Lincoln writes to his friend, Mary Speed, of Louisville, Kentucky. Lincoln recalls his recent visit to Kentucky as a guest of Joshua F. Speed, Mary's half brother. Lincoln describes a scene he witnessed while on board a steamboat-leg of the journey back to Springfield, Illinois. He writes, "A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter one at a convenient distance from, the others; so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line." He recounts, "Do you remember my going to the city while I was in Kentucky, to have a tooth extracted, and making a failure of it? Well, that same old tooth got to paining me so much, that about a week since I had it torn out, bringing with it a bit of the jawbone; the consequence of which is that my mouth is now so sore that I can neither talk, nor eat. I am litterally 'subsisting on savoury remembrances'—that is, bring unable to eat, I am living upon the remembrance of the delicious dishes of peaches and cream we used to have at your house." Abraham Lincoln to Mary Speed, 27 September 1841, CW, 1:259-61.