CHAPTER I.

Transcriber’s Notes

Inconsistent hyphenation, capitalization, and spelling in the

original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical

errors have been corrected.

Quotes in dialect were not corrected.

The following are possible errors, but retained:

but I havn’t got through with you yet. (page 10)

venemous water-snakes, (page 24)

Barbecued rabits. (page 57)

Rasins (page 57)

prehaps you’ll never see a stage again; (page 66)

Page 76 and 77 (Numerous possible spelling errors).

Your equaility is acknowledged (page 143)

As to the moralty of this question (page 234)

lagunes, and jungles (page 257)

a caldron which stood over the fire (page 316)

the moral physican (page 344)

Download Volume 1 at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72676.

JOURNEYS AND EXPLORATIONS

IN

THE COTTON KINGDOM OF AMERICA.

THE

COTTON KINGDOM:

A TRAVELLER’S OBSERVATIONS ON COTTON AND SLAVERY

IN THE AMERICAN SLAVE STATES.

BASED UPON THREE FORMER VOLUMES OF JOURNEYS AND INVESTIGATIONS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

BY

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED.

_IN TWO VOLUMES._

VOL. II.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY MASON BROTHERS,

5 and 7 MERCER STREET.

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL.

1861.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by

MASON BROTHERS,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States

for the Southern District of New York.

PRINTED BY

C. A. ALVORD,

15 Vandewater-st.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.

SOUTH-WESTERN LOUISIANA AND EASTERN TEXAS 1

CHAPTER II.

A TRIP INTO NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI 55

CHAPTER III.

THE INTERIOR COTTON DISTRICTS—CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA,

ETC. 84

CHAPTER IV.

THE EXCEPTIONAL LARGE PLANTERS 143

CHAPTER V.

SLAVERY IN ITS PROPERTY ASPECT.—MORAL AND RELIGIOUS

INSTRUCTION OF THE SLAVES, ETC. 184

CHAPTER VI.

SLAVERY AS A POOR LAW SYSTEM 236

CHAPTER VII.

COTTON SUPPLY AND WHITE LABOUR IN THE COTTON CLIMATE 252

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES

OF THE SOUTH 272

CHAPTER IX.

THE DANGER OF THE SOUTH 338

APPENDIX (A.)

THE CONDITION OF VIRGINIA.—STATISTICS 364

APPENDIX (B.)

THE SLAVE TRADE IN VIRGINIA 372

APPENDIX (C.)

COST OF LABOUR IN THE BORDER STATES 380

APPENDIX (D.)

STATISTICS OF THE GEORGIA SEABOARD 385

INDEX TO THE WORK 393

COTTON AND SLAVERY.

CHAPTER I.

SOUTH-WESTERN LOUISIANA AND EASTERN TEXAS.

_Nacogdoches._—In this town of 500 inhabitants, we found there was no

flour. At San Augustine we had inquired in vain at all the stores for

refined sugar. Not satisfied with some blankets that were shown us, we

were politely recommended by the shopkeeper to try other stores. At

each of the other stores we were told they had none: the only blankets

in town we should find at ——’s, naming the one we had just quitted. The

same thing occurred with several other articles.

* * * * *

_Houston County._—This day’s ride and the next were through a very

poor country, clay or sand soil, bearing short oaks and black-jack.

We passed one small meadow, or prairie, covered with coarse grass.

Deserted plantations appeared again in greater numbers than the

occupied. One farm, near which we stopped, was worked by eight field

hands. The crop had been fifty bales; small, owing to a dry season. The

corn had been exceedingly poor. The hands, we noticed, came in from the

fields after eight o’clock.

The deserted houses, B. said, were built before the date of Texan

Independence. After Annexation the owners had moved on to better lands

in the West. One house he pointed out as having been the residence of

one of a band of pirates who occupied the country thirty or forty years

ago. They had all been gradually killed.

During the day we met two men on horseback, one upon wheels, and passed

one emigrant family. This was all the motion upon the principal road of

the district.

The second day’s camp was a few miles beyond the town of Crockett,

the shire-town of Houston County. Not being able to find corn for our

horses, we returned to the village for it.

We obtained what we wanted for a day’s rest, which we proposed for

Sunday, the following day, and loaded it into our emptied hampers. We

then looked about the town for current provisions for ourselves. We

were rejoiced to find a German baker, but damped by finding he had only

molasses-cakes and candies for sale. There was no flour in the town,

except the little of which he made his cakes. He was from Hamburgh,

and though he found a tolerable sale, to emigrants principally, he was

very tired of Crockett, and intended to move to San Antonio among his

countrymen. He offered us coffee, and said he had had beer, but on

Christmas-day a mass of people called on him; he had “treated” them

all, and they had finished his supply.

We inquired at seven stores, and at the two inns for butter, flour,

or wheat-bread, and fresh meat. There was none in town. One innkeeper

offered us salt beef, the only meat, except pork, in town. At the

stores we found crackers, worth in New York 6 cents a pound, sold here

at 20 cents; poor raisins, 30 cents; Manilla rope, half-inch, 30 cents

a pound. When butter was to be had it came in firkins from New York,

although an excellent grazing country is near the town.

* * * * *

_Trinity Bottom._—On landing on the west side of the Trinity, we

entered a rich bottom, even in winter, of an almost tropical aspect.

The road had been cut through a cane-brake, itself a sort of Brobdignag

grass. Immense trees, of a great variety of kinds, interlaced their

branches and reeled with their own rank growth. Many vines, especially

huge grape-vines, ran hanging from tree to tree, adding to the

luxuriant confusion. Spanish moss clung thick everywhere, supplying the

shadows of a winter foliage.

These bottom lands bordering the Trinity are among the richest of rich

Texas. They are not considered equal, in degree of fatness, to some

parts of the Brazos, Colorado, and Guadaloupe bottoms, but are thought

to have compensation in reliability for steady cropping.

We made our camp on the edge of the bottom, and for safety against

our dirty persecutors, the hogs, pitched our tent _within_ a large

hog-yard, putting up the bars to exclude them. The trees within had

been sparingly cut, and we easily found tent-poles and fuel at hand.

The plantation on which we were thus intruding had just been sold, we

learned, at two dollars per acre. There were seven hundred acres, and

the buildings, with a new gin-house, worth nearly one thousand dollars,

were included in the price. With the land were sold eight prime

field-hands. A quarter of the land was probably subject to overflow,

and the limits extended over some unproductive upland.

When field-hands are sold in this way with the land, the family

servants, who have usually been selected from the field-hands, must be

detached to follow the fortunes of the seller. When, on the other hand,

the land is sold simply, the whole body of slaves move away, leaving

frequently wives and children on neighbouring plantations. Such a cause

of separation must be exceedingly common among the restless, almost

nomadic, small proprietors of the South.

But the very word “sale,” applied to a slave, implies this cruelty,

leaving, of course, the creature’s whole happiness to his owner’s

discretion and humanity.

As if to give the lie to our reflections, however, the rascals here

appeared to be particularly jolly, perhaps adopting Mark Tapley’s

good principles. They were astir half the night, talking, joking, and

singing loud and merrily.

This plantation had made this year seven bales to the hand. The water

for the house, we noticed, was brought upon heads a quarter of a mile,

from a rain-pool, in which an old negress was washing.

* * * * *

_At an old Settler’s._—The room was fourteen feet square, with battens

of split boards tacked on between the broader openings of the logs.

Above, it was open to the rafters, and in many places the sky could

be seen between the shingles of the roof. A rough board box, three

feet square, with a shelf in it, contained the crockery-ware of the

establishment; another similar box held the store of meal, coffee,

sugar, and salt; a log crib at the horse-pen held the corn, from which

the meal was daily ground, and a log smoke or store-house contained

the store of pork. A canopy-bed filled one quarter of the room; a

cradle, four chairs seated with untanned deer-hide, a table, a skillet

or bake-kettle, a coffee-kettle, a frying-pan, and a rifle laid across

two wooden pegs on the chimney, with a string of patches, powder-horn,

pouch, and hunting-knife, completed the furniture of the house. We all

sat with hats and overcoats on, and the woman cooked in bonnet and

shawl. As I sat in the chimney-corner I could put both my hands out,

one laid on the other, between the stones of the fire-place and the

logs of the wall.

A pallet of quilts and blankets was spread for us in the lean-to,

just between the two doors. We slept in all our clothes, including

overcoats, hats, and boots, and covered entirely with blankets. At

seven in the morning, when we threw them off, the mercury in the

thermometer in our saddle-bags, which we had used for a pillow, stood

at 25° Fahrenheit.

We contrived to make cloaks and hoods from our blankets, and after

going through with the fry, coffee and pone again, and paying one

dollar each for the entertainment of ourselves and horses, we continued

our journey.

* * * * *

_Caldwell._—Late in the same evening we reached a hamlet, the “seat of

justice” of Burleson County. We were obliged to leave our horses in

a stable, made up of a roof, in which was a loft for the storage of

provender, set upon posts, without side-boarding, so that the norther

met with no obstruction. It was filled with horses, and ours alone were

blanketed for the night. The mangers were very shallow and narrow, and

as the corn was fed on the cob, a considerable proportion of it was

thrown out by the horses in their efforts to detach the edible portion.

With laudable economy, our landlord had twenty-five or thirty pigs

running at large in the stable, to prevent this overflow from being

wasted.

The “hotel” was an unusually large and fine one; the principal room

had glass windows. Several panes of these were, however, broken, and

the outside door could not be closed from without; and when closed, was

generally pried open with a pocket-knife by those who wished to go out.

A great part of the time it was left open. Supper was served in another

room, in which there was no fire, and the outside door was left open

for the convenience of the servants in passing to and from the kitchen,

which, as usual here at large houses, was in a detached building.

Supper was, however, eaten with such rapidity that nothing had time to

freeze on the table.

There were six Texans, planters and herdsmen, who had made harbour at

the inn for the norther, two German shopkeepers and a young lawyer,

who were boarders, besides our party of three, who had to be seated

before the fire. We kept coats and hats on, and gained as much warmth,

from the friendly manner in which we drew together, as possible. After

ascertaining, by a not at all impertinent or inconsiderate method

of inquiry, where we were from, which way we were going, what we

thought of the country, what we thought of the weather, and what were

the capacities and the cost of our fire-arms, we were considered as

initiated members of the crowd, and “the conversation became general.”

