Opencv Computer Vision Projects with Python 1st

Edition Joseph Howse pdf download

https://ebookname.com/product/opencv-computer-vision-projects-
with-python-1st-edition-joseph-howse/

Get Instant Ebook Downloads – Browse at https://ebookname.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

A Practical Introduction to Computer Vision with OpenCV

1st Edition Kenneth Dawson-Howe

https://ebookname.com/product/a-practical-introduction-to-
computer-vision-with-opencv-1st-edition-kenneth-dawson-howe/

Programming Computer Vision with Python Tools and

algorithms for analyzing images 1st Edition Jan Erik
Solem

https://ebookname.com/product/programming-computer-vision-with-
python-tools-and-algorithms-for-analyzing-images-1st-edition-jan-
erik-solem/

Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python 2nd Edition

Al Sweigart

https://ebookname.com/product/invent-your-own-computer-games-
with-python-2nd-edition-al-sweigart/

Testing Global Interdependence Issues on Trade Aid

Migration and Development Ernest Aryeetey

https://ebookname.com/product/testing-global-interdependence-
issues-on-trade-aid-migration-and-development-ernest-aryeetey/
Image and Glory of God 1 Corinthians 11 2 16 As a Case
Study in Bible Gender and Hermeneutics 1st Edition
Michael Lakey

https://ebookname.com/product/image-and-glory-of-
god-1-corinthians-11-2-16-as-a-case-study-in-bible-gender-and-
hermeneutics-1st-edition-michael-lakey/

Men At War What Fiction Tells us About Conflict From

The Iliad to Catch 22 1st Edition Christopher Coker

https://ebookname.com/product/men-at-war-what-fiction-tells-us-
about-conflict-from-the-iliad-to-catch-22-1st-edition-
christopher-coker/

Codes on Euclidean Spheres 1st ed Edition T. Ericson

https://ebookname.com/product/codes-on-euclidean-spheres-1st-ed-
edition-t-ericson/

Practical Signals Theory with MATLAB Applications 1st

Edition Edition Richard J. Tervo

https://ebookname.com/product/practical-signals-theory-with-
matlab-applications-1st-edition-edition-richard-j-tervo/

Going Corporate A Geek s Guide 1st Edition Shailendra

Kadre

https://ebookname.com/product/going-corporate-a-geek-s-guide-1st-
edition-shailendra-kadre/
Raising Twins Flais Shelly

https://ebookname.com/product/raising-twins-flais-shelly/
OpenCV: Computer Vision
Projects with Python

Get savvy with OpenCV and actualize

cool computer vision applications

A course in three modules

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
OpenCV: Computer Vision Projects with Python

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this course may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this course to ensure the accuracy
of the information presented. However, the information contained in this course
is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt
Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this course.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this course by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Published on: October 2016

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78712-549-0
www.packtpub.com
 Credits

Authors Content Development Editor

Joseph Howse Mayur Pawanikar
Prateek Joshi
Michael Beyeler Production Coordinator
Nilesh Mohite

Reviewers
David Millán Escrivá
Abid K.
Will Brennan
Gabriel Garrido Calvo
Pavan Kumar Pavagada Nagaraja
Marvin Smith
Jia-Shen Boon
Florian LE BOURDAIS
Steve Goldsmith
Rahul Kavi
Scott Lobdell
Vipul Sharma
 Preface
OpenCV is an open-source, cross-platform library that provides building blocks
for computer vision experiments and applications. It provides high-level interfaces
for capturing, processing, and presenting image data. For example, it abstracts
details about camera hardware and array allocation. OpenCV is widely used in
both academia and industry. Today, computer vision can reach consumers in many
contexts via webcams, camera phones, and gaming sensors such as the Kinect.
For better or worse, people love to be on camera, and as developers, we face a
demand for applications that capture images, change their appearance, and extract
information from them. OpenCV's Python bindings can help us explore solutions to
these requirements in a high-level language and in a standardized data format that is
interoperable with scientific libraries such as NumPy and SciPy.

Computer vision is found everywhere in modern technology. OpenCV for Python

enables us to run computer vision algorithms in real time. With the advent of
powerful machines, we are getting more processing power to work with. Using this
technology, we can seamlessly integrate our computer vision applications into the
cloud. Web developers can develop complex applications without having to reinvent
the wheel.

This course is specifically designed to teach the following topics. First, we will
learn how to get started with OpenCV and OpenCV 3's Python API, and develop
a computer vision application that tracks body parts. Then, we will build amazing
intermediate-level computer vision applications such as making an object disappear
from an image, identifying different shapes, reconstructing a 3D map from images,
and building an augmented reality application. Finally, we'll move to more advanced
projects such as hand gesture recognition, tracking visually salient objects, as well as
recognizing traffic signs and emotions on faces using support vector machines and
multi-layer perceptron respectively.

[i]
Preface

What this learning path covers

Module 1, OpenCV Computer Vision with Python, in this module you can have a
development environment that links Python, OpenCV, depth camera libraries
(OpenNI, SensorKinect), and general-purpose scientific libraries (NumPy, SciPy).

Module 2, OpenCV with Python By Example, this module covers various examples at
different levels, teaching you about the different functions of OpenCV, and their
actual implementations.

Module 3, OpenCV with Python Blueprints, this module intends to give the tools,
knowledge, and skills you need to be OpenCV experts and this newly gained
experience will allow you to develop your own advanced computer vision
applications.

What you need for this learning path

This course provides setup instructions for all the relevant software, including package
managers, build tools, Python, NumPy, SciPy, OpenCV, OpenNI, and SensorKinect.
The setup instructions are tailored for Windows XP or later versions, Mac OS 10.6
(Snow Leopard) or later versions, and Ubuntu 12.04 or later versions. Other Unix-like
operating systems should work too if you are willing to do your own tailoring of the
setup steps. You need a webcam for the projects described in the course. For additional
features, some variants of the project use a second webcam or even an OpenNI-
compatible depth camera such as Microsoft Kinect or Asus Xtion PRO.

The hardware requirement being a webcam (or camera device), except for Chapter
2, Hand Gesture Recognition Using a Kinect Depth Sensor , of the 3rd Module which
instead requires access to a Microsoft Kinect 3D Sensor or an Asus Xtion.

The course contains projects with the following requirements.

All projects can run on any of Windows, Mac, or Linux, and they require the
following software packages:

• OpenCV 2.4.9 or later: Recent 32-bit and 64-bit versions as well as

installation instructions are available at http://opencv.org/downloads.
html. Platform-specific installation instructions can be found at http://
docs.opencv.org/doc/tutorials/introduction/table_of_content_
introduction/table_of_content_introduction.html.
• Python 2.7 or later: Recent 32-bit and 64-bit installers are available at
https://www.python.org/downloads. The installation instructions can be
found at https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Download.

[ ii ]
 Preface

• NumPy 1.9.2 or later: This package for scientific computing officially comes
in 32-bit format only, and can be obtained from http://www.scipy.org/
scipylib/download.html. The installation instructions can be found at
http://www.scipy.org/scipylib/building/index.html#building.

wxPython 2.8 or later: This GUI programming toolkit can be obtained from
http://www.wxpython.org/download.php. Its installation instructions are given
at http://wxpython.org/builddoc.php.

In addition, some chapters require the following free Python modules:

• SciPy 0.16.0 or later: This scientific Python library officially comes in 32-
bit only, and can be obtained from http://www.scipy.org/scipylib/
download.html. The installation instructions can be found at http://www.
scipy.org/scipylib/building/index.html#building.
• matplotlib 1.4.3 or later: This 2D plotting library can be obtained from
http://matplotlib.org/downloads.html. Its installation instructions
can be found by going http://matplotlib.org/faq/installing_faq.
html#how-to-install.
• libfreenect 0.5.2 or later: The libfreenect module by the OpenKinect project
(http://www.openkinect.org) provides drivers and libraries for the
Microsoft Kinect hardware, and can be obtained from https://github.
com/OpenKinect/libfreenect. Its installation instructions can be found at
http://openkinect.org/wiki/Getting_Started.

Furthermore, the use of iPython (http://ipython.org/install.html) is highly

recommended as it provides a flexible, interactive console interface.

Finally, if you are looking for help or get stuck along the way, you can go for several
websites that provide excellent help, documentation, and tutorials:

• The official OpenCV API reference, user guide, and tutorials:

http://docs.opencv.org

The official OpenCV forum: http://www.answers.opencv.org/questions

OpenCV-Python tutorials by Alexander Mordvintsev and Abid Rahman K:

http://opencv-python-tutroals.readthedocs.org/en/latest

[ iii ]
Preface

Who this learning path is for

This Learning Path is for someone who has a working knowledge of Python and
wants to try out OpenCV. This Learning Path will take you from a beginner to an
expert in computer vision applications using OpenCV.

OpenCV's applications are humongous and this Learning Path is the best resource to
get yourself acquainted thoroughly with OpenCV.

Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about
this course—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it
helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply e-mail [email protected], and mention

the course's title in the subject of your message.

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing
or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.

Customer support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt course, we have a number of things to
help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the example code

You can download the example code files for this course from your account at
http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this course elsewhere, you can visit
http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly
to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register to our website using your e-mail address and password.
2. Hover the mouse pointer on the SUPPORT tab at the top.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the course in the Search box.
5. Select the course for which you're looking to download the code files.

