FROM CAPE FEAR TO CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.
A PORTAGE TO LAKE WACCAMAW.--THE SUBMERGED SWAMPS.--NIGHT AT A
TURPENTINE DISTILLERY.--A DISMAL WILDERNESS.--OWLS AND
MISTLETOE.--CRACKERS AND NEGROES.--ACROSS THE SOUTH CAROLINA LINE.--A
CRACKER'S IDEA OF HOSPITALITY.--POT BLUFF.--PEEDEE
RIVER.--GEORGETOWN.--WINYAH BAY.--THE RICE PLANTATIONS OF THE SANTEE
RIVERS.--A NIGHT WITH THE SANTEE NEGROES.--ARRIVAL AT CHARLESTON.
To reach my next point of embarkation a portage was necessary.
Wilmington was twelve miles distant, and I reached the railroad station
of that city with my canoe packed in a bed of corn-husks, on a one-horse
dray, in time to take the evening train to Flemington, on Lake Waccamaw.
The polite general freight-agent, Mr. A. Pope, allowed my canoe to be
transported in the passenger baggage-car, where, as it had no covering,
I was obliged to steady it during the ride of thirty-two miles, to
protect it from the friction caused by the motion of the train.
Mr. Pope quietly telegraphed to the few families at the lake, "Take care
of the paper canoe;" so when my destination was reached, kind voices
greeted me through the darkness and offered me the hospitalities of Mrs.
Brothers' home-like inn at the Flemington Station. After Mr. Carroll had
conveyed the boat to his storehouse, we all sat down to tea as sociably
as though we were old friends.
On the morrow we carried the Maria Theresa on our shoulders to the
little lake, out of which the long and crooked river with its dark
cypress waters flowed to the sea. A son of Mr. Short, a landed
proprietor who holds some sixty thousand acres of the swamp lands of the
Waccamaw, escorted me in his yacht, with a party of ladies and
gentlemen, five miles across the lake to my point of departure. It was
now noon, and our little party picnicked under the lofty trees which
rise from the low shores of Lake Waccamaw.
A little later we said our adieu, and the paper canoe shot into the
whirling current which rushes out of the lake through a narrow aperture
into a great and dismal swamp. Before leaving the party, Mr. Carroll had
handed me a letter addressed to Mr. Hall, who was in charge of a
turpentine distillery on my route. "It is _twenty_ miles by the river to
my friend Hall's," he said, "but in a straight line the place is just
_four_ miles from here." Such is the character of the Waccamaw, this
most crooked of rivers.
I had never been on so rapid and continuous a current. As it whirled me
along the narrow watercourse I was compelled to abandon my oars and use
the paddle in order to have my face to the bow, as the abrupt turns of
the stream seemed to wall me in on every side. Down the tortuous, black,
rolling current went the paper canoe, with a giant forest covering the
great swamp and screening me from the light of day. The swamps were
submerged, and as the water poured out of the thickets into the river it
would shoot across the land from one bend to another, presenting in
places the mystifying spectacle of water running up stream, but not up
an inclined plain. Festoons of gray Spanish moss hung from the weird
limbs of monster trees, giving a funeral aspect to the gloomy forest,
while the owls hooted as though it were night. The creamy, wax-like
berries of the mistletoe gave a Druidical aspect to the woods, for this
parasite grew upon the branches of many trees.
One spot only of firm land rose from the water in sixteen miles of
paddling from the lake, and passing it, I went flying on with the
turbulent stream four miles further, to where rafts of logs blocked the
river, and the sandy banks, covered with the upland forest of pines,
encroached upon the lowlands. This was Old Dock, with its turpentine
distillery smoking and sending out resinous vapors.
Young Mr. Hall read my letter and invited me to his temporary home,
which, though roughly built of unplaned boards, possessed two
comfortable rooms, and a large fireplace, in which light-wood, the
terebinthine heart of the pine-tree, was cheerfully blazing.
I had made the twenty miles in three hours, but the credit of this quick
time must be given to the rapid current. My host did not seem well
pleased with the solitude imposed upon him. His employers had sent him
from Wilmington, to hold and protect "their turpentine farm," which was
a wilderness of trees covering four thousand acres, and was valued, with
its distillery, at five thousand dollars. An old negro, who attended the
still and cooked the meals, was his only companion.
We had finished our frugal repast, when a man, shouting in the darkness,
approached the house on horseback. This individual, though very tipsy,
represented Law and Order in that district, as I was informed when "Jim
Gore," a justice of the peace, saluted me in a boisterous manner.
Seating himself by the fire, he earnestly inquired for the bottle. His
stomach, he said, was as dry as a lime-kiln, and, though water answers
to slake lime, he demanded something stronger to slake the fire that
burned within him. He was very suspicious of me when Hall told him of my
canoe journey. After eying me from head to toe in as steady a manner as
he was capable of, he broke forth with: "Now, stranger, this won't do.
What are ye a-travelling in this sort of way for, in a paper dug-out?"
I pleaded a strong desire to study geography, but the wise fellow
replied:
"Geography! geography! Why, the fellers who rite geography never travel;
they stay at home and spin their yarns 'bout things they never sees."
Then, glancing at his poor butternut coat and pantaloons, he felt my
blue woollen suit, and continued, in a slow, husky voice: "Stranger,
them clothes cost _something_; they be _store_-clothes. That paper
dug-out _cost money_, I tell ye; and it _costs_ something to travel
the hull length of the land. No, stranger; if ye be not on a bet, then
somebody's a-paying ye _well_ for it."
For an hour I entertained this roughest of law dignitaries with an
account of my long row, its trials and its pleasures. He became
interested in the story, and finally related to me his own aspirations,
and the difficulties attending his efforts to make the piny-woods people
respect the laws and good government. He then described the river route
through the swamps to the sea, and, putting his arm around me in the
most affectionate manner, he mournfully said:
"O stranger, my heart is with ye; but O, how ye will have to
take it when ye go past those awful wretches to-morrow; how they
will give it to ye! They most knocked me off my raft, last time
I went to Georgetown. Beware of them; I warn ye in time. Dern
the hussies."
Squire Jim so emphasized the danger that I became somewhat alarmed, for,
more than anything else, I dreaded an outbreak with rough women. And
then, too, my new acquaintance informed me that there were four or five
of these wretches, of the worst kind, located several miles down the
stream. As I was about to inquire into the habits of these ugly old
crones, Mr. Hall, wishing to give Squire James a hint, remarked that Mr.
