plantation, and likewise looks after another estate of 8,000 acres, some
twelve miles down the river, which our host added to his possessions two
years since, at a cost of £150,000. In any part of the world, and in any
calling, Mr. S---- (I do not know if he would like to see his name in
print) would be considered an able man. Mr. S. attends to most of the
practice requiring immediate attention. We visited one of these
hospitals, and found half-a-dozen patients ill of fever, rheumatism and
indigestion, and apparently well cared for by a couple of stout nurses.
The truckle bedsteads were garnished with mosquito bars, and I was told
that the hospital is a favorite resort, which its inmates leave with
reluctance. The pharmaceutical department was largely supplied with a
variety of medicines, quinine and preparations of sulphites of iron.
“Poor drugs,” said Mr. S., “are a poor economy.”
I have mentioned engineering as one of the requisites of a competent
overseer. To explain this I must observe that Houmas is esteemed very
high land, and that in its cultivated breadth there is only a fall of
eight feet to carry off its surplus matter. In the plantation of
Governor Manning, which adjoins it, an expensive steam-draining machine
is employed to relieve his fields of this incumbrance, which is effected
by the revolutions of a fan-wheel some twenty feet in diameter, which
laps up the water from a narrow trough into which all the drainage
flows, and tosses it into an adjoining bayou.
On Governor Manning’s plantation we saw the process of clearing the
primitive forest, of which 150 acres were sown in corn and cotton
beneath the tall girdled trees that awaited the axe, while an equal
breadth on the other side of a broad and deep canal was reluctantly
yielding its tough and fibrous soil, from which the jungle had just been
removed, to the ploughs of some fifty negroes, drawn by two mules each.
Another season of lustration by maize or cotton, and the rank soil will
be ready for the cane.
The cultivation of sugar differs from that of cotton in requiring a much
larger outlay of capital. There is little required for the latter
besides negroes and land, which may be bought on credit, and a year’s
clothing and provisions. There is a gambling spice in the chances of a
season which may bring wealth or ruin--a bale to the acre, which may
produce 7_d._ or only 5_d._ per lb. In a fair year the cotton planter
reckons upon ten or twelve bales to the hand, in which case the annual
yield of a negro varies from £90 to £120. His enemies are drought,
excessive rains, the ball-worm, and the army-worm; his best friend “a
long picking season.”
There is more steadiness in the price of sugar, and a greater certainty
of an average crop. But the cost of a sugar-house, with its mill,
boilers, vacuum pans, centrifugal and drying apparatus, cannot be less
than £10,000, and the consumption of fuel, thousands of cords of which
are cut up by the “hands,” is enormous. There were cases of large
fortunes earned by planting sugar with small beginnings, but these had
chiefly occurred among early settlers, who had obtained their hands for
a song. A creole, who recently died at the age of fifty-five, in the
neighborhood, and who began with only a few thousand dollars, had
amassed more than $1,000,000 in twenty-five years, and two of his
sons--skilful planters--were likely to die each richer than his father.
This year the prospects of sugar are dreary enough, at least while the
civil war lasts, and my host, with a certainty of 6,500 hogsheads upon
his various plantations, has none of a market. In this respect cotton
has the advantage of keeping longer than sugar. At last year’s prices,
and with the United States protective tariff of 20 per cent. to shield
him from foreign competition, his crop would have yielded him over
£100,000. But all the sweet teeth of the Confederate States army can
hardly “make a hole” in the 450,000 hogsheads which this year is
expected to yield in Louisiana and Texas. Under the new tariff of the
seceding states, the loss of protection to Louisiana alone may be
stated, within bounds, at $8,000,000 per annum--which is making the
planters pay pretty dear for their secession whistle.
When I arrived at Houmas there was the greatest anxiety for rain, and
over the vast level plateau every cloud was scanned with avidity. Now, a
shower seemed bearing right down upon us, when it would break, like a
flying soap-bubble, and scatter its treasures short of the parched
fields in which we felt interested. The wind shifted, and hopes were
raised that the next thunder-cloud would prove less illusory. But, no!