The matter of most interest came up in this wise: “The man made a white

boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, get up and go out in the norther

for wood, when there was a great, strong nigger fellow lying on the

floor doing nothing. God! I had an appetite to give him a hundred,

right there.”

“Why, you wouldn’t go out into the norther yourself, would you, if you

were not obliged to?” inquired one, laughingly.

“I wouldn’t have a nigger in my house that I was afraid to set to work,

at anything I wanted him to do, at any time. They’d hired him out to go

to a new place next Thursday, and they were afraid if they didn’t treat

him well, he’d run away. If I couldn’t break a nigger of running away,

I wouldn’t have him any how.”

“I can tell you how you can break a nigger of running away, certain,”

said another. “There was an old fellow I used to know in Georgia, that

always cured his so. If a nigger ran away, when he caught him, he would

bind his knee over a log, and fasten him so he couldn’t stir; then he’d

take a pair of pincers and pull one of his toe-nails out by the roots;

and tell him that if he ever run away again, he would pull out two of

them, and if he run away again after that, he told them he’d pull out

four of them, and so on, doubling each time. He never had to do it more

than twice—it always cured them.”

One of the company then said that he was at the present time in

pursuit of a negro. He had bought him of a relative in Mississippi, and

had been told that he was a great runaway. He had, in fact, run away

from his relative three times, and always when they caught him he was

trying to _get back to Illinois_;[1] that was the reason he sold him.

“He offered him to me cheap,” he continued, “and I bought him because

he was a first-rate nigger, and I thought perhaps I could break him

of running away by bringing him down to this new country. I expect

he’s making for Mexico now. I am a-most sure I saw his tracks on the

road about twelve miles back, where he was a-coming on this way. Night

before last I engaged with a man who’s got some first-rate nigger dogs

to meet me here to-night; but I suppose the cold keeps him back.” He

then asked us to look out for him as we went on west, and gave us a

minute description of him that we might recognize him. He was “a real

black nigger,” and carried off a double-barrelled gun with him. Another

man, who was going on by another road westward, offered to look for him

that way, and to advertise him. Would he be likely to defend himself

with the gun if he should try to secure him? he asked. The owner said

he had no doubt he would. He was as humble a nigger when he was at work

as ever he had seen; but he was a mighty resolute nigger—there was no

man had more resolution. “Couldn’t I induce him to let me take the gun

by pretending I wanted to look at it, or something? I’d talk to him

simple; make as if I was a stranger, and ask him about the road, and

so on, and finally ask him what he had got for a gun, and to let me

look at it.” The owner didn’t believe he’d let go of the gun; he was a

“nigger of sense—as much sense as a white man; he was not one of your

kinkey-headed niggers.” The chances of catching him were discussed.

Some thought they were good, and some that the owner might almost as

well give it up, he’d got such a start. It was three hundred miles to

the Mexican frontier, and he’d have to make fires to cook the game he

would kill, and could travel only at night; but then every nigger or

Mexican he could find would help him, and if he had so much sense, he’d

manage to find out his way pretty straight, and yet not have white

folks see him.

We slept in a large upper room, in a company of five, with a broken

window at the head of our bed, and another at our side, offering a

short cut to the norther across our heads.

We were greatly amused to see one of our bed-room companions gravely

_spit_ in the candle before jumping into bed, explaining to some one

who made a remark, that he always did so, it gave him time to see what

he was about before it went out.

The next morning the ground was covered with sleet, and the gale still

continued (a pretty steady close-reefing breeze) during the day.

We wished to have a horse shod. The blacksmith, who was a white man,

we found in his shop, cleaning a fowling-piece. It was too d——d cold

to work, he said, and he was going to shoot some geese; he, at length,

at our urgent request, consented to earn a dollar; but, after getting

on his apron, he found that we had lost a shoe, and took it off again,

refusing to make a shoe while this d——d norther lasted, for any man. As

he had no shoes ready made, he absolutely turned us out of the shop,

and obliged us to go seventy-five miles further, a great part of the

way over a pebbly road, by which the beast lost three shoes before he

could be shod.

This respect for the north wind is by no means singular here. The

publication of the week’s newspaper in Bastrop was interrupted by

the norther, the editor mentioning, as a sufficient reason for the

irregularity, the fact that his printing-office was in the north part

of the house.

* * * * *

_Austin._—Before leaving Eastern Texas behind us, I must add a random

note or two, the dates of which it would have been uncivil to indicate.

We stopped one night at the house of a planter, now twenty years

settled in Eastern Texas. He was a man of some education and natural

intelligence, and had, he told us, an income, from the labour of his

slaves, of some $4,000. His residence was one of the largest houses we

had seen in Texas. It had a second story, two wings and a long gallery.

Its windows had been once glazed, but now, out of eighty panes that

originally filled the lower windows, thirty only remained unbroken.

Not a door in the house had been ever furnished with a latch or even

a string; when they were closed, it was necessary to _claw_ or to ask

some one inside to push open. (Yet we happened to hear a neighbour

expressing serious admiration of the way these doors fitted.) The

furniture was of the rudest description.

One of the family had just had a hæmorrhage of the lungs; while we

were at supper, this person sat between the big fireplace and an open

outside door, having a window, too, at his side, in which only three

panes remained. A norther was blowing, and ice forming upon the gallery

outside. Next day at breakfast, the invalid was unable to appear on

account of a “bad turn.”

On our supper-table was nothing else than the eternal fry, pone and

coffee. Butter, of dreadful odour, was here added by exception. Wheat

flour they never used. It was “too much trouble.”

We were waited upon by two negro girls, dressed in short-waisted,

twilled-cotton gowns, once white, now looking as if they had been

worn by chimney-sweeps. The water for the family was brought in tubs

upon the heads of these two girls, from a creek, a quarter of a mile

distant, this occupation filling nearly all their time.

This gentleman had thirty or forty negroes, and two legitimate sons.

One was an idle young man. The other was, at eight years old, a

swearing, tobacco-chewing bully and ruffian. We heard him whipping a

puppy behind the house, and swearing between the blows, his father and

mother being at hand. His language and tone was an evident imitation of

his father’s mode of dealing with his slaves.

“I’ve got an account to settle with you; I’ve let you go about long

enough; I’ll teach you who’s your master; there, go now, God damn you,

but I havn’t got through with you yet.”

“You stop that cursing,” said his father, at length, “it isn’t right

for little boys to curse.”

“What do _you_ do when you get mad?” replied the boy; “reckon you cuss

some; so now you’d better shut up.”

* * * * *

In the whole journey through Eastern Texas, we did not see one of the

inhabitants look into a newspaper or a book, although we spent days in

houses where men were lounging about the fire without occupation. One

evening I took up a paper which had been lying unopened upon the table

of the inn where we were staying, and smiled to see how painfully news

items dribbled into the Texas country papers, the loss of the tug-boat

“Ajax,” which occurred before we left New York, being here just given

as the loss of the “splendid steamer Ocax.”

A man who sat near said—

“Reckon you’ve read a good deal, hain’t you?”

“Oh, yes; why?”

“Reckon’d you had.”

“Why?”

“You look as though you liked to read. Well, it’s a good thing. S’pose

you take a pleasure in reading, don’t you?”

“That depends, of course, on what I have to read. I suppose everybody

likes to read when they find anything interesting to them, don’t they?”

“No; it’s damn tiresome to some folks, I reckon, any how, ’less you’ve

got the habit of it. Well, it’s a good thing; you can pass away your

time so.”

* * * * *

The sort of interest taken in foreign affairs is well enough

illustrated by the views of a gentleman of property in Eastern Texas,

who was sitting with us one night, “spitting in the fire,” and talking

about cotton. Bad luck he had had—only four bales to the hand; couldn’t

account for it—bad luck; and next year he didn’t reckon nothing else

but that there would be a general war in Europe, and then he’d be in a

pretty fix, with cotton down to four cents a pound. Curse those Turks!

If he thought there would be a general war, he would take every d——d

nigger he’d got, right down to New Orleans, and sell them for what

they’d bring. They’d never be so high again as they were now, and if

there should come a general war they wouldn’t be worth half as much

next year. There always were infernal rascals somewhere in the world

trying to prevent an honest man from getting a living. Oh, if they got

to fighting, he hoped they’d eat each other up. They just ought to

be, all of them—Turks, and Russians, and Prussians, and Dutchmen, and

Frenchmen—just be put in a bag together, and slung into hell. That’s

what he’d do with them.

* * * * *

Remarking, one day, at the house of a woman who was brought up at the

North, that there was much more comfort at her house than any we had

previously stopped at, she told us that the only reason the people

didn’t have any comfort here was, that they wouldn’t _take any trouble_

to get anything. Anything that their negroes could make they would

eat; but they would take no pains to instruct them, or to get anything

that didn’t grow on the plantation. A neighbour of hers owned fifty

cows, she supposed, but very rarely had any milk and scarcely ever any

butter, simply because his people were too lazy to milk or churn, and

he wouldn’t take the trouble to make them.

This woman entirely sustained the assertion that Northern people,

when they come to the South, have less feeling for the negroes than

Southerners themselves usually have. We asked her (she lived in a

village) whether she hired or owned her servants. They owned them all,

she said. When they first came to Texas they hired servants, but it

was very troublesome; they would take no interest in anything; and

she couldn’t get along with them. Then very often their owners, on

some pretext (ill-treatment, perhaps), would take them away. Then they

bought negroes. It was very expensive: a good negro girl cost seven

or eight hundred dollars, and that, we must know, was a great deal of

money to be laid out in a thing that might lie right down the next day

and die. They were not much better either than the hired servants.

Folks up North talked about how badly the negroes were treated; she

wished they could see how much work her girls did. She had four of

them, and she knew they didn’t do half so much work as one good Dutch

girl such as she used to have at the North. Oh! the negroes were the

laziest things in creation; there was no knowing how much trouble they

gave to look after them. Up to the North, if a girl went out into the

garden for anything, when she came back she would clean her feet, but

these nigger girls will stump right in and track mud all over the

house. What do they care? They’d just as lief clean the mud after

themselves as anything else—their time isn’t any value to themselves.

What do they care for the trouble it gives you? Not a bit. And you may

scold ’em and whip ’em—you never can break ’em into better habits.