B---- might at any time retire to the next room, where half the bed was
at his disposal.
"_Half the bed!_" roared the squire; "here are _three_ of us, and
where's _my half_?"
"Why, squire," hesitatingly responded my host, "Mr. B---- is _my guest_,
and having but _one_ bed, he must have _half_ of it--no less."
"Then what's to become of me?" thundered his Majesty of the law.
Having been informed that a shake-down would have been ready had he
given notice of his visit, and that at some future time, when not so
crowded, he could be entertained like a gentleman, he drew himself up,
wrapped in the mantle of dignity, and replied:
"None of that soft talk, my friend. This man is a traveller; let
him take travellers' luck--three in a bed to-night. I'm bound
to sleep with him to-night. Hall, where's the bottle?"
I now retired to the back room, and, without undressing, planted myself
on the side of the bed next the wall. Sleep was, however, an
unattainable luxury, with the squire's voice in the next room, as he
told how the country was going to the dogs, because "niggers and white
folks wouldn't respect the laws. It took half a man's time to _larn_ it
to 'em, and much thanks he ever got by setting everybody to rights." He
wound up by lecturing Hall for being so temperate, his diligent search
in all directions for bottles or jugs being rewarded by finding them
filled with unsatisfactory emptiness.
He then tumbled into the centre of the bed, crowding me close against
the wall. Poor Hall, having the outside left to him, spent the night in
exercising his brain and muscles in vain attempts to keep in his bed;
for when his Majesty of the law put his arms akimbo, the traveller went
to the wall, and the host to the floor. Thus passed my first night in
the great swamps of the Waccamaw River.
The negro cook gave us an early breakfast of bacon, sweet potatoes, and
corn bread. The squire again looked round for the bottle, and again
found nothing but emptiness. He helped me to carry my canoe along the
unsteady footing of the dark swamp to the lower side of the raft of
logs, and warmly pressed my hand as he whispered: "My dear B----, I
shall think of you until you get past those dreadful 'wretches.' Keep an
eye on your little boat, or they'll devil you."
Propelled by my double paddle, the canoe seemed to fly through the great
forest that rose with its tall trunks and weird, moss-draped arms, out
of the water. The owls were still hooting. Indeed, the dolorous voice of
this bird of darkness sounded through the heavy woods at intervals
throughout the day. I seemed to have left the real world behind me, and
to have entered upon a landless region of sky, trees, and water.
"Beware of the cut-offs," said Hall, before I left. "Only the Crackers
and shingle-makers know them. If followed, they would save you many a
mile, but every opening through the swamp is not a cut-off. Keep to the
main stream, though it be more crooked and longer. If you take to the
cut-offs, you may get into passages that will lead you off into the
swamps and into interior bayous, from which you will never emerge. Men
have starved to death in such places."
So I followed the winding stream, which turned back upon itself, running
north and south, and east and west, as if trying to box the compass by
following the sun in its revolution. After paddling down one bend, I
could toss a stick through the trees into the stream where the canoe had
cleaved its waters a quarter of a mile behind me.
The thought of what I should do in this landless region if my frail
shell, in its rapid flight to the sea, happened to be pierced by a snag,
was, to say the least, not a comforting one. On what could I stand to
repair it? To climb a tree seemed, in such a case, the only resource;
and then what anxious waiting there would be for some cypress-shingle
maker, in his dug-out canoe, to come to the rescue, and take the
traveller from his dangerous lodgings between heaven and earth; or it
might be that no one would pass that way, and the weary waiting would be
even unto death.
But sounds now reached my ears that made me feel that I was not quite
alone in this desolate swamp. The gray squirrels scolded among the
tree-tops; robins, the brown thrush, and a large black woodpecker with
his bright red head, each reminded me of Him without whose notice not a
sparrow falleth to the ground.
Ten miles of this black current were passed over, when the first signs
of civilization appeared, in the shape of a sombre-looking, two-storied
house, located upon a point of the mainland which entered the swamp on
the left shore of the river. At this point the river widened to five or
six rods, and at intervals land appeared a few inches above the water.
Wherever the pine land touched the river a pig-pen of rails offered
shelter and a gathering-place for the hogs, which are turned loose by
the white Cracker to feed upon the roots and mast of the wilderness.
Reeve's Ferry, on the right bank, with a little store and
turpentine-still, twenty miles from Old Dock, was the next sign of the
presence of man in this swamp. The river now became broad as I
approached Piraway Ferry, which is two miles below Piraway Farm.
Remembering the warnings of the squire as to the "awful wretches in the
big pine woods," I kept a sharp lookout for the old women who were to
give me so much trouble, but the raftsmen on the river explained that
though Jim Gore had told me the truth, I had misunderstood his
pronunciation of the word _reaches_, or river bends, which are called in
this vicinity _wretches_. The reaches referred to by Mr. Gore were so
long and straight as to afford open passages for wind to blow up them,
and these fierce gusts of head winds give the raftsmen much trouble
while poling their rafts against them.
My fears of ill treatment were now at rest, for my tiny craft, with her
sharp-pointed bow, was well adapted for such work. Landing at the ferry
where a small scow or flat-boat was resting upon the firm land, the
ferryman, Mr. Daniel Dunkin, would not permit me to camp out of doors
while his log-cabin was only one mile away on the pine-covered uplands.
He told me that the boundary-line between North and South Carolina
crossed this swamp three and a half miles below Piraway Ferry, and that
the first town on the river Waccamaw, in South Carolina, Conwayborough,
was a distance of ninety miles by river and only thirty miles by land.
There was but one bridge over the river, from its head to Conwayborough,
and it was built by Mr. James Wortham, twenty years before, for his
plantation. This bridge was twenty miles below Piraway, and from it by
land to a settlement on Little River, which empties into the Atlantic,
was a distance of only five miles. A short canal would connect this
river and its lumber regions with Little River and the sea.
For the first time in my experience as a traveller I had entered a
country where the miles were _short_. When fifteen years old I made my
first journey alone and on foot from the vicinity of Boston to the White
Mountains of New Hampshire. This boyish pedestrian trip occupied about
twenty-one days, and covered some three hundred miles of hard tramping.
New England gives honest measure on the finger-posts along her highways.