[ iv ]
 Preface

6. Choose from the drop-down menu where you purchased this course from.
7. Click on Code Download.

You can also download the code files by clicking on the Code Files button on the
course's webpage at the Packt Publishing website. This page can be accessed by
entering the course's name in the Search box. Please note that you need to be logged
in to your Packt account.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder
using the latest version of:

• WinRAR / 7-Zip for Windows

• Zipeg / iZip / UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip / PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the course is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.
com/PacktPublishing/OpenCV-Computer-Vision-Projects-with-Python. We
also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books, videos, and courses
available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes
do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our courses—maybe a mistake in the text
or the code—we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you
can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions
of this course. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.
packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your course, clicking on the Errata
Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are
verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our
website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.

To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/

content/support and enter the name of the course in the search field. The required
information will appear under the Errata section.

[v]
Preface

Piracy
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all
media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously.
If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please
provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can
pursue a remedy.

Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the suspected pirated

material.

We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you
valuable content.

Questions
If you have a problem with any aspect of this course, you can contact us at
[email protected], and we will do our best to address the problem.

[ vi ]
Module 1: OpenCV Computer Vision with Python 1
Chapter 1: Setting up OpenCV 3
Choosing and using the right setup tools 4
Running samples 16
Finding documentation, help, and updates 17
Summary 18
Chapter 2: Handling Files, Cameras, and GUIs 19
Basic I/O scripts 19
Project concept 26
An object-oriented design 27
Summary 36
Chapter 3: Filtering Images 37
Creating modules 37
Channel mixing – seeing in Technicolor 38
Curves – bending color space 42
Highlighting edges 51
Custom kernels – getting convoluted 52
Modifying the application 55
Summary 56
Chapter 4: Tracking Faces with Haar Cascades 57
Conceptualizing Haar cascades 58
Getting Haar cascade data 59
Creating modules 60
Defining a face as a hierarchy of rectangles 60
Tracing, cutting, and pasting rectangles 61
Adding more utility functions 63
Tracking faces 64

[i]
Table of Contents

Modifying the application 69

Summary 74
Chapter 5: Detecting Foreground/Background Regions
and Depth 75
Creating modules 75
Capturing frames from a depth camera 76
Creating a mask from a disparity map 79
Masking a copy operation 80
Modifying the application 82
Summary 84
Appendix A: Integrating with Pygame 85
Installing Pygame 85
Documentation and tutorials 86
Subclassing managers.WindowManager 86
Modifying the application 88
Further uses of Pygame 88
Summary 89
Appendix B: Generating Haar Cascades for Custom Targets 91
Gathering positive and negative training images 91
Finding the training executables 92
Creating the training sets and cascade 93
Testing and improving <cascade> 96
Summary 97

Module 2: OpenCV with Python By Example 99

Chapter 1: Detecting Edges and Applying Image Filters 101
2D convolution 102
Blurring 103
Edge detection 106
Motion blur 109
Sharpening 111
Embossing 113
Erosion and dilation 115
Creating a vignette filter 116
Enhancing the contrast in an image 119
Summary 122
Chapter 2: Cartoonizing an Image 123
Accessing the webcam 123
Keyboard inputs 124
[ ii ]
 Table of Contents

Mouse inputs 126

Interacting with a live video stream 128
Cartoonizing an image 130
Summary 138
Chapter 3: Detecting and Tracking Different Body Parts 139
Using Haar cascades to detect things 139
What are integral images? 141
Detecting and tracking faces 142
Fun with faces 144
Detecting eyes 147
Fun with eyes 150
Detecting ears 152
Detecting a mouth 153
It's time for a moustache 155
Detecting a nose 156
Detecting pupils 158
Summary 160
Chapter 4: Extracting Features from an Image 161
Why do we care about keypoints? 161
What are keypoints? 164
Detecting the corners 166
Good Features To Track 168
Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) 169
Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF) 172
Features from Accelerated Segment Test (FAST) 174
Binary Robust Independent Elementary Features (BRIEF) 176
Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF (ORB) 178
Summary 179
Chapter 5: Creating a Panoramic Image 181
Matching keypoint descriptors 181
Creating the panoramic image 186
What if the images are at an angle to each other? 192
Summary 194
Chapter 6: Seam Carving 195
Why do we care about seam carving? 196
How does it work? 197
How do we define "interesting"? 198
How do we compute the seams? 199
Can we expand an image? 203
Can we remove an object completely? 207
[ iii ]
Table of Contents

Summary 213
Chapter 7: Detecting Shapes and Segmenting an Image 215
Contour analysis and shape matching 215
Approximating a contour 219
Identifying the pizza with the slice taken out 221
How to censor a shape? 225
What is image segmentation? 229
Watershed algorithm 233
Summary 235
Chapter 8: Object Tracking 237
Frame differencing 237
Colorspace based tracking 240
Building an interactive object tracker 242
Feature based tracking 248
Background subtraction 253
Summary 257
Chapter 9: Object Recognition 259
Object detection versus object recognition 259
What is a dense feature detector? 263
What is a visual dictionary? 267
What is supervised and unsupervised learning? 271
What are Support Vector Machines? 271
How do we actually implement this? 273
Summary 285
Chapter 10: Stereo Vision and 3D Reconstruction 287
What is stereo correspondence? 287
What is epipolar geometry? 292
Building the 3D map 300
Summary 307
Chapter 11: Augmented Reality 309
What is the premise of augmented reality? 309
What does an augmented reality system look like? 310
Geometric transformations for augmented reality 311
What is pose estimation? 313
How to track planar objects? 314
How to augment our reality? 324
Let's add some movements 330
Summary 336

[ iv ]
 Table of Contents

Module 3: OpenCV with Python Blueprints 337

Chapter 1: Fun with Filters 339
Planning the app 341
Creating a black-and-white pencil sketch 341
Generating a warming/cooling filter 346
Cartoonizing an image 351
Putting it all together 355
Summary 362
Chapter 2: Hand Gesture Recognition Using a Kinect
Depth Sensor 363
Planning the app 365
Setting up the app 365
Tracking hand gestures in real time 369
Hand region segmentation 370
Hand shape analysis 376
Hand gesture recognition 378
Summary 383
Chapter 3: Finding Objects via Feature Matching and
Perspective Transforms 385
Tasks performed by the app 386
Planning the app 388
Setting up the app 389
The process flow 391
Feature extraction 393
Feature matching 395
Feature tracking 403
Seeing the algorithm in action 406
Summary 408
Chapter 4: 3D Scene Reconstruction Using Structure from Motion 409
Planning the app 411
Camera calibration 412
Setting up the app 420
Estimating the camera motion from a pair of images 423
Reconstructing the scene 433
3D point cloud visualization 435
Summary 438
Chapter 5: Tracking Visually Salient Objects 439
Planning the app 442
Setting up the app 442

[v]
Table of Contents

Visual saliency 445

Mean-shift tracking 458
Putting it all together 465
Summary 466
Chapter 6: Learning to Recognize Traffic Signs 467
Planning the app 469
Supervised learning 469
The GTSRB dataset 474
Feature extraction 478
Support Vector Machine 483
Putting it all together 495
Summary 499
Chapter 7: Learning to Recognize Emotions on Faces 501
Planning the app 503
Face detection 505
Facial expression recognition 512
Putting it all together 535
Bibliography 539

[ vi ]
 Module 1

OpenCV Computer Vision with Python

Learn to capture videos, manipulate images, and track objects with

Python using the OpenCV Library

[1]
 Setting up OpenCV
This chapter is a quick guide to setting up Python 2.7, OpenCV, and related libraries.
After setup, we also look at OpenCV's Python sample scripts and documentation.

The following related libraries are covered:

• NumPy: This is a dependency of OpenCV's Python bindings. It provides

numeric computing functionality, including efficient arrays.
• SciPy: This is a scientific computing library that is closely related to NumPy.
It is not required by OpenCV but it is useful for manipulating the data in
OpenCV images.
• OpenNI: This is an optional dependency of OpenCV. It adds support for
certain depth cameras, such as Asus XtionPRO.
• SensorKinect: This is an OpenNI plugin and optional dependency of
OpenCV. It adds support for the Microsoft Kinect depth camera.

For this book's purposes, OpenNI and SensorKinect can be considered optional. They
are used throughout Chapter 5, Separating Foreground/Background Regions Depth, but
are not used in the other chapters or appendices.

At the time of writing, OpenCV 2.4.3 is the latest version. On some operating
systems, it is easier to set up an earlier version (2.3.1). The differences between these
versions should not affect the project that we are going to build in this book.

Some additional information, particularly about OpenCV's build options and their
dependencies, is available in the OpenCV wiki at http://opencv.willowgarage.
com/wiki/InstallGuide. However, at the time of writing, the wiki is not up-to-date
with OpenCV 2.4.3.
Setting up OpenCV

Choosing and using the right setup tools

We are free to choose among various setup tools, depending on our operating system
and how much configuration we want to do. Let's take an overview of the tools for
Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, and other Unix-like systems.

Making the choice on Windows XP, Windows

Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8
Windows does not come with Python preinstalled. However, installation wizards
are available for precompiled Python, NumPy, SciPy, and OpenCV. Alternatively,
we can build from source. OpenCV's build system uses CMake for configuration
and either Visual Studio or MinGW for compilation.

