cockneyesses have ever had experience of, that of hearing my own
extemporaneous praises chaunted bard-fashion by our negroes, in rhymes as
rude and to measures as simple as ever any illustrious female of the days
of King Brian Boroihme listened to. Rowing yesterday evening through a
beautiful sunset into a more beautiful moonrise, my two sable boatmen
entertained themselves and me with alternate strophe and anti-strophe of
poetical description of my personal attractions, in which my 'wire waist'
recurred repeatedly, to my intense amusement. This is a charm for the
possession of which M---- (my white nursemaid) is also invariably
celebrated; and I suppose that the fine round natural proportions of the
uncompressed waists of the sable beauties of these regions appear less
symmetrical to eyes accustomed to them than our stay-cased figures, since
'nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.' Occasionally I am celebrated in
these rowing chants as 'Massa's darling,' and S---- comes in for endless
glorification on account of the brilliant beauty of her complexion; the
other day, however, our poets made a diversion from the personal to the
moral qualities of their small mistress, and after the usual tribute to
her roses and lilies came the following rather significant couplet:--
Little Missis Sally,
That's a ruling lady.
At which all the white teeth simultaneously lightened from the black
visages, while the subject of this equivocal commendation sat with
infantine solemnity (the profoundest, I think, that the human countenance
is capable of), surveying her sable dependants with imperturbable gravity.
Yesterday morning I amused myself with an exercise of a talent I once
possessed, but have so neglected that my performance might almost be
called an experiment. I cut out a dress for one of the women. My education
in France--where, in some important respects, I think girls are better
trained than with us--had sent me home to England, at sixteen, an adept in
the female mystery of needlework. Not only owing to the Saturday's
discipline of clothes mending by all the classes--while l'Abbé Millot's
history (of blessed, boring memory) was being read aloud, to prevent 'vain
babblings,' and ensure wholesome mental occupation the while--was I an
expert patcher and mender, darner and piecer (darning and marking were my
specialities), but the white cotton embroidery of which every French woman
has always a piece under her hand _pour les momens perdus_, which are thus
anything but _perdus_, was as familiar to us as to the Irish cottagers of
the present day, and cutting out and making my dresses was among the more
advanced branches of _the_ female accomplishment to which I attained.[1]
The luxury of a lady's maid of my own, indulged in ever since the days of
my 'coming out,' has naturally enough caused my right hand to forget its
cunning, and regret and shame at having lost any useful lore in my life
made me accede, for my own sake, to the request of one of our
multitudinous Dianas and innumerable Chloes to cut out dresses for each of
them, especially as they (wonderful to relate) declared themselves able to
stitch them if I would do the cutting. Since I have been on the plantation
I have already spent considerable time in what the French call
'confectioning' baby bundles, i.e. the rough and very simple tiny
habiliments of coarse cotton and scarlet flannel which form a baby's
layette here, and of which I have run up some scores; but my present task
was far more difficult. Chloe was an ordinary mortal negress enough, but
Diana might have been the Huntress of the Woods herself, done into the
African type. Tall, large, straight, well-made, profoundly serious, she
stood like a bronze statue, while I, mounted on a stool, (the only way in
which I could attain to the noble shoulders and bust of my lay figure),
pinned and measured, and cut and shaped, under the superintendence of
M----, and had the satisfaction of seeing the fine proportions of my black
goddess quite becomingly clothed in a high tight fitting body of the
gayest chintz, which she really contrived to put together quite
creditably.
[Footnote 1: Some of our great English ladies are, I know, exquisite
needlewomen; but I do not think, in spite of these exceptional examples,
that young English ladies of the higher classes are much skilled in this
respect at the present day; and as for the democratic daughters of
America, who for many reasons might be supposed likely to be well up in
such housewifely lore, they are for the most part so ignorant of it that I
have heard the most eloquent preacher of the city of New York advert to
their incapacity in this respect, as an impediment to their assistance of
the poor; and ascribe to the fact that the daughters of his own
parishioners did not know how to sew, the impossibility of their giving
the most valuable species of help to the women of the needier classes,
whose condition could hardly be more effectually improved than by
acquiring such useful knowledge. I have known young American school girls,
duly instructed in the nature of the parallaxes of the stars, but, as a
rule, they do not know how to darn their stockings. Les Dames du Sacré
Coeur do better for their high-born and well-bred pupils than this.]