I asked what were servants’ wages when they were hired out to do

housework? They were paid seven or eight dollars a month; sometimes

ten. She didn’t use to pay her girl at the North but four dollars, and

she knew she would do more work than any six of the niggers, and not

give half so much trouble as one. But you couldn’t get any other help

here but niggers. Northern folks talk about abolishing slavery, but

there wouldn’t be any use in that; that would be ridiculous, unless you

could some way get rid of the niggers. Why, they’d murder us all in

our beds—that’s what they’d do. Why, over to Fannin, there was a negro

woman that killed her mistress with an axe, and her two little ones.

The people just flocked together, and hung her right up on the spot;

they ought to have piled some wood round her, and burned her to death;

that would have been a good lesson to the rest. We afterwards heard her

scolding one of her girls, the girl made some exculpatory reply, and

getting the best of the argument, the mistress angrily told her if she

said another word she would have two hundred lashes given her. She came

in and remarked that if she hadn’t felt so nervous she would have given

that girl a good whipping herself; these niggers are so saucy, it’s

very trying to one who has to take care of them.

Servants are, it is true, “a trial,” in all lands, ages, and nations.

But note the fatal reason this woman frankly gives for the inevitable

delinquencies of slave-servants, “Their time isn’t any value to

themselves!”

The women of Eastern Texas seemed to us, in general, far superior to

their lords. They have, at least, the tender hearts and some of the

gentle delicacy that your “true Texan” lacks, whether mistresses of

slaves, or only of their own frying-pan. They are overworked, however,

as soon as married, and care gives them thin faces, sallow complexions,

and expressions either sad or sour.

Another night we spent at the house of a man who came here, when a

boy, from the North. His father was a mechanic, and had emigrated to

Texas just before the war of Independence. He joined the army, and

his son had been brought up—rather had grown up—Southern fashion,

with no training to regular industry. He had learned no trade. What

need? His father received some thousand acres of land in payment of

his services. The son earned some money by driving a team; bought some

cattle, took a wife, and a house, and now had been settled six years,

with a young family. He had nothing to do but look after his cattle,

go to the nearest town and buy meal and coffee occasionally, and sell

a few oxen when the bill was sent in. His house was more comfortless

than nine-tenths of the stables of the North. There were several

windows, some of which were boarded over, some had wooden shutters,

and some were entirely open. There was not a pane of glass. The doors

were closed with difficulty. We could see the stars, as we lay in bed,

through the openings of the roof; and on all sides, in the walls of

the room, one’s arm might be thrust out. Notwithstanding, that night

the mercury fell below 25° of our Fahrenheit thermometer. There was

the standard food and beverage, placed before us night and morning. We

asked if there was much game near him? There were a great many deer.

He saw them every day. Did he shoot many? He never shot any; ’twas too

much trouble. When he wanted “fresh,” ’twas easier to go out and stick

a hog (the very words he used). He had just corn enough to give our

horses one feed—there was none left for the morning. His own horses

could get along through the winter on the prairie. He made pets of his

children, but was cross and unjust to his wife, who might have been

pretty, and was affectionate. He was without care—thoughtless, content,

with an unoccupied mind. He took no newspaper—he read nothing. There

was, indeed, a pile of old books which his father had brought from the

North, but they seemed to be all of the Tract Society sort, and the

dust had been undisturbed upon them, it might have been, for many years.

* * * * *

_Manchac Spring._—We found a plantation that would have done no

discredit to Virginia. The house was large and well constructed,

standing in a thick grove, separated from the prairie by a strong

worm-fence. Adjacent, within, was the spring, which deserved its

prominence of mention upon the maps. It had been tastefully grottoed

with heavy limestone rocks, now water-stained and mossy, and the pure

stream came gurgling up, in impetuous gallons, to pour itself in a

bright current out upon the prairie. The fountains of Italy were what

came to mind, and “Fontana de Manciocco” would have secured a more

natural name.

Everything about the house was orderly and neat. The proprietor came

out to receive us, and issued orders about the horses, which we felt,

from their quiet tone, would be obeyed without our supervision. When

we were ushered into a snug supper-room and found a clean table set

with wheat-bread, ham, tea, and preserved fruits, waited on by tidy and

ready girls, we could scarce think we had not got beyond the bounds

of Texas. We were, in fact, quit, for some time to come, of the lazy

poverty of Eastern Texas.

* * * * *

_Lower Guadaloupe._—Not finding a suitable camping place, we stumbled,

after dark, into a large plantation upon the river bottom.

The irruption of our train within the plantation fences caused a

furious commotion among the dogs and little negroes, and it was with no

little difficulty we could explain to the planter, who appeared with

a candle, which was instantly blown out upon the porch, our peaceable

intentions. Finally, after a general striking out of Fanny’s heels and

the master’s boots, aided by the throwing of our loose lariats into

the confused crowd, the growling and chattering circle about us was

sufficiently enlarged and subdued for us to obtain a hearing, and we

were hospitably received.

“Ho, Sam! You Tom, here! Call your missus. Suke! if you don’t stop

that infernal noise I’ll have you drowned! Here, Bill! Josh! some of

you! why don’t you help the gentleman? Bring a lantern here! Packed,

are you, sir. Hold on, you there; leave the gun alone. Now, clear out

with you, you little devils, every one of you! Is there no one in the

house? St! after ’em, Tiger! Can’t any of you find a lantern? Where’s

Bill, to take these horses? What are you doing there? I tell you to be

off, now, every one of you! Tom! take a rail and keep ’em off there!”

In the midst of the noise we go through the familiar motions, and land

our saddles and hampers upon the gallery, then follow what appears to

be the headmost negro to the stable, and give him a hint to look well

out for the horses.

This is our first reintroduction to negro servants after our German

experiences, and the contrast is most striking and disagreeable. Here

were thirty or forty slaves, but not an order could be executed without

more reiteration, and threats, and oaths, and greater trouble to the

master and mistress, than would be needed to get a squadron under way.

We heard the master threaten his negroes with flogging, at least six

times, before we went to bed. In the night a heavy rain came up, and

he rose, on hearing it, to arrange the cistern spout, cursing again

his infernal niggers, who had turned it off for some convenience of

their own. In the morning, we heard the mistress scolding her girls for

having left articles outside which had been spoiled by the wet, after

repeated orders to bring them in. On visiting the stables we found the

door fastened by a board leaned against it.

All the animals were loose, except the mule, which I had fastened

myself. The rope attached to my saddle was stolen, and a shorter one

substituted for it, when I mentioned the fact, by which I was deceived,

until we were too far off to return. The master, seeing the horses

had yet had no fodder, called to a boy to get some for them, then,

countermanding his order, told the boy to call some one else, and go

himself to drive the cows out of the garden. Then, to another boy, he

said, “Go and pull two or three bundles of fodder out of the stack and

give these horses.” The boy soon came with two small bundles. “You

infernal rascal, couldn’t you tote more fodder than that? Go back and

bring four or five bundles, and be quick about it, or I’ll lick you.”

The boy walked slowly back, and returned with four bundles more.

But on entering at night we were struck with the air of comfort that

met us. We were seated in rocking-chairs in a well-furnished room,

before a blazing fire, offered water to wash, in a little lean-to

bed-room, and, though we had two hours to wait for our supper, it was

most excellent, and we passed an agreeable evening in intelligent

conversation with our host.

After his curiosity about us was satisfied, we learned from him that,

though a young man, he was an old settler, and had made a comfortable

fortune by his plantation. His wife gave us a picturesque account

of their waggon journey here with their people, and described the

hardships, dangers, and privations they had at first to endure. Now

they were far more comfortable than they could have ever hoped to have

been in the State from which they came. They thought their farm the

best cotton land in the world. It extended across a mile of timbered

bottom land from the river, then over a mile of bottom prairie, and

included a large tract of the big prairie “for range.” Their field

would produce, in a favourable season, three bales to the acre;

ordinarily a bale and a half: the “bale” 400 lbs. They had always far

more than their hands could pick. It was much more free from weeds

than the States, so much so, that three hands would be needed there to

cultivate the same area as two here; that is, with the same hands the

crop would be one-third greater.

But so anxious is every one in Texas to give all strangers a

favourable impression, that all statements as to the extreme profit

and healthfulness of lands must be taken with a grain of allowance. We

found it very difficult, without impertinent persistence, to obtain

any unfavourable facts. Persons not interested informed us, that from

one-third to one-half the cotton crop on some of these rich plantations

had been cut off by the worm, on several occasions, and that negroes

suffered much with dysentery and pneumonia.

It cost them very little to haul their cotton to the coast or to get

supplies. They had not been more sickly than they would have been on

the Mississippi. They considered that their steady sea-breeze was

almost a sure preventive of such diseases as they had higher up the

country.

They always employed German mechanics, and spoke well of them. Mexicans

were regarded in a somewhat unchristian tone, not as heretics or

heathen, to be converted with flannel and tracts, but rather as vermin,

to be exterminated. The lady was particularly strong in her prejudices.

White folks and Mexicans were never made to live together, anyhow, and

the Mexicans had no business here. They were getting so impertinent,

and were so well protected by the laws, that the Americans would just

have to get together and drive them all out of the country.

* * * * *

_On the Chockolate._—“Which way did you come?” asked some one of the

old man.

“From ——.”

“See anything of a runaway nigger over there, anywhar?”

“No, sir. What kind of a nigger was it?”

“A small, black, screwed-up-faced nigger.”

“How long has he been out?”

“Nigh two weeks.”

“Whose is he?”

“Judge ——’s, up here. And he cut the judge right bad. Like to have

killed the judge. Cut his young master, too.”

“Reckon, if they caught him, ’twould go rather hard with him.”

“Reckon ’twould. We caught him once, but he got away from us again. We

was just tying his feet together, and he give me a kick in the face,

and broke. I had my six-shooter handy, and I tried to shoot him, but

every barrel missed fire. Been loaded a week. We shot at him three

times with rifles, but he’d got too far off, and we didn’t hit, but

we must have shaved him close. We chased him, and my dog got close to

him once. If he’d grip’d him, we should have got him; but he had a dog

himself, and just as my dog got within about a yard of him, his dog

turned and fit my dog, and he hurt him so bad we couldn’t get him to

run him again. We run him close, though, I tell you. Run him out of his

coat, and his boots, and a pistol he’d got. But ’twas getting towards

dark, and he got into them bayous, and kept swimming from one side to

another.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Ten days.”