The traveller learns by well-earned experience the length of _her_
miles; but in the wilderness of the south there is no standard of five
thousand two hundred and eighty feet to a statute mile, and the watermen
along the sea-coast are ignorant of the fact that one-sixtieth of a
degree of latitude (about six thousand and eighty feet) is the
geographical and nautical mile of the cartographer, as well as the
"knot" of the sailor.
At Piraway Ferry no two of the raftsmen and lumbermen, ignorant or
educated, would give the same distance, either upon the lengths of
surveyed roads or unmeasured rivers. "It is one hundred and sixty-five
miles by river from Piraway Ferry to Conwayborough," said one who had
travelled the route for years. The most moderate estimate made was that
of ninety miles by river. The reader, therefore, must not accuse me of
over-stating distances while absent from the seaboard, as my friends
of the Coast Survey Bureau have not yet penetrated into these interior
regions with their theodolites, plane-tables, and telametre-rods. To the
canoeist, who is ambitious to score up _miles_ instead of collecting
geographical notes, these wild rivers afford an excellent opportunity
to satisfy his aims.
From sixty to eighty miles can be rowed in ten hours as easily as forty
miles can be gone over upon a river of slow current in the northern
states. There is, I am sorry to say, a class of American travellers who
"_do_" all the capitals of Europe in the same business-like way, and if
they have anything to say in regard to every-day life in the countries
through which they pass, they forget to thank the compiler of the
guide-book for the information they possess.
There was but one room in the cabin of my new acquaintance, who
represented that class of piny-woods people called in the south--because
they subsist largely upon corn,--Corn Crackers, or Crackers. These
Crackers are the "poor white folks" of the planter, and "de white trash"
of the old slave, who now as a freedman is beginning to feel the
responsibility of his position.
These Crackers are a very kind-hearted people, but few of them can read
or write. The children of the negro, filled with curiosity and a
new-born pride, whenever opportunity permits, attend the schools in
large numbers; but the very indolent white man seems to be destitute of
all ambition, and his children, in many places in the south, following
close in the father's footsteps, grow up in an almost unimaginable
ignorance.
The news of the arrival of the little Maria Theresa at Piraway Ferry
spread with astonishing rapidity through the woods, and on Sunday, after
"de shoutings," as the negroes call their meetings, were over, the
blacks came in numbers to see "dat Yankee-man's paper canno."
These simple people eyed me from head to foot with a grave sort of
curiosity, their great mouths open, displaying pearly teeth of which a
white man might well be proud. "You is a good man, capt'n--we knows
dat," they said; and when I asked why, the answer showed their
child-like faith. "'Cause you couldn't hab come all dis way in a _paper_
boat if de Lord hadn't helped you. _He_ dono help only good folks."
The Cracker also came with his children to view the wonder, while the
raftsmen were so struck with the advantages of my double paddle, which
originated with the inhabitants of the Arctic regions, that they laid it
upon a board and drew its outlines with chalk. They vowed they would
introduce it upon the river.
These Crackers declared it would take more than "de shoutings," or any
other religious service, to improve the moral condition of the blacks.
They openly accused the colored preachers of disturbing the nocturnal
rest of their hens and turkeys; and as to hog-stealing and cow-killing,
"Why, we won't have any critters left ef this carpet-bag government
lasts much longer!" they feelingly exclaimed.
"We does nothing to nobody. We lets the niggers alone; but
niggers will steal--they can't help it, the poor devils; it's in
'em. Now, ef they eats us out of house and home, what can a poor
man do? They puts 'em up for justices of peace, and sends 'em to
the legislature, when they can't read more'n us; and they do say
it's 'cause we fit in the Confederate sarvice that they razes
the nigger over our heads. Now, does the folkes up north like to
see white people tyrannized over by niggers? Jes tell 'em when
you go back, stranger, that we's got soulds like yours up north,
and we's got feelings too, by thunder! jes like other white men.
This was a white man's country once--now it's all niggers and
dogs. Why, them niggers in the legislature has spit-boxes lined
with gold to spit in! What's this country a-coming to? We wish
the niggers no harm if they lets our hogs and chickens alone."
After this tirade it was amusing to see how friendly the whites and
blacks were. The Crackers conversed with these children of Ham, who had
been stealing their hams for so long a time, in the most kindly way,
realizing, perhaps, that they had various peculiar traits of their own,
and must, after all, endure their neighbors.
A traveller should place facts before his readers, and leave to them the
drawing of the moral. Northern men and women who go to the southern
states and reside for even the short space of a year or two, invariably
change their life-long views and principles regarding the negro as a
moral and social creature. When these people return to their homes in
Maine or Massachusetts (as did the representatives of the Granges of the
northern states after they had visited South Carolina in 1875) a new
light, derived from contact with _facts_, dawns upon them, while their
surprised and untravelled neighbors say: "_So you have become Southern
in your views._ I never would have thought that of _you_."
The railroad has become one of the great mediums of enlightenment to
mankind, and joins in a social fraternity the disunited elements of a
country. God grant that the resources of the great South may soon be
developed by the capital and free labor of the North. Our sister states
of the South, exhausted by the struggles of the late war which resulted
in consolidating more firmly than ever the great Union, are now ready to
receive every honest effort to develop their wealth or cultivate their
territory. Let every national patriot give up narrowness of views and
sectional selfishness and become acquainted with (not the politicians)
the people of the New South, and a harmony of feeling will soon possess
the hearts of all true lovers of a government of the people.
The swamp tributaries were swelling the river into a very rapid torrent
as I paddled away from the ferry on Monday, January 18. A warmer
latitude having been reached, I could dispense with one blanket, and
this I had presented to my kind host, who had refused to accept payment
for his hospitality. He was very proud of his present, and said,
feelingly, "No one shall touch this but me." His good wife had baked
some of a rich and very nice variety of sweet-potatoes, unlike those we
get in New Jersey or the other Middle States--which potatoes she kindly
added to my stores. They are not dry or mealy when cooked, but seem
saturated with honey. The poor woman's gift now occupied the space
formerly taken up by the blanket I had given her husband.
From this day, as latitude after latitude was crossed on my way
southward, I distributed every article I could spare, among these poor,
kind-hearted people. Mr. Macgregor went in his Rob Roy canoe over the
rivers of Europe, "diffusing cheerfulness and distributing Evangelical
tracts." I had no room for tracts, and if I had followed the example of
my well-intentioned predecessor in canoeing, it would have served the
cause of truth or creed but little. The Crackers could not read, and but
few of the grown negroes had been taught letters. They did not want
books, but tobacco. Men and women hailed me from the banks as I glided
along in my canoe, with, "Say, captain, hab you eny 'bacca or snuff for
dis chile?" Poor humanity! The Cracker and the freedman fill alike their
places according to the light they possess. Do we, who have been taught
from our youth sacred things, do more than this? Do we love our neighbor
as ourself?