“Kenner” has got it all. On the fifth day, however, the hearts of all
the planters and their parched fields were gladdened by half a day of
general and generous rain, beneath which our host’s cane fairly reeled
and revelled. It was now safe for the season, and so was the corn. But
“one man’s meat is another’s poison,” and we heard more than one
“Jeremiad” from those whose fields had not been placed in the condition
which enabled those of our friend to carry off a potation of twelve
hours of tropical rain with the ease of an alderman or lord chancellor
made happier or wiser by his three bottles of port.
What is termed _hacienda_ in Cuba, _rancho_ in Mexico, and “plantation”
elsewhere, is styled “habitation” by the creoles of Louisiana, whose
ancestors began more than a century ago to reclaim its jungles.
At last “_venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus_.” I had seen as much
as might be of the best phase of the great institution--less than I
could desire of a most exemplary, kind-hearted, clear-headed, honest
man. In the calm of a glorious summer evening, arrayed in all the
splendor of scenery that belongs to dreams in Cloudland, where mountains
of snow, peopled by “gorgons and hydras and chimæras dire,” rise from
seas of fire that bear black barks freighted with thunder before the
breeze of battle, we crossed the Father of Waters, waving an adieu to
the good friend who stood on the shore, and turning ever back to the
home we had left behind us. It was dark when the boat reached
Donaldsonville on the opposite “coast.” I should not be surprised to
hear that the founder of this remarkable city, which once contained the
archives of the state, now transferred to Baton Rouge, was a North
Briton. There is a simplicity and economy in the plan of the place not
unfavorable to that view, but the motives which induced Donaldson to
found his Rome on the west of Bayou La Fourche from Mississippi must be
a secret to all time. Much must the worthy Scot have been perplexed by
his neighbors, a long-reaching colony of Spanish creoles who toil not
and spin nothing but fishing-nets, and who live better than Solomon, and
are probably as well dressed, _minus_ the barbaric pearl and gold of the
Hebrew potentate. Take the odd, little, retiring, modest houses which
grow in the hollows of Scarborough, add to them the least imposing
mansions in the natural town of Folkestone, cast them broadsown over the
surface of the Essex marshes, plant a few trees in front of them, then
open a few “café billards” of the camp sort along the main street, and
you have done a very good Donaldsonville. A policeman welcomes us on the
landing and does the honors of the market, which has a beggarly account
of empty benches, a Texan bull done into beef, and a coffee-shop. The
policeman is a tall, lean, west countryman; his story is simple, and he
has it to tell. He was one of Dan Rice’s company--a travelling Astley.
He came to Donaldsonville, saw, and was conquered by one of the Spanish
beauties, married her, became tavern-keeper, failed, learned French, and
was now constable of the parish. There was, however, a weight on his
mind. He had studied the matter profoundly, but he was not near the
bottom. How did the friends, relatives, and tribe of his wife live? No
one could say. They reared chickens, and they caught fish; when there
was a pressure on the planters, they turned out to work for 6_s._ 6_d._
a-day, but those were rare occasions. The policeman had become quite
gray with excogitating the matter, and he had “nary notion of how they
did it.” Donaldsonville has done one fine thing. It has furnished two
companies of soldiers--all Irishmen--to the wars, and a third is in the
course of formation. Not much hedging, ditching, or hard work these
times for Paddy! The blacksmith, a huge tower of muscle, claims
exemption on the ground that “the divil a bit of him comes from
Oireland; he nivir hird af it, barrin’ from the buks he rid,” and is
doing his best to remain behind, but popular opinion is against him. As
the steamer would not be up till toward dawn, or later, it was a relief
to saunter through Donaldsonville to see society, which consisted of
several gentlemen and various Jews playing games unknown to Hoyle, in
oaken bar-rooms flanked by billiard tables. My good friend the doctor
whom I had met at Houmas, who had crossed the river to see patients
suffering from an attack of eucre, took us round to a little club, where
I was introduced to a number of gentlemen, who expressed great pleasure
at seeing me, shook hands violently, and walked away; and finally we
melted off into a cloud of mosquitos by the river bank, in a box
prepared for them, which was called a bedroom. These rooms were built in
wood on the stage close by the river. “Why can’t I have one of those
rooms?” asked I, pointing to a large mosquito box. “It is engaged by
ladies.” “How do you know?”--“_Parceque elles ont envoyé leurs butin_.”
