last resting-place which I have prepared for them in the walled enclosure at the old homestead.

Visitant. What do you think we all had better do in Georgia, take the oath or not?

Prisoner. Conform to the existing order, accept the issues of the war; take things as you find them, and do the best you can with them as they arise. There is nothing in the oath that any man ought to hesitate in swearing to now that the Confederacy has failed, except what relates to the Emancipation Proclamation and the laws of Congress on the subjects alluded to therein. But these are the results of the war; conformity follows as a matter of course. Swearing conformity does not add to the obligation that most men would feel they had incurred in accepting the issues without the oath. Slavery is abolished. Let every good citizen abide by this fact. Let every one who has had slaves do the best he can with them, working to their future interest as well as to his own. Let every suggestion as to the best policy in regard to the relation hereafter to be maintained between the races be listened to, and the wisest and most judicious adopted. If one experiment fails, let another be tried, and let the future, with honest exertions on the part of all for the best, be left to take care of itself. In this way, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Let no evils be unnecessarily anticipated, but let all have firm faith in God that all things will work out right in the end, whether it be according to their liking or not.

Visitant. Have you as strong confidence as ever in Democratic institutions? Do not late events shake your old ideas?

Prisoner. Not in the least. I still have unshaken

*Oath of Allegiance to the United States, prescribed in Johnson's Amnesty Proclamation.

confidence in the people under the providence of God. They do not always do right. The late horrible war on both sides may be attributed to considerable extent to popular passions spurred to excess; but reaction will come sooner or later. I have strong hopes that, after this generation shall have passed away, if not before, a new order will arise, from which still further progress in civilization will be made and a still higher and grander career entered upon by the people of this continent. The people in their passion often vibrate from one extreme to another until they settle down at the right point. What will be the state of things in twenty-five years on questions now agitating the public mind and which have produced so much suffering, desolation, and ruin, no one can predict. If the people of the United States can be kept true to the principles of their Constitution, all will yet be well. That they will prove true when the passions of the times have passed away with this generation, I cannot permit myself to doubt. I retain my confidence and faith, unshaken and undiminished by anything that has happened yet, in the people and their capacity for self-government. I have never believed that progress and civilization can be effected by arms. Reason and Justice are the principles through which reformations are to be made and by which all real and true progress is to be effected. A worse ordeal than any they have experienced may be in store for this generation, and yet a grand future may await and award that generation coming after. What shall be the form of our resurrected society, we know not; but hope, sustained by reason, looks forward to one on a higher, better, and grander scale. To this end, at least, I look and hope-though my eyes shall never see it -- provided the people — the

white people, I mean - be always left to govern themselves and provided they do not surrender their power. [Here, the Visitant, with countenance betokening deep

thought, and without another word, vanished through the window.]

Took short walk, but was driven in by another shower. Lieut. W. gave the name of the gentleman who offered any assistance I might need in funds - Benjamin F. Nourse, of Boston; and of the man who put the crystal in my watch - Isaac H. Tower. I wish to remember both. Geary brought from the library a book I sent for - Cicero on the Gods, Fates, etc. Got another pound of candles; six in a pound. The first pound lasted four weeks; I have a piece long enough to burn to-night.

CHAPTER IX

J

UNE 23.—I have just walked a mile and upward

in my room; that is, 1,900 steps, which, with

my stride, I have no doubt would make a mile in

a direct line. I counted the steps by hundreds; at the end of each hundred I put a piece of straw on the corner of the table. When I had walked half an hour, I found the number of straws to be 19. The room or cell, 24 x 20 feet, offers space for a good walk by moving in a circle. If I had a rubber ball, I could exercise myself very well, not only in bouncing it on the floor and catching it, but in playing a game of fives solus against the walls.

Dinner: salmon, lamb, peas, snap-beans, turnips, potatoes, bread, ice-cream and other confections about which I can give no other information than that they were palatable, though I barely tasted of them. The ice-cream was my first this season; being a little apprehensive of bad effects, I finished with a pretty stiff drink from Harry's bottle about two tablespoonfuls.

Walked out with Lieut. W. Rested under music arbour. He pointed out Jackson and DuBose on opposite bastion. They were walking together, walking fast. DuBose wore neither coat nor vest; was in shirt-sleeves. Returned without going on the ramparts; not well; oppressed at no news from home. Stood by the window

and gazed at passing clouds: thought of home and Lin

ton. Geary brought supper

-many dainties

was at the window. Ate the strawberries.

while I

June 24. Put on my prunella shoes. The leather shoes I have been wearing are hard and producing corns. The change, I fear, will give me cold. To prevent that as far as I could, I put on a pair of thick woollen socks, which, by the way, is the only pair of the kind I brought from home. How this happened I cannot imagine. These prunella shoes I bought in Montgomery in 1861; they have lasted for summer wear ever since.

Breakfast at 8.30. Ate but little. In thinking of home, I found a flood of tears gushing from my eyes, rolling down into my plate. I turned from the table, and with my handkerchief stanched the current as best I could; I had, however, little more control over it than I should have had over a current of blood issuing from the nose. Home! home! sweet, sweet home! Nothing but news from home and Linton can allay my disquietude, and satisfy the cravings of my heart.

Finished Cicero on Divination and Fate. As in his treatise on the gods, he arrives at no certain truth or conclusion. Much he says on dreams commands reason's assent. Yet who does not feel that in his own experience there has been impressed upon his mind or soul - the thinking principle within him— presentiments of coming events? The usual explanation of dreams, such as Cicero gives has always been about as satisfactory to me as explanations in our schools of the tides and other obscure matters in natural philosophy. The mind assents to these as probably correct in the absence of better. Some dreams seem to carry the unmistakable impress of an agency other than that known in ordinary workings of the mind. Impressed on consciousness are matters on which the mind had never before indulged a thought, but which come to pass in almost exact accord