book that you want to look at; and inquiries whether your host sees any
prospect of getting the requisite number of professors for the new
college, or whether the present head of the institution is to continue
to fill all the chairs. It may be a lank judge from some raw district,
with a quid in his cheek, a swordcane in his hand, and a legal doubt in
his mind which he wants your host to resolve. It may be a sensible
woman, with courtesy in her countenance and decision in her air, who is
accustomed really to rule her household, and to make the most of such
human material and such a human lot as are pressing around and upon
her. If so, the conversation between her and your hostess becomes rapid
and interesting; full of tales of perplexity and trouble, of droll
anecdotes, and serious and benevolent plans. Or it may be a lady of a
different cast, who is delighted at the prospect of seeing you soon
again. You look perplexed, and mention that you fear you shall be unable
to return this way. Oh, but you will come and live here. You plead
family, friends, and occupation in England, to say nothing of England
being your home. Oh, but you can bring your family and friends with you.
You laughingly ask why. She draws up and replies, "for the honour and
glory of living in a republic."
Meantime Clara has dried her tears, for some one has recovered her
canary, and the door of the cage is shut. The carriage and saddle-horses
are scrambling on the gravel before the door, and the children run in to
know if they may ride with you. Cake, fruit, and liqueurs, or perhaps
tea, are brought in, and then the ladies depart. The clergyman thinks he
will ride round with your party, hearing that you are going to inspect
Mr. A.'s plantation. He warns you that it will not be "pleasant to see
even the best plantations," and your trembling heart fully agrees.
You admire the horsemanship of your host on his white horse, and the
boys on their black ponies. The carriage goes at good speed, and yet the
fast _pace_ of the saddle-horses enables the party to keep together.
While you are looking out upon a picturesque loghouse, peeping forth
from a blossomy thicket, or admiring a splendid hedge of the Cherokee
rose in straggling bloom, Rosa rouses herself from a revery, and asks
you to tell her all about Victoria.
"What shall I tell you?"
"What religion is she? A Unitarian, I suppose, like you."
Church of Englandism and dissent being explained, Rosa resumes, in a
plaintive voice, "Is she betrothed yet."
"Not that I know of."
"Oh, I hope she is! I wish I knew! When will she be queen? When she is
eighteen, won't she? Oh! I thought she was to be of age, and be made
queen at eighteen. How long will she be a queen?"
"As long as she lives."
"As long as she lives! Why I thought--"
Rosa has no idea of rulers not being changed every four or eight years.
Even her imagination is almost overpowered at the idea of being set
above everybody else for life.
The carriage stops, and you are invited to step out, and view the
ravages of a tornado a season or two ago; you see how clear a path it
made for itself in the forest, and how it swept across the river,
tearing down an answering gap through the tall canebrake on the opposite
bank. The prostrated trees lie sunk in swamp, half hidden by flowering
reeds and bright mosses, while their stumps, twice as tall as yourself,
are all cropped off, whatever may be their thickness, precisely at the
same height, and so wrenched and twisted as to convince you that you
never before conceived of the power of the winds. The boys show you a
dry path down to the river side, that you may see the fishtraps that are
laid in the stream, and watch the couples of shad-fishers--dark figures
amid the flashing waters--who are pursuing their occupation in the glare
of noon. The girls tell you how father remembers the time when there
were bears in that canebrake, and there was great trouble in getting
them to come out of their thick covert to be killed. When father first
came here, this side of the river was all canebrake too. Is not a
canebrake very ugly? It may not have any picturesque beauty; but your
eye rests upon it with satisfaction, as a tropical feature in the scene.
You proceed, and point out with admiration a beautifully-situated
dwelling, which you declare takes your fancy more than any you have
seen. The children are amused that you should suppose any one lives
there, overshadowed with trees as it is, so that its inhabitants would
be devoured by moschetoes. Your hostess tells you that it is called Mr.