If we want support for depth cameras including Kinect, we should first install
OpenNI and SensorKinect, which are available as precompiled binaries with
installation wizards. Then, we must build OpenCV from source.

The precompiled version of OpenCV does not offer support

for depth cameras.

On Windows, OpenCV offers better support for 32-bit Python than 64-bit Python.
Even if we are building from source, I recommend using 32-bit Python. Fortunately,
32-bit Python works fine on either 32-bit or 64-bit editions of Windows.

Some of the following steps refer to editing the system's Path variable.
This task can be done in the Environment Variables window of Control
Panel.
On Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8, open the Start menu and
launch Control Panel. Now, go to System and Security | System |
Advanced system settings. Click on the Environment Variables button.
On Windows XP, open the Start menu and go to Control Panel | System.
Select the Advanced tab. Click on the Environment Variables button.
Now, under System variables, select Path and click on the Edit button.
Make changes as directed. To apply the changes, click on all the OK
buttons (until we are back in the main window of Control Panel). Then,
log out and log back in (alternatively, reboot).

[4]
 Chapter 1

Using binary installers (no support for depth

cameras)
Here are the steps to set up 32-bit Python 2.7, NumPy, and OpenCV:

1. Download and install 32-bit Python 2.7.3 from http://www.python.org/

ftp/python/2.7.3/python-2.7.3.msi.
2. Download and install NumPy 1.6.2 from http://sourceforge.net/
projects/numpy/files/NumPy/1.6.2/numpy-1.6.2-win32-superpack-
python2.7.exe/download.
3. Download and install SciPy 11.0 from http://sourceforge.net/
projects/scipy/files/scipy/0.11.0/scipy-0.11.0-win32-superpack-
python2.7.exe/download.
4. Download the self-extracting ZIP of OpenCV 2.4.3 from http://
sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary/files/opencv-win/2.4.3/
OpenCV-2.4.3.exe/download. Run the self-extracting ZIP and, when
prompted, enter any destination folder, which we will refer to as <unzip_
destination>. A subfolder, <unzip_destination>\opencv, is created.
5. Copy <unzip_destination>\opencv\build\python\2.7\cv2.pyd to
C:\Python2.7\Lib\site-packages (assuming we installed Python 2.7 to
the default location). Now, the new Python installation can find OpenCV.
6. A final step is necessary if we want Python scripts to run using the new
Python installation by default. Edit the system's Path variable and append
;C:\Python2.7 (assuming we installed Python 2.7 to the default location).
Remove any previous Python paths, such as ;C:\Python2.6. Log out and
log back in (alternatively, reboot).

Using CMake and compilers

Windows does not come with any compilers or CMake. We need to install them.
If we want support for depth cameras, including Kinect, we also need to install
OpenNI and SensorKinect.

Let's assume that we have already installed 32-bit Python 2.7, NumPy, and SciPy
either from binaries (as described previously) or from source. Now, we can
proceed with installing compilers and CMake, optionally installing OpenNI and
SensorKinect, and then building OpenCV from source:

1. Download and install CMake 2.8.9 from http://www.cmake.org/files/

v2.8/cmake-2.8.9-win32-x86.exe. When running the installer, select
either Add CMake to the system PATH for all users or Add CMake to the
system PATH for current user.

[5]
Setting up OpenCV

2. Download and install Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft Visual C++
Express 2010, or MinGW. Note that OpenCV 2.4.3 cannot be compiled with
the more recent versions (Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 and Microsoft Visual
Studio Express 2012).
For Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, use any installation media you purchased.
During installation, include any optional C++ components. Reboot after
installation is complete.
For Microsoft Visual C++ Express 2010, get the installer from
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads.
Reboot after installation is complete.
For MinGW get the installer from http://sourceforge.net/projects/
mingw/files/Installer/mingw-get-inst/mingw-get-inst-20120426/
mingw-get-inst-20120426.exe/download. When running the installer,
make sure that the destination path does not contain spaces and that the
optional C++ compiler is included. Edit the system's Path variable and
append ;C:\MinGW\bin (assuming MinGW is installed to the default
location.) Reboot the system.

3. Optionally, download and install OpenNI 1.5.4.0 from http://www.openni.

org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/OpenNI-Win32-1.5.4.0-Dev1.zip
(32 bit). Alternatively, for 64-bit Python, use http://www.openni.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/OpenNI-Win64-1.5.4.0-Dev.zip (64 bit).
4. Optionally, download and install SensorKinect 0.93 from https://github.
com/avin2/SensorKinect/blob/unstable/Bin/SensorKinect093-Bin-
Win32-v5.1.2.1.msi?raw=true (32 bit). Alternatively, for 64-bit Python,
use https://github.com/avin2/SensorKinect/blob/unstable/Bin/
SensorKinect093-Bin-Win64-v5.1.2.1.msi?raw=true (64 bit).
5. Download the self-extracting ZIP of OpenCV 2.4.3 from http://
sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary/files/opencv-win/2.4.3/
OpenCV-2.4.3.exe/download. Run the self-extracting ZIP and, when
prompted, enter any destination folder, which we will refer to as <unzip_
destination>. A subfolder, <unzip_destination>\opencv, is created.
6. Open Command Prompt and make another folder where our build will go:
> mkdir<build_folder>

Change directory to the build folder:

> cd <build_folder>

[6]
 Chapter 1

7. Now, we are ready to configure our build. To understand all the options, we
could read the code in <unzip_destination>\opencv\CMakeLists.txt.
However, for this book's purposes, we only need to use the options that will
give us a release build with Python bindings and, optionally, depth camera
support via OpenNI and SensorKinect.
For Visual Studio 2010 or Visual C++ Express 2010, run:
> cmake -D:CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE -D:WITH_OPENNI=ON -G "Visual
Studio 10" <unzip_destination>\opencv

Alternatively, for MinGW, run:

> cmake -D:CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE -D:WITH_OPENNI=ON -G
"MinGWMakefiles" <unzip_destination>\opencv

If OpenNI is not installed, omit -D:WITH_OPENNI=ON. (In this case, depth

cameras will not be supported.) If OpenNI and SensorKinect are installed
to non-default locations, modify the command to include -D:OPENNI_
LIB_DIR=<openni_install_destination>\Lib -D:OPENNI_INCLUDE_
DIR=<openni_install_destination>\Include -D:OPENNI_PRIME_SENSOR_
MODULE_BIN_DIR=<sensorkinect_install_destination>\Sensor\Bin.
CMake might report that it has failed to find some dependencies. Many of
OpenCV's dependencies are optional; so, do not be too concerned yet. If the
build fails to complete or you run into problems later, try installing missing
dependencies (often available as prebuilt binaries) and then rebuild OpenCV
from this step.

8. Having configured our build system, we are ready to compile.

For Visual Studio or Visual C++ Express, open <build_folder>/OpenCV.
sln. Select Release configuration and build. If you get build errors, double-
check that Release configuration is selected.
Alternatively, for MinGW, run:
> mingw32-make.

9. Copy <build_folder>\lib\Release\cv2.pyd (from a Visual Studio build)

or <build_folder>\lib\cv2.pyd (from a MinGW build) to C:\Python2.7\
Lib\site-packages (assuming Python 2.7 is installed to the default
location). Now, the Python installation can find part of OpenCV.
10. Finally, we need to make sure that Python and other processes can find
the rest of OpenCV. Edit the system's Path variable and append ;<build_
folder>/bin/Release (for a Visual Studio build) or ;<build_folder>/bin
(for a MinGW build). Reboot your system.

[7]
Setting up OpenCV

Making the choice on Mac OS X Snow

Leopard, Mac OS X Lion, or Mac OS X
Mountain Lion
Some versions of Mac come with Python 2.7 preinstalled. However, the preinstalled
Python is customized by Apple for the system's internal needs. Normally, we should
not install any libraries atop Apple's Python. If we do, our libraries might break
during system updates or, worse, might conflict with preinstalled libraries that the
system requires. Instead, we should install standard Python 2.7 and then install our
libraries atop it.

For Mac, there are several possible approaches to obtaining standard Python 2.7,
NumPy, SciPy, and OpenCV. All approaches ultimately require OpenCV to be
compiled from source using Xcode Developer Tools. However, depending on the
approach, this task is automated for us by third-party tools in various ways. We will
look at approaches using MacPorts or Homebrew. These tools can potentially do
everything that CMake can do, plus they help us resolve dependencies and separate
our development libraries from the system libraries.

I recommend MacPorts, especially if you want to compile

OpenCV with depth camera support via OpenNI and
SensorKinect. Relevant patches and build scripts, including
some that I maintain, are ready-made for MacPorts. By contrast,
Homebrew does not currently provide a ready-made solution for
compiling OpenCV with depth camera support.

Before proceeding, let's make sure that the Xcode Developer Tools are properly
set up:

1. Download and install Xcode from the Mac App Store or http://connect.
apple.com/. During installation, if there is an option to install Command
Line Tools, select it.
2. Open Xcode and accept the license agreement.
3. A final step is necessary if the installer did not give us the option to install
Command Line Tools. Go to Xcode | Preferences | Downloads and click on
the Install button next to Command Line Tools. Wait for the installation to
finish and quit Xcode.

