The great Salt Marsh.--A break down.--We reach Savannah.--Fancy
sketches.--The forest city.--A Gossip with the Natives.--Cross
questions and crooked answers.
On the sweetest of spring mornings, when the sunshine seems to reach
down into our hearts, and the soft breeze stirs our pulse and sets our
thoughts playing a jubilant melody, while our hearts sing a soft sweet
song that the ears hear not, and that our own spirits can but dimly
comprehend--we turn our back on the quaint old city of Charleston, and
resume our journey South.
Squatting about the platform of the railway station we find groups and
whole families of negroes, or, as they are now more respectfully called,
“coloured folk,”--from the queer little black ball of a baby, to the
withered old grandmother with a face notched and scarred, as though time
had kept his calendar and scored the passing years in wrinkles, till
they all run one into the other, and the face was made up of nothing
else. They are dressed, as is the custom of their kind, in all the
colours of the rainbow, and are heavily laden with baskets of fish,
fruit, vegetables, and bundles of their personal belongings, with their
“piccaninnies” sprawling at their feet and crawling in and out like
little black eels. We are struck with an idea, almost a dread, that they
are going to ride in our car--not that we object to the colour of “God’s
image carved in ebony,” but their neighbourhood is not odorous.
“We has second class on dis line,” said the porter, in answer to our
inquiries, “and dey be gwine dere; dey’s no company for white folk--not
clean, nor nice in dey’s manners. I’s black myself, but I knows dem
folk’s no company for ladies and gen’l’men.”
With much tumbling, and clutching their brood together, they scrambled
into their appointed places, in a seedy-looking car adjoining ours, and
we are off; the city spires and steeples fade from our view, and our
faces are set towards Georgia. We are well beyond the region of the
maple trees now; but forests of pine and cypress, dashed here and there
with the snow-white blossoms of the dogwood, close on all sides of us,
except where our narrow iron path makes its way through them. Soon we
come to an open clearing, where the forest trees have been cut down and
timber huts built up; this is a wood station, and mountains of logs are
piled on each side. Here we stop to feed our engine, while a diversified
company of wild hogs--gaunt, lean, hungry-looking creatures, all legs
and heads, like swinish tramps who get their living in the woods--gather
and grunt in herds almost under our car wheels, and goats with large
families of youthful nannies and billies stand staring mildly in the
background, now and then playfully butting one another.
We are soon off again; racks of wood are stationed at certain distances
all along the line, coal being scarce in these localities, and wood much
lighter of digestion. Our hungry engine insists on having four square
meals a day, and even then grows weak and feeble, and demands a snack in
between; it slackens, and snorts, and grumbles, till the driver, often
aided by the passengers (who seem to enjoy the fun), gets down and cuts
a few dainty branches just to appease its appetite, and coax it on to
the next station.
We pass through the great salt marsh, where the grand old pines, rank on
rank, are standing with their roots in pickle, and their half bald heads
fringed with green lifted heavenwards. A bush fire has broken out
somewhere in the distance, and the flames come leaping along the surface
of the marsh, with a blue, lurid-looking light, feeding upon whatever
they can find; now they glide in graceful spiral lines, like fiery
serpents round the trunk of some grand old tree, and leave it a charred
and blackened stump.
As the evening shadows fall we enter the cypress swamps; the dusky
forms of the forest giants stand stiff and stark in the gloaming, making
up a weird and somewhat romantic scene. Night closes in, the great
golden moon climbs slowly into the purple skies, and the balmy evening
air has a delicious fragrance as though it came from worlds unknown. But
with all its sombre subtle charm, a cypress swamp is not exactly the
place one would choose to break down in, and just here our engine, which
has been crawling and groaning like a crippled maniac for the last half
hour, elects to stop short. She (I believe engine is feminine) stops,
and shows no sign of ever intending to move again.
American _sang-froid_ is difficult to disturb, but on this occasion the
passengers deign to manifest some interest in the cause of the delay.
They bombard the conductor with questions, and skirmish round the
engineer, sending their suggestions flying round his devoted head, till
a peremptory order is given, and they are driven back into the cars with
some loss of patience. As if by magic, a breakdown gang is soon gathered
round the engine--heaven knows where they came from, whether they
dropped from the skies, or emerged from the bowels of the earth, for
human habitation thereabout seemed impossible, unless they had built a
nest high up in the dark cypress boughs.