B.'s Folly. He spent a good deal of money and much taste upon it, but it
is uninhabitable from being rather too near the river. The fever
appeared so immediately and decisively that the family had to leave it
in three months, and there it stands, to be called B.'s Folly.
Your host paces up to the carriage window to tell you that you are now
on A.'s plantation. You are overtaking a long train of negroes going to
their work from dinner. They look all over the colour of the soil they
are walking on: dusky in clothing, dusky in complexion. An old man,
blacker than the rest, is indicated to you as a native African; and you
point out a child so light as to make you doubt whether he be a slave. A
glance at the long heel settles the matter. You feel that it would be a
relief to be assured that this was a troop of monkeys dressed up for
sport, rather than that these dull, shuffling animals should be human.
There is something inexpressibly disgusting in the sight of a slave
woman in the field. I do not share in the horror of the Americans at the
idea of women being employed in outdoor labour. It did not particularly
gratify me to see the cows always milked by men (where there were no
slaves); and the hay and harvest fields would have looked brighter in my
eyes if women had been there to share the wholesome and cheerful toil.
But a negro woman behind the plough presents a very different object
from the English mother with her children in the turnip-field, or the
Scotch lassie among the reapers. In her pre-eminently ugly costume, the
long, scanty, dirty woollen garment, with the shabby large bonnet at the
back of her head, the perspiration streaming down her dull face, the
heavy tread of the splay foot, the slovenly air with which she guides
her plough, a more hideous object cannot well be conceived, unless it be
the same woman at home, in the negro quarter, as the cluster of slave
dwellings is called.
You are now taken to the cotton-gin, the building to your left, where
you are shown how the cotton, as picked from the pods, is drawn between
cylinders so as to leave the seeds behind; and how it is afterward
packed, by hard pressure, into bales. The neighbouring creek is dammed
up to supply the water-wheel by which this gin is worked. You afterward
see the cotton-seed laid in handfuls round the stalks of the young
springing corn, and used in the cotton field as manure.
Meantime you attempt to talk with the slaves. You ask how old that very
aged man is, or that boy; they will give you no intelligible answer.
Slaves never know, or never will tell their ages, and this is the reason
why the census presents such extraordinary reports on this point,
declaring a great number to be above a hundred years old. If they have a
kind master, they will boast to you of how much he gave for each of
them, and what sums he has refused for them. If they have a hard master,
they will tell you that they would have more to eat and be less flogged,
but that massa is busy, and has no time to come down and see that they
have enough to eat. Your hostess is well known on this plantation, and
her kind face has been recognised from a distance; and already a negro
woman has come to her with seven or eight eggs, for which she knows she
shall receive a quarter dollar. You follow her to the negro quarter,
where you see a tidy woman knitting, while the little children who are
left in her charge are basking in the sun, or playing all kinds of
antics in the road; little shining, plump, cleareyed children, whose
mirth makes you sad when you look round upon their parents, and see what
these bright creatures are to come to. You enter one of the dwellings,
where everything seems to be of the same dusky hue: the crib against the
wall, the walls themselves, and the floor, all look one yellow. More
children are crouched round the wood fire, lying almost in the embers.
You see a woman pressing up against the wall like an idiot, with her
shoulder turned towards you, and her apron held up to her face. You ask
what is the matter with her, and are told that she is shy. You see a
woman rolling herself about in a crib, with her head tied up. You ask if
she is ill, and are told that she has not a good temper; that she struck
at a girl she was jealous of with an axe, and the weapon being taken
from her, she threw herself into the well, and was nearly drowned before
she was taken out, with her head much hurt.
The overseer has, meantime, been telling your host about the fever
having been more or less severe last season, and how well off he shall
think himself if he has no more than so many days' illness this summer:
how the vegetation has suffered from the late frosts, pointing out how
many of the oranges have been cut off, but that the great magnolia in
the centre of the court is safe. You are then invited to see the house,
learning by the way the extent and value of the estate you are visiting,
and of the "force" upon it. You admire the lofty, cool rooms, with their
green blinds, and the width of the piazzas on both sides the house,
built to compensate for the want of shade from trees, which cannot be
allowed near the dwelling for fear of moschetoes. You visit the
icehouse, and find it pretty full, the last winter having been a severe
one. You learn that, for three or four seasons after this icehouse was
built, there was not a spike of ice in the state, and a cargo had to be
imported from Massachusetts.