For twenty miles (local authority) I journeyed down the stream, without
seeing a human being or a dwelling-place, to Stanley's house and the
bridge; from which I urged the canoe thirty-five miles further, passing
an old field on a bluff, when darkness settled on the swamps, and a
heavy mist rose from the waters and enveloped the forests in its folds.
With not a trace of land above water I groped about, running into what
appeared to be openings in the submerged land, only to find my canoe
tangled in thickets. It was useless to go further, and I prepared to
ascend to the forks of a giant tree, with a light rope, to be used for
lashing my body into a safe position, when a long, low cry engaged my
attention.
"Waugh! ho! ho! ho! peig--peig--pe-ig--pe-ig," came through the still,
thick air. It was not an owl, nor a catamount that cried thus; nor was
it the bark of a fox. It was the voice of a Cracker calling in his hogs
from the forest. This sound was indeed pleasant to my ears, for I knew
the upland was near, and that a warm fire awaited my benumbed limbs in
the cabin of this unknown man. Pushing the canoe towards the sound, and
feeling the submerged border of the swamp with my paddle, I struck the
upland where it touched the water, and disembarking, felt my way along
a well-trodden path to a little clearing. Here a drove of hogs were
crowding around their owner, who was scattering kernels of corn about
him as he vociferated, "pe-ig--pe-ig--pe-ig--pig--pig--pig." We stood
face to face, yet neither could see the face of the other in the
darkness. I told my tale, and asked where I could find a sheltered
spot to camp.
"Stranger," slowly replied the Cracker, "my cabin's close at hand. Come
home with me. It's a bad night for a man to lay out in; and the niggers
would steal your traps if they knew you had anything worth taking. Come
with me."
In the tall pines near at hand was a cabin of peeled rails, the chinks
between them being stuffed with moss. A roof of cypress shingles kept
the rain out. The log chimney, which was plastered with mud, was built
outside of the walls and against an end of the rustic-looking structure.
The wide-mouthed fireplace sent forth a blaze of light as we entered the
poor man's home. I saw in the nicely swept floor, the clean bed-spreads,
and the general neatness of the place, the character of Wilson Edge's
wife.
"Hog and hominy's our food here in the piny woods," said Mr. Edge, as
his wife invited us to the little table; "and we've a few eggs now and
then to eat with sweet potatoes, but it's up-hill work to keep the
niggers from killing every fowl and animal we have. The carpet-bag
politicians promised them every one, for his vote, forty acres of land
and a mule. They sed as how the northern government was a-going to give
it to um; but the poor devils never got any thanks even for their votes.
They had been stuffed with all sorts of notions by the carpet-baggers,
and I don't blame um for putting on airs and trying to rule us. It's
human natur, that's all. We don't blame the niggers half so much as
those who puts it in their heads to do so; but it's hard times we've
had, we poor woods folks. They took our children for the cussed war,
to fight fur niggers and rich people as owned um.
"We never could find out what all the fuss was about; but when Jeff
Davis made a law to exempt every man from the army who owned fifteen
niggers, then our blood riz right up, and we sez to our neighbors, 'This
ere thing's a-getting to be a rich man's quarrel and a poor man's
fight.' After all they dragged off my boy to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania,
and killed him a fighting for what? Why, for rich nigger owners. Our
young men hid in the swamps, but they were hunted up and forced into the
army. Niggers has been our ruin. Ef a white man takes a case before a
nigger justice, he gives the nigger everything, and the white man has to
stand one side. Now, would you folks up north like to have a nigger
justice who can't read nor count ten figgurs?"
I tried to comfort the poor man, by assuring him that outside of the
political enemies of our peace, the masses in the north were honestly
inclined towards the south now that slavery was at an end; and that
wrong could not long prevail, with the cheerful prospect of a new
administration, and the removal of all unconstitutional forces that
preyed upon the south.
The two beds in the single room of the cabin were occupied by the
family; while I slept upon the floor by the fire, with my blankets for
a couch and a roll of homespun for a pillow, which the women called
"_heading_." They often said, "Let me give you some heading for your
bed." We waited until eight o'clock the next day for the mists to
rise from the swamps. My daily trouble was now upon me. How could I
remunerate a southerner for his cost of keeping me, when not, in the
true sense of the word, an invited guest to his hospitality?
Wilson Edge sat by the fire, while his wife and little ones were
preparing to accompany me to see the paper boat. "Mr. Edge," I
stammered, "you have treated me with great kindness, your wife has been
put to some inconvenience, as I came in so unexpected a manner, and you
will really oblige me if you will accept a little money for all this;
though money cannot pay for your hospitality. Grant my wish, and you
will send me away with a light heart." The poor Cracker lowered his head
and slowly ran his fingers through his coal black hair. For a moment he
seemed studying a reply, and then he spoke as though HE represented the
whole generous heart of the south.
"_Stranger_," he slowly articulated, "_Stranger, I have known white men
to be niggers enough to take a stranger's money for lodgings and
vittles, but I am not that man_."
We found the canoe as it had been left the night before, and I was soon
pulling down the river. The great wilderness was traversed thirty miles
to the county town of Conwayborough, where the negroes roared with
laughter at the working of the double paddle, as I shot past the
landing-place where cotton and naval stores were piled, waiting to be
lightered nine miles to Pot Bluff,--so called from the fact of a pot
being lost from a vessel near it,--which place is reached by vessels
from New York drawing twelve feet of water. Though still a long distance
from the ocean, I was beginning to feel its tidal influences. At Pot
Bluff, the landing and comfortable home of its owner, Mr. Z. W.
Dusenberry, presented a pleasant relief after the monotony of the great
pine forests. This enterprising business man made my short stay a very
pleasant one.
Wednesday, January 20th, was cold for this latitude, and ice formed in
thin sheets in the water-pails. Twenty-two miles below Pot Bluff, Bull
Creek enters the Waccamaw from the Peedee River. At the mouth of this
connecting watercourse is Tip Top, the first rice plantation of the
Waccamaw. The Peedee and its sister stream run an almost parallel course
from Bull Creek to Winyah Bay, making their debouchure close to the city
of Georgetown. Steam saw-mills and rice plantations take the place of
the forests from a few miles below Tip Top to the vicinity of
Georgetown.
