IN HER MOTHER'S PLACE.
Whatever madame's past life had been--and it had been such as a
handsome woman without money or social status, fond of luxury and to
whom work was abhorrent, with a clear will and very distinct knowledge
of her own desires, clever and destitute of moral principle, finds
made to her hand--whatever ugly bits were hidden behind the veil of
decent pretence which she had worn with such grace during her sojourn
at North Aston, she did honestly mean to do righteously now.
She had deceived the man who had married her in such adoring good
faith--granted; but when he had reconciled himself to as much of the
cheat as he must know, she meant to make him happy--so happy that he
should not regret what he had done. Though she was no marquise, only
plain Madame de Montfort--so far she must confess for policy's sake,
and to forestall discovery by ruder means, but what remained beyond
she must keep secret as the grave, trusting to favorable fortune and
man's honor for her safety--though the story of the fraudulent trustee
was untrue, and she never had more money than the three hundred pounds
brought in her box wherewith to plant her roots in the North Aston
soil--though all the Lionnet bills were yet to be paid, and her
husband must pay them, with awkward friends in London occasionally
turning up to demand substantial sops, else they would show their
teeth unpleasantly,--still, she would get his forgiveness, and she
would make him happy.
And she would be good to Leam. She would be so patient, forbearing,
tender, she would at last force the child to love her. It was a new
luxury to this woman, who had knocked about the world so long and so
disreputably, to feel safe and able to be good. She wondered what it
would be like as time went on--if the rest which she felt now at the
cessation of the struggle and the consciousness of her security would
become monotonous or be always restful. At all events, she knew
that she was happy for the day, and she trusted to her own tact and
management to make the future as fair as the present.
The home-coming was triumphant. Because the rector was inwardly
grieved at the loss of his ewe-lamb--for he had lost her in that
special sense of spiritual proprietorship which had been his--he was
determined to make a demonstration of his joy. He and Mrs. Birkett
meant to stand by Mrs. Dundas as they had stood by Madame la Marquise
de Montfort, and to publish their partisanship broadly. When,
therefore, the travelers returned to North Aston, they found the
rector and his wife waiting to receive them at their own door.
Over the gate was an archway of evergreens with "Welcome!" in white
chrysanthemums, and the posts were wreathed with boughs and ribbons,
but leaving "Virginia Cottage" in its glossy evidence of the new
regime. The drive was bordered all through with flowers from the
rectory garden, and Lionnet too had been ransacked, and the hall was
festooned from end to end with garlands, like a transformation-scene
in a pantomime. One might have thought it the home-coming of a young
earl with his girl-bride, rather than that of a middle-aged widower of
but moderate means with his second wife, one of whose past homes had
been in St. John's Wood, and one of her many names Mrs. Harrington.
But it pleased the good souls who thus displayed their sympathy, and
it gratified those for whom it had all been done; and both husband and
wife expressed their gratitude warmly, and lived up to the occasion in
the emotion of the moment.
When their effusiveness had a little calmed, down, when Mrs. Dundas
had caressed her child--which poor Mrs. Birkett gave up to her with
tears--and Mr. Dundas had also taken it in his arms and called it
"Little Miss Dundas" and "My own little Fina" tenderly--when, the
servants had been spoken to prettily and the bustle had somewhat
subsided, Mrs. Dundas looked round for something missing. "And where
is dear Leam?" she asked with her gracious air and sweet smile.
It was very nice of her to be the first to miss the girl. The father
had forgotten her, friends had overlooked her, but the stepmother, the
traditional oppressor, was thoughtful of her, and wanted to include
her in the love afloat. This little circumstance made a deep
impression on the three witnesses. It was a good omen for Leam, and
promised what indeed her new mother did honestly design to perform.
"Even that little savage must be tamed by such persistent sweetness,"
said Mr. Birkett to his wife, while she, with a kindly half-checked
sigh, true to her central quality of maternity and love of peace all
round, breathed "Poor little Leam!" compassionately.
Leam, however, was no more to the fore at the home-coming than she had
been at the marriage, and much searching went on before she was found.
She was unearthed at last. The gardener had seen her shrink away into
the shrubbery when the carriage-wheels were heard coming up the road,
and he gave information to the cook, by whom the truant was tracked
and brought to her ordeal.