“If he’s got across the river, he’d get to the Mexicans in two days,

and there he’d be safe. The Mexicans’d take care of him.”

“What made him run?”

“The judge gave him a week at Christmas, and when the week was up, I

s’pose he didn’t want to go to work again. He got unruly, and they was

a goin’ to whip him.”

“Now, how much happier that fellow’d ’a’ been, if he’d just stayed

and done his duty. He might have just worked and done his duty, and

his master’d ’a’ taken care of him, and given him another week when

Christmas come again, and he’d ’a’ had nothing to do but enjoy himself

again. These niggers, none of ’em, knows how much happier off they are

than if they was free. Now, very likely, he’ll starve to death, or get

shot.”

“Oh, the judge treats his niggers too kind. If he was stricter with

them, they’d have more respect for him, and be more contented, too.”

“Never do to be too slack with niggers.”

* * * * *

We were riding in company, to-day, with a California drover, named

Rankin. He was in search of cattle to drive across the plains. He had

taken a drove before from Illinois, and told us that people in that

State, of equal circumstances, lived ten times better than here, in all

matters of comfort and refinement. He had suffered more in travelling

in Texas, than ever on the plains or the mountains. Not long before,

in driving some mules with his partner, they came to a house which was

the last on the road for fourteen miles. They had nothing in the world

in the house but a few ears of corn, they were going to grind in their

steel mill for their own breakfast, and wouldn’t sell on any terms.

“We hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, but we actually could get

nothing. The only other thing in the cabin, that could be eaten, was

a pile of deer-skins, with the hair on. We had to stake our mules,

and make a fire, and coil around it. About twelve o’clock there came

a norther. We heard it coming, and it made us howl. We didn’t sleep a

wink for cold.”

* * * * *

_Houston._—We were sitting on the gallery of the hotel. A tall, jet

black negro came up, leading by a rope a downcast mulatto, whose

hands were lashed by a cord to his waist, and whose face was horribly

cut, and dripping with blood. The wounded man crouched and leaned for

support against one of the columns of the gallery—faint and sick.

“What’s the matter with that boy?” asked a smoking lounger.

“I run a fork into his face,” answered the negro.

“What are his hands tied for?”

“He’s a runaway, sir.”

“Did you catch him?”

“Yes, sir. He was hiding in the hay-loft, and when I went up to throw

some hay to the horses, I pushed the fork down into the mow and it

struck something hard. I didn’t know what it was, and I pushed hard,

and gave it a turn, and then he hollered, and I took it out.”

“What do you bring him here, for?”

“Come for the key of the jail, sir, to lock him up.”

“What!” said another, “one darkey catch another darkey? Don’t believe

that story.”

“Oh yes, mass’r, I tell for true. He was down in our hay-loft, and so

you see when I stab him, I _have_ to catch him.”

“Why, he’s hurt bad, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he says I pushed through the bones.”

“Whose nigger is he?”

“He says he belong to Mass’r Frost, sir, on the Brazos.”

The key was soon brought, and the negro led the mulatto away to jail.

He walked away limping, crouching, and writhing, as if he had received

other injuries than those on his face. The bystanders remarked that the

negro had not probably told the whole story.

We afterwards happened to see a gentleman on horseback, and smoking,

leading by a long rope through the deep mud, out into the country, the

poor mulatto, still limping and crouching, his hands manacled, and his

arms pinioned.

There is a prominent slave-mart in town, which holds a large lot

of likely-looking negroes, waiting purchasers. In the windows of

shops, and on the doors and columns of the hotel, are many written

advertisements, headed “A likely negro girl for sale.” “Two negroes for

sale.” “Twenty negro boys for sale,” etc.

* * * * *

_South-eastern Texas._—We were unable to procure at Houston any

definite information with regard to our proposed route. The known roads

thence are those that branch northward and westward from their levee,

and so thoroughly within lines of business does local knowledge lie,

that the eastern shore is completely terra incognita. The roads east

were said to be bad after heavy rains, but the season had been dry, and

we determined to follow the direct and the distinct road, laid down

upon our map.

Now that I am in a position to give preliminary information, however,

there is no reason why the reader should enter this region as ignorant

as we did.

Our route took us by Harrisburg and San Jacinto to Liberty, upon the

Trinity; thence by Beaumont to the Sabine at Turner’s ferry; thence by

the Big Woods and Lake Charles to Opelousas, the old capital of St.

Landry Parish, at the western head of the intricate navigation from New

Orleans.

This large district, extending from the Trinity River to the bayous

of the Mississippi, has, throughout, the same general characteristics,

the principal of which are, lowness, flatness, and wetness. The soil

is variable, but is in greater part a loose, sandy loam, covered with

coarse grasses, forming level prairies, which are everywhere broken

by belts of pine forests, usually bordering creeks and bayous, but

often standing in islands. The surface is but very slightly elevated

above the sea; I suppose, upon an average, less than ten feet. It

is, consequently, imperfectly drained, and in a wet season a large

proportion is literally covered with water, as in crossing it, even in

a dry time, we were obliged to wade through many miles of marshy pools.

The river-bottoms, still lower than the general level, are subject to

constant overflow by tide-water, and what with the fallen timber, the

dense undergrowth, the mire-quags, the abrupt gullies, the patches

of rotten or floating corduroy, and three or four feet of dirty salt

water, the roads through them are not such as one would choose for a

morning ride. The country is sparsely settled, containing less than one

inhabitant to the square mile, one in four being a slave.

The many pools, through which the usual track took us, were swarming

with venemous water-snakes, four or five black moccasins often lifting

at once their devilish heads above the dirty surface, and wriggling

about our horses’ heels. Beyond the Sabine, alligator holes are an

additional excitement, the unsuspicious traveller suddenly sinking

through the treacherous surface, and sometimes falling a victim, horse

and all, to the hideous jaws of the reptile, while overwhelmed by the

engulfing mire in which he lurks.

Upon the whole, this is not the spot in which I should prefer to come

to light, burn, and expire; in fact, if the nether regions, as was

suggested by the dream-gentleman of Nachitoches, be “a boggy country,”

the avernal entrance might, I should think, with good probabilities, be

looked for in this region.

We passed, on both sides the Sabine, many abandoned farms, and the

country is but thinly settled. We found it impossible to obtain any

information about roads, and frequently went astray upon cattle paths,

once losing twenty miles in a day’s journey. The people were chiefly

herdsmen, cultivating a little cotton upon river-banks, but ordinarily

only corn, with a patch of cane to furnish household sugar. We tried

in vain to purchase corn for our horses, and were told that “folks

didn’t make corn enough to bread them, and if anybody had corn to give

his horse, he carried it in his hat and went out behind somewhere.”

The herds were in poor condition, and must in winter be reduced to

the verge of starvation. We saw a few hogs, converted, by hardship,

to figures so unnatural, that we at first took them for goats. Most

of the people we met were old emigrants, from Southern Louisiana and

Mississippi, and more disposed to gaiety and cheer than the Texan

planters. The houses showed a tendency to Louisiana forms, and the

table to a French style of serving the jerked beef, which is the

general dish of the country. The meat is dried in strips, over smoky

fires, and, if untainted and well prepared, is a tolerably savoury

food. I hardly know whether to chronicle it as a border barbarism, or a

Creolism, that we were several times, in this neighbourhood, shown to a

bed standing next to that occupied by the host and his wife, sometimes

with the screen of a shawl, sometimes without.

We met with one specimen of the Virginia habit of “dipping,” or

snuff-chewing, in the person of a woman who was otherwise neat and

agreeable, and observed that a young lady, well-dressed, and apparently

engaged, while we were present, in reading, went afterward to light her

pipe at the kitchen fire, and had a smoke behind the house.

The condition of the young men appeared to incline decidedly to

barbarism. We stopped a night at a house in which a drover, bringing

mules from Mexico, was staying; and, with the neighbours who had come

to look at the drove, we were thirteen men at table. When speaking

with us, all were polite and respectful, the women especially so; but

among one another, their coarseness was incredible. The master of the

house, a well-known gentleman of the county, who had been absent when

we arrived, and at supper-time, came afterwards upon the gallery and

commenced cursing furiously, because some one had taken his pipe.

Seeing us, he stopped abruptly, and after lighting the pipe, said, in a

rather peremptory and formal, but not uncourteous tone: “Where are you

from, gentlemen?”

“From Beaumont, sir, last.”

“Been out West?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Travelling?”

“Yes, sir.”

After pausing a moment to make up his mind—

“Where do you live when you are at home, gentlemen, and what’s your

business in this country?”

“We live in New York, and are travelling to see the country.”

“How do you like it?”

“Just here we find it flat and wet.”

“What’s your name?”

“Olmsted.”

“And what’s this gentleman’s name?”

“Olmsted.”

“Is it a Spanish name?”

“No, sir.”

He then abruptly left us, and the young men entertained one another

with stories of fights and horse-trades, and with vulgar obscenities.

Shortly he returned, saying—

“Show you to bed now, gentlemen, if you wish.”

“We are ready, sir, if you will be good enough to get a light.”

“A light?”

“Yes, sir.”

“_A light?_”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get a light?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well” (after a moment’s hesitation), “I’ll get one.”

On reaching the bed-room, which was in a building adjoining, he stood

awaiting our pleasure. Thanking him, I turned to take the light,

but his fingers were the candlestick. He continued to hold it, and

six young men, who had followed us, stood grouped around while we

undressed, placing our clothes upon the floor. Judy advanced to lie

down by them. One of the young men started forward, and said—

“I’ve got a right good knife.”

“What?”

“I’ve got a right good knife, if you want it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, only I’ve got a right good knife, and if you’d like to kill

that dog, I’ll lend it to you.”

“Please to tell me what you mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Keep your dog quiet, or I’ll kill her,” I suppose was the

interpretation. When we had covered ourselves in bed, the host said—

“I suppose you don’t want the light no more?”

“No, sir;” and all bade us good night; but leaving the door open,

commenced feats of prolonged dancing, or stamping upon the gallery,

which were uproariously applauded. Then came more obscenities and

profanities, apropos to fandango frolics described by the drovers. As

we had barely got to sleep, several came to occupy other beds in our

room. They had been drinking freely, and continued smoking in bed.