Mr. M. L. Blakely, of New York, one of the largest shingle manufacturers
of the south, occupied as his headquarters the Bates Hill Plantation, on
the Peedee. This gentleman had invited me, through the medium of the
post-office, to visit him in the rice-growing regions of South Carolina.
To reach his home I took the short "cut-off" which Bull Creek offered,
and entered upon the strongest of head-currents. The thick, yellow,
muddy torrent of the Peedee rushed through Bull Creek with such volume,
that I wondered if it left much water on the other side, to give
character to the river, as it followed its own channel to Winyah Bay.
One and a half miles of vigorous paddling brought me to a branch of the
watercourse, which is much narrower than the main one, and is
consequently called Little Bull Creek. This also comes from the Peedee
River, and its source is nearer to the Bates Hill plantation than the
main Bull Creek. To urge the canoe up this narrow stream three miles and
a half to the parent river Peedee, was a most trying ordeal. At times
the boat would not move a hundred feet in five minutes, and often, as my
strength seemed failing me, I caught the friendly branches of trees, and
held on to keep the canoe from being whirled down the current towards
the Waccamaw. After long and persistent efforts had exhausted my
strength, I was about to seek for a resting-place in the swamp, when a
view of the broad Peedee opened before me, and with vigorous strokes of
the paddle the canoe slowly approached the mighty current. A moment more
and it was within its grasp, and went flying down the turbulent stream
at the rate of ten miles an hour.
A loud halloo greeted me from the swamp, where a party of negro
shingle-makers were at work. They manned their boat, a long cypress
dug-out, and followed me. Their employer, who proved to be the gentleman
whose abiding-place I was now rapidly approaching, sat in the stern. We
landed together before the old plantation-house, which had been occupied
a few years before by members of the wealthy and powerful rice-planting
aristocracy of the Peedee, but was now the temporary home of a northern
man, who was busily employed in guiding the labors of his four hundred
freedmen in the swamps of North and South Carolina.
The paper canoe had now entered the regions of the rice-planter. Along
the low banks of the Peedee were diked marshes where, before the civil
war, each estate produced from five thousand to forty thousand bushels
of rice annually, and the lords of rice were more powerful than those of
cotton, though cotton was king. The rich lands here produced as high as
fifty-five bushels of rice to the acre, under forced slave labor; now
the free blacks cannot wrest from nature more than twenty-five or thirty
bushels.
Fine old mansions lined the river's banks, but the families had been so
reduced by the ravages of war, that I saw refined ladies, who had been
educated in the schools of Edinburgh, Scotland, overseeing the negroes
as they worked in the yards of the rice-mills. The undaunted spirit of
these southern ladies, as they worked in their homes now so desolate,
roused my admiration.
A light, graceful figure, enveloped in an old shawl, and mounted on an
old horse, flitted about one plantation like a restless spirit.
"That lady's father," said a gentleman to me, "owned three plantations,
worth three millions of dollars, before the war. There is a rice-mill on
one of the plantations which cost thirty thousand dollars. She now
fights against misfortune, and will not give up. The Confederate war
would not have lasted six months if it had not been for our women. They
drove thousands of us young men into the fight; and now, having lost
all, they go bravely to work, even taking the places of their old
servants in their grand old homes. It's hard for them, though, I assure
you."
On Tuesday, January 25th, I paddled down the Peedee, stopping at the
plantations of Dr. Weston and Colonel Benjamin Allston. The latter
gentleman was a son of one of the governors of South Carolina. He kindly
gave me a letter of introduction to Commodore Richard Lowndes, who lived
near the coast. From the Peedee I passed through a cut in the marshes
into the broad Waccamaw, and descended it to Winyah Bay.
Georgetown is located between the mouths of the Peedee and Sampit
rivers. Cautiously approaching the city, I landed at Mr. David Risley's
steam saw-mills, and that gentleman kindly secreted my boat in a back
counting-room, while I went up town to visit the post-office. By some,
to me, unaccountable means, the people had heard of the arrival of the
paper boat, and three elaborately dressed negro women accosted me with,
"Please show wees tree ladies de little paper boat."
Before I had reached my destination, the post-office, a body of men met
me, on their way to the steam-mill. The crowd forced me back to the
canoe, and asked so many questions that I was sorely taxed to find
answers for these gentlemen. There were three editors in the crowd: two
were white men, one a negro. The young men, who claimed the position of
representatives of the spirit of the place and of the times, published
"The Comet," while the negro, as though influenced by a spirit of
sarcasm, conducted "The Planet." The third newspaper represented at the
canoe reception was the "Georgetown Times," which courteously noticed
the little boat that had come so far. The "Planet" prudently kept in the
dark, and said nothing, but "The Comet," representing the culture of the
young men of the city, published the following notice of my arrival:
"Tom Collins has at last arrived in his wonderful paper boat. He
has it hitched to Mr. Risley's new saw-mill, where every one can
have a view. He intends shooting off his six-pounder before
weighing anchor in the morning. Hurrah for Collins."
I left Mr. Risley's comfortable home before noon the next day, and
followed the shores of Winyah Bay towards the sea. Near Battery White,
on the right shore, in the pine forests, was the birth-place of Marion,
the brave patriot of the American revolution, whose bugle's call
summoned the youth of those days to arms.
When near the inlet, the rice-plantation marshes skirted the shore for
some distance. Out of these wet lands flowed a little stream, called
Mosquito Creek, which once connected the North Santee River with Winyah
Bay, and served as a boundary to South Island. The creek was very
crooked, and the ebb-tide strong. When more than halfway to Santee River
I was forced to leave the stream, as it had become closed by tidal
deposits and rank vegetation.
The ditches of rice plantations emptied their drainage of the lowlands
into Mosquito Creek. Following a wide ditch to the right, through fields
of rich alluvial soil, which had been wrested by severe toil from
nature, the boat soon reached the rice-mill of Commodore Richard
Lowndes. A little further on, and situated in a noble grove of
live-oaks, which were draped in the weird festoons of Spanish moss, on
the upland arose the stately home of the planter, who still kept his
plantation in cultivation, though on a scale of less magnitude than
formerly. It was, indeed, a pleasant evening that I passed in the
company of the refined members of the old commodore's household, and
with a pang of regret the next day I paddled along the main canal of the
lowlands, casting backward glances at the old house, with its grand old
trees. The canal ended at North Santee Bay.