It was delicious to meet the French “plunder” for baggage--an old phrase
so nicely rendered in the mouth of the Mississippi boatman. Having
passed a night of extreme discomfiture with the winged demons of the
box, I was aroused toward dawn by the booming of the steam drum of the
boat, dipped my head in water among drowned mosquitos, and went forth
upon the landing. The policeman had just arrived. His eagle eye lighted
upon a large flat, on the stern of which was inscribed, “Pork, corn,
butter, beef,” etc. Several spry citizens were also on the platform.
After salutations and compliments, policeman speaks--“When did _she_
come in?” (meaning flat.) First citizen--“In the night, I guess.” Second
citizen--“There’s a lot of whiskey aboord, too.” Policeman (with pleased
surprise)--“You never mean it?” First citizen--“Yes, sir; one hundred
and twenty gallons!” Policeman (inspired by a bright aspiration of
patriotism)--“It’s a west country boat; why _don’t_ the citizens seize
it? And whiskey rising from 17c. to 35c. a gallon!” Citizens murmur
approval, and I feel the whiskey part of the cargo is not safe. “Yes,
sir,” says citizen three, “they seize all our property at Cairey
(Cairo), and I’m for making an example of this cargo.” Further reasons
for the seizure of the articles were adduced, and it is probable they
were as strong as the whiskey, which has, no doubt, been drunk long ago
on the very purest principles. In course of conversation with the
committee of taste which had assembled, it was revealed to me that there
was a strict watch kept over those boats which are freighted with
whiskey forbidden to the slaves, and with principles, when they come
from the west country, equally objectionable. “Did you hear, sir, of the
chap over at Duncan Renmer’s as was caught the other day?” “No, sir,
what was it?” “Well, sir, he was a man that came here and went over
among the niggers at Renmer’s to buy their chickens from them. He was
took up, and they found he’d a lot of money about him.” “Well, of
course, he had money to buy the chickens.” “Yes, sir, but it looked
suspic-ious. He was a west country fellow, tew, and he might have been
tamperin’ with ’em. Lucky for him he was not taken in the arternoon.”
“Why so?” “Because if the citizens had been drunk they’d have hung him
on the spot.” The Acadia was now alongside, and in the early morning
Donaldsonville receded rapidly into trees and clouds. To bed, and make
amends for mosquito visits. On awaking, find that I am in the same place
I started from; at least, the river looks just the same. It is difficult
to believe that we have been going eleven miles an hour against the
turbid river, which is of the same appearance as it was below--the same
banks, bends, driftwood and trees.
Beyond the levees there were occasionally large clearings and
plantations of corn and cane, of which the former predominated. The
houses of the planters were not so large or so good as those on the
lower banks. Large timber rafts, navigated by a couple of men, who stood
in the shade of a few upright boards, were encountered at long
intervals. The river was otherwise dead. White egrets and blue herons
rose from the marshes where the banks had been bored through by
crayfish, or crevasses had been formed by the waters. The fields were
not much more lively, but at every landing the whites who came down were
in some sort of uniform, and a few negroes were in attendance to take in
or deliver goods. There were two blacks on board in irons--captured
runaways--and very miserable they looked at the thought of being
restored to the bosom of the patriarchial family from, which they had,
no doubt, so prodigally eloped. I fear the fatted calfskin would not be
applied to their backs. The river is about half a mile wide here, and is
upwards of 1,000 feet deep. The planters’ houses in groves of pecan and
mangolias, with verandah and belvedere, became more frequent as the
steamer approached Baton Rouge, already visible in the distance over a
high bank or bluff on the right hand side.