Now we have the required compilers for any approach.

[8]
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
a school of fish in the river; when we had to rise, and lay out the
seine, no matter at what hour of the day. The fish-master had been
very severe with the hands since he came amongst us, and had
made very free use of a long hickory gad that he sometimes carried
about with him; though at times he would relax his austerity, and
talk quite familiarly with us,—especially with me, whom he perceived
to have some knowledge of the business in which we were engaged.
The truth was, that this man knew nothing of fishing with a seine,
and I had been obliged from the beginning to direct the operations
of laying out and drawing in the seine; though the master was
always very loud and boisterous in giving his commands, and
directing us in what part of the river we should let down the seine.
Having never been accustomed to regular work, or to the pursuit of
any constant course of personal application, the master was
incapable of long continued exertion; and I feel certain that he could
not have been prevailed upon to labor twelve hours each day, for a
year, if in return he had been certain of receiving ten thousand
dollars. Notwithstanding this, he was capable of rousing himself, and
of undergoing any degree of fatigue or privation for a short time,
even for a few days. He had not been trained to habits of industry,
and could not bear the restraints of uniform labor.
We worked hard all night, the first night of my superintendence, and
when the sun rose the next morning, the master had not risen from
his bed. As it was now the usual time of dividing the fish, I called to
him to come and see this business fairly done; but as he did not
come down immediately to the landing, I proceeded to make the
division myself, in as equitable a manner as I could: giving, however,
a full share of large fish to the master. When he came down to us,
and overlooked both the piles of fish—his own and that of my
master—he was so well satisfied with what I had done, that he said,
if he had known that I would do so well for him, he would not have
risen. I was glad to hear this, as it led me to hope that I should be
able to induce him to stay in his cabin during the greater part of the
time; to do which, I was well assured, he felt disposed.
When the night came, the master again told me he should go to
bed, not being well, and desired me to do as I had done the night
before. This night we cooked as many shad as we could all eat; but
were careful to carry, far out into the river, the scales and entrails of
the stolen fish. In the morning I made a division of the fish before I
called the master, and then went and asked him to come and see
what I had done. He was again well pleased, and now proposed to
us all that if we would not let the affair be known to our master, he
would leave us to manage the fishery at night according to our
discretion. To this proposal we all readily agreed, and I received
authority to keep the other hands at work, until the master would go
and get his breakfast. I had now accomplished the object that I had
held very near my heart ever since we began to fish at this place.
From this time to the end of the fishing season, we all lived well, and
did not perform more work than we were able to bear. I was in no
fear of being punished by the fish-master, for he was now at least as
much in my power as I was in his; for if my master had known the
agreement that he had made with us, for the purpose of enabling
himself to sleep all night in his cabin, he would have been deprived
of his situation, and all the profits of his share of the fishery.
There never can be any affinity of feeling between master and slave,
except in some few isolated cases, where the master has treated his
slave in such a manner as to have excited in him strong feelings of
gratitude; or where the slave entertains apprehensions, that by the
death of his master, or by being separated from him in any other
way, he may fall under the power of a more tyrannical ruler, or may
in some shape be worsted by the change. I was never acquainted
with a slave who believed that he violated any rule of morality by
appropriating to himself any thing that belonged to his master, if it
was necessary to his comfort. The master might call it theft, and
brand it with the name of crime; but the slave reasoned differently,
when he took a portion of his master's goods, to satisfy his hunger,
keep himself warm, or to gratify his passion for luxurious enjoyment.
The slave sees his master residing in a spacious mansion, riding in a
fine carriage, and dressed in costly clothes, and attributes the
possession of all these enjoyments to his own labor; whilst he who is
the cause of so much gratification and pleasure to another, is himself
deprived of even the necessary accommodations of human life.
Ignorant men do not and cannot reason logically; and in tracing
things from cause to effect, the slave attributes all that he sees in
possession of his master to his own toil, without taking the trouble
to examine how far the skill, judgment, and economy of his master
may have contributed to the accumulation of the wealth by which his
residence is surrounded. There is, in fact, a mutual dependence
between the master and his slave. The former could not acquire any
thing without the labor of the latter, and the latter would always
remain in poverty without the judgment of the former in directing
labor to a definite and profitable result.
After I had obtained the virtual command of the fishery, I was
careful to awaken the master every morning at sunrise, that he
might be present when the division of the fish was made; and when
the morning cart arrived, that the carter might not report to my
master, that the fish-master was in bed. I had now become
interested in preserving the good opinion of my master in favor of
his agent.
Since my arrival in Carolina I had never enjoyed a full meal of
bacon; and now determined, if possible, to procure such a supply of
that luxury as would enable me and all my fellow-slaves at the
fishery to regale ourselves at pleasure. At this season of the year
boats frequently passed up the river, laden with merchandise and
goods of various kinds, among which were generally large quantities
of salt, intended for curing fish, and for other purposes on the
plantations. These boats also carried bacon and salted pork up the
river, for sale; but as they never moved at night, confining their
navigation to day-light, and as none of them had hitherto stopped
near our landing, we had not met with an opportunity of entering
into a traffic with any of the boat masters. We were not always to be
so unfortunate. One evening, in the second week of the fishing
season, a large keel-boat was seen working up the river about
sundown; and shortly after, came to for the night, on the opposite
side of the river, directly against our landing. We had at the fishery a
small canoe called a punt, about twelve feet long; and when we
went to lay out the seine, for the first haul after night, I attached the
punt to the side of the canoe, and when we had finished letting
down the seine, I left the other hands to work it toward the shore,
and ran over in the punt to the keel-boat. Upon inquiring of the
captain if he had any bacon that he would exchange for shad, he
said, he had a little; but, as the risk he would run in dealing with a
slave was great, I must expect to pay him more than the usual price.
He at length proposed to give me a hundred pounds of bacon for
three hundred shad. This was at least twice as much as the bacon
was worth; but we did not bargain as men generally do, where half
of the bargain is on each side; for here the captain of the keel-boat
settled the terms for both parties. However, he ran the hazard of
being prosecuted for dealing with slaves, which is a very high
offence in Carolina; and I was selling that which, in point of law, did
not belong to me; but to which, nevertheless, I felt in my conscience
that I had a better right than any other person. In support of the
right, which I felt to be on my side in this case, came a keen
appetite for the bacon, which settled the controversy, upon the
question of the morality of this traffic, in my favor. It so happened,
that we made a good haul with our seine this evening, and at the
time I returned to the landing, the men were all on shore, engaged
in drawing in the seine. As soon as we had taken out the fish, we
placed three hundred of them in one of our canoes, and pushed over
to the keel-boat, where the fish were counted out, and the bacon
was received into our craft with all possible despatch. One part of
this small trade exhibited a trait of human character which I think
worthy of being noticed. The captain of the boat was a middle-aged,
thin, sallow man, with long bushy hair; and he looked like one who
valued the opinions of men but little. I expected that he would not
be scrupulous in giving me my full hundred pounds of bacon: but in
this I was mistaken; for he weighed the flitches with great
exactness, in a pair of large steelyards, and gave me good weight.
When the business was ended, and the bacon in my canoe, he told
me, he hoped I was satisfied with him; and assured me, that I
should find the bacon excellent. When I was about pushing from the
boat, he told me in a low voice, though there was no one who could
hear us, except his own people—that he should be down the river
again in about two weeks, when he should be very glad to buy any
produce that I had for sale; adding, "I will give you half as much for
cotton as it is worth in Charleston, and pay you either in money or
groceries, as you may choose. Take care, and do not betray yourself,
and I shall be honest with you."
I was so much rejoiced at being in possession of a hundred pounds
of good flitch bacon, that I had no room in either my head or my
heart for the consideration of this man's notions of honesty, at the
present time; but paddled with all strength for our landing, where
we took the bacon from the canoe, stowed it away in an old salt
barrel, and safely deposited it in a hole dug for the purpose in the
floor of my cabin.
About this time, our allowance of sweet potatoes was withheld from
us altogether, in consequence of the high price paid for this article
by the captains of the keel-boats; for the purpose, as I heard, of
sending them to New York and Philadelphia. Ever since Christmas we
had been permitted to draw, on each Sunday evening, either a peck
of corn, as usual, or half a peck of corn and half a bushel of sweet
potatoes, at our discretion. The half a peck of corn and the half a
bushel of potatoes was worth much more than a peck of corn; but
potatoes were so abundant this year, that they were of little value,
and the saving of corn was an object worth attending to by a large
planter. The boatmen now offered half a dollar a bushel for potatoes,
and we were again restricted to our corn ration.
Notwithstanding the privation of our potatoes, we at the fishery lived
sumptuously, although our master certainly believed that our fare
consisted of corn-bread and river fish, cooked without lard or butter.
It was necessary to be exceedingly cautious in the use of our bacon;
and to prevent the suspicions of the master and others who
frequented our landing, I enjoined our people never to fry any of the
meat, but to boil it all. No one can smell boiled bacon far; but fried
flitch can be smelled a mile by a good nose.
We had two meals every night, one of bacon and the other of fried