While I was preparing to ascend the river a tempest arose, which kept
me a weary prisoner among the reeds of the rice marsh. The hollow
reeds made poor fuel for cooking, and when the dark, stormy night shut
down upon me, the damp soil grew damper as the tide arose, until it
threatened to overflow the land. For hours I lay in my narrow canoe
waiting for the tidal flood to do its worst, but it receded, and left
me without any means of building a fire, as the reeds were wet by the
storm. The next afternoon, being tired of this sort of prison-life,
and cramped for lack of exercise, I launched the canoe into the rough
water, and crossing to Crow Island found a lee under its shores, which
permitted me to ascend the river to the mouth of Atchison Creek,
through which I passed, two miles, to the South Santee River.
All these rivers are bordered by rice plantations, many of them having
been abandoned to the care of the freedmen. I saw no white men upon
them. Buildings and dikes are falling into ruins, and the river
freshets frequently inundate the land. Many of the owners of these
once valuable estates are too much reduced in wealth to attempt their
proper cultivation. It is in any case difficult to get the freedmen to
work through an entire season, even when well paid for their services,
and they flock to the towns whenever opportunity permits.
The North and South Santee rivers empty into the Atlantic, but their
entrances are so shallow that Georgetown Entrance is the inlet through
which most of the produce of the country--pitch, tar, turpentine, rice,
and lumber--finds exit to the sea. As I left the canal, which, with the
creek, makes a complete thoroughfare for lighters and small coasters
from one Santee River to the other, a renewal of the tempest made me
seek shelter in an old cabin in a negro settlement, each house of which
was built upon piles driven into the marshes. The old negro overseer of
the plantation hinted to me that his "hands were berry spicious of ebbry
stranger," and advised me to row to some other locality. I told him I
was from the north, and would not hurt even one of the fleas which in
multitudes infested his negroes' quarters; but the old fellow shook his
head, and would not be responsible for me if I staid there all night. A
tall darkey, who had listened to the conversation, broke in with, "Now,
uncle, ye knows dat if dis gemmum is from de norf he is one of wees, and
ye must _du_ fur him jis _dis_ time." But "Uncle Overseer" kept
repeating, "Some niggers here is mity spicious. Du not no who white man
is anyhow." "Well, uncle," replied the tall black, "ef dis man is a
Yankee-mans, Ise will see him _froo_."
Then he questioned me, while the fleas, having telegraphed to each other
that a stranger had arrived, made sad havoc of me and my patience.
"My name's Jacob Gilleu; what's yourn?" I gave it. "Whar's your home?"
came next. "I am a citizen of the United States," I replied. "De 'Nited
States--whar's dat? neber hurd him afore," said Jacob Gilleu. Having
informed him it was the land which General Grant governed, he exclaimed:
"O, you's a _Grant_ man; all rite den; you is one of wees--all de same
as wees. Den look a-here, boss. I send you to one good place on
Alligator Creek, whar Seba Gillings libs. He black man, but he treat you
jes like white man."
Jacob helped me launch my boat through the soft mud, which nearly
stalled us; and following his directions I paddled across the South
Santee and coasted down to Alligator Creek, where extensive marshes,
covered by tall reeds, hid the landscape from my view. About half a mile
from the mouth of the creek, which watercourse was on my direct route to
Bull's Bay, a large tide-gate was found at the mouth of a canal. This
being wide open, I pushed up the canal to a low point of land which rose
like an island out of the rushes. Here was a negro hamlet of a dozen
houses, or shanties, and the ruins of a rice-mill. The majority of the
negroes were absent working within the diked enclosures of this large
estate, which before the war had produced forty thousand bushels of rice
annually. Now the place was leased by a former slave, and but little
work was accomplished under the present management.
Seba Gillings, a powerfully built negro, came to the dike upon which I
had landed the canoe. I quickly told him my story, and how I had been
forced to leave the last negro quarters. I used Jacob Gilleu's name as
authority for seeking shelter with him from the damps of the
half-submerged lands. The dignified black man bade me "fear nuffing,
stay here all de night, long's you please; treat you like white man.
I'se mity poor, but gib you de berry best I hab." He locked my boat in a
rickety old storehouse, and gave me to understand "dat niggers will
steal de berry breff from a man's mouff."
He took me to his home, and soon showed me how he managed "de niggers."
His wife sat silently by the fire. He ordered her to "pound de rice;"
and she threw a quantity of unhulled rice into a wooden mortar three
feet high planted in the ground in front of the shanty. Then, with an
enormous pestle, the black woman pounded the grains until the hulls were
removed, when, seating herself upon the floor of the dark, smoky cabin,
she winnowed the rice with her breath, while her long, slim fingers
caught and removed all the specks of dirt from the mass. It was cooked
as the Chinese cook it--not to a glutinous mass, as we of the north
prepare it--but each grain was dry and entire. Then eggs and bacon were
prepared; not by the woman, but by the son, a lad of fourteen years.
All these movements were superintended by old Seba, who sat looking as
dark and as solemn and as learned as an associate judge on the bench of
a New Jersey county court. On the blackest of tables, minus a cloth, the
well-cooked food was placed for the stranger. As soon as my meal was
finished, every member of the family made a dash for the fragments, and
the board was cleared in a wonderfully short space of time.
Then we gathered round the great, black-mouthed fireplace, and while the
bright coals of live-oak spread a streak of light through the darkness,
black men and black women stole into the room until everything from
floor to ceiling, from door to chimney-place, seemed to be growing
blacker and blacker, and I felt as black as my surroundings. The scant
clothing of the men only half covered their shiny, ebony skins. The
whole company preserved a dignified silence, which was occasionally
broken by deep sighs coming from the women in reply to a half-whispered
"All de way from de norf in a _paper_ canno--bless de Lord! bless de
Lord!"
This dull monotony was broken by the entrance of a young negro who,
having made a passage in a sloop to Charleston through Bull's Bay, was
looked upon as a great traveller, and to him were referred disputes upon
nautical matters. He had not yet seen the boat, but he proceeded to
tell the negroes present all about it. He first bowed to me with a
"How'dy, how'dy, cap'n," and then struck an attitude in the middle of
the floor. Upon this natural orator Seba Gillings' dignity had no
effect--was he not a travelled man?