I was so elated with my own part of this performance that I then and
there determined to put into execution a plan I had long formed of
endowing the little boat in which I take what the French call my walks on
the water, with cushions for the back and seat of the benches usually
occupied by myself and Mr. ----; so putting on my large straw hat, and
plucking up a paper of pins, scissors, and my brown holland, I walked to
the steps, and jumping into the little canoe, began piecing, and
measuring, and cutting the cushions, which were to be stuffed with the
tree moss by some of the people who understand making a rough kind of
mattress. My inanimate subject, however, proved far more troublesome to
fit than my living lay figure, for the little cockle-shell ducked, and
dived, and rocked, and tipped, and curtseyed, and tilted, as I knelt
first on one side and then on the other fitting her, till I was almost
in despair; however, I got a sort of pattern at last, and by dint of some
pertinacious efforts--which, in their incompleteness, did not escape some
sarcastic remarks from Mr. ---- on the capabilities of 'women of genius'
applied to common-place objects--the matter was accomplished, and the
little Dolphin rejoiced in very tidy back and seat cushions, covered with
brown holland, and bound with green serge. My ambition then began to
contemplate an awning, but the boat being of the nature of a
canoe--though not a real one, inasmuch as it is not made of a single
log--does not admit of supports for such an edifice.
I had rather a fright the other day in that same small craft, into which I
had taken S----, with the intention of paddling myself a little way down
the river and back. I used to row tolerably well, and was very fond of it,
and frequently here take an oar, when the men are rowing me in the long
boat, as some sort of equivalent for my riding, of which, of course, I am
entirely deprived on this little dykeland of ours; but paddling is a
perfectly different process, and one that I was very anxious to achieve.
My first strokes answered the purpose of sending the boat off from shore,
and for a few minutes I got on pretty well; but presently I got tired of
shifting the paddle from side to side, a manoeuvre which I accomplished
very clumsily and slowly, and yet, with all my precautions, not without
making the boat tip perilously. The immense breadth and volume of the
river suddenly seized my eyes and imagination as it were, and I began to
fancy that if I got into the middle of the stream I should not be able to
paddle myself back against it--which, indeed, might very well have proved
the case. Then I became nervous, and paddled all on one side, by which
means, of course, I only turned the boat round. S---- began to fidget
about, getting up from where I had placed her, and terrifying me with her
unsteady motions and the rocking of the canoe. I was now very much
frightened, and saw that I _must_ get back to shore before I became more
helpless than I was beginning to feel; so laying S---- down in the bottom
of the boat as a preliminary precaution, I said to her with infinite
emphasis, 'Now lie still there, and don't stir, or you'll be drowned,' to
which, with her clear grey eyes fixed on me, and no sign whatever of
emotion, she replied deliberately, 'I shall lie still here, and won't
stir, for I should not like to be drowned,' which, for an atom not four
years old, was rather philosophical. Then I looked about me, and of course
having drifted, set steadily to work and paddled home, with my heart in my
mouth almost till we grazed the steps, and I got my precious freight safe
on shore again, since which I have taken no more paddling lessons without
my slave and master, Jack.
We have had a death among the people since I last wrote to you. A very
valuable slave called Shadrach was seized with a disease which is
frequent, and very apt to be fatal here--peri-pneumonia; and in spite of
all that could be done to save him, sank rapidly, and died after an acute
illness of only three days. The doctor came repeatedly from Darien, and
the last night of the poor fellow's life ---- himself watched with him. I
suppose the general low diet of the negroes must produce some want of
stamina in them; certainly, either from natural constitution or the effect
of their habits of existence, or both, it is astonishing how much less
power of resistance to disease they seem to possess than we do. If they
are ill, the vital energy seems to sink immediately. This rice
cultivation, too, although it does not affect them as it would whites--to
whom, indeed, residence on the rice plantation after a certain season is
impossible--is still, to a certain degree, deleterious even to the
negroes. The proportion of sick is always greater here than on the cotton
plantation, and the invalids of this place are not unfrequently sent down
to St. Simon's to recover their strength, under the more favourable
influences of the sea air and dry sandy soil of Hampton Point.
Yesterday afternoon the tepid warmth of the air and glassy stillness of
the river seemed to me highly suggestive of fishing, and I determined, not
having yet discovered what I could catch with what in these unknown
waters, to try a little innocent paste bait--a mystery his initiation into
which caused Jack much wonderment. The only hooks I had with me, however,
had been bought in Darien--made, I should think, at the North expressly
for this market; and so villanously bad were they that, after trying them
and my patience a reasonable time, I gave up the attempt and took a lesson
in paddling instead. Amongst other items Jack told me of his own fishing
experience was, that he had more than once caught those most excellent
creatures Altamaha shad by the fish themselves leaping out of the water
and _landing_, as Jack expressed it, to escape from the porpoises, which
come in large schools up the river to a considerable distance,
occasioning, evidently, much emotion in the bosoms of the legitimate
inhabitants of these muddy waters. Coasting the island on our return home
we found a trap, which the last time we examined it was tenanted by a
creature called a mink, now occupied by an otter. The poor beast did not
seem pleased with his predicament; but the trap had been set by one of the
drivers, and, of course, Jack would not have meddled with it except upon
my express order, which, in spite of some pangs of pity for the otter, I
did not like to give him, as in the extremely few resources of either
profit or pleasure possessed by the slaves I could not tell at all what
might be the value of an otter to his captor.