shad, which nearly deprived us of all appetite for the breakfasts and
dinners that we prepared in the daytime; consisting of cold corn-
bread without salt, and broiled fresh water fish, without any sort of
seasoning. We spent more than two weeks in this happy mode of
life, unmolested by our master, his son, or the master of the fishery;
except when the latter complained, rather than threatened us,
because we sometimes suffered our seine to float too far down the
river, and get entangled among some roots and brush that lay on the
bottom, immediately below our fishing ground. We now expected,
every evening, to see the return of the boatman who had sold us the
bacon, and the man who was with me in the canoe at the time we
received it, had not forgotten the invitation of the captain to trade
with him in cotton on his return. My fellow-slave was a native of
Virginia, as he told me, and had been sold and brought to Carolina
about ten years before this time. He was a good-natured, kind-
hearted man, and did many acts of benevolence to me, such as one
slave is able to perform for another, and I felt a real affection for
him; but he had adopted the too common rule of moral action, that
there is no harm in a slave robbing his master.
The reader may suppose, from my account of the bacon, that I, too,
had adopted this rule as a part of my creed; but I solemnly declare,
that this was not the case, and that I never deprived any one of all
the masters that I have served, of anything against his consent,
unless it was some kind of food; and that of all I ever took, I am
confident, I have given away more than the half to my fellow-slaves,
whom I knew to be equally needy with myself.
The man who had been with me at the keel-boat told me one day,
that he had laid a plan by which we could get thirty or forty dollars,
if I would join him in the execution of his project. Thirty or forty
dollars was a large sum of money to me. I had never possessed so
much money at one time in my life; and I told him that I was willing
to do anything by which we could obtain such a treasure. He then
told me, that he knew where the mule and cart, that were used by
the man who carried away our fish, were kept at night; and that he
intended to set out on the first dark night, and go to the plantation—
harness the mule to the cart—go to the cotton-gin house—put two
bags of cotton into the cart—bring them to a thicket of small pines
that grew on the river bank, a short distance below the fishery, and
leave them there until the keel-boat should return. All that he
desired of me was, to make some excuse for his absence, to the
other hands, and assist him to get his cotton into the canoe, at the
coming of the boat.
I disliked the whole scheme, both on account of its iniquity and of
the danger which attended it; but my companion was not to be
discouraged by all the arguments which I could use against it, and
said, if I would not participate in it, he was determined to undertake
it alone: provided I would not inform against him. To this I said
nothing; but he had so often heard me express my detestation of
one slave betraying another, that I presume he felt easy on that
score. The next night but one after this conversation was very dark,
and when we went to lay out the seine after night, Nero was
missing. The other people inquired of me if I knew where he was,
and when I replied in the negative, little more was said on the
subject; it being common for the slaves to absent themselves from
their habitations at night, and if the matter is not discovered by the
overseer or master, nothing is ever said of it by the slaves. The other
people supposed that, in this instance, Nero had gone to see a
woman whom he lived with as his wife, on a plantation a few miles
down the river; and were willing to work a little harder to permit him
to enjoy the pleasure of seeing his family. He returned before day,
and said he had been to see his wife, which satisfied the curiosity of
our companions. The very next evening after Nero's absence, the
keel-boat descended the river, came down on our side, hailed us at
the fishery, and, drawing in to the shore below our landing, made
her ropes fast among the young pines of which I have spoken
above. After we made our first haul, I missed Nero; but he returned
to us before we had laid out the seine, and told us that he had been
in the woods to collect some light-wood—dry, resinous pine—which
he brought on his shoulder. When the morning came, the keel-boat
was gone, and every thing wore the ordinary aspect about our
fishery; but when the man came with the mule and the cart to take
away the fish, he told us that there was great trouble on the
plantation. The overseer had discovered that some one had stolen
two bags of cotton the last night, and all the hands were undergoing
an examination on the subject. The slaves on the plantation, one
and all, denied having any knowledge of the matter, and, as there
was no evidence against any one, the overseer threatened, at the
time he left the quarter, to whip every hand on the estate, for the
purpose of making them discover who the thief was.
The slaves on the plantation differed in opinion as to the perpetrator
of this theft; but the greater number concurred in charging it upon a
free negro man, named Ishmael, who lived in a place called the
White Oak Woods, and followed making ploughs and harrow frames.
He also made handles for hoes, and the frame work of cart bodies.
This man was generally reputed a thief for a great distance round
the country, and the black people charged him with stealing the
cotton on no other evidence than his general bad character. The
overseer, on the other hand, expressed his opinion without
hesitation, which was, that the cotton had been stolen by some of
the people of the plantation, and sold to a poor white man, who
resided at the distance of three miles back in the pine woods, and
was believed to have dealt with slaves, as a receiver of their stolen
goods, for many years.
This white man was one of a class of poor cottagers. The house, or
cabin, in which he resided, was built of small poles of the yellow
pine, with the bark remaining on them; the roof was of clap-boards
of pine, and the chimney was made of sticks and mud, raised to the
height of eight or ten feet. The appearance of the man and his wife
was such as one might expect to find in such a dwelling. The lowest
poverty had, through life, been the companion of these poor people,
of which their clayey complexions, haggard figures, and tattered
garments gave the strongest proof. It appeared to me that the state
of destitution in which these people lived, afforded very convincing
evidence that they were not in possession of the proceeds of the
stolen goods of any person. I had often been at the cabin of this
man in my trapping expeditions, the previous autumn and winter;
and I believe the overseer regarded the circumstance, that black
people often called at his house, as conclusive evidence that he held
criminal intercourse with them. However this might be, the overseer
determined to search the premises of this harmless forester, whom
he resolved, beforehand, to treat as a guilty man.
It being known that I was well acquainted with the woods in the
neighborhood of the cabin, I was sent for, to leave the fishery, and
come to assist in making search for the lost bags of cotton—perhaps
it was also believed that I was in the secrets of the suspected house.
It was not thought prudent to trust any of the hands on the
plantation in making the intended search, as they were considered
the principal thieves; whilst we, of the fishery, against whom no
suspicion had arisen, were required to give our assistance in
ferreting out the perpetrators of an offence of the highest grade that
can be committed by a slave on a cotton estate.
Before leaving the fishery, I advised the master to be very careful
not to let the overseer, or my master know, that he had left us to
manage the fishery at night, by ourselves; since, as a theft had been
committed, it might possibly be charged upon him, if it were known
that he had allowed us so much liberty. I said this to put the master
on his guard against surprise; and to prevent him from saying
anything that might turn the attention of the overseer to the hands
at the fishery; for I knew that if punishment were to fall amongst us,
it would be quite as likely to reach the innocent as the guilty—
besides, though I was innocent of the bags of cotton, I was guilty of
the bacon, and, however I might make distinctions between the
moral turpitude of the two cases, I knew that if discovered, they
would both be treated alike.
When I arrived at the quarter, whither I repaired, in obedience to
the orders I received, I found the overseer with my master's eldest
son, and a young white man, who had been employed to repair the
cotton-gin, waiting for me. I observed when I came near the
overseer, that he looked at me very attentively, and afterwards called
my young master aside, and spoke to him in a tone of voice too low
to be heard by me. The white gentlemen then mounted their horses,
and set off by the road for the cabin of the white man. I had orders
to take a short route, through the woods and across a swamp, by
which I could reach the cabin as soon as the overseer.
The attentive examination that the overseer had given me, caused
me to feel uneasy, although I could not divine the cause of his
scrutiny, nor of the subject of the short conversation between him
and my young master. By traveling at a rapid pace, I arrived at the
cabin of the suspected man before the gentlemen, but thought it
prudent not to approach it before they came up, lest it might be
imagined that I had gone in to give information to the occupants of
the danger that threatened them.
Here I had a hard struggle with my conscience, which seemed to say
to me, that I ought at once to disclose all I knew concerning the lost
bags of cotton, for the purpose of saving these poor people from the
terror that they must necessarily feel at the sight of those who were
coming to accuse them of a great crime, perhaps from the afflictions
and sufferings attendant upon a prosecution in a court of justice.
These reflections were cut short by the arrival of the party of
gentlemen, who passed me where I sat, at the side of the path, with
no other notice than a simple command of the overseer to come on.
I followed them into the cabin, where we found the man and his
wife, with two little children, eating roasted potatoes.
The overseer saluted this family by telling them that we had come to
search the house for stolen cotton. That it was well known that he
had long been dealing with negroes, and they were now determined
to bring him to punishment. I was then ordered to tear up the floor
of the cabin, whilst the overseer mounted into the loft. I found
nothing under the floor, and the overseer had no better success
above. The wife was then advised to confess where her husband
had concealed the cotton, to save herself from being brought in as a
party to the affair; but this poor woman protested with tears that
they were totally ignorant of the whole matter. Whilst the wife was
interrogated, the father stood without his own door, trembling with
fear, but, as I could perceive, indignant with rage.
The overseer, who was fluent in the use of profane language,
exerted the highest degree of his vulgar eloquence upon these
harmless people, whose only crime was their poverty, and whose
weakness alone had invited the ruthless aggression of their powerful
and rich neighbors.
Finding nothing in the house, the gentlemen set out to scour the