Mrs. Birkett went out by the French window to meet her as she came
slowly up the lawn draped in the deep mourning which for the very
contrariety of love she had made deeper since the marriage, her young
head bent to the earth, her pale face rigid with despair, her heart
full of but one feeling, her brain racked with but one thought, "Mamma
is crying in heaven: mamma must not cry, and this stranger must be
swept from her place."
She did not know how this was to be done; she only knew that it must
be done. She had all along expected the saints to work some miracle
of deliverance for her, and she looked hourly for its coming. She had
prayed to them so passionately that she could not understand why they
had not answered. Still, she trusted them. She had told them she was
angry, and that she thought them cruel for their delay; and in her
heart she believed that they knew they had done wrong, and that the
miracle would be wrought before too late. It was for mamma, not for
herself. Madame must be swept like a snake out of the house, that
mamma might no longer be pained in heaven. Personally, it made no
difference whether she had to see madame at Lionnet or here at home,
but it made all the difference to mamma, and that was all for which
she cared.
Thinking these things, she met Mrs. Birkett midway on the lawn, the
kind soul having come out to speak a soothing word before the poor
child went in, to let her feel that she was sympathized with, not
abandoned by them all. Fond as she was of madame, the new Mrs, Dundas,
and little as she knew of Leam, the facts of the case were enough for
her, and she saw Adelaide and herself in the child's sorrow and poor
Pepita's successor. "My dear," she said affectionately as she met the
girl walking so slowly up the lawn, "I dare say this is a trial to
you, but you must accept it for your good. I know what you must feel,
but it is better for you to have a good kind stepmother, who will be
your friend and instructress, than to be left with no one to guide
you."
Leam's sad face lifted itself up to the speaker. "It cannot be good
for me if it is against mamma," she said.
"But, Leam, dear child, be reasonable. Your mamma, poor dear! is dead,
and, let us trust, in heaven." The good soul's conscience pricked her
when she said this glib formula, of which in this present instance
she believed nothing. "Your father has the most perfect right to marry
again. Neither the Church nor the Bible forbids it; and you cannot
expect him to remain single all his life--when he needs a wife so
much, too, on your account--because he was married to your dear mamma
when she was alive. Besides, she has done with this life and all the
things of the earth by now; and even if she has not, she will be happy
to see you, her dear child, well cared for and kindly mothered."
Leam raised her eyes with sorrowful skepticism, melancholy contempt.
It was the old note of war, and she responded to it. "I know mamma,"
she said; "I know what she is feeling."
She would have none of their spiritual thaumaturgy--none of that
unreal kind of transformation with which they had tried to modify
their first teaching. There was no satisfaction in imagining mamma
something different from her former self--no more the real, fervid,
passionate, jealous Pepita than those pear-shaped transparent bags,
so logically constructed by Mrs. Corfield's philosopher, are like the
ideal angels of loving fancy. If mamma saw and knew what was going
on here at this present moment--and Mrs. Birkett was not the bold
questioner to doubt this continuance of interest--she felt as she
would have felt when alive, and she would be angry, jealous, weeping,
unhappy.
Mrs. Birkett was puzzled what to say for the best to this
uncomfortable fanatic, this unreasonable literalist. When believers
have to formularize in set words their hazy notions of the feelings
and conditions of souls in bliss, they make but a lame business of it;
and nothing that the dear woman could propound, keeping on the side of
orthodox spirituality, carried comfort or conviction to Leam. Her one
unalterable answer was always simply, "I know mamma: I know what she
is feeling," and no argument could shake her from her point.
At last Mrs. Birkett gave up the contest. "Well, my child," she
said, sighing, "I can only hope that the constant presence of your
stepmother, her kindness and sweetness, will in time soften your
feeling toward her."
Leam looked at her earnestly. "It is not for myself," she said: "it is
for mamma."
And she said it with such pathetic sincerity, such an accent of deep
love and self-abandonment to her cause, that the rector's wife felt
her eyes filling up involuntarily with tears. Wrong-headed, dense,
perverse as Leam was, her filial piety was at the least both touching
and sincere, she said to herself, a pang passing through her heart.
Adelaide would not speak of her if she were dead as this poor ignorant
child spoke of her mother