And Now a Few Words

"These are the songs that are still heard upon the Mississippi steamboats--wild and strangely fascinating--one of which we have been so fortunate as to secure for this collection. This, too, is no doubt the music of the colored firemen of Savannah, graphically described by Mr. Kane O'Donnel, in a letter to the Philadelphia Press, and one of which he was able to contribute for our use. Mr. E. S. Philbrick was struck with the resemblance of some of the rowing tunes at Port-Royal to the boatmen's songs he had heard upon the Nile."

"Each column knows its destination. Each assistant knows her customers. Justin steals a glance at Lorbeer as one by one each woman gives her name, grabs a bag by the throat, chucks it in the air and settles it delicately on her head. And he sees that Lorbeer's eyes are now filled with tragic disbelief, as if he were the author of the women's plight, not of the their salvation."