Meanwhile various editions of the cause of our delay are freely
circulated. One piece of official information at last reaches us: The
mainspring of our engine is broken. One reports that they are making a
new one; another that they are mending the old one. “No, they are
propping it up with a piece of wood,” says a third. “That’s impossible,”
cries another unlicensed authority; “the idea of an engine hobbling on
wooden legs!” Then begins a game at speculation, and we all take a hand:
“How long shall we be kept there?” “Perhaps all night--perhaps all day!”
“Will they send help to us?” “They can’t, there’s only a single line of
rail, and no telegraph near.”
Then some of our fellow travellers begin to relate, at the top of their
voices, a chapter of the worst accidents that have ever happened
anywhere or to anybody, ending with the relation of a terrible
catastrophe which happened only a week ago, when the trestle work, which
runs for six miles across the Savannah river a little further on, gave
way, and the whole train was precipitated into the river--“not a soul
saved,” adds the narrator with great gusto.
Meanwhile everybody is getting hungry; and buns, biscuits, and morsels
of stale crumbly cake are fished up from bags or baskets. I have nothing
to fish up from anywhere, and a good Samaritan gives me an orange and a
piece of rye bread; never was voluntary contribution more thankfully
received. Presently a plausible youth comes along the car selling cold
hard-boiled eggs. Where he comes from, where he got, or how he cooked
his eggs is a mystery; but hunger bids us hasten to invest in his wares.
Alas! he and his eggs prove a delusion and a snare! The eggs we throw
out of the window--but the deceiver has disappeared.
By degrees the clatter of tongues ceases; silence falls over us.
Alligators and frogs are croaking in the swamps; I don’t know which
croaks loudest; their language seems so similar, I can hardly tell one
from the other. Everybody regards the situation with irritating good
temper, nobody grumbles. Are the true Americans ever heard to complain,
I wonder? They are patient, cheerful always, and stoical and
philosophical as Red Indians. Oh, for a good British growl! I lift my
voice feebly once or twice, but am shamed into silence by the example of
my companions.
Presently we begin to move, and slowly as a royal progress we roll on
towards Savannah. When we reach it the small hours of the morning are
already far on the march and we go supperless to bed. On taking a survey
of our surroundings by daylight we have reason to be very well satisfied
with our quarters. We have two large sunny rooms, most comfortably
furnished, opening on to a wide verandah overgrown with greenery, which
is luxuriant everywhere South.
A few words here concerning the accommodation for tourists which is to
be found in all Southern cities. On first setting our faces thitherward
we received a mass of gratuitous information--all of which we accepted
_cum grano salis_. We were neither disposed to be led nor misled by
friendly counsels. “There are no decent hotels--nothing but ramshackle
old buildings, mere refuges for the destitute.”
“Where you’ll always find lively companionship--especially by night.”
“Perhaps an alligator in the morning, or a comfortable moccasin or black
snake coiling round your feet to get themselves warm.”
“A family of young roaches six inches long flying out of your shoe as
you go to put your foot into it.”
“Nothing to eat but tough steaks, and hominy fried in fat, or rusty
bacon served in its own grease.”
“Alligator soup is a rare dainty.”
“And they’ll dish up a rattlesnake into a tasty ragout. No fresh
milk--no fresh meat--nothing but tallow-fried steak; ground beans in
your coffee-cup in the morning.”
These fancy sketches, however, bore not the slightest resemblance to the
actual truth; they were born of a _too_ lively imagination, with no
experience to keep it from rambling into the realms of fiction. In _all_
the Southern cities we visited there was most excellent hotel
accommodation to be found, though the hotels are not as a rule, either
so large or luxurious as those in other portions of the United States.
There are fewer grand corridors, less velvet upholstery, less carving
and gilding and gorgeous mirrors; but the rooms are large, airy, and
conveniently furnished, and nowhere is a comfortable lounge or
rocking-chair found wanting. The cuisine is not always such as to tickle
the palate of an epicure, or gratify the taste of a gourmet. There is no
attempt (and how often in the most pretentious hotels it is _only_ an
attempt) at French cookery--no _entrées_, no “high falutin” arrangements
at the dinner table; but there is generally good soup, a great variety
of excellent fish and vegetables, poultry, fruit, and pies, and
puddings, and most delicious crisp salads of all descriptions--and what
can a whole-souled, hungry mortal desire more? No one with a healthy
appetite and good digestion will complain of Southern fare, to which
Southern courtesy imparts perhaps its sweetest savour.