Upon the floor lay two boys of fourteen, who continued shouting and

laughing after the others had at length become quiet. Some one soon

said to one of them—

“You had better stop your noise; Frank says he’ll be damn’d if he don’t

come in and give you a hiding.”

Frank was trying to sleep upon the gallery.

“By ——,” the boy cried, raising himself, and drawing a coat from

under the pillow, “if he comes in here, I’ll be damn’d if I don’t kill

him. He dare not come in here. I would like to see him come in here,”

drawing from his coat pocket a revolver, and cocking it. “By ——, you

may come in here now. Come in here, come in here! Do you here that?”

(revolving the pistol rapidly). “—— damn me, if I don’t kill you, if

you come near the door.”

This continued without remonstrance for some time, when he lay down,

asking his companion for a light for his pipe, and continuing the noisy

conversation until we fell asleep. The previous talk had been much of

knife and pistol fights which had taken place in the county. The same

boy was obliging and amiable the next morning, assisting us to bring in

and saddle the horses at our departure.

One of the men here was a Yankee, who had lived so long in the Slave

States that he had added to his original ruralisms a very complete

collection of Southernisms, some of which were of the richest we met

with. He had been in the Texas Rangers, and, speaking of the West,

said he had been up round the head of the Guadaloupe “heaps and cords

of times,” at the same time giving us a very picturesque account of

the county. Speaking of wolves, he informed us that on the San Jacinto

there were “_any dimensions_ of them.” Obstinacy, in his vocabulary,

was represented by “damnation _cussedness_.” He was unable to conceive

of us in any other light than as two peddlers who had mistaken their

ground in coming here.

At another house where we stopped (in which, by the way, we ate our

supper by the light of pine knots blazing in the chimney, with an

apology for the absence of candles), we heard some conversation upon a

negro of the neighbourhood, who had been sold to a free negro, and who

refused to live with him, saying he wouldn’t be a servant to a nigger.

All agreed that he was right, although the man was well known to be

kind to his negroes, and would always sell any of them who wished it.

The slave had been sold because he wouldn’t mind. “If I had a negro

that wouldn’t mind,” said the woman of the house, “I’d break his head,

or I’d sell him; I wouldn’t have one about me.” Her own servant was

standing behind her. “I do think it would be better if there wasn’t any

niggers in the world, they do behave so bad, some of ’em. They steal

just like hogs.”

* * * * *

_South-western Louisiana._—Soon after crossing the Sabine, we entered

a “hummock,” or tract of more fertile, oak-bearing land, known as the

Big Woods. The soil is not rich, but produces cotton, in good seasons

nearly a bale to the acre, and the limited area is fully occupied.

Upon one plantation we found an intelligent emigrant from Mississippi,

who had just bought the place, having stopped on his way into Texas,

because the time drew near for the confinement of his wife. Many farms

are bought by emigrants, he said, from such temporary considerations:

a child is sick, or a horse exhausted; they stop for a few weeks; but

summer comes, and they conclude to put in a crop, and often never move

again.

It was before reaching the Big Woods, that alligator-holes were first

pointed out to us, with a caution to avoid them. They extend from an

aperture, obliquely, under ground, to a large cavern, the walls of

which are puddled by the motions of the animal; and, being partly

filled with water, form a comfortable amphibious residence. A horseman

is liable, not only to breaking through near the orifice, but to being

precipitated into the den itself, where he will find awaiting him, a

disagreeable mixture of mire and angry jaws. In the deep water of the

bottoms, we met with no snakes; but the pools were everywhere alive

with them. We saw a great variety of long-legged birds, apparently on

friendly terms with all the reptiles.

A day’s journey took us through the Big Woods, and across Calcasieu

to Lake Charles. We were not prepared to find the Calcasieu a superb

and solemn river, two hundred and thirty yards across and forty-five

feet deep. It is navigable for forty miles, but at its mouth has a

bar, on which is sometimes only eighteen inches of water, ordinarily

thirty inches. Schooners of light draft ascend it, bringing supplies,

and taking out the cotton raised within its reach. Lake Charles is an

insignificant village, upon the bank of a pleasant, clear lakelet,

several miles in extent.

From the Big Woods to Opelousas, there was no change in the monotonous

scenery. Everywhere extended the immense moist plain, being alternate

tracts of grass and pine. Nearer Opelousas, oak appears in groups

with the pine, and the soil is darker and more fertile. Here the land

was mostly taken up, partly by speculators, in view of the Opelousas

Railway, then commenced. But, in all the western portion of the

district, the land is still government property, and many of the people

squatters. Sales are seldom made, but the estimated price of the land

is fifty cents an acre.

Some of the timbered land, for a few years after clearing, yields good

crops of corn and sweet potatoes. Cotton is seldom attempted, and sugar

only for family use. Oats are sometimes grown, but the yield is small,

and seldom thrashed from the straw. We noted one field of poor rye. So

wet a region and so warm a climate suggested rice, and, were the land

sufficiently fertile, it would, doubtless, become a staple production.

It is now only cultivated for home use, the bayou bottoms being rudely

arranged for flowing the crop. But without manure no profitable return

can be obtained from breaking the prairie, and the only system of

manuring in use is that of ploughing up occasionally the cow-pens of

the herdsmen.

The road was now distinctly marked enough, but had frequent and

embarrassing forks, which occasioned us almost as much annoyance as the

clouds of musquitoes which, east of the Sabine, hovered continually

about our horses and our heads. Notions of distance we found incredibly

vague. At Lake Charles we were informed that the exact distance to

Opelousas was ninety-six miles. After riding eight hours, we were

told by a respectable gentleman that the distance from his house was

one hundred and twenty miles. The next evening the distance was forty

miles; and the following evening a gentleman who met us stated first

that it was “a good long way;” next, that it was “thirty or forty

miles, and damn’d long ones, too.” About four miles beyond him, we

reached the twentieth mile-post.

Across the bayous of any size, bridges had been constructed, but so

rudely built of logs that the traveller, where possible, left them for

a ford.

The people, after passing the frontier, changed in every prominent

characteristic. French became the prevailing language, and French

the prevailing manners. The gruff Texan bidding, “Sit up, stranger;

take some fry!” became a matter of recollection, of which “Monsieur,

la soupe est servie,” was the smooth substitute. The good-nature of

the people was an incessant astonishment. If we inquired the way, a

contented old gentleman waddled out and showed us also his wife’s

house-pet, an immense white crane, his big crop of peaches, his old

fig-tree, thirty feet in diameter of shade, and to his wish of “bon

voyage” added for each a bouquet of the jessamines we were admiring.

The homes were homes, not settlements on speculation; the house,

sometimes of logs, it is true, but hereditary logs, and more often of

smooth lumber, with deep and spreading galleries on all sides for the

coolest comfort. For form, all ran or tended to run to a peaked and

many-chimneyed centre, with, here and there, a suggestion of a dormar

window. Not all were provided with figs and jessamines, but each had

some inclosure betraying good intentions.

The monotonous landscape did not invite to loitering, and we passed

but three nights in houses by the road. The first was that of an old

Italian-French emigrant, known as “Old Man Corse.” He had a name of

his own, which he recalled for us, but in forty years it had been lost

and superseded by this designation, derived from his birth-place, the

island of Corsica. This mixture of nationalities in language must be

breeding for future antiquaries a good deal of amusing labour. Next day

we were recommended to stop at Jack Bacon’s, and, although we would

have preferred to avoid an American’s, did so rather than go further,

and found our Jack Bacon a Creole, named Jacques Béguin. This is equal

to Tuckapaw and Nakitosh, the general pronunciation of Attakapas and

Nachitoches.

The house of Old Man Corse stood in the shade of oaks, figs, and

cypresses, upon the bank of a little bayou, looking out upon the broad

prairie. It was large and comfortable, with wide galleries and dormar

windows, supported by a negro-hut and a stable. Ornamental axe-work

and rude decorative joinery were abundant. The roof was of large

split shingles, much warped in the sun. As we entered and took seats

by the fire, the room reminded us, with its big fire-place, and old

smoke-stained and time-toned cypress beams and ceiling, and its rude

but comfortable aspect, of the Acadian fireside:

“In doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fire-place, idly the farmer

Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the

smoke-wreaths

Struggled together, like foes in a burning city. Behind him,

Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic,

Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness,

Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair,

Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the

dresser

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.”

The tall, elderly, busy housewife bustled about with preparations for

supper, while we learned that they had been settled here forty years,

and had never had reason to regret their emigration. The old man had

learnt French, but no English. The woman could speak some “American,”

as she properly termed it. Asking her about musquitoes, we received a

reply in French, that they were more abundant some years than others;

then, as no quantitative adjective of sufficient force occurred to her,

she added, “Three years ago, oh! heaps of musquitoes, sir, _heaps_!

worse as now.”

She laid the table to the last item, and prepared everything nicely,

but called a negro girl to wait upon us. The girl stood quiet behind

us, the mistress helping us, and practically anticipating all our wants.

The supper was of venison, in ragoût, with a sauce that savoured of the

south of France; there was a side dish of hominy, a jug of sweet milk,

and wheat-bread in loaf—the first since Houston.

In an evening smoke, upon the settle, we learned that there were

many Creoles about here, most of whom learned English, and had their

children taught English at the schools. The Americans would not take

the trouble to learn French. They often intermarried. A daughter of

their own was the wife of an American neighbour. We asked if they knew

of a distinct people here called Acadians. Oh yes, they knew many

settled in the vicinity, descended from some nation that came here in

the last century. They had now no peculiarities. There were but few

free negroes just here, but at Opelousas and Niggerville there were

many, some of whom were rich and owned slaves, though a part were

unmixed black in colour. They kept pretty much by themselves, not

attempting to enter white society.

As we went to look at our horses, two negroes followed us to the stable.

“Dat horse a Tennessee horse, mass’r,” said one.

“Yes, he was born in Tennessee.”

“Born in Tennessee and raised by a Dutchman,” said the other, sotto

voce, I suppose, quoting a song.

“Why, were you born in Tennessee?” I asked.

“No, sar, I was born in dis State.”

“How comes it you speak English so much better than your master?”