Before noon the steamer hauled alongside a stationary hulk, which once
“walked the waters” by the aid of machinery, but which was now used as a
floating hotel, depot and storehouse--315 feet long, and fully thirty
feet on the upper deck above the level of the river. Here were my
quarters till the boat for Natchez should arrive. The proprietor was
somewhat excited on my arrival, because one of his servants was away.
“Where have you been, you ----?” “Away to buy de newspaper, Massa.” “For
who, you ----?” “Me buy ’em for no one, Massa; me sell ’um agin, Massa.”
“See, now, you ----, if ever you goes aboard to meddle with newspapers,
I’m ---- but I’ll kill you, mind that!” Baton Rouge is the capital of the
State of Louisiana, and the State House is a quaint and very new example
of bad taste. The Deaf and Dumb Asylum near it is in a much better
style. It was my intention to visit the State Prison and Penitentiary,
but the day was too hot, and the distance too great, and so I dined at
the oddest little creole restaurant, with the funniest old hostess, and
the strangest company in the world. On returning to the boat hotel, Mr.
Conrad, one of the citizens of the place, and Mr. W. Avery, a judge of
the court, were good enough to call to invite me to visit them, but I
was obliged to decline. The old gentlemen were both members of the home
guard, and drilled assiduously every evening. Of the 1,300 voters at
Baton Rouge, more than 750 are already off to the wars, and another
company is being formed to follow them. Mr. Conrad has three sons in
the field already. The waiter who served out drinks in the bar wore a
uniform, and his musket lay in the corner among the brandy bottles. At
night a patriotic meeting of citizen soldiery took place in the bow, in
which song and whiskey had much to do, so that sleep was difficult; but
at seven o’clock on Wednesday morning the Mary T. came alongside, and
soon afterward bore me on to Natchez, through scenery which became
wilder and less cultivated as she got upwards. Of the 1,500 steamers on
the river not a tithe are now in employment, and the owners are in a bad
way. It was late at night when the steamer arrived at Natchez, and next
morning early I took shelter in another engineless steamer, which was
thought to be a hotel by its owners. Old negress on board, however,
said, “There was nothing for breakfast; go to Curry’s on shore.” Walk up
hill to Curry’s--a bar-room, a waiter and flies. “Can I have any
breakfast?” “No, sir-ree; it’s over half an hour ago.” “Nothing to eat
at all?” “No, sir.” “Can I get some anywhere else?” “I guess not.” It
had been my belief that a man with money in his pocket could not starve
in any country _soi-disant_ civilized. Exceptions prove rules, but they
are disagreeable things. I chewed the cud of fancy _faute de mieux_, and
became the centre of attraction to citizens, from whose conversation I
learned that this was “Jeff. Davis’ fast day.” Observed one, “It quite
puts me in mind of Sunday; all the stores closed.” Said another, “We’ll
soon have Sunday every day, then, for I ’spect it won’t be worth while
for most shops to keep open any longer.” Natchez, a place of much trade
and cotton export in the season, is now as dull--let us say as Harwich
without a regatta. But it is ultra-Secessionist, _nil obstante_. My
hunger was assuaged by a friend who drove me up to his comfortable
mansion through a country not unlike the wooded parts of Sussex,
abounding in fine trees, and in the only lawns and park-like fields I
have yet seen in America. In the evening, after dinner, my host drove me
over to visit a small encampment under a wealthy planter, who has
raised, equipped and armed his company at his own expense.
