A SOUTHERN HOME.
“——A villa beautiful to see;
Marble-porched and cedar-chambered,
Hung with silken drapery;
Bossed with ornaments of silver,
Interlaid with gems and gold;
Filled with carvings from cathedrals,
Rescued in the days of old;
Eloquent with books and pictures,
All that luxury can afford;
Warm with statues that Pygmalion
Might have fashioned and adored.
In the forest glades and vistas,
Lovely are the light and gloom:
Fountains sparkle in the gardens,
And exotics breathe perfume.”—_Mackay._
The sun shines on no more beautiful and entrancing region than the vale
of Pearl river. It is the Elysium of the sunny south, reposing between
the rich alluvial lands of the Mississippi, and the fragrant[1] pine
forests of the Pascagoula. The green land of the valley seems to roll in
gentle undulations, like the waves of a calm sea. Between the swelling
hills, or rather waves of verdure, flow crystal streams towards the
bosom of the Pearl. These lovely hills are capped with groves of the
most beautiful and odoriferous of the southern flowering trees. These
charming streams are shaded with the most fragrant and delightful of the
flowering shrubs and vines. Here nature throws around her riches with an
unsparing hand and a wonderful exuberance of luxury. Birds of the most
brilliant plumage and enchanting melody fill all the summer groves, at
early morn and eve, with their perfect music. Flowers of countless
varieties, and most beautiful forms and hues, laden all the air with
their ambrosial perfume. The breeze is charged with music and fragrance,
as from the spicy groves of Araby the Blest.
Footnote 1:
All who have travelled through or near the pine woods of Mississippi
know the effect of the southern sun upon these trees, ripening and
rarefying from them a most grateful and salubrious fragrance, called
the “terebinthine odour.” The effect of the climate is still more
obvious upon ornamental trees and flowers. Those that lose much of
their luxuriant beauty and fragrance in the North, attain in the South
their utmost perfection.
If in this garden—this conservatory of Nature, where all her choicest
luxuries are assembled—there is one spot more favoured than all the
rest, it is “Cashmere,” the beautiful seat of Clement Sutherland.
The brothers Sutherland emigrated from the old dominion, and settled on
the Pearl river, in those palmy days of cotton-planting, when every
planter seemed a very Midas, turning all he touched to gold, and when
the foundations were laid of some of the present enormous southern
fortunes. It was no love for the land of sun that brought the
Sutherlands there. They had heard that the common annual profits of the
cotton crops were from ten to eighty thousand dollars; and they had sold
their tobacco plantation on the Potomac, and emigrated to the valley of
the Pearl. The spot selected by the brothers was that Eden of the valley
where the Pearl river turns with a serpentine bend in the form of an S
with an additional curve, shaping the land into two round points to the
west, and one—the largest and loveliest—to the east. The east point had
been taken up by Clement Sutherland, the eldest of the brothers, and the
west points by the two others. Thus Clement Sutherland’s plantation lay
embosomed between those of his brethren. On the upper side lay that of
Mark, the second brother, and on the lower, that of Paul, the third and
bachelor brother.
Very early in life, and some years previous to their emigration, Mark
Sutherland had been united in marriage to a lady of St. Mary’s—one of
the noblest of Maryland’s noble daughters. From her, their only son,
Mark Sutherland, the younger, inherited a strong mind, warm heart, and
high spirit; from his father he took the stalwart form, athletic
strength, and dark and sometimes terrible beauty, that marked the race
of Sutherland.
Clement Sutherland had remained unmarried until long after his
settlement upon the Pearl. But one autumn, while on a visit to New
Orleans, to negotiate the sale of his cotton, he chanced to meet a
beautiful West Indian girl, whom he afterwards wooed and won for his
bride. Whether the sweet Havanienne, or the large fortune of which she
was the sole heiress, was the object of his worship, was a mooted point
by those who knew him best. It is probable he adored both. Certainly no
slightest wish or whim of the lovely Creole remained unsatisfied. It was
she who gave the charming scene of his home the appropriate name of
Cashmere. She it was who persuaded him to pause in his incessant,
exclusive thinking, talking, and acting, about cotton-growing, and his
mad pursuit of gain, to build and adorn an elegant villa upon the site
of the temporary framed house to which he had brought the beautiful
_épicurienne_. Her rare artistic taste presided over the architecture
and embellishment of the mansion, and the laying out and ornamenting of
the grounds. But here the evanescent energy of the indolent West Indian
died out. She was, at best, but a lovely and fragile spring flower, that
faded and fell ere the summer of her life had come. She left a child of
perfect beauty—a little girl—who inherited her mother’s graceful harmony
of form and complexion, and her father’s strength and vigour of
constitution.