Yesterday evening the burial of the poor man Shadrach took place. I had
been applied to for a sufficient quantity of cotton cloth to make a
winding-sheet for him, and just as the twilight was thickening into
darkness I went with Mr. ---- to the cottage of one of the slaves whom I
may have mentioned to you before--a cooper of the name of London, the head
of the religious party of the inhabitants of the island, a methodist
preacher of no small intelligence and influence among the people--who was
to perform the burial service. The coffin was laid on trestles in front of
the cooper's cottage, and a large assemblage of the people had gathered
round, many of the men carrying pine-wood torches, the fitful glare of
which glanced over the strange assembly, where every pair of large
white-rimmed eyes turned upon ---- and myself; we two poor creatures on
this more solemn occasion, as well as on every other when these people
encounter us, being the objects of admiration and wonderment, on which
their gaze is immovably riveted. Presently the whole congregation uplifted
their voices in a hymn, the first high wailing notes of which--sung all in
unison, in the midst of these unwonted surroundings--sent a thrill through
all my nerves. When the chant ceased, cooper London began a prayer, and
all the people knelt down in the sand, as I did also. Mr. ---- alone
remained standing in the presence of the dead man, and of the living God
to whom his slaves were now appealing. I cannot tell you how profoundly
the whole ceremony, if such it could be called, affected me, and there was
nothing in the simple and pathetic supplication of the poor black artisan
to check or interfere with the solemn influences of the whole scene. It
was a sort of conventional methodist prayer, and probably quite as
conventional as all the rest was the closing invocation of God's blessing
upon their master, their mistress, and our children; but this fairly
overcame my composure, and I began to cry very bitterly; for these same
individuals, whose implication in the state of things in the midst of
which we are living, seemed to me as legitimate a cause for tears as for
prayers. When the prayer was concluded we all rose, and the coffin being
taken up, proceeded to the people's burial-ground, when London read aloud
portions of the funeral service from the prayer-book--I presume the
American episcopal version of our Church service, for what he read
appeared to be merely a selection from what was perfectly familiar to me;
but whether he himself extracted what he uttered I did not enquire. Indeed
I was too much absorbed in the whole scene, and the many mingled emotions
it excited of awe and pity, and an indescribable sensation of wonder at
finding myself on this slave soil, surrounded by MY slaves, among whom
again I knelt while the words proclaiming to the living and the dead the
everlasting covenant of freedom, 'I am the resurrection and the life,'
sounded over the prostrate throng, and mingled with the heavy flowing of
the vast river sweeping, not far from where we stood, through the darkness
by which we were now encompassed (beyond the immediate circle of our
torch-bearers). There was something painful to me in ----'s standing
while we all knelt on the earth, for though in any church in Philadelphia
he would have stood during the praying of any minister, here I wished he
would have knelt, to have given his slaves some token of his belief
that--at least in the sight of that Master to whom we were addressing our
worship--all men are equal. The service ended with a short address from
London upon the subject of Lazarus, and the confirmation which the story
of his resurrection afforded our hopes. The words were simple and rustic,
and of course uttered in the peculiar sort of jargon which is the habitual
negro speech; but there was nothing in the slightest degree incongruous or
grotesque in the matter or manner, and the exhortations not to steal, or
lie, or neglect to work well for massa, with which the glorious hope of
immortality was blended in the poor slave preacher's closing address, was
a moral adaptation, as wholesome as it was touching, of the great
Christian theory to the capacities and consciences of his hearers. When
the coffin was lowered the grave was found to be partially filled with
water--naturally enough, for the whole island is a mere swamp, off which
the Altamaha is only kept from sweeping by the high dykes all round it.
This seemed to shock and distress the people, and for the first time
during the whole ceremony there were sounds of crying and exclamations of
grief heard among them. Their chief expression of sorrow, however, when
Mr. ---- and myself bade them good night at the conclusion of the
service, was on account of my crying, which appeared to affect them very
much, many of them mingling with their 'Farewell, good night, massa and
missis,' affectionate exclamations of 'God bless you, missis; don't cry!'
'Lor, missis, don't you cry so!' Mr. ---- declined the assistance of any
of the torch-bearers home, and bade them all go quietly to their quarters;
and as soon as they had dispersed, and we had got beyond the fitful and
unequal glaring of the torches, we found the shining of the stars in the
deep blue lovely night sky quite sufficient to light our way along the
dykes. I could not speak to ----, but continued to cry as we walked
silently home; and whatever his cogitations were, they did not take the
unusual form with him of wordy demonstration, and so we returned from one
of the most striking religious ceremonies at which I ever assisted.