woods around the cabin, and commanded me to take the lead in
tracing out tree tops and thickets, where it was most likely that the
stolen cotton might be found. Our search was in vain, as I knew it
would be beforehand; but when weary of ranging in the woods, the
gentlemen again returned to the cabin, which we now found without
inhabitants. The alarm caused by our visit, and the manner in which
the gentlemen had treated this lonely family, had caused them to
abandon their dwelling, and seek safety in flight. The door of the
house was closed and fastened with a string to a nail in the post of
the door. After calling several times for the fugitives, and receiving
no answer, the door was kicked open by my young master; the few
articles of miserable furniture that the cabin contained, including a
bed, made of flags, were thrown into a heap in the corner, and fire
was set to the dwelling by the overseer.
We remained until the flames had reached the roof of the cabin,
when the gentlemen mounted their horses and set off for home,
ordering me to return by the way that I had come. When we again
reached the house of my master, several gentlemen of the
neighborhood had assembled, drawn together by common interest
that is felt amongst the planters to punish theft, and particularly a
theft of cotton in the bag. My young master related to his neighbors,
with great apparent satisfaction, the exploits of the morning; said he
had routed one receiver of stolen goods out of the country, and that
all others of his character ought to be dealt with in the same
manner. In this opinion all the gentlemen present concurred, and
after much conversation on the subject, it was agreed to call a
general meeting for the purpose of devising the best, surest and
most peaceful method of removing from the country the many white
men who, residing in the district without property, or without interest
in preserving the morals of the slaves, were believed to carry on an
unlawful and criminal traffic with the negroes, to the great injury of
the planters in general, and of the masters of the slaves who dealt
with the offenders in particular.
I was present at this preliminary consultation, which took place at
my master's cotton-gin, whither the gentlemen had repaired for the
purpose of looking at the place where the cotton had been removed.
So many cases of this forbidden traffic between the slaves and these
"white negro dealers," as they were termed, were here related by
the different gentlemen, and so many white men were referred to by
name as being concerned in this criminal business, that I began to
suppose the losses of the planters in this way must be immense.
This conference continued until I had totally forgotten the
scrutinizing look that I had received from our overseer at the time I
came up from the fishery in the morning; but the period had now
come when I again was to be reminded of this circumstance, for on
a sudden the overseer called me to come forward and let the
gentlemen see me. I again felt a sort of vague and undefinable
apprehension that no good was to grow out of this examination of
my person, but a command of our overseer was not to be
disobeyed. After looking at my face, with a kind of leer or side
glance, one of the gentlemen, who was an entire stranger to me,
and whom I had never before seen, said, "Boy, you appear to live
well; how much meat does your master allow you in a week?" I was
almost totally confounded at the name of meat, and felt the blood
rush to my heart, but nevertheless forced a sort of smile upon my
face, and replied, "My master has been very kind to all his people of
late, but has not allowed us any meat for some weeks. We have
plenty of good bread, and abundance of river fish, which, together
with the heads and roes of the shad that we have salted at the
landing, makes a very excellent living for us; though if master would
please to give us a little meat now and then, we should be very
thankful for it."
This speech, which contained all the eloquence I was master of at
the time, seemed to produce some effect in my favor, for the
gentleman said nothing in reply, until the overseer, rising from a
board on which he had been sitting, came close up to me and said,
"Charles, you need not tell lies about it; you have been eating meat,
I know you have, no negro could look as fat, and sleek, and black,
and greasy, as you, if he had nothing to eat but corn bread and river
chubs. You do not look at all as you did before you went to the
fishery; and all the hands on the plantation have had as many chubs
and other river fish as they could eat, as well as you, and yet they
are as poor as snakes in comparison with you. Come, tell the truth,
let us know where you get the meat that you have been eating, and
you shall not be whipped." I begged the overseer and the other
gentlemen not to ridicule or make sport of me, because I was a poor
slave, and was obliged to live on bread and fresh water fish; and
concluded this second harangue by expressing my thankfulness to
God Almighty, for giving me such good health and strength as to
enable me to do my work, and look so well as I did upon such poor
fare; adding, that if I only had as much bacon as I could eat, they
would soon see a man of a different appearance from that which I
now exhibited. "None of your palaver," rejoined the overseer—"Why,
I smell the meat in you this moment. Do I not see the grease as it
runs out of your face?" I was by this time in a profuse sweat, caused
by the anxiety of my feelings, and simply said, "Master sees me
sweat, I suppose."
All the gentlemen present then declared, with one accord, that I
must have been living on meat for a long time, as no negro, who
had no meat to eat, could look as I did; and one of the company
advised the overseer to whip me, and compel me to confess the
truth. I have no doubt but this advice would have been practically
followed, had it not been for a happy though dangerous suggestion
of my own mind, at this moment. It was no other than a proposal on
my part, that I should be taken to the landing, and if all the people
there did not look as well and as much like meat-eaters as I did,
then I would agree to be whipped in any way the gentlemen should
deem expedient. This offer on my part was instantly accepted by the
gentlemen, and it was agreed among them that they would all go to
the landing with the overseer, partly for the purpose of seeing me
condemned by the judgment to which I had voluntarily chosen to
submit myself, and partly for the purpose of seeing my master's new
fishery.
We were quickly at the landing, though four miles distant; and I now
felt confident that I should escape the dangers that beset me,
provided the master of the fishery did not betray his own negligence
and lead himself, as well as others, into new troubles.
Though on foot, I was at the landing as soon as the gentlemen, and
was first to announce to the master the feats we had performed in
the course of the day, adding, with great emphasis, and even
confidence in my manner, "You know, master fish-master, whether
we have had any meat to eat here or not. If we had meat here,
would not you see it? You have been up with us every night, and
know that we have not been allowed to take even shad, let alone
having meat to eat." The fish-master supported me in all I said;
declared we had been good boys—had worked night and day, of his
certain knowledge, as he had been with us all night and every night
since we began to fish. That he had not allowed us to eat anything
but fresh water fish, and the heads and roes of the shad that were
salted at the landing. As to meat, he said he was willing to be
qualified on a cart-load of Testaments that there had not been a
pound at the landing since the commencement of the season,
except that which he had in his own cabin. I had now acquired
confidence, and desired the gentlemen to look at Nero and the other
hands, all of whom has as much the appearance of bacon eaters as
myself. This was the truth, especially with regard to one of the men,
who was much fatter than I was.
The gentlemen now began to doubt the evidence of their own
senses, which they had held infallible heretofore. I showed the fine
fish that we had to eat; cat, perch, mullets, and especially two large
pikes, that had been caught to-day, and assured them that upon
such fare as this, men must needs get fat. I now perceived that
victory was with me for once. All the gentlemen faltered, hesitated,
and began to talk of other affairs, except the overseer, who still ran
about the landing, swearing and scratching his head, and saying it
was strange that we were so fat, whilst the hands on the plantation
were as lean as sand-hill cranes. He was obliged to give the affair
over. He was no longer supported by my young master and his
companions, all of whom congratulated themselves upon a discovery
so useful and valuable to the planting interest; and all determined to
provide, as soon as possible, a proper supply of fresh river fish for
their hands.
The two bales of cotton were never once named, and, I suppose,
were not thought of by the gentlemen, when at the landing; and this
was well for Nero; for such was the consternation and terror into
which he was thrown by the presence of the gentlemen, and their
inquiries concerning our eating of meat, that the sweat rolled off him
like rain from the plant neverwet; his countenance was wild and
haggard, and his knees shook like the wooden spring of a wheat-fan.
I believe, that if they had charged him at once with stealing the
cotton, he would have confessed the deed.
 CHAPTER XII.
After this the fishing season passed off without anything having
happened, worthy of being noticed here. When we left the fishery
and returned to the plantation, which was after the middle of April,
the corn and cotton had been planted, and the latter had been
replanted. I was set to plough, with two mules for my team; and
having never been accustomed to ploughing with these animals, I
had much trouble with them at first. My master owned more than
forty mules, and at this season of the year, they were all at work in
the cotton field, used instead of horses for drawing ploughs. Some
of the largest were hitched single to a plough; but the smallest were
coupled together.
On the whole, the fishery had been a losing affair with me; for
although I had lived better at the landing than I usually did at the
plantation, yet I had been compelled to work all the time, by night
and by day, including Sunday, for my master; by which I had lost all
that I could have earned for my own benefit, had I been on the
plantation. I had now become so well acquainted with the rules of
the plantation and the customs of the country where I lived, that I
experienced less distress than I did at my first coming to the South.
We now received a shad every Sunday evening with our peck of
corn. The fish were those that I had caught in the spring, and were
tolerably preserved. In addition to all this, each one of the hands
now received a pint of vinegar every week. This vinegar was a great
comfort to me. As the weather became hot, I gathered lettuce and
other salads, from my garden in the woods; which, with the vinegar
and bread, furnished me many a cheerful meal. The vinegar had
been furnished to us by our master, more out of regard to our health
than to our comfort, but it greatly promoted both.
The affairs of the plantation now went on quietly, until after the
cotton had been ploughed and hoed the first time, after replanting.
The working of the cotton crop is not disagreeable labor—no more
so than the culture of corn—but we were called upon to perform a