His exordium was: "How fur you cum, sar?" I replied, about fourteen
hundred miles. "Fourteen hundred miles!" he roared; "duz you knows how
much dat is, honnies? it's jes _one tousand_ four hundred miles." All
the women groaned out, "Bless de Lord! bless de Lord!" and clapped their
shrivelled hands in ecstasy.
The little black tried to run his fingers through his short, woolly hair
as he continued: "What is dis yere world a-coming to? Now, yous ere
folks, did ye's eber hear de likes o' dis--a _paper_ boat?" To which the
crones replied, clapping their hands, "Bless de Lord! bless de Lord!
Only the Yankee-mens up norf can make de _paper_ boats. Bless de Lord!"
"And what," continued the orator, "and what will the Yankee-mens do
next? Dey duz ebery ting. Can dey bring a man back agen? Can dey bring a
man back to bref?" "No! no!" howled the women; "only de Lord can bring a
man back agen--no Yankee-mens can do dat. Bless de Lord! bless de Lord!"
"And what sent dis Yankee-man _one tousand_ four hundred miles in his
_paper_ boat?" "De Lord! de Lord! bless de Lord!" shouted the now highly
excited women, violently striking the palms of their hands together.
"And why," went on this categorical negro, "did de _Lord_ send him down
souf in de _paper_ boat?" "Kase he couldn't hab cum in de _paper_ boat
ef de Lord hadn't a-sent him. O, bless de Lord! bless de Lord!" "And
what duz he call his paper boat?" "Maria Theresa," I replied. "Maria
Truss Her," cried the orator. "He calls her Maria Truss Her. Berry good,
berry good name; kase he truss his life in her ebry day, and dat's why
he calls his little boat Truss Her. Yes, de Yankee-mans makes de
gunboats and de paper boats. Has de gemmin from de norf any bacca for
dis yere chile?"
As the women had become very piously inclined, and were in just the
state of nervous excitement to commence "de shoutings," old Uncle Seba
rudely informed them that "de Yankee-mans wants sleep," and cleared the
room of the crowd, to my great relief, for the state of the atmosphere
was beyond description. Seba had a closet where he kept onions, muskrat
skins, and other pieces of personal property. He now set his wife to
sweeping it out, and I spread my clean blankets with a sigh upon the
black floor, knowing I should carry away in the morning more than I had
brought into Seba's dwelling.
I will not now expatiate upon the small annoyances of travel; but to the
canoeist who may follow the southern watercourses traversed by the paper
canoe, I would quietly say, "Keep away from cabins of all kinds, and you
will by so doing travel with a light heart and even temper."
When I cast up my account with old Seba the next morning, he said that
by trading the rice he raised he could obtain "bout ebbry ting he
wanted, 'cept rum." Rum was his medicine. So long as he kept a little
stowed away, he admitted he was often sick. Having been destitute of
cash, and consequently of rum for some time, he acknowledged his state
of health remarkable; and he was a model of strength and manly
development. All the other negroes were dwarfish-looking specimens,
while their hair was so very short that it gave them the appearance of
being bald.
When the canoe was taken out of the storehouse to be put into the canal,
these half-naked, ebony-skinned creatures swarmed about it like bees.
Not a trace of white blood could be detected in them. Each tried to put
a finger upon the boat. They seemed to regard it as a Fetich; and, I
believe, had it been placed upon an end they would have bowed down and
paid their African devotions to it. Only the oldest ones could speak
English well enough to be understood. The youths chattered in African
tongue, and wore talismans about their necks. They were, to say the
least, verging on barbarism. The experience gathered among the blacks of
other lands impressed me with the well-founded belief, that in more than
one place in the south would the African Fetich be set up and worshipped
before long, unless the church bestirs herself to look well to her
_home_ missions.
In all my travels, outside of the cities, in the south it has not been
my good fortune to find an educated white man preaching to negroes, yet
everywhere the poor blacks gather in the log-cabin, or rudely
constructed church, to listen to ignorant preachers of their own color.
The blind leading the blind.
A few men of negro extraction, with white blood in their veins, not any
more negro than white man, consequently _not_ negroes in the true sense
of the word, are sent from the negro colleges of the south to lecture
northern congregations upon the needs of _their_ race; and these
one-quarter, or perhaps three-quarters, white men are, with their
intelligence, and sometimes brilliant oratory, held up as true types of
the negro race by northerners; while there is, in fact, as much
difference between the pure-blooded negro of the rice-field and this
false representative of "his needs," as can well be imagined.
An Irishman, just from the old country, listened one evening to the
fascinating eloquence of a mulatto freedman. The good Irishman had never
seen a pure-blooded black man. The orator said, "I am only half a black
man. My mother was a slave, my father a white planter." "Be jabbers,"
shouted the excited Irishman, who was charmed with the lecturer, "if you
are only half a nigger, what must a _whole one_ be like!"
The blacks were kind and civil, as they usually are when fairly treated.
They stood upon the dike and shouted unintelligible farewells as I
descended the canal to Alligator Creek. This thoroughfare soon carried
me on its salt-water current to the sea; for I missed a narrow entrance
to the marshes, called the Eye of the Needle (a steamboat thoroughfare),
and found myself upon the calm sea, which pulsated in long swells. To
the south was the low island of Cape Roman, which, like a protecting
arm, guarded the quiet bay behind it. The marshes extended from the main
almost to the cape, while upon the edge of the rushy meadows, upon an
island just inside of the cape, rose the tower of Roman Light.
This was the first time my tiny shell had floated upon the ocean. I
coasted the sandy beach of the muddy lowlands, towards the light-house,
until I found a creek debouching from the marsh, which I entered, and
from one watercourse to another, without a chart, found my way at dusk
into Bull's Bay. The sea was rolling in and breaking upon the shore,
which I was forced to hug closely, as the old disturbers of my peace,
the porpoises, were visible, fishing in numbers. To escape the dangerous
raccoon oyster reefs of the shoal water the canoe was forced into a
deeper channel, when the lively porpoises chased the boat and drove me
back again on to the sharp-lipped shells. It was fast growing dark, and
no place of refuge nearer than the upland, a long distance across the
soft marsh, which was even now wet with the sea.
