer in this infected city, from the
reports that the fever was gaining ground, I now made preparations for
leaving New Orleans, and as I had made an engagement to manage the
affairs of a gentleman in Florida, during his absence at Washington, I
determined to proceed thither with the least possible delay.
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