File:Picturesque Washington- pen and pencil sketches of its scenery, history, traditions, public and social life, with graphic descriptions of the Capitol and Congress, the White House, and the government (14770734084).jpg

Identifier: picturesquewas00moor (find matches)
Title: Picturesque Washington: pen and pencil sketches of its scenery, history, traditions, public and social life, with graphic descriptions of the Capitol and Congress, the White House, and the government departments ..
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Moore, Joseph West
Subjects: Washington (D.C.)
Publisher: Providence : J.A. & R.A. Reid
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ing simple remedies for various ailments. He is an odd charac-ter, and when in the humor will describe his former life on Ran-dolphs plantation in quaint, vivid, and intensely interesting language.His clothes are patched and scarce hold together on his bent and tot-tering form. Usually he sits crouching before his hearth-stone, rub-bing his thin hands and muttering to himself, and he leaves his cabinonly at rare intervals to hobble a few squares. The most ignorant of the colored people are very superstitious,and have great faith in charms and omens, and all of those singularthings which have come from the South and pass current under thename of voudooism. There are voudoo doctors of their own race,who live well, dress fashionably, and apparently make a great dealof mone3\ They profess to cure everything, from a big wart to a badcase of what they call devilish conjuration. They are very mys-terious in their practice, and use many curiously fashioned articles THE COLORED POPULATION. 249
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THE DON CAMERON MANSION. which they audaciously claim possess cabalistic and astonishing qual-ities, and utter many strange words. They impress their patients byall sorts of tricks, such as manipulating large snakes, whispering inthe ear of a dog and pretending to receive an answer, and other sillyactions. The credulous negroes look with awe on these transparentfrauds, and do many ridiculous things at the bidding of the doc-tors. Around the great markets one will see among the hucksters whoselittle stands crowd all the walks, a good representation of coloredpeople of peculiar characteristics. The colored hucksters offer forsale twists of tobacco in the natural leaf, warranted to be perfectlypure Virginia weed ; many herbs, barks, and roots, and large quan-tities of flowers and garden sass, and some have coops of livechickens and ducks. There are numerous women in the groups,wearing large bandanna handkerchiefs gracefully entwined roundtheir heads, turban-like, but the colors are not a

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