Immediately after the death of her mother, the orphaned infant had been
taken home by her aunt, Mrs. Mark Sutherland, to share the maternal
cares bestowed upon her only son. The lady gave herself up to the
rearing and education of these children. And not the noble mother of the
Gracchi was prouder of her “jewels” than Mrs. Sutherland of hers. Thus
the infancy and childhood of Mark and Hinda were passed together—the
same mother’s heart, the same nursery, the same school-room, nay, the
same book, with their heads together, and their black and golden locks
mingled, were shared by the children. And no Guinea mice or turtle doves
were ever fonder of each other than our boy and girl.
It was a woful day when they were first separated—Mark to enter college,
and Hinda to be placed at a fashionable boarding-school. Tears fell on
both sides, like spring showers. Young Mark, when laughed at for his
girlish tears, angrily rejoined, that it was no shame to weep; that the
renowned hero, Achilles, had wept when they took Briseis away from him,
also when his friend Patroclus was slain.
Paul Sutherland, the third brother, had remained up to the present time
unmarried, with the determination to continue so until the end of his
life. He bestowed his affections with paternal pride and devotion upon
his niece and nephew, resolving to make them his joint heirs, and with
his own large property swell the enormous bulk of theirs. Just two years
previous to the opening of our story, the Pearl river trio had been
broken by the death of Mark Sutherland, the elder. Young Sutherland had
hastened home to console his widowed mother, but not long did the widow
permit him to remain. The lady sent him back at the commencement of the
next following term.
But it is time to describe more particularly Cashmere, the charming seat
of Clement Sutherland, and the principal scene of our drama. The estate
itself was a very extensive one, comprising several thousand acres of
the richest land in the vale. That part of the plantation on which the
villa had been erected lay in a bend of the Pearl river, surrounded on
three sides—north, east, and south—by its pellucid waters. The whole of
this area is occupied by the mansion and ornamental grounds.
The villa itself is a very elegant edifice of white freestone, fronting
the river. The building is long and broad, in proportion to its
height—this being the necessary plan of all southern mansions, to save
them from the effects of the terrible tornadoes that sweep over the
country, and to which a higher elevation would expose them. But the
mansion is relieved from all appearance of heaviness, by a light and
elegant Ionic colonnade, sustaining an open verandah running around
three sides of the building. On the fourth side, looking to the south,
the aspect is diversified by a large bay window projecting from the
lower story, and an elegant Venetian balcony from the upper one.
The villa is also shaded on three sides—north, west, and south—by a
grove of the most beautiful and fragrant of the southern trees—the
splendid tulip-poplar, lifting to the skies its slender shaft, crested
with elegantly-shaped leaves of the most brilliant and intense verdure,
and crowned with its bell-shaped flowers of the most vivid and gorgeous
flame colour; the beautiful cotton-wood tree, softly powdered over with
its formless snowy blossoms; the queenly magnolia-grandiflora, with its
glittering green foliage and dazzling white flowers and rich oppressive
aroma; the pretty red-bud, with its umbrella-shaped top, its crumpled,
heart-shaped leaves, and scarlet tufts; the bois-d’arc, in full bloom,
the most splendid and magnificent of ornamental trees, uniting the
rarest qualities of the orange tree and the catalpa; the chinidine, with
its vivid green foliage and brilliant purple flowers, dropping delicious
but heavy narcotic odours, weighing down the nerves and brain into
luxurious repose, and stupefying the very birds that shelter in its
aromatic shades, so that they may be taken captive with the bare hand;
the imperial catalpa, sovereign of the grove by virtue of the grandeur
and elegance of its form, the grace and beauty of its foliage, and the
ambrosial perfume of its flowers, filling all the air around with its
delightful fragrance; and many, many others, so various, beautiful, and
aromatic, that one is lost and entranced amid the luxuriating wealth of
the grove. Birds of the most splendid plumage and the most exquisite
melody—the goldfinch, the oriole, the redbird, the paroquet, the
nightingale, swallow, and innumerable others, shelter here, and their
songs fill the air with music. No artificial walk disfigures the sward.
