Since I last wrote, I have passed three weeks in the interior of South
Carolina; visited Columbia, the capital of the state, a pretty town;
roamed over a considerable part of Barnwell district, with some part of
the neighboring one of Orangeburg; enjoyed the hospitality of the
planters—very agreeable and intelligent men; been out in a racoon hunt;
been present at a corn-shucking; listened to negro ballads, negro jokes,
and the banjo; witnessed negro dances; seen two alligators at least, and
eaten bushels of hominy.
Whoever comes out on the railroad to this district, a distance of seventy
miles or more, if he were to judge only by what he sees in his passage,
might naturally take South Carolina for a vast pine-forest, with here and
there a clearing made by some enterprising settler, and would wonder where
the cotton which clothes so many millions of the human race, is produced.
The railway keeps on a tract of sterile sand, overgrown with pines;
passing, here and there, along the edge of a morass, or crossing a stream
of yellow water. A lonely log-house under these old trees, is a sight for
sore eyes; and only two or three plantations, properly so called, meet the
eye in the whole distance. The cultivated and more productive lands lie
apart from this tract, near streams, and interspersed with more frequent
ponds and marshes. Here you find plantations comprising several thousands
of acres, a considerable part of which always lies in forest; cotton and
corn fields of vast extent, and a negro village on every plantation, at a
respectful distance from the habitation of the proprietor. Evergreen trees
of the oak family and others, which I mentioned in my last letter, are
generally planted about the mansions. Some of them are surrounded with
dreary clearings, full of the standing trunks of dead pines; others are
pleasantly situated in the edge of woods, intersected by winding paths. A
ramble, or a ride—a ride on a hand-gallop it should be—in these pine
woods, on a fine March day, when the weather has all the spirit of our
March days without its severity, is one of the most delightful recreations
in the world. The paths are upon a white sand, which, when not frequently
travelled, is very firm under foot; on all sides you are surrounded by
noble stems of trees, towering to an immense height, from whose summits,
far above you, the wind is drawing deep and grand harmonies; and often
your way is beside a marsh, verdant with magnolias, where the yellow
jessamine, now in flower, fills the air with fragrance, and the
bamboo-briar, an evergreen creeper, twines itself with various other
plants, which never shed their leaves in winter. These woods abound in
game, which, you will believe me when I say, I had rather start than
shoot,—flocks of turtle-doves, rabbits rising and scudding before you;
bevies of quails, partridges they call them here, chirping almost under
your horse's feet; wild ducks swimming in the pools, and wild turkeys,
which are frequently shot by the practiced sportsman.
But you must hear of the corn-shucking. The one at which I was present was
given on purpose that I might witness the humors of the Carolina negroes.
A huge fire of _light-wood_ was made near the corn-house. Light-wood is
the wood of the long-leaved pine, and is so called, not because it is
light, for it is almost the heaviest wood in the world, but because it
gives more light than any other fuel. In clearing land, the pines are
girdled and suffered to stand; the outer portion of the wood decays and
falls off; the inner part, which is saturated with turpentine, remains
upright for years, and constitutes the planter's provision of fuel. When a
supply is wanted, one of these dead trunks is felled by the axe. The
abundance of light-wood is one of the boasts of South Carolina. Wherever
you are, if you happen to be chilly, you may have a fire extempore; a bit
of light-wood and a coal give you a bright blaze and a strong heat in an
instant. The negroes make fires of it in the fields where they work; and,
when the mornings are wet and chilly, in the pens where they are milking
the cows. At a plantation, where I passed a frosty night, I saw fires in
a small inclosure, and was told by the lady of the house that she had
ordered them to be made to warm the cattle.
The light-wood fire was made, and the negroes dropped in from the
neighboring plantations, singing as they came. The driver of the
plantation, a colored man, brought out baskets of corn in the husk, and
piled it in a heap; and the negroes began to strip the husks from the
ears, singing with great glee as they worked, keeping time to the music,
and now and then throwing in a joke and an extravagant burst of laughter.
The songs were generally of a comic character; but one of them was set to
a singularly wild and plaintive air, which some of our musicians would do
well to reduce to notation. These are the words:
Johnny come down de hollow.
Oh hollow!
Johnny come down de hollow.
Oh hollow!
De nigger-trader got me.
Oh hollow!
De speculator bought me.
Oh hollow!
I'm sold for silver dollars.
Oh hollow!
Boys, go catch de pony.
Oh hollow!
Bring him round de corner.
Oh hollow!
I'm goin' away to Georgia.
Oh hollow!
Boys, good-by forever!
Oh hollow!
The song of "Jenny gone away," was also given, and another, called the
monkey-song, probably of African origin, in which the principal singer
personated a monkey, with all sorts of odd gesticulations, and the other
negroes bore part in the chorus, "Dan, dan, who's de dandy?" One of the
songs, commonly sung on these occasions, represents the various animals of
the woods as belonging to some profession or trade. For example—