A short ten minutes, and they are all scattered, and the piles of food with them.

Once more I look, and, behold! the table is again preparing.
Who can this be for?
Doubts are speedily solved, as a mixture of niggers and whites sit down to the festive hoard; it is the boys--_alias_ waiters--whose turn has come at last.

Their meal over, the spare leaves of the table are removed, half a dozen square tables dot the centre line of the saloon, and all is comparatively quiet.

This process takes place at every meal--8 A.M., 1 P.M., and 5 P.M .-- with the most rigid punctuality.
Fancy my distress one evening, when, on opening my cabin-door, I beheld a fellow-creature doubled up at the entry of the door opposite.

I thought the poor sufferer had a fit of cholera, and I was expecting each instant to hear his screams; but hearing nothing, I examined the person in question more minutely.