We were obliged to get out at a narrow lane and walk toward the
encampment on foot; a sentry stopped us, and we observed that there was
a semblance of military method in the camp. The captain was walking up
and down in the verandah of the poor, deserted hut, for which he had
abandoned his splendid home. A book of tactics (Hardee’s)--which is, in
part, a translation of the French manual--lay on the table. Our friend
was full of fight, and said he would give all he had in the world to the
cause. But the day before, and a party of horse, composed of sixty
gentlemen in the district, worth from £20,000 to £50,000 each, had
started for the war in Virginia. Every thing to be seen or heard
testifies to the great zeal and resolution with which the South have
entered upon the quarrel. But they hold the power of the United States,
and the loyalty of the North to the Union at far too cheap a rate. Next
day was passed in a delightful drive through cotton fields, Indian corn,
and undulating woodlands, amid which were some charming residences. I
crossed the river at Natchez, and saw one fine plantation, in which the
corn, however, was by no means so fine as I have often seen. The cotton
looks well, and some had already burst into flower--bloom, as it is
called--which had turned to a flagrant pink, and seemed saucily
conscious that its boll would play an important part in the world. In
this part of Mississippi the secessionist feeling was not so
overpowering at first as it has been since the majority declared itself,
but the expression of feeling is now all one way. The rage of Southern
sentiment is to me inexplicable, making every allowance for Southern
exaggeration. It is sudden, hot, and apparently as causeless as summer
lightning. From every place I touched at along the Mississippi, a large
portion of the population has gone forth to fight, or is preparing to do
so. The whispers which rise through the storm are few and feeble. Some
there are who sigh for the peace and happiness they have seen in
England. But they cannot seek those things; they must look after their
property. Each man maddens his neighbor by desperate resolves, and
threats and vows. Their faith is in Jefferson Davis’ strength, and in
the necessities and weakness of France and England. The inhabitants of
the tracts which lie on the banks of the Mississippi, and on the inland
regions hereabout, ought to be, in the natural order of things, a people
almost nomadic, living by the chase, and by a sparse agriculture, in the
freedom which tempted their ancestors to leave Europe. But the Old World
has been working for them. All its trials have been theirs; the fruits
of its experience, its labors, its research, its discoveries, are
theirs. Steam has enabled them to turn their rivers into highways, to
open primeval forests to the light of day and to man. All these,
however, would have availed them little had not the demands of
manufacture abroad, and the increasing luxury and population of the
North and West at home, enabled them to find in these swamps and uplands
sources of wealth richer and more certain than all the gold mines of the
world. But there must be gnomes to work those mines. Slavery was an
institution ready to their hands. In its development there lay every
material means for securing the prosperity which Manchester opened to
them, and in supplying their own countrymen with sugar. The small,
struggling, deeply-mortgaged proprietors of swamp and forest set their
negroes to work to raise levees, to cut down trees, to plant and sow. As
the negro became valuable by his produce, the Irish emigrant took his
place in the severer labors of the plantation, and ditched and dug, and
cut into the waste land. Cotton at ten cents a pound gave a nugget in
every boll. Land could be had for a few dollars an acre. Negroes were
cheap in proportion. Men who made a few thousand dollars invested them
in more negroes, and more land, and borrowed as much again for the same
purpose. They waxed fat and rich--there seemed no bounds to their
fortune. But threatening voices came from the North--the echoes of the
sentiments of the civilized world repenting of its evil pierced their
ears, and they found their feet were of clay, and that they were nodding
to their fall in the midst of their power. Ruin inevitable awaited them
if they did not shut out these sounds and stop the fatal utterances. The
issue is to them one of life and death. Whoever raises it hereafter, if
it be not decided now, must expect to meet the deadly animosity which is
displayed toward the North. The success of the South--if it can
succeed--must lead to complications and results in other parts of the
world, for which neither it nor Europe is now prepared. Of one thing
there can be no doubt--a slave state cannot long exist without a slave
trade. The poor whites who have won the fight will demand their share of
the spoils. The land is abundant, and all that is wanted to give them
fortunes is a supply of slaves. They will have that in spite of their
masters, unless a stronger power prevents the accomplishment of their
wishes.
* * * * *
CAIRO, ILL., _June 20_, 1861.
My last letter was dated from Natchez, but it will probably accompany
this communication, as there are no mails now between the North and the
South, or _vice versa_. Tolerably confident in my calculations that
nothing of much importance could take place in the field till some time
after I had reached my post, it appeared to me desirable to see as much
of the South as I could, and to form an estimate of the strength of the
Confederation, although it could not be done at this time of the year
without considerable inconvenience, arising from the heat, which renders
it almost impossible to write in the day, and from the mosquitos, which
come out when the sun goes down and raise a blister at every stroke of
the pen. On several days lately the thermometer has risen to 98 degrees,
on one day to 105 degrees, in the shade.