When you have walked in the field as long as the heat will allow, you
step into the overseer's bare dwelling, within its bare enclosure, where
fowls are strutting about, and refresh yourself with a small tumbler of
milk; a great luxury, which has been ordered for the party. The
overseer's fishing-tackle and rifle are on the wall, and there is a
medicine chest and a shelf of books. He is tall, sallow, and
_nonchalant_, dropping nothing more about himself and his situation than
that he does not know that he has had more than his share of sickness
and trouble in his vocation, and so he is pretty well satisfied.
Your hostess reminds the party that they are going out to dinner, and
that it is quite time to be returning to dress. So you go straight home
by a shorter road, stopping no more, but looking out, now at a glorious
trumpet honeysuckle dangling from a branch, now at a lofty, spreading
green tree, red hot close to the ground, while a sheet of flame is
spreading all about its roots, the flames looking orange and blue in the
bright sunshine.
You are glad to find, on arriving at home, that you have half an hour to
lie down before you dress, and are surprised, on rising, to feel how you
are refreshed. You have not very far to go to dinner; only to Mr. E.'s
cottage on the Sand Hills. The E.'s have just come for the summer, the
distant city being their winter residence. If you find the
accommodations poor, you must excuse it in consideration of their recent
removal. The E.'s live in very good style in the city. The cottage is
half way up a gentle ascent, with a deep, sandy road leading to the
wooden steps of the front piazza, and pine forests in the rear. The
entertainment to-day is not solely on your account; it is a parting
dinner to young Mr. and Mrs. F., who are going to reside farther West.
They are leaving their parents and friends, and the family estate, and
are to live in a loghouse till a proper dwelling can be built. Mrs. F.
is rather low in spirits, but her mother means to send the old family
nurse with her, so that she will have one comfort, at any rate, and will
be able to trust her infant out of her sight now and then. As for Mrs.
E., she informs you that she has come out to the cottage sooner than she
usually does, as she is expecting her confinement. She has all her five
children in her presence always; and as she cannot trust them for an
hour with her "people," their noise and the heat would be intolerable in
town; but here, where her room opens upon the piazza, she can have the
children always in her sight or hearing with less fatigue than in the
city. You ask whether such a charge be not too much for her. Certainly;
but there is no use in complaining, for it cannot be helped. She never
had a nurse that was not more plague than use. It is not only that the
servants tell the children improper things, and teach them falsehood,
but it is impossible to get the little boys' faces washed without seeing
it done; and the infant may, as likely as not, be dropped into the fire
or out of the window. Ladies must make the best of their lot, for they
cannot help themselves.
The dinner is plentiful, including, of course, turkey, ham, and sweet
potatoes; excellent claret, and large blocks of icecream. A slave makes
gentle war against the flies with the enormous bunch of peacocks'
feathers; and the agitation of the air is pleasant while the ladies are
engaged in eating, so that they cannot use their own fans, which are
hung by loops on the backs of their chairs. The afternoon is spent in
the piazza, where coffee is served. There the ladies sit, whisking their
feather fans, jesting with the children, and talking over the last
English poem or American novel, or complaining bitterly of the dreadful
incendiary publications which Mr. E. heard from Mr. H., who had heard it
from Mr. M., that Judge R. had said that somebody had seen circulated
among the negroes by some vile agent of the horrid abolitionists of the
North.