There are plenty of wild fowl, but a scarcity of all such animal food as
beef or mutton, in consequence of there being so little grazing land,
and that little is of very poor quality; the cattle they do raise is of
the most inferior order--Pharaoh’s lean kine; and as they are not able
to satisfy their own appetites, are not qualified to gratify ours. The
native meats are tough and flavourless. Private families get along very
well with the articles of consumption enumerated above. The good sirloin
or succulent saddle is rarely seen upon their tables, though the hotels
import largely; indeed, throughout Georgia, Carolina, &c., the
substantials are always supplied from the eastern states. Our bill of
fare reads thus:--“Tennessee beef,” “Boston pork,” “New York mutton,”
and even “New York lamb.”
On a sunny morning we take our first ramble through the “forest city” of
Savannah, and how well it deserves the name! It seems to have grown out
of the very heart of the “forest primeval,” whose giant progeny still
keep guard over the nest of human kind. Whichever way we turn, we look
through long vistas of shady streets crossing each other at right
angles; at each of these crossings, throughout the entire city, is an
open space laid out as a pretty little pleasaunce or toy garden,
carpeted with soft turf and tiny beds of bright flowers, and sometimes
planted with green shrubberies, while the fine old forest trees, which
time and civilisation have left standing, spread their wide branches for
colonies of wild birds to build and sing in. These spaces are like
slightly improved miniature editions of Paddington Green, but every one,
though it be but twelve foot square, is dignified by the name of “park.”
Some of the widest thoroughfares have four rows of trees planted the
entire length, the branches here and there meeting overhead, forming a
perfect archway, while the open street cars on the Central Avenue
beneath seem to carry us along through primeval bowers of luxuriant
green; we can hardly believe that anything so prosaic as “iron rails”
supply part of the motive power.
We find these open street cars a most convenient and pleasant mode of
locomotion, and spend much time riding about the city in this democratic
fashion, for the streets are ill-kept and dusty, and the roadways
sometimes a foot deep with heavy sand, so that it is impossible either
to walk or drive in a private vehicle with any comfort. Once we are
attracted by big red letters painted on a car side “Concordia,” “Forsyth
Park.” Everybody says we must go there; we take everybody’s advice, and,
as usual, find “nothing in it.” Concordia is a fine name for a small
tea-garden; Forsyth is a pretty shady spot, though it might be railed
into a small corner of Kensington Gardens; but the warm southern breeze,
and the oleander, orange, lemon, and magnolia--although the latter is
not yet in bloom--have made our short expedition a most agreeable one.
There is little architectural beauty anywhere in the city or its
surroundings--scarcely any attempt at ornamentation. The houses are made
up of doors and windows on the strictest utilitarian principles.
The natural beauties of this Arcadian city are so great they don’t seem
to care at all for the embellishments of art. Among the pleasant drives
in the city suburbs, is one to Laurel Grove. We step from the cars at
the terminus, and inquire of an old negro our way to the nearest point
of interest. He regarded us a moment with his beady black eyes, with his
head on one side like an inquisitive old bird. “Why! why! I thought
everybody know’d everywheres about Laurel Grove. But maybe you don’t
live nigh Savannah--come a long ways, perhaps?” he added curiously.
We explained our nationality.
“My lord! England!” I wish I could paint the expression of astonishment,
curiosity, and interest that overspread his good-humoured old monkey
face as he added, inspecting us admiringly, “My! Think o’ that! I never
spoke to an English lady but once before. It’s a cold country over thar,
ain’t it?”
The old man seems inclined to talk, and I am disposed to encourage his
loquacity; so much information may be gained in those gatherings by the
wayside--one feels the pulse of the spirit of the people, and learns
which way their hearts are beating. It is wiser to feed upon such crumbs
as chance throws in our way, than to wait till a full banquet of
stereotyped facts are spread before us. He asked me many questions,
which I answered in the way best suited to his understanding; then I
began a short catechism on my side. He was very communicative, and
answered me frankly enough. He had been born a slave, he said, on a
cotton plantation a few miles from the city, and in the season still
worked for his old master.
“But since you are now free,” I inquire, “why don’t you go North, and
break all connection with the old life? surely you would find more
advantageous employment and opportunities for improvement there?”
“Na, na,” said the old man, “we never go North; the Yankees set’s free
and gie’s votes, but it ain’t home-like to us thar. We likes to stay
along o’ them as we was raised wi’; ole mass’rs know all ’bout us, n’ we
know all about them.”