“Ho, ho, my old mass’r, he don’ speak it at all; my missus she speak it

better’n my mass’r do, but you see I war raised on de parara, to der

eastward, whar thar’s heaps of ’Mericans; so I larned it good.”

He spoke it, with a slight accent, while the other, whom he called

Uncle Tom, I observed did not. I asked Uncle Tom if he was born in the

State.

“_No, sar!_ I was born in _Varginny_! in ole Varginny, mass’r. I was

raised in —— county [in the West]. I was twenty-two year ole when I

came away from thar, and I’ve been in this country, forty year come

next Christmas.”

“Then you are sixty years old.”

“Yes, sar, amos’ sixty. But I’d like to go back to Varginny. Ho, ho! I

’ould like to go back and live in ole Varginny, again.”

“Why so? I thought niggers generally liked this country best—I’ve been

told so—because it is so warm here.”

“Ho, ho! it’s mos’ too warm here, sometime, and I can’t work at my

trade here. Sometimes for three months I don’ go in my shop, on’y

Sundays to work for mysef.”

“What is your trade?”

“I’m a blacksmith, mass’r. I used to work at blacksmithing all the time

in ole Virginny, ironin’ waggons, and shoein’ horses for the folks

that work in the mines. But here, can’t get nothun’ to do. In this

here sile, if you sharpen up a plough in the spring o’ the year, it’ll

last all summer, and horses don’ want shoeing once a year, here on the

parara. I’ve got a good mass’r here, tho’; the ole man ain’t hard on

his niggers.”

“Was your master hard in Virginia?”

“Well, I wos hired to different mass’rs, sar, thar, afore I wos sole

off. I was sole off to a sheriff’s sale, mass’r: I wos sole for fifteen

hunerd an’ fifty dollars; I fetched that on the block, cash, I did,

and the man as bought me he brung me down here, and sole me for two

thousand two hunerd dollars.”

“That was a good price; a very high price in those days.”

“Yes, sar, it was that—ho, ho, ho! It was a man by the name of ——,

from Tennessee, what bought me. He made a business of goin’ roun’ and

buyin’ up people, and bringin’ ’em down here, speculatin’ on ’em. Ho,

ho! he did well that time. But I’d ’a’ liked it better, for all that,

to have stayed in ole Varginny. ’Tain’t the heat, tho’ it’s too hot

here sometimes; but you know, sar, I was born and raised in Varginny,

and seems like ’twould be pleasanter to live thar. It’s kinder natural

to people to hanker arter the place they wos raised in. Ho, ho! I’d

like it a heap better, tho’ this ole man’s a good mass’r; never had no

better mass’r.”

“I suppose you became a Catholic after you got here?”

“Yes, sar” (hesitatingly).

“I suppose all the people are Catholics here?”

“Here? Oh, no, sar; they was whar I wos first in this here country;

they wos all Catholics there.”

“Well, they are all Catholics here, too—ain’t they?”

“Here, sar? Here, sar? Oh, no, sar!”

“Why, your master is not a Protestant, is he?”

After two deep groans, he replied in a whisper:

“Oh, sar, they don’ have no meetin’ o’ no kind, roun’ here!”

“There are a good many free negroes in this country, ain’t there?”

“What! here, sar? Oh, no, sar; no such good luck as that in this

country.”

“At Opelousas, I understood, there were a good many.”

“Oh, but them wos born free, sar, under old Spain, sar.”

“Yes, those I mean.”

“Oh, yes, there’s lots o’ _them_; some of ’em rich, and some of ’em—a

good many of ’em—goes to the penitentiary—you know what that is. White

folks goes to the penitenti’ry, too—ho! ho!—sometimes.”

“I have understood many of them were quite rich.”

“Oh, yes, o’ course they is: they started free, and ain’t got nobody to

work for but theirselves; of course they gets rich. Some of ’em owns

slaves—heaps of ’em. That ar ain’t right.”

“Not right! why not?”

“Why, you don’ think it’s right for one nigger to own another nigger!

One nigger’s no business to sarve another. It’s bad enough to have to

sarve a white man without being paid for it, without having to sarve a

black man.”

“Don’t they treat their slaves well?”

“No, sar, they don’t. There ain’t no nations so bad masters to niggers

as them free niggers, though there’s some, I’ve heard, wos very kind;

but—I wouldn’t sarve ’em if they wos—no!—Does you live in Tennessee,

mass’r?”

“No—in New York.”

“There’s heaps of Quakers in New York, ain’t there, mass’r?”

“No—not many.”

“I’ve always heard there was.”

“In Philadelphia there are a good many.”

“Oh, yes! in Philadelphia, and in Winchester, and in New Jarsey. I

know—ho! ho! I’ve been in those countries, and I’ve seen ’em. I wos

raised nigh by Winchester, and I’ve been all about there. Used to iron

waggons and shoe horses in that country. Dar’s a road from Winchester

to Philadelphia—right straight. Quakers all along. Right good people,

dem Quakers—ho! ho!—I know.”[2]

We slept in well-barred beds, and awoke long after sunrise. As soon as

we were stirring, black coffee was sent into us, and at breakfast we

had _café au lait_ in immense bowls in the style of the _crêmeries_ of

Paris. The woman remarked that our dog had slept in their bed-room.

They had taken our saddle-bags and blankets with them for security,

and Judy had insisted on following them. “Dishonest black people might

come here and get into the room,” explained the old man. “Yes; and some

of our own people in the house might come to them. Such things have

happened here, and you never can trust any of them,” said the woman,

her own black girl behind her chair.

At Mr. Béguin’s (Bacon’s) we stopped on a Saturday night: and I was

obliged to feed my own horse in the morning, the negroes having all

gone off before daylight. The proprietor was a Creole farmer, owning

a number of labourers, and living in comfort. The house was of the

ordinary Southern double-cabined style, the people speaking English,

intelligent, lively, and polite, giving us good entertainment at the

usual price. At a rude corn-mill belonging to Mr. Béguin, we had

noticed among the negroes an Indian boy, in negro clothing, and about

the house were two other Indians—an old man and a young man; the first

poorly clad, the other gaily dressed in a showy printed calico frock,

and worked buckskin leggings, with beads and tinsel ornaments, a

great turban of Scotch shawl-stuff on his head. It appeared they were

Choctaws, of whom a good many lived in the neighbourhood. The two were

hired for farm labour at three bits (37½ cents) a day. The old man had

a field of his own, in which stood handsome corn. Some of them were

industrious, but none were steady at work—often refusing to go on, or

absenting themselves from freaks. I asked about the boy at the mill. He

lived there and did work, getting no wages, but “living there with the

niggers.” They seldom consort; our host knew but one case in which a

negro had an Indian wife.

At Lake Charles we had seen a troop of Alabamas, riding through the

town with baskets and dressed deerskins for sale. They were decked with

feathers, and dressed more showily than the Choctaws, but in calico:

and over their heads, on horseback—curious progress of manners—all

carried open, black cotton _umbrellas_.

* * * * *

Our last night in this region was spent in a house which we reached

at sundown of a Sunday afternoon. It proved to be a mere cottage, in a

style which has grown to be common along our road. The walls are low,

of timber and mud; the roof, high, and sloping from a short ridge in

all directions; and the chimney of sticks and mud. The space is divided

into one long living-room, having a kitchen at one end and a bed-room

at the other. As we rode up, we found only a little boy, who answered

us in French. His mother was milking, and his father out in the field.

We rode on to the fence of the field, which enclosed twenty acres,

planted in cotton, corn, and sweet potatoes, and waited until the

proprietor reached us and the end of his furrow. He stopped before

replying, to unhitch his horse, then gave consent to our staying in

his house, and we followed his lead to the yard, where we unsaddled

our horses. He was a tall, stalwart man in figure, with a large

intellectual head, but as uninformed, we afterwards discovered, as any

European peasant; though he wore, as it were, an ill-fitting dress of

rude independence in manner, such as characterises the Western man.

The field was well cultivated, and showed the best corn we had seen

east of the Brazos. Three negro men and two women were at work, and

continued hoeing until sunset. They were hired, it appeared, by the

proprietor, at four bits (fifty cents) a day. He was in the habit of

making use of the Sundays of the slaves of the neighbourhood in this

way, paying them sometimes seventy-five cents a day.

On entering the house, we were met by two young boys, gentle and

winning in manner, coming up of their own accord to offer us their

hands. They were immediately set to work by their father at grinding

corn, in the steel-mill, for supper. The task seemed their usual one,

yet very much too severe for their strength, as they were slightly

built, and not over ten years old. Taking hold at opposite sides of

the winch, they ground away, outside the door, for more than an hour,

constantly stopping to take breath, and spurred on by the voice of the

papa, if the delay were long.

They spoke only French, though understanding questions in English. The

man and his wife—an energetic but worn woman—spoke French or English

indifferently, even to one another, changing, often, in a single

sentence. He could not tell us which was his mother tongue; he had

always been as much accustomed to the one as to the other. He said he

was not a Frenchman, but a native, American-born; but afterwards called

himself a “Dutch-American,” a phrase he was unable to explain. He

informed us that there were many “Dutch-French” here, that is, people

who were Dutch, but who spoke French.

The room into which we were ushered, was actually without an article

of furniture. The floor was of boards, while those of the other two

rooms were of trodden clay. The mud-walls had no other relief than the

mantel, on which stood a Connecticut clock, two small mirrors, three

or four cheap cups and saucers, and a paste brooch in the form of a

cross, pinned upon paper, as in a jeweller’s shop. Chairs were brought

in from the kitchen, having deer-hide seats, from which sprang forth an

atrocious number of fresh fleas.

We had two or three hours to wait for our late supper, and thus more

than ample time to converse with our host, who proceeded to twist and

light a shuck cigar. He made, he said, a little cotton, which he hauled

ten miles to be ginned and baled. For this service he paid seventy-five

cents a hundred weight, in which the cost of bagging was not included.

The planter who baled it, also sold it for him, sending it, with his

own, to a factor in New Orleans, by steamboat from Niggerville, just

beyond Opelousas. Beside cotton, he sold every year some beef cattle.

He had a good many cows, but didn’t exactly know how many. Corn, too,

he sometimes sold, but only to neighbours, who had not raised enough

for themselves. It would not pay to haul it to any market. The same

applied to sweet potatoes, which were considered worth seventy-five

cents a barrel.