The rough water of the sound, the oyster reefs which threatened to
pierce my boat, and a coast which would be submerged by the next
flood-tide, all seemed to conspire against me. Suddenly my anxiety was
relieved, and gratitude filled my heart, as the tall masts of a schooner
rose out of the marshes not far from the upland, telling me that a
friendly creek was near at hand. Its wide mouth soon opened invitingly
before me, and I rowed towards the beautiful craft anchored in its
current, the trim rig of which plainly said--the property of the United
States. An officer stood on the quarterdeck watching my approach through
his glass; and, as I was passing the vessel, a sailor remarked to his
mates, "That is the paper canoe. I was in Norfolk, last December, when
it reached the Elizabeth River."
The officer kindly hailed me, and offered me the hospitality of the
Coast-Survey schooner "Caswell." In the cosiest of cabins, Mr. W. H.
Dennis, with his co-laborers Messrs. Ogden and Bond, with their
interesting conversation soon made me forget the discomforts of the last
three days spent in the muddy flats among the lowland negroes. From
poor, kind Seba Gillings' black cabin-floor, to the neat state-room,
with its snowy sheets and clean towels, where fresh, pure water could be
used without stint, was indeed a transition. The party expected to
complete their work as far as Charleston harbor before the season
closed.
The Sunday spent on the "Caswell" greatly refreshed me. On Saturday
evening Mr. Dennis traced upon a sheet of paper my route through the
interior coast watercourses to Charleston harbor; and I left the pretty
schooner on Monday, fully posted for my voyage. The tide commenced
flooding at eleven A. M., and the flats soon afforded me water for their
passage in the vicinity of the shore. Heavy forests covered the uplands,
where a few houses were visible. Bull's Island, with pines and a few
cabbage palms, was on my left as I reached the entrance of the southern
thoroughfare at the end of the bay. Here, in the intricacies of creeks
and passages through the islands, and made careless by the possession
of Mr. Dennis' chart, I several times blundered into the wrong course;
and got no further that afternoon than Price's Inlet, though I rowed
more than twenty miles. Some eight miles of the distance rowed was lost
by ascending and descending creeks by mistake.
After a weary day's work shelter was found in a house close by the sea,
on the shores of Price's Inlet; where, in company with a young
fisherman, who was in the employ of Mr. Magwood, of Charleston, I slept
upon the floor in my blankets. Charles Hucks, the fisherman, asserted
that three albino deer were killed on Caper's Island the previous
winter. Two were shot by a negro, while he killed the third. Messrs.
Magwood, Terry, and Noland, of Charleston, one summer penned beside the
water one thousand old terrapin, to hold them over for the winter
season. These "diamond-backs" would consume five bushels of shrimps in
one hour when fed. A tide of unusual height washed out the terrapins
from their "crawl," and with them disappeared all anticipated results of
the experiment.
The next day, Caper's Island and Inlet, Dewees' Inlet, Long Island, and
Breach Inlet were successively passed, on strong tidal currents.
Sullivan's Island is separated from Long Island by Breach Inlet. While
following the creeks in the marshes back of Sullivan's Island, the
compact mass of buildings of Moultrieville, at its western end, at the
entrance of Charleston harbor, rose imposingly to view.
The gloomy mantle of darkness was settling over the harbor as the paper
canoe stole quietly into its historic waters. Before me lay the quiet
bay, with old Fort Sumter rising from the watery plain like a spectral
giant, as though to remind one that this had been the scene of mighty
struggles. The tranquil waters softly rippled a response to the touch of
my oars; all was peace and quiet here, where, only a few short years
before, the thunder of cannon woke a thousand echoes, and the waves were
stained with the lifeblood of America,--where war, with her iron throat,
poured out destruction, and God's creatures, men, made after his own
image, destroyed each other ruthlessly, having never, in all that
civilization had done for them, discovered any other way of settling
their difficulties than by this wholesale murder.
The actors in this scene were scattered now; they had returned to the
farm, the workshop, the desk, and the pulpit. The old flag again floated
upon the ramparts of Sumter, and a government was trying to reconstruct
itself, so that the Great Republic should become more thoroughly a
government of the people, founded upon equal rights to all men.
A sharp, scraping sound under my boat roused me from my revery, for I
had leaned upon my oars while the tide had carried me slowly but surely
upon the oyster-reefs, from which I escaped with some slight damage to
my paper shell. Newspaper reading had impressed upon me a belief that
the citizens of the city which played so important a part in the late
civil war might not treat kindly a Massachusetts man. I therefore
decided to go up to the city upon the ferry-boat for the large mail
which awaited my arrival at the Charleston post-office, after receiving
which I intended to return to Mount Pleasant, and cross the bay to the
entrance of the southern watercourses, leaving the city as quietly as I
entered it.
My curiosity was, however, aroused to see how, under the new
reconstruction rule, things were conducted in the once proud city of
Charleston. As I stood at the window of the post-office delivery, and
inquired through the narrow window for my letters, a heavy shadow seemed
to fall upon me as the head of a negro appeared. The black post-office
official's features underwent a sudden change as I pronounced my name,
and, while a warm glow of affection lighted up his dark face, he thrust
his whole arm through the window, and grasped my hand with a vigorous
shake in the most friendly manner, as though upon his shoulders rested
the good name of the people.
[Illustration: RECEPTION AT CHARLESTON POST-OFFICE.]
"_Welcome_ to Charleston, Mr. B----, _welcome_ to our beautiful city,"
he exclaimed. So _this_ was Charleston under reconstruction.
After handing me my mail, the postmaster graciously remarked, "Our rule
is to close the office at five o'clock P. M., but if you are belated any
day, tap at the door, and I will attend you."
This was my first welcome to Charleston; but before I could return to my
quarters at Mount Pleasant, members of the Chamber of Commerce, the
Carolina Club, and others, pressed upon me kind attentions and
hospitalities, while Mr. James L. Frazer, of the South Carolina Regatta
Association, sent for the Maria Theresa, and placed it in charge of the
wharfinger of the Southern Wharf, where many ladies and gentlemen
visited it.
When I left the old city, a few days later, I blushed to think how I had
doubted these people, whose reputation for hospitality to strangers had
been world-wide for more than half a century.
While here I was the guest of Rev. G. R. Brackett, the well-loved pastor
of one of Charleston's churches. It was with feelings of regret I turned
my tiny craft towards untried waters, leaving behind me the beautiful
city of Charleston, and the friends who had so kindly cared for the
lonely canoeist.