You go in to tea, and find the table strewed with prints, and the piano
open, and Mrs. F. plays and sings. The gentlemen have done discussing
the French war and the currency, and are praising the conduct of the
Committee of Vigilance; frankly informing you, as a stranger, of the
reasons of its formation, and the modes of its operation in deterring
abolitionists from coming into the neighbourhood, in arresting them on
any suspicion of tampering with the negroes, and in punishing them
summarily if any facts are established against them. While you are
endeavouring to learn the nature of the crime and its evidence, you are
summoned. There is going to be a storm, and your party must get home, if
possible, before it comes on. In such a case Mrs. E. will say nothing in
opposition to your leaving her so early. She would not be the means of
exposing you to the storm. You hasten away, and reach home during the
first explosion of thunder.
You find there a bouquet, sent to you with Miss G.'s compliments; a
splendid bunch of quince, yellow jessamine, arbor vitæ, hyacinths,
cherry, and other blossoms. It is not nearly bedtime yet; and you sit on
the sofa, fanning yourself, with the table-lamp dimmed by the momentary
glare of blue lightning. Your hostess learns from the servants that poor
Miss Clara went to bed in great grief, the cat having killed her canary
in the afternoon. It has been a sad day for poor Clara, from the
adventures of her bird; but she is now fast asleep.
Your host amuses you with anecdotes of South country life. He asks you
how you were struck with Mrs. L., whose call you returned yesterday. You
reply that she seems a cheerful, hearty personage, who makes the best of
a poor lot; and you relate how pleased you were at the frankness with
which she owned, pointing to the stocking she was darning, that she knew
little of books nowadays, or of music, as she was making shirts and
darning stockings for her sons all the year round. You were sorry to see
such evidences of poverty; chairs with broken backs, and a piano with
three legs, and a cracked flute; but glad that Mrs. L. seemed able to
look on the bright side of things. Your host throws himself back, and
laughs for three minutes; and, when he recovers, informs you that Mrs.
L. is the wealthiest widow in the state. You protest that you looked
upon her with respect as a meritorious widow, doing her best for a large
family. Your host repeats that she is the richest widow in the state,
and that she and all her family are odd about money. She has a sister in
a neighbouring state, Mrs. M., who is even more bent upon economy. Last
year Mrs. L. visited this sister, who lives in a country town. The
sisters went out in Mrs. M.'s carriage, to make calls and do shopping.
Mrs. L. observed that her sister's carriage was attended by a little
mulatto girl, who let down the steps, and put them up, and mounted
behind very dexterously. "The child is clever enough," said Mrs. L.;
"but, sister, your carriage should have a proper footman. You should not
be seen in town with a girl behind your carriage." Mrs. M. promised to
consider the matter. The next day a spruce mulatto lad was in waiting,
of whom Mrs. L. fully approved. When she looked in his face, however, as
he was letting down the steps at the entrance of a store, she was struck
by his remarkable likeness to the girl of yesterday, and observed upon
it. Mrs. M. laughed, and owned she had got a suit of boy's clothes made
since yesterday for the girl to wear during morning drives, and she
thought this an excellent plan. Many such a story does your host amuse
you with; observing that, though America has fewer humourists than
England, they may be met with in abundance in rare settlements and
retired districts, where they can indulge their fancies without much
suffering from public opinion.
The storm abates. You are the oracle as to what o'clock it is; and, as
you are confident that it is near eleven, the chamber lights are
brought. You dismiss your dusky attendants, and throw yourself on your
ample sofa for half an hour, to recall what you have seen and heard this
day, and meditate on the scope and tendencies of Country Life in the
Southern States.
CITY LIFE IN THE SOUTH.
"Ye thus hospitably live,
And strangers with good cheer receive."
PRIOR.
"Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness."
SHAKSPEARE.