The “range” was much poorer than formerly. It was crowded, and people

would have to take their stock somewhere else in four or five years

more, or they would starve. He didn’t know what was going to become of

poor folks, rich people were taking up the public land so fast, induced

by the proposed railroad to New Orleans.

More or less stock was always starved in winter. The worst time for

them was when a black gnat, called the “eye-breaker,” comes out. This

insect breeds in the low woodlands, and when a freshet occurs in winter

is driven out in swarms upon the prairies, attacking cattle terribly.

They were worse than all manner of musquitoes, flies, or other insects.

Cattle would herd together then, and wander wildly about, not looking

for the best feed, and many would get killed. But this did not often

happen.

Horses and cattle had degenerated much within his recollection. No

pains were taken to improve breeds. People, now-a-days, had got

proud, and when they had a fine colt would break him for a carriage

or riding-horse, leaving only the common scurvy sort to run with the

mares. This was confirmed by our observation, the horses about here

being wretched in appearance, and the grass short and coarse.

When we asked to wash before supper, a shallow cake-pan was brought

and set upon the window-seat, and a mere rag offered us for towel.

Upon the supper-table, we found two wash-bowls, one filled with milk,

the other with molasses. We asked for water, which was given us in one

battered tin cup. The dishes, besides the bacon and bread, were fried

eggs and sweet potatoes. The bowl of molasses stood in the centre of

the table, and we were pressed to partake of it, as the family did,

by dipping in it bits of bread. But how it was expected to be used at

breakfast, when we had bacon and potatoes, with spoons, but no bread, I

cannot imagine, the family not breakfasting with us.

The night was warm, and musquitoes swarmed, but we carried with us a

portable tent-shaped bar, which we hung over the feather bed, upon the

floor, and rested soundly amid their mad singing.

The distance to Opelousas, our Frenchman told us, was fifteen miles by

the road, though only ten miles in a direct line. We found it lined

with farms, whose division-fences the road always followed, frequently

changing its course in so doing at a right angle. The country was very

wet and unattractive. About five miles from the town, begin plantations

on an extensive scale, upon better soil, and here were large gangs of

negroes at work upon cotton, with their hoes.

At the outskirts of the town, we waded the last pool, and entered, with

a good deal of satisfaction, the peaceful shaded streets. Reaching the

hotel, we were not so instantly struck as perhaps we should have been,

with the overwhelming advantages of civilization, which sat in the form

of a landlord, slapping with an agate-headed, pliable cane, his patent

leather boots, poised, at easy height, upon one of the columns of the

gallery. We were suffered to take off our saddle-bags, and to wait

until waiting was no longer a pleasure, before civilization, wringing

his cane against the floor, but not removing his cigar, brought his

patent leathers to our vicinity.

After some conversation, intended as animated upon one side and

ineffably indifferent on the other, our horses obtained notice from

that exquisitely vague eye, but a further introduction was required

before our persons became less than transparent, for the boots walked

away, and became again a subject of contemplation upon the column,

leaving us, with our saddle-bags, upon the steps. After inquiring,

of a bystander if this glossy individual were the actual landlord,

we attacked him in a tone likely to produce either a revolver-shot

or a room, but whose effect was to obtain a removal of the cigar and

a gentle survey, ending in a call for a boy to show the gentlemen to

number thirteen.

After an hour’s delay, we procured water, and were about to enjoy

very necessary ablutions, when we observed that the door of our room

was partly of uncurtained glass. A shirt was pinned to this, and

ceremonies were about beginning, when a step came down the passage,

and a gentleman put his hand through a broken pane, and lifted the

obstruction, wishing “to see what was going on so damn’d secret in

number thirteen.” When I walked toward him hurriedly, _in puris

naturalibus_, he drew hastily and entered the next room.

On the gallery of the hotel, after dinner, a fine-looking man—who was

on the best of terms with every one—familiar with the judge—and who had

been particularly polite to me, at the dinner-table, said to another:

“I hear you were very unlucky with that girl you bought of me, last

year?”

“Yes, I was; very unlucky. She died with her first child, and the child

died, too.”

“Well, that was right hard for you. She was a fine girl. I don’t reckon

you lost less than five thousand dollars, when she died.”

“No, sir, not a dollar less.”

“Well, it came right hard upon you—just beginning so.”

“Yes, I was foolish, I suppose, to risk so much on the life of a single

woman; but I’ve got a good start again now, for all that. I’ve got two

right likely girls; one of them’s got a fine boy, four months old, and

the other’s with child—and old Pine Knot’s as hearty as ever.”

“Is he? Hasn’t been sick at all, eh?”

“Yes; he was sick very soon after I bought him of you; but he got well

soon.”

“That’s right. I’d rather a nigger would be sick early, after he comes

into this country; for he’s bound to be acclimated, sooner or later,

and the longer it’s put off, the harder it goes with him.”

The man was a regular negro trader. He told me that he had a partner

in Kentucky, and that they owned a farm there, and another one

here. His partner bought negroes, as opportunity offered to get

them advantageously, and kept them on their Kentucky farm; and he

went on occasionally, and brought the surplus to their Louisiana

plantation—where he held them for sale.

“So-and-so is very hard upon you,” said another man, to him as he still

sat, smoking his cigar, on the gallery, after dinner.

“Why so? He’s no business to complain; I told him just exactly what the

nigger was, before I sold him (laughing, as if there was a concealed

joke). It was all right—all right. I heard that he sold him again for a

thousand dollars; and the people that bought him, gave him two hundred

dollars to let them off from the bargain. I’m sure he can’t complain of

me. It was a fair transaction. He knew just what he was buying.”

An intelligent man whom I met here, and who had been travelling most of

the time during the last two years in Louisiana, having business with

the planters, described the condition of the new slaveholders and the

poorer planters as being very miserable.

He had sometimes found it difficult to get food, even when he was

in urgent need of it, at their houses. The lowest class live much

from hand to mouth, and are often in extreme destitution. This was

more particularly the case with those who lived on the rivers; those

who resided on the prairies were seldom so much reduced. The former

now live only on those parts of the river to which the back-swamp

approaches nearest; that is, where there is but little valuable land,

that can be appropriated for plantation-purposes. They almost all

reside in communities, very closely housed in poor cabins. If there

is any considerable number of them, there is to be always found,

among the cluster of their cabins, a church, and a billiard and a

gambling-room—and the latter is always occupied, and play going on.

They almost all appear excessively apathetic, sleepy, and stupid, if

you see them at home; and they are always longing and waiting for some

excitement. They live for excitement, and will not labour, unless it is

violently, for a short time, to gratify some passion.

This was as much the case with the women as the men. The women were

often handsome, stately, and graceful, and, ordinarily, exceedingly

kind; but languid, and incredibly indolent, unless there was a ball,

or some other excitement, to engage them. Under excitement, they were

splendidly animated, impetuous, and eccentric. One moment they seemed

possessed by a devil, and the next by an angel.

The Creoles[3] are inveterate gamblers—rich and poor alike. The

majority of wealthy Creoles, he said, do nothing to improve their

estate; and are very apt to live beyond their income. They borrow and

play, and keep borrowing to play, as long as they can; but they will

not part with their land, and especially with their home, as long as

they can help it, by any sacrifice.

The men are generally dissolute. They have large families, and a

great deal of family affection. He did not know that they had more

than Anglo-Saxons; but they certainly manifested a great deal more,

and, he thought, had more domestic happiness. If a Creole farmer’s

child marries, he will build a house for the new couple, adjoining

his own; and when another marries, he builds another house—so, often

his whole front on the river is at length occupied. Then he begins

to build others, back of the first—and so, there gradually forms a

little village, wherever there is a large Creole family, owning any

considerable piece of land. The children are poorly educated, and are

not brought up to industry, at all.

The planters living near them, as their needs increase, lend them

money, and get mortgages on their land, or, in some way or other, if it

is of any value, force them to part with it. Thus they are every

year reduced, more and more, to the poorest lands; and the majority now

are able to get but a very poor living, and would not be able to live

at all in a Northern climate. They are nevertheless—even the poorest of

them—habitually gay and careless, as well as kind-hearted, hospitable,

and dissolute—working little, and spending much of their time at

church, or at balls, or the gaming-table.

There are very many wealthy Creole planters, who are as cultivated

and intelligent as the better class of American planters, and usually

more refined. The Creoles, he said, did not work their slaves as

hard as the Americans; but, on the other hand, they did not feed or

clothe them nearly as well, and he had noticed universally, on the

Creole plantations, a large number of “used-up hands”—slaves, sore

and crippled, or invalided for some cause. On all sugar plantations,

he said, they work the negroes excessively, in the grinding season;

often cruelly. Under the usual system, to keep the fires burning, and

the works constantly supplied, eighteen hours’ work was required of

every negro, in twenty-four—leaving but six for rest. The work of most

of them, too, was very hard. They were generally, during the grinding

season, liberally supplied with food and coffee, and were induced, as

much as possible, to make a kind of frolic of it; yet, on the Creole

plantations, he thought they did not, even in the grinding season,

often get meat.

I remarked that the law, in Louisiana, required that meat should be

regularly served to the negroes.

“O, those laws are very little regarded.”

“Indeed?”

“Certainly. Suppose you are my neighbour; if you maltreat your

negroes, and tell me of it, or I see it, am I going to prefer charges

against you to the magistrates? I might possibly get you punished

according to law; but if I did, or did not, I should have you, and

your family and friends, far and near, for my mortal enemies. There is

a law of the State that negroes shall not be worked on Sundays; but

I have seen negroes at work almost every Sunday, when I have been in

the country, since I have lived in Louisiana.[4] I spent a Sunday once

with a gentleman, who did not work his hands at all on Sunday, even in

the grinding season; and he had got some of his neighbours to help him

build a school-house, which was used as a church on Sunday. He said,

there was not a plantation on either side of him, as far as he could

see, where the slaves were not generally worked on Sunday; but that,

after the church was started, several of them quit the practice, and

made their negroes go to the meeting. This made others discontented;

and after a year or two, the planters voted new trustees to the school,

and these forbid the house to be used for any other than school

purposes. This was done, he had no doubt, for the purpose of breaking

up the meetings, and to lessen the discontent of the slaves which were

worked on Sunday.”

