Letter X.
A Journey from Richmond to Charleston.
Charleston, _March_ 6, 1843.
I left Richmond, on the afternoon of a keen March day, in the railway
train for Petersburg, where we arrived after dark, and, therefore, could
form no judgment of the appearance of the town. Here we were transferred
to another train of cars. Among the passengers was a lecturer on Mesmerism
with his wife, and a young woman who accompanied them as a mesmeric
subject. The young woman, accustomed to be easily put to sleep, seemed to
get through the night very comfortably; but the spouse of the operator
appeared to be much disturbed by the frequent and capricious opening of
the door by the other passengers, which let in torrents of intensely cold
air from without, and chid the offenders with a wholesome sharpness.
About two o'clock in the morning, we reached Blakely on the Roanoke, where
we were made to get out of the cars, and were marched in long procession
for about a quarter of a mile down to the river. A negro walked before us
to light our way, bearing a blazing pine torch, which scattered sparks
like a steam-engine, and a crowd of negroes followed us, bearing our
baggage. We went down a steep path to the Roanoke, where we found a little
old steamboat ready for us, and in about fifteen minutes were struggling
upward against the muddy and rapid current. In little more than an hour,
we had proceeded two miles and a half up the river, and were landed at a
place called Weldon. Here we took the cars for Wilmington, in North
Carolina, and shabby vehicles they were, denoting our arrival in a milder
climate, by being extremely uncomfortable for cold weather. As morning
dawned, we saw ourselves in the midst of the pine forests of North
Carolina. Vast tracts of level sand, overgrown with the long-leaved pine,
a tall, stately tree, with sparse and thick twigs, ending in long brushes
of leaves, murmuring in the strong cold wind, extended everywhere around
us. At great distances from each other, we passed log-houses, and
sometimes a dwelling of more pretensions, with a piazza, and here and
there fields in which cotton or maize had been planted last year, or an
orchard with a few small mossy trees. The pools beside the roads were
covered with ice just formed, and the negroes, who like a good fire at
almost any season of the year, and who find an abundant supply of the
finest fuel in these forests, had made blazing fires of the resinous wood
of the pine, wherever they were at work. The tracts of sandy soil, we
perceived, were interspersed with marshes, crowded with cypress-trees, and
verdant at their borders with a growth of evergreens, such as the
swamp-bay, the gallberry, the holly, and various kinds of evergreen
creepers, which are unknown to our northern climate, and which became more
frequent as we proceeded.
We passed through extensive forests of pine, which had been _boxed_, as it
is called, for the collection of turpentine. Every tree had been scored by
the axe upon one of its sides, some of them as high as the arm could reach
down to the roots, and the broad wound was covered with the turpentine,
which seems to saturate every fibre of the long-leaved pine. Sometimes we
saw large flakes or crusts of the turpentine of a light-yellow color,
which had fallen, and lay beside the tree on the ground. The collection of
turpentine is a work of destruction; it strips acre after acre of these
noble trees, and, if it goes on, the time is not far distant when the
long-leaved pine will become nearly extinct in this region, which is so
sterile as hardly to be fitted for producing any thing else. We saw large
tracts covered with the standing trunks of trees already killed by it; and
other tracts beside them had been freshly attacked by the spoiler. I am
told that the tree which grows up when the long-leaved pine is destroyed,
is the loblolly pine, or, as it is sometimes called, the short-leaved
pine, a tree of very inferior quality and in little esteem.
About half-past two in the afternoon, we came to Wilmington, a little town
built upon the white sands of Cape Fear, some of the houses standing where
not a blade of grass or other plant can grow. A few evergreen oaks, in
places, pleasantly overhang the water. Here we took the steamer for
Charleston.
I may as well mention here a fraud which is sometimes practiced upon those
who go by this route to Charleston. Advertisements are distributed at New
York and elsewhere, informing the public that the fare from Baltimore to
Charleston, by the railway through Washington and Richmond, is but
twenty-two dollars. I took the railway, paying from place to place as I
went, and found that this was a falsehood; I was made to pay seven or
eight dollars more. In the course of my journey, I was told that, to
protect myself from this imposition, I should have purchased at Baltimore
a "through ticket," as it is called; that is, should have paid in advance
for the whole distance; but the advertisement did not inform me that this
was necessary. No wonder that "tricks upon travellers" should have become
a proverbial expression, for they are a much-enduring race, more or less
plundered in every part of the world.
The next morning, at eight o'clock, we found ourselves entering Charleston
harbor; Sullivan's Island, with Fort Moultrie, breathing recollections of
the revolution, on our right; James Island on our left; in front, the
stately dwellings of the town, and all around, on the land side, the
horizon bounded by an apparent belt of evergreens—the live-oak, the
water-oak, the palmetto, the pine, and, planted about the dwellings, the
magnolia and the wild orange—giving to the scene a summer aspect. The
city of Charleston strikes the visitor from the north most agreeably. He
perceives at once that he is in a different climate. The spacious houses
are surrounded with broad piazzas, often a piazza to each story, for the
sake of shade and coolness, and each house generally stands by itself in a
garden planted with trees and shrubs, many of which preserve their verdure
through the winter. We saw early flowers already opening; the peach and
plum-tree were in full bloom; and the wild orange, as they call the
cherry-laurel, was just putting forth its blossoms. The buildings—some
with stuccoed walls, some built of large dark-red bricks, and some of
wood—are not kept fresh with paint like ours, but are allowed to become
weather-stained by the humid climate, like those of the European towns.
The streets are broad and quiet, unpaved in some parts, but in none, as
with us, offensive both to sight and smell. The public buildings are
numerous for the size of the city, and well-built in general, with
sufficient space about them to give them a noble aspect, and all the
advantage which they could derive from their architecture. The
inhabitants, judging from what I have seen of them, which is not much, I
confess, do not appear undeserving of the character which has been given
them, of possessing the most polished and agreeable manners of all the
American cities.