The disasters of our railroad journey to Charleston have been described
elsewhere.[14] We were to have arrived at the city about six P.M. of the
10th of March, when every object would have looked bright in the
sunshine of a spring evening. As it was, we reached the railroad station
at ten minutes past four the next morning. There was much delay in
obtaining our luggage and getting away from the station. We could not
think of disturbing the slumbers of the friends whose hospitality we
were about to enjoy, and we therefore proceeded in the omnibus which was
in waiting to the Planter's Hotel. We were all hungry, having scarcely
tasted food since noon the day before; and very weary, having travelled
the whole of two nights, and enjoyed no sufficient rest since we left
Richmond, nine days before. Every little event became a great one to
persons so exhausted. The omnibus jolted and stopped, and we were told
that an accident had happened. The gentlemen got out, but the darkness
was total. A light was brought from a private house, and it appeared
that a wheel had touched the kerbstone! It seemed as if horses were
never backed in Charleston, so long were we in proceeding. When I
afterward saw what the streets of Charleston are like, I do not wonder
at any extreme of caution in a driver. The soil is a fine sand, which,
after rain, turns into a most deceptive mud; and there is very little
pavement yet. The deficiency of stone is, however, becoming supplied by
importation, and the inhabitants hope soon to be able to walk about the
city in all weathers, without danger of being lost in crossing the
streets. They told me, as an _on dit_, that a horse was drowned last
winter in a mudhole in a principal street.
Footnote 14: Society in America, vol. ii., p. 183.
At the hotel all was dark and comfortless. We made a stir among the
servants; the gentlemen got two men to light a fire, and fetch us wine
and biscuits; and we persuaded two women to make up beds and warm some
water. We were foolish enough to be tempted to take wine and water, as
we could have neither tea or coffee; and when we rose from our
unrefreshing sleep an hour after noon, we formed such a dismal group of
aching heads as could hardly be matched out of a hospital.
Two of us proceeded, in a light pretty hack-carriage, to the friend's
house where we were expected. Nothing could be more considerate than our
reception. A pile of English and American letters and newspapers awaited
us, and our hostess knew that we must be fatigued; a fire was therefore
immediately lighted in my chamber, and we were told that the day was our
own; that our dinner would be sent up to us, and that we should not be
expected in the drawing-room till we chose to join the family. I shall
not soon forget the refreshment of lingering over family letters and
London newspapers; of feeling that we were not liable to be called up in
the dark for a fortnight at least; and of seeing my clothes laid in
drawers, for the first time, I think, since I landed. A chest of drawers
is seldom to be seen in the chambers, or, at least, in the
guest-chambers of American houses. We were favoured in the article of
closets with rows of pegs, but I believe I had the use of a chest of
drawers only two or three times during my travels.
A circumstance happened this day which, as being illustrative of
manners, may be worth relating. The day before I left Richmond,
Virginia, two companions and myself had employed a hack-carriage, driven
by a black, for some hours; and, on dismissing it, had paid the fare,
which we thought reasonable, two dollars and a half. The proprietor of
the carriage and master of the driver had by some means heard who it was
that had been his customer. Finding that I had left Richmond, he took
the trouble to send the two dollars and a half down to Charleston, five
hundred miles, with a message that it was not for the honour of Virginia
that I should pay carriage hire! and the money was awaiting me on my
arrival.
I had soon reason to perceive that Charleston deserves its renown for
hospitality. A lecturer on phrenology sent us tickets for his course;
six carriages were immediately placed at my disposal, and the servants
came every morning for orders for the day. The difficulty was to use
them all and equally; but, by employing one for the morning drive and
another for the evening visiting, we contrived to show our friends that
we were willing to avail ourselves of their kindnesses. I believe there
was scarcely a morning during our stay when some pretty present did not
arrive before I rose; sometimes it was a bouquet of hyacinths, which
were extremely rare that year, from the lateness and severity of the
frosts; sometimes it was a dish of preserve or marmalade; sometimes a
feather fan, when the day promised to be hot; sometimes a piece of
Indian work; sometimes of indigenous literary production. One morning I
found on my window-seat a copy of the Southern Review, and a bouquet of
hyacinths from General Hayne; and the next a basket of wafers from Mrs.
P.; and the third a set of cambric handkerchiefs, inimitably marked with
complimentary devices, from Mrs. W.