It was said that the custom of working the negroes on Sunday was much

less common than formerly; if so, he thought that it must have formerly

been universal.

He had lived, when a boy, for several years on a farm in Western

New York, and afterwards, for some time, at Rochester, and was well

acquainted with the people generally, in the valley of the Genesee.

I asked him if he thought, among the intelligent class of farmers and

planters, people of equal property lived more happily in New York or

Louisiana. He replied immediately, as if he had carefully considered

the topic, that, with some rare exceptions, farmers worth forty

thousand dollars lived in far greater comfort, and enjoyed more refined

and elegant leisure, than planters worth three hundred thousand, and

that farmers of the ordinary class, who laboured with their own hands,

and were worth some six thousand dollars, in the Genesee valley,

lived in far greater comfort, and in all respects more enviably, than

planters worth forty thousand dollars in Louisiana. The contrast was

especially favourable to the New York farmer, in respect to books

and newspapers. He might travel several days, and call on a hundred

planters, and hardly see in their houses more than a single newspaper

a-piece, in most cases; perhaps none at all: nor any books, except

a Bible, and some government publications, that had been franked to

them through the post-office, and perhaps a few religious tracts or

school-books.

The most striking difference that he observed between the

Anglo-Americans of Louisiana and New York, was the impulsive and

unreflective habit of the former, in doing business. He mentioned, as

illustrative of this, the almost universal passion among the planters

for increasing their negro-stock. It appeared evident to him, that

the market price of negroes was much higher than the prices of cotton

and sugar warranted; but it seemed as if no planter ever made any

calculation of that kind. The majority of planters, he thought, would

always run in debt to the extent of their credit for negroes, whatever

was asked for them, without making any calculation of the reasonable

prospects of their being able to pay their debts. When any one made a

good crop, he would always expect that his next one would be better,

and make purchases in advance upon such expectation. When they were

dunned, they would attribute their inability to pay, to accidental

short crops, and always were going ahead risking everything, in

confidence that another year of luck would favour them, and a big crop

make all right.

If they had a full crop, probably there would be good crops everywhere

else, and prices would fall, and then they would whine and complain, as

if the merchants were to blame for it, and would insinuate that no one

could be expected to pay his debts when prices =were= so low, and that

it would be dangerous to press such an unjust claim. And, if the crops

met with any misfortune, from floods, or rot, or vermin, they would cry

about it like children when rain fell upon a holiday, as if they had

never thought of the possibility of such a thing, and were very hard

used.[5]

He had talked with many sugar-planters who were strong Cuba war and

annexation men, and had rarely found that any of these had given the

first thought to the probable effect the annexation of Cuba would

have on their home interests. It was mainly a romantic excitement and

enthusiasm, inflamed by senseless appeals to their patriotism and their

combativeness. They had got the idea, that patriotism was necessarily

associated with hatred and contempt of any other country but their

own, and the only foreigners to be regarded with favour were those

who desired to surrender themselves to us. They did not reflect that

the annexation of Cuba would necessarily be attended by the removal

of the duty on sugar, and would bring them into competition with the

sugar-planters of that island, where the advantages for growing cane

were so much greater than in Louisiana.

To some of the very wealthy planters who favoured the movement,

and who were understood to have taken some of the Junta[6] stock,

he gave credit for greater sagacity. He thought it was the purpose

of these men, if Cuba could be annexed, to get possession of large

estates there: then, with the advantages of their greater skill in

sugar-making, and better machinery than that which yet was in use

in Cuba, and with much cheaper land and labour, and a far better

climate for cane growing than that of Louisiana, it would be easy for

them to accumulate large fortunes in a few years; but he thought the

sugar-planters who remained in Louisiana would be ruined by it.

The principal subscribers to the Junta stock at the South, he thought,

were land speculators; persons who expected that, by now favouring

the movement, they would be able to obtain from the revolutionary

government large grants of land in the island as gratuities in reward

of their services or at nominal prices, which after annexation

would rise rapidly in value; or persons who now owned wild land in

the States, and who thought that if Cuba were annexed the African

slave-trade would be re-established, either openly or clandestinely,

with the States, and their lands be increased in value, by the greater

cheapness with which they could then be stocked with labourers.

I find these views confirmed in a published letter from a Louisiana

planter, to one of the members of Congress, from that State; and I

insert an extract of that letter, as it is evidently from a sensible

and far-thinking man, to show on how insecure a basis rests the

prosperity of the slave-holding interest in Louisiana. The fact would

seem to be, that, if it were not for the tariff on foreign sugars,

sugar could not be produced at all by slave-labour; and that a

discontinuance of sugar culture would almost desolate the State.

“The question now naturally comes up to you and to me, Do we

Louisianians desire the possession of Cuba? It is not what the

provision dealers of the West, or the shipowners of the North may

wish for, but what the State of Louisiana, as a State, may deem

consistent with her best interests. My own opinion on the subject

is not a new one. It was long ago expressed to high officers of

our Government, neither of whom ever hesitated to acknowledge that

it was, in the main, correct. That opinion was and is, _that the

acquisition of Cuba would prove the ruin of our State_. I found

this opinion on the following reasons: Cuba has already land

enough in cultivation to produce, when directed by American skill,

energy, and capital, twenty millions of tons of sugar. In addition

to this she has virgin soil, only needing roads to bring it,

with a people of the least pretension to enterprise, into active

working, sufficient nearly to double this; all of which would be

soon brought into productiveness were it our own, with the whole

American market free to it. If any man supposes that the culture

of sugar in our State can be sustained in the face of this, I have

only to say that he can suppose anything. We have very nearly,

if not quite, eighty millions invested in the sugar culture. My

idea is that _three-fourths of this would, so far as the State is

concerned, be annihilated at a blow_. The planter who is in debt,

would find his negroes and machinery sold and despatched to Cuba

for him, and he who is independent would go there in self-defence.

What will become of the other portion of the capital? It consists

of land, on which I maintain there can be produced no other crop

but sugar, under present auspices, that will bear the contest

with cocoa,[7] and the expense and risk of levees, as it regards

the larger part of it, and the difficulty of transportation for

the remainder. But supposing that it will be taken up by some

other cultivation, that in any case must be a work of time, and

in this case a very long time for unacclimated men. It is not

unreasonable, then, to suppose that this whole capital will,

for purposes of taxation, be withdrawn from Louisiana. From

whence, then, is to come the revenue for the support of our State

government, for the payment of the interest on our debt, and the

eventual redemption of the principal? Perhaps repudiation may be

recommended; but you and I, my dear sir, are too old-fashioned

to rob in that manner, or in any other. The only resort, then,

is double taxation on the cotton planter, which will drive him,

without much difficulty, to Texas, to Arkansas, and Mississippi.”

* * * * *

_Washington._—The inn, here, when we arrived, was well filled with

guests, and my friend and I were told that we must sleep together. In

the room containing our bed there were three other beds; and although

the outside of the house was pierced with windows, nowhere more than

four feet apart, not one of them opened out of our room. A door opened

into the hall, another into the dining-room, and at the side of our

bed was a window into the dining-room, through which, betimes in the

morning, we could, with our heads on our pillows, see the girls setting

the breakfast-tables. Both the doors were provided with glass windows,

without curtains. Hither, about eleven o’clock, we “retired.” Soon

afterwards, hearing something moving under the bed, I asked, “Who’s

there?” and was answered by a girl, who was burrowing for eggs; part of

the stores of the establishment being kept in boxes, in this convenient

locality. Later, I was awakened by a stranger attempting to enter my

bed. I expostulated, and he replied that it was his bed, and nobody

else had a right to his place in it. Who was I, he asked, angrily, and

where was his partner? “Here I am,” answered a voice from another bed;

and without another word, he left us. I slept but little, and woke

feverish, and with a headache, caused by the want of ventilation.

While at the dinner-table, a man asked, as one might at the North,

if the steamer had arrived, if there had been “any fights to-day?”

After dinner, while we were sitting on the gallery, loud cursing, and

threatening voices were heard in the direction of the bar-room, which,

as at Nachitoches, was detached, and at a little distance from the

hotel. The company, except myself and the other New-Yorker, immediately

ran towards it. After ten minutes, one returned, and said—

“I don’t believe there’ll be any fight; they are both cowards.”

“Are they preparing for a fight?”

“O, yes; they are loading pistols in the coffee-room, and there’s a

man outside, in the street, who has a revolver and a knife, and who

is challenging another to come out. He swears he’ll wait there till

he does come out; but in my opinion he’ll think better of it, when he

finds that the other feller’s got pistols, too.”

“What’s the occasion of the quarrel?”

“Why, the man in the street says the other one insulted him this

morning, and that he had his hand on his knife, at the very moment he

did so, so he couldn’t reply. And now he says he’s ready to talk with

him, and he wants to have him come out, and as many of his friends as

are a mind to, may come with him; he’s got enough for all of ’em, he

says. He’s got two revolvers, I believe.”

We did not hear how it ended; but, about an hour afterwards, I saw

three men, with pistols in their hands, coming from the bar-room.

The next day, I saw, in the streets of the same town, two boys running

from another, who was pursuing them with a large, open dirk-knife in

his hand, and every appearance of ungovernable rage in his face.

The boat, for which I was waiting, not arriving, I asked the

landlady—who appeared to be a German Jewess—if I could not have a

better sleeping-room. She showed me one, which she said I might use for

a single night; but, if I remained another, I must not refuse to give

it up. It had been occupied by another gentleman, and she thought he

might return the next day, and would want it again; and, if I remained

in it, he would be very angry that they had not reserved it for him,

although they were under no obligation to him. “He is a dangerous man,”

she observed, “and my husband, he’s a quick-tempered man, and, if they

get to quarrelling about it, ther’ll be knives about, sure. It always

frightens me to see knives drawn.”

A Texas drover, who stayed over night at the hotel, being asked, as

he was about to leave in the morning, if he was not going to have his

horse shod, replied:

“No sir! it’ll be a damn’d long spell ’fore I pay for having a horse

shod. I reckon, if God Almighty had thought it right hosses should

have iron on thar feet, he’d a put it thar himself. I don’t pretend

to be a pious man myself; but I a’nt a-goin’ to run agin the will of

God Almighty, though thar’s some, that calls themselves ministers of

Christ, that does it.”