We found the changes rung to the same tune with but slight variation
throughout the South. The coloured people will serve their old masters,
will ask their advice and guidance, go to them for consolation in their
trouble, and seek their assistance when they are in difficulties; but
they will not vote for them, nor in any way serve their political
influence. They seem to have a hazy notion that they might be taken back
into slavery; they cannot realise that such a thing is impossible, nor
can they understand that their masters are glad to be rid of the
responsibility which slavery imposed upon them. The masters rejoice in
their freedom as much as the slaves do in theirs.
Beautiful in itself, beautiful in its surroundings, Savannah is an
ideal city for a summer lounge, with its pleasant shady promenades and
myriad miniature parks, thronged with people who are always well dressed
but never loud in their attire; there is a quiet refinement and dignity
about them which savours of old world conservatism.
A host of good fairies seem to have been hovering round at the birth of
Savannah. In 1733 the city consisted of only a few tents pitched under
the pine trees between what is now Bull and Whitaker Streets, now it is
one of the most thriving cities of the South; both wharves and quays are
crowded with men and merchandise, for a brisk and flourishing business
is carried on in the timber and cotton trade. It is a most important
commercial centre, both its imports and exports being on a largely
increasing scale.
It is impossible not to enjoy thoroughly a saunter through this Arcadian
city, a chat with the natives included. We were constantly amused by
finding ourselves playing at a forced game of “cross questions and
crooked answers,” our inquiries on any subject never receiving a direct
reply. In years gone by I had a passing pleasant acquaintance with a
family who lived in Savannah, but who, I afterwards learnt, were then
sojourning in England for a time. It would have given me great pleasure
to renew the acquaintance, and I inquire of the hotel clerk if Mr. ----
is still living in Savannah?
“Ain’t seen him for a long while; think he’s dead or gone to Europe, but
I’ll ask.” He telephones the inquiry to some invisible party, and a
sepulchral voice answers back--
“Don’t know--but Peter Green he died last week.”
The connection between the deceased Peter Green and my acquaintance,
Mr. ----, I have yet to learn. Another time we ask--
“Which is the car for Thunderbolt?” and are promptly answered,
“That red un is startin’ right away for Laurel Grove.” I inquire the way
to the railway station, and am directed to the river side. I ask about
the morning train, and am answered with detailed information about the
evening express. However, on sternly reiterating my question, and
emphasising the note of interrogation, I sometimes succeeded in at last
receiving the desired information.
No one should leave Savannah without visiting the ancient cemetery of
Buonaventura, the former residence of a fine old family, which passed
from their hands many years ago, and after undergoing many changes has
been at last converted into a cemetery. On entering the noble avenue,
and passing beneath the arching glories of the grand old oaks, with
their long weird robes of Spanish moss, it is difficult to believe that
we are entering a city of the dead, by whom indeed it is very sparsely
populated, the graves are so few and far between; one can almost fancy
that the dead had wandered thither, and moved by the sublime repose of
the place had lain down to rest, while nature wrapped them round about
with her soft mantle of green, and showered her sweet-scented wild
flowers above them. There is a profound mournfulness too hovering around
these silent, solitary avenues, where groups of sombre giant trees stand
brooding and wrapped in their grey moss mantles, with drooping arms, and
hoary heads bent low together, as though they were whispering mysteries,
holding a solemn council, and pronouncing the eternal sentence on the
dead below.
There is nothing prosaic or commonplace about Savannah; it is a
perfectly idyllic city, primitive and simple in its ways, with no stir
of frivolous worldly gaieties to rouse it from its sublime repose. No
sound of drums and trumpets runs echoing through its streets; the only
music is that which the wind makes as it whistles in many monotones
through the tall tree tops, and calls soft melodies from the tremulous
leaves, as the ancient god Pan made music by the reedy waterside. It is
not grey with age, nor marred and scarred by the hand of time; it seems
to luxuriate in eternal youth, and live a dreamy life of unaltered
poetry and sunshine. Even that most prosaic of all institutions, the
police station, is in perfect unison with the rest of this Arcadian
city; it seems to have nothing to do but drone away its hours in one
ceaseless _dolce far niente_, as though the ugly serpent sin crawled low
down out of sight--perhaps stirring the hearts, but rarely inciting the
acts of the people. There seems to be a great scarcity even of small
sinners. It is a low, clean, brick building in a cool shady part of the
city; covered with climbing plants and held close in the embrace of an
ancient vine, which twines in and out of every nook and cranny as though
it could never be torn away but with the life of the building.
Well, our last day in this forest city closes; the mocking bird, that
sings only in the dark, holds its last concert on our verandah, and we
are sung to sleep by the sharp cutting cries of a family of youthful
alligators which some northern tourists are taking home in a tank.