kind of labor, than which none can be more toilsome to the body or
dangerous to the health.
I have elsewhere informed the reader that my master was a
cultivator of rice as well as of cotton. Whilst I was at the fishery in
the spring, thirty acres of swamp land had been cleared off,
ploughed and planted in rice. The water had now been turned off
the plants, and the field was to be ploughed and hoed. When we
were taken to the rice field, the weather was very hot, and the
ground was yet muddy and wet. The ploughs were to be dragged
through the wet soil, and the young rice had to be cleaned of
weeds, by the hand, and hilled up with the hoe.
It is the common opinion, that no stranger can work a week in a rice
swamp, at this season of the year, without becoming sick; and all
the new hands, three in number, besides myself, were taken ill
within the first five days after we had entered this field. The other
three were removed to the sick room; but I did not go there,
choosing rather to remain at the quarter, where I was my own
master, except that the doctor, who called to see me, took a large
quantity of blood from my arm, and compelled me to take a dose of
some sort of medicine that made me very sick, and caused me to
vomit violently. This happened on the second day of my illness, and
from this time I recovered slowly, but was not able to go to the field
again for more than a week. Here it is but justice to my master to
say, that during all the time of my illness, some one came from the
great house every day to inquire after me, and to offer me some
kind of light and cool refreshment. I might have gone to the sick
room at any time, if I had chosen to do so.
An opinion generally prevails among the people of both colors, that
the drug copperas is very poisonous—and perhaps it may be so, if
taken in large quantities—but the circumstance, that it is used in
medicine, seems to forbid the notion of its poisonous qualities. I
believe copperas was mingled with the potion the doctor gave me.
Some overseers keep copperas by them, as a medicine, to be
administered to the hands whenever they become sick; but this I
take to be a bad practice, for although, in some cases, this drug may
be very efficacious, it certainly should be administered by a more
skillful hand than that of an overseer. It, however, has the effect of
deterring the people from complaining of illness, until they are no
longer able to work; for it is the most nauseous and sickening
medicine that was ever taken into the stomach. Ignorant, or
malicious overseer may, and often do, misapply it, as was the case
with our overseer, when he compelled poor Lydia to take a draught
of its solution. After the restoration of my health, I resumed my
accustomed labor in the field, and continued it without intermission,
until I left this plantation.
We had this year, as a part of our crop, ten acres of indigo. This
plant is worked nearly after the manner of rice, except that it is
planted on high and dry ground, whilst the rice is always cultivated
in low swamps, where the ground may be inundated with water; but
notwithstanding its location on dry ground, the culture of indigo is
not less unpleasant than that of rice. When the rice is ripe, and
ready for the sickle, it is no longer disagreeable; but when the indigo
is ripe and ready to cut, the troubles attendant upon it have only
commenced.
The indigo plant bears more resemblance to the weed called wild
indigo, which is common in the woods of Pennsylvania, than to any
other herb with which I am acquainted.
The root of the indigo plant is long and slender, and emits a scent
somewhat like that of parsley. From the root issues a single stem,
straight, hard, and slender, covered with a bark, a little cracked on
its surface, of a gray color towards the bottom, green in the middle,
reddish at the extremity, and without the appearance of pith in the
inside. The leaves ranged in pairs around the stalk, are of an oval
form—smooth, soft to the touch, furrowed above, and of a deep
green on the under side. The upper parts of the plant are loaded
with small flowers, destitute of smell. Each flower changes into a
pod, enclosing seed.
This plant thrives best in a rich, moist soil. The seeds are black, very
small, and sowed in straight drills. This crop requires very careful
culture, and must be kept free from every kind of weeds and grass.
It ripens within less than three months from the time it is sown.
When it begins to flower, the top is cut off, and, as new flowers
appear, the plant is again pruned, until the end of the season.
Indigo impoverishes land more rapidly than almost any other crop,
and the plant must be gathered in with great caution, for fear of
shaking off the valuable farina that lies in the leaves. When
gathered, it is thrown into the steeping vat—a large tub filled with
water—here it undergoes a fermentation, which, in twenty-four
hours at farthest, is completed. A cock is then turned to let the
water run into the second tub, called the mortar, or pounding tub:
the steeping vat is then cleaned out, that fresh plants may be
thrown in, and thus the work is continued without interruption. The
water in the pounding tub is stirred with wooden buckets, with holes
in their bottoms, for several days; and, after the sediment contained
in the water has settled to the bottom of the tub, the water is let off,
and the sediment, which is the indigo of commerce, is gathered into
bags, and hung up to drain. It is afterwards pressed, and laid away
to dry in cakes, and then packed in chests for market.
Washing at the tubs is exceedingly unpleasant, both on account of
the filth and the stench arising from the decomposition of the plants.
In the early part of June, our shad, that each one had been used to
receive, was withheld from us, and we no longer received any thing
but the peck of corn and pint of vinegar. This circumstance, in a
community less severely disciplined than ours, might have procured
murmurs; but to us it was only announced by the fact of the fish not
being distributed to us on Sunday evening.
This was considered a fortunate season by our people. There had
been no exemplary punishment inflicted amongst us for several
months; we had escaped entirely upon the occasion of the stolen
bags of cotton, though nothing less was to have been looked for, on
that occurrence, than a general whipping of the whole gang.
There was more or less of whipping amongst us every week;
frequently one was flogged every evening, over and above the
punishments that followed on each settlement day; but these
chastisements, which seldom exceeded ten or twenty lashes, were
of little import. I was careful, for my own part, to conform to all the
regulations of the plantation.
When I no longer received my fish from the overseer, I found it
necessary again to resort to my own expedients for the purpose of
procuring something in the shape of animal food, to add to my
bread and greens.
I had, by this time, become well acquainted with the woods and
swamps for several miles round our plantation; and this being the
season when the turtles came upon the land, to deposit their eggs, I
availed myself of it, and going out one Sunday morning, caught, in
the course of the day, by traveling cautiously around the edges of
the swamps, ten snapping turtles, four of which were very large. As
I caught these creatures, I tied each one with hickory bark, and
hung it up to the bough of a tree, so that I could come and carry it
home at my leisure.
I afterwards carried my turtles home, and put them into a hole that I
dug in the ground, four or five feet deep, and secured the sides by
driving small pieces of split timber into the ground, quite round the
circumference of the hole, the upper ends of the timber standing out
above the ground. Into this hole I poured water at pleasure, and
kept my turtles until I needed them.
On the next Sunday, I again went to the swamps to search for
turtles; but as the period of laying their eggs had nearly passed, I
had poor success to-day, only taking two turtles of the species called
skill-pots—a kind of large terrapin, with a speckled back and red
belly.
This day, when I was three or four miles from home, in a very
solitary part of the swamps, I heard the sound of bells, similar to
those which wagoners place on the shoulders of their horses. At
first, the noise of bells of this kind, in a place where they were so
unexpected, alarmed me, as I could not imagine who or what it was
that was causing these bells to ring. I was standing near a pond of
water, and listening attentively; I thought the bells were moving in
the woods, and coming toward me. I therefore crouched down upon
the ground, under cover of a cluster of small bushes that were near
me, and lay, not free from disquietude, to await the near approach
of these mysterious bells.
Sometimes they were quite silent for a minute or more at a time,
and then again would jingle quick, but not loud. They were evidently
approaching me; and at length I heard footsteps distinctly in the
leaves, which lay dry upon the ground. A feeling of horror seized me
at this moment, for I now recollected that I was on the verge of the
swamp, near which the vultures and carrion crows had mangled the
living bodies of the two murderers; and my terror was not abated,
when, a moment after, I saw come from behind a large tree the
form of a brawny, famished-looking black man, entirely naked, with
his hair matted and shaggy, his eyes wild and rolling, and bearing
over his head something in the form of an arch, elevated three feet
above his hair, beneath the top of which were suspended the bells,
three in number, whose sound had first attracted my attention. Upon
a closer examination of this frightful figure, I perceived that it wore a
collar of iron about its neck, with a large padlock pendant from
behind, and carried in its hand a long staff, with an iron spear in one
end. The staff, like every thing else belonging to this strange
spectre, was black. It slowly approached within ten paces of me, and
stood still.
The sun was now down, and the early twilight produced by the
gloom of the heavy forest, in the midst of which I was, added
approaching darkness to heighten my dismay. My heart was in my
mouth; all the hairs of my head started from their sockets; I seemed
to be rising from my hiding place into the open air in spite of myself,
and I gasped for breath.
The black apparition moved past me, went to the water and kneeled
down. The forest re-echoed with the sound of the bells, and their
dreadful peals filled the deepest recesses of the swamps, as their
bearer drank the water of the pond, in which I thought I heard his
irons hiss, when they came in contact with it. I felt confident that I
was now in the immediate presence of an inhabitant of a nether and
fiery world, who had been permitted to escape, for a time, from the
place of torment, and come to revisit the scenes of his former
crimes. I now gave myself up for lost, without other aid than my
own, and began to pray aloud to heaven to protect me. At the sound
of my voice, the supposed evil one appeared to be scarcely less
alarmed than I was. He sprang to his feet, and, at a single bound,
rushed middeep into the water, then turning, he besought me in a
suppliant and piteous tone of voice, to have mercy upon him, and
not carry him back to his master.
The suddenness with which we pass from the extreme of one
passion, to the utmost bounds of another, is inconceivable, and must
be assigned to the catalogue of unknown causes and effects, unless
we suppose the human frame to be an involuntary machine,