Arrived at the door of the house we perceived that we had been followed
the whole way by the naked noiseless feet of a poor half-witted creature,
a female idiot, whose mental incapacity, of course, in no respect unfits
her for the life of toil, little more intellectual than that of any beast
of burthen, which is her allotted portion here. Some small gratification
was given to her, and she departed gibbering and muttering in high glee.
Think, E----, of that man London--who, in spite of all the bitter barriers
in his way, has learnt to read, has read his Bible, teaches it to his
unfortunate fellows, and is used by his owner and his owner's agents, for
all these causes, as an effectual influence for good over the slaves of
whom he is himself the despised and injured companion. Like them, subject
to the driver's lash; like them, the helpless creature of his master's
despotic will, without a right or a hope in this dreary world. But though
the light he has attained must show him the terrible aspects of his fate
hidden by blessed ignorance from his companions, it reveals to him also
other rights, and other hopes--another world, another life--towards which
he leads, according to the grace vouchsafed him, his poor fellow-slaves.
How can we keep this man in such a condition? How is such a cruel sin of
injustice to be answered? Mr. ----, of course, sees and feels none of this
as I do, and I should think must regret that he ever brought me here, to
have my abhorrence of the theory of slavery deepened, and strengthened
every hour of my life, by what I see of its practice.
This morning I went over to Darien upon the very female errands of
returning visits and shopping. In one respect (assuredly in none other)
our life here resembles existence in Venice; we can never leave home for
any purpose or in any direction but by boat--not, indeed, by gondola, but
the sharp cut, well made, light craft in which we take our walks on the
water is a very agreeable species of conveyance. One of my visits this
morning was to a certain Miss ----, whose rather grandiloquent name and
very striking style of beauty exceedingly well became the daughter of an
ex-governor of Georgia. As for the residence of this princess, it was like
all the planters' residences that I have seen, and such as a well-to-do
English farmer would certainly not inhabit. Occasional marks of former
elegance or splendour survive sometimes in the size of the rooms,
sometimes in a little carved wood-work about the mantelpieces or
wainscoatings of these mansions; but all things have a Castle Rackrent air
of neglect, and dreary careless untidiness, with which the dirty
bare-footed negro servants are in excellent keeping. Occasionally a huge
pair of dazzling shirt gills, out of which a black visage grins as out of
some vast white paper cornet, adorns the sable footman of the
establishment, but unfortunately without at all necessarily indicating any
downward prolongation of the garment; and the perfect tulip bed of a head
handkerchief with which the female attendants of these 'great families'
love to bedizen themselves, frequently stands them instead of every other
most indispensable article of female attire.
As for my shopping, the goods or rather 'bads,' at which I used to
grumble, in your village emporium at Lenox, are what may be termed 'first
rate,' both in excellence and elegance, compared with the vile products of
every sort which we wretched southerners are expected to accept as the
conveniences of life in exchange for current coin of the realm. I regret
to say, moreover, that all these infamous articles are Yankee
made--expressly for this market, where every species of _thing_ (to use
the most general term I can think of), from list shoes to pianofortes, is
procured from the North--almost always New England, utterly worthless of
its kind, and dearer than the most perfect specimens of the same articles
would be anywhere else. The incredible variety and ludicrous combinations
of goods to be met with in one of these southern shops beats the stock of
your village omnium-gatherum hollow to be sure, one class of articles, and
that probably the most in demand here, is not sold over any counter in
Massachussetts--cow-hides, and man-traps, of which a large assortment
enters necessarily into the furniture of every southern shop.
In passing to-day along the deep sand road, calling itself the street of
Darien, my notice was attracted by an extremely handsome and
intelligent-looking poodle, standing by a little wizen-looking
knife-grinder, whose features were evidently European, though he was
nearly as black as a negro who, strange to say, was discoursing with him
in very tolerable French. The impulse of curiosity led me to accost the
man at the grindstone, when his companion immediately made off. The
itinerant artisan was from Aix in Provence; think of wandering thence to
Darien in Georgia! I asked him about the negro who was talking to him; he
said he knew nothing of him, but that he was a slave belonging to
somebody in the town. And upon my expressing surprise at his having left
his own beautiful and pleasant country for this dreary distant region, he
answered, with a shrug and a smile, 'Oui, madame, c'est vrai; c'est un
joli pays, mais dans ce pays-là, quand un homme n'a rien, c'est rien pour
toujours.' A property which many no doubt have come hither, like the
little French knife-grinder, to increase, without succeeding in the
struggle much better than he appeared to have done.
* * * * *