The green and velvety turf affords the softest, coolest footing. Rustic
seats of twisted bow-wood are under the trees; here and there fountains
of crystal water leap, sparkle, and fall, ever playing silvery
accompaniments to the song of birds; statues of Diana, Pan, and the
wood-nymphs, peopled the grove. Its shades are the delightful resort of
the Sutherlands and their friends, to enjoy the freshness and brilliancy
of the morning, to find shelter from the burning rays of the sun at
noon, or to luxuriate in the delicious breeze of the evening. This
Arcadian grove, as has been said, surrounded the house on three
sides—north, west, and south.
The east is the front of the house towards the river. The view here is
open, and the most beautiful, charming, and variegated, to be imagined.
From the colonnaded verandah a flight of broad marble steps lead to a
terrace carpeted with grass, and planted with rose-bushes—the Damascus,
the Provence, the scarlet, the white, the multiflora, the moss rose;
daily, monthly, and perpetual roses; “roses—everywhere roses”—such a
luxuriant exuberance of roses upon this velvety terrace. The rose
terrace is divided from the lawn by a _treillage_ of the most delicate
and elaborate trellis-work; and this also is wreathed and festooned by
running rose vines.
Below this spreads the lawn on every side, not level, but gently waving,
and covered with grass as soft, as smooth, and as downy as velvet; and
everywhere the eye roves with pleasure over a turf of brilliant intense
green, except where it is variegated with the floral mosaic work of gay
parterres, or trellised arbours, or reservoirs, or single magnificent
forest trees left standing in honour of their monarchal grandeur. The
parterres are rich, beautiful, and fragrant beyond description; there
our hothouse plants bloom in the open air; and there our common garden
flowers—violets, lilies, roses, myrtles, irises, and innumerable
others—flourish with surpassing luxuriance. The arbours, of delicate
trellis-work and elegant form, are shaded and adorned with running vines
of rich Armenean and cape jessamine, honeysuckles, and woodbine. The
reservoirs contain gold fish, and other ornamental specimens of the
piscatorial kingdom.
This extensive and beautiful lawn is surrounded by an iron open-work
fencing, very light and elegant in appearance, yet very strong and
impassable. Three ornamented gates relieve the uniformity of this iron
trellis; one on the north leads through to the orange groves, always
inviting and delightful, whether in full bloom, and shedding ambrosial
perfume in the spring, or laden with their golden fruit in the fall. The
gate on the north admitted into the vineyard, where every variety of the
finest and rarest grapes flourished in luxuriant abundance. The one on
the east is central between these two others, and leads from the lawn
down to the white and pebbly beach of the Pearl, where pretty boats are
always moored for the convenience of the rambler who might desire to
cross the river.
And then the curving river itself is well named the Pearl, from the
soft, semi-transparent glow of roseate, whitish, or saffron tints,
caught from the heavens.
Across the soft water, in rich contrast, lie hills, and groves, and
cotton-fields—the latter, one of the gayest features in southern
scenery. They are sometimes a mile square. They are planted in straight
rows, six feet apart; and the earth between them, of a rich Spanish-red
colour, is kept entirely clean from weeds. The plants grow to the height
of seven feet, and spread in full-leaved branches, bearing brilliant
white and gold-hued flowers. When in full bloom, a cotton-field by
itself is a gorgeous landscape. Beyond these hills, and groves, and
cotton fields, are other cotton-fields, and groves, and hills, extending
on and on, until afar off they blend with the horizon, in soft,
indistinct hues, mingled together like the tints of the clouds.
I have led you through the beautiful grounds immediately around and in
front of the villa; but behind the mansion, and back of the grove, there
are gardens and orchards, and still other fields of cotton and
outhouses, and offices, and the negro village called “The Quarters.”