operated upon by surrounding objects which give it different and
contrary impulses, as a ball is driven to and fro by the batons of
boys, when they play in troops upon a common. I had no sooner
heard a human voice than all my fears fled, as a spark that ascends
from a heap of burning charcoal, and vanishes to nothing.
I at once perceived, that the object that had well nigh deprived me
of my reason, so far from having either the will or the power to
injure me, was only a poor destitute African negro, still more
wretched and helpless than myself.
Rising from the bushes, I now advanced to the water side, and
desired him to come out without fear, and to be assured that if I
could render him any assistance, I would do it most cheerfully. As to
carrying him back to his master, I was more ready to ask help to
deliver me from my own, than to give aid to any one in forcing him
back to his.
We now went to a place in the forest, where the ground was, for
some distance, clear of trees, and where the light of the sun was yet
so strong, that every object could be seen. My new friend now
desired me to look at his back, which was seamed and ridged with
scars of the whip, and the hickory, from the pole of his neck to the
lower extremity of the spine. The natural color of the skin had
disappeared, and was succeeded by a streaked and speckled
appearance of dusky white and pale flesh-color, scarcely any of the
original, black remaining. The skin of this man's back had been again
and again cut away by the thong, and renewed by the hand of
nature, until it was grown fast to the flesh, and felt hard and turbid.
He told me his name was Paul; that he was a native of Congo, in
Africa, that he had left an aged mother, a widow, at home, as also a
wife and four children; that it had been his misfortune to fall into the
hands of a master, who was frequently drunk, and whose temper
was so savage, that his chief delight appeared to consist in whipping
and torturing his slaves, of whom he owned near twenty; but
through some unaccountable caprice, he had contracted a particular
dislike against Paul, whose life he now declared to me was
insupportable. He had then been wandering in the woods, more
than three weeks, with no other subsistence than the land tortoises,
frogs, and other reptiles that he had taken in the woods, and along
the shores of the ponds, with the aid of his spear. He had not been
able to take any of the turtles in the laying season, because the
noise of his bells frightened them, and they always escaped to the
water before he could catch them. He had found many eggs, which
he had eaten raw, having no fire, nor any means of making fire, to
cook his food. He had been afraid to travel much in the middle of
the day, lest the sound of his bells should be heard by some one,
who would make his master acquainted with the place of his
concealment. The only periods when he ventured to go in search of
food, were early in the morning, before people could have time to
leave their homes and reach the swamp: or late in the evening, after
those who were in pursuit of him had gone to their dwellings for the
night.
This man spoke our language imperfectly, but possessed a sound
and vigorous understanding, and reasoned with me upon the
propriety of destroying a life which was doomed to continual
distress. He informed me that he had first run away from his master
more than two years ago, after being whipped with long hickory
switches until he fainted. That he concealed himself in a swamp, at
that time, ten or fifteen miles from this place, for more than six
months, but was finally betrayed by a woman whom he sometimes
visited; that when taken, he was again whipped until he was not
able to stand, and had a heavy block of wood chained to one foot,
which he was obliged to drag after him at his daily labor, for more
than three months, when he found an old file, with which he cut the
irons from his ancle, and again escaped to the woods, but was
retaken within little more than a week after his flight, by two men
who were looking after their cattle, and came upon him in the woods
where he was asleep.
On being returned to his master, he was again whipped, and then
the iron collar that he now wore, with the iron rod extending from
one shoulder over his head to the other, with the bells fastened at
the top of the arch, were put upon him. Of these irons he could not
divest himself, and wore them constantly from that time to the
present.
I had no instruments with me to enable me to release Paul from his
manacles, and all I could do for him was to desire him to go with me
to the place where I had left my terrapins, which I gave to him,
together with all the eggs that I had found to-day. I also caused him
to lie down, and having furnished myself with a flint-stone, (many of
which lay in the sand near the edge of the pond) and a handful of
dry moss, I succeeded in striking fire from the iron collar, and made
a fire of sticks, upon which he could roast the terrapins and the
eggs. It was now quite dark, and I was full two miles from my road,
with no path to guide me towards home, but the small traces made
in the woods by the cattle.
I advised Paul to bear his misfortunes as well as he could, until the
next Sunday, when I would return and bring with me a file, and
other things necessary to the removal of his fetters.
I now set out alone, to make my way home, not without some little
feeling of trepidation, as I passed along in the dark shade of the
pine trees, and thought of the terrific deeds that had been done in
these woods.
This was the period of the full moon, which now rose and cast her
brilliant rays through the tops of the trees that overhung my way,
and enveloped my path in a gloom more cheerless than the
obscurity of total darkness. The path I traveled led by sinuosities
around the margin of the swamp, and finally ended at the extremity
of the cart-road terminating at the spot where David and Hardy had
been given alive for food to vultures; and over this ground I was
now obliged to pass, unless I chose to turn far to the left, through
the pathless forest, and make my way to the high road near the spot
where the lady had been torn from her horse. I hated the idea of
acknowledging to my own heart, that I was a coward, and dared not
look upon the bones of a murderer at midnight; and there was little
less of awe attached to the notion of visiting the ground where the
ghost of the murdered woman was reported to wander in the
moonbeams, than in visiting the scene where diabolical crimes had
been visited by fiend-like punishment.
My opinion is, that there is no one who is not at times subject to a
sensation approaching fear, when placed in situations similar to that
in which I found myself this night. I did not believe that those who
had passed the dark line, which separates the living from the dead,
could again return to the earth, either for good or for evil; but that
solemn foreboding of the heart which directs the minds of all men to
a contemplation of the just judgment, which a superior, and
unknown power, holds in reservation for the deeds of this life, filled
my soul with a dread conception of the unutterable woes which a
righteous and unerring tribunal must award to the blood-stained
spirits of the two men whose lives had been closed in such
unspeakable torment by the side of the path I was now treading.
The moon had risen high above the trees and shone with a clear and
cloudless light; the whole firmament of heaven was radiant with the
lustre of a mild and balmy summer evening. Save only the droppings
of the early dew from the lofty branches of the trees into the water,
which lay in shallow pools on my right, and the light trampling of my
own footsteps, the stillness of night pervaded the lonely wastes
around me. But there is a deep melancholy in the sound of the
heavy drop as it meets the bosom of the wave in a dense forest at
night, that revives in the memory the recollection of the days of
other years, and fills the heart with sadness.
I was now approaching the unhallowed ground where lay the
remains of the remorseless and guilty dead, who had gone to their
final account, reeking in their sins, unatoned, unblest and unwept.
Already I saw the bones, whitened by the rain and bleached in the
sun, lying scattered and dispersed, a leg here and an arm there,
while a scull with the under jaw in its place, retaining all its teeth,
grinned a ghastly laugh, with its front full in the beams of the moon,
which, falling into the vacant sockets of the eye-balls, reflected a
pale shadow from these deserted caverns, and played in twinkling
lustre upon the bald and skinless forehead.
In a moment, the night-breeze agitated the leaves of the wood and
moaned in dreary sighs through the lofty pine tops; the gale shook
the forest in the depth of its solitudes: a cloud swept across the
moon, and her light disappeared; a flock of carrion crows disturbed
in their roosts, flapped their wings and fluttered over my head; and
a wolf, who had been knawing the dry bones, greeted the darkness
with a long and dismal howl.
I felt the blood chill in my veins, and all my joints shuddered, as if I
had been smitten by electricity. At least a minute elapsed before I
recovered the power of self-government. I hastened to fly from a
place devoted to crime, where an evil genius presided in darkness
over a fell assembly of howling wolves, and blood-snuffing vultures.
When I arrived at the quarter, all was quiet. The inhabitants of this
mock-village were wrapped in forgetfulness; and I stole silently into
my little loft and joined my neighbors in their repose. Experience had
made me so well acquainted with the dangers that beset the life of a
slave, that I determined, as a matter of prudence, to say nothing to
any one of the adventures of this Sunday, but went to work on
Monday morning, at the summons of the overseer's horn, as if
nothing unusual had occurred. In the course of the week I often
thought of the forlorn and desponding African, who had so terrified
me in the woods, and who seemed so grateful for the succor I gave
him. I felt anxious to become better acquainted with this man, who
possessed knowledge superior to the common race of slaves, and
manifested a moral courage in the conversation that I had with him,
worthy of a better fate than that to which fortune had consigned
him. On the following Sunday, having provided myself with a large
file, which I procured from the blacksmith's shop, belonging to the
plantation, I again repaired to the place, at the side of the swamp,
where I had first seen the figure of this ill-fated man. I expected that
he would be in waiting for me at the appointed place, as I had
promised him that I would certainly come again, at this time: but on
arriving at the spot where I had left him, I saw no sign of any
person. The remains of the fire I had kindled were here, and it
seemed that the fire had been kept up for several days, by the
quantity of ashes that lay in a heap, surrounded by numerous small
brands. The impressions of human feet were thickly disposed around
this decayed fire: and the bones of the terrapins that I had given to
Paul, as well as the skeletons of many frogs, were scattered upon
the ground, but there was nothing that showed that any one had
visited this spot, since the fall of the last rain, which I now
recollected had taken place on the previous Thursday. From this
circumstance I concluded, that Paul had relieved himself of his irons
and gone to seek concealment in some other place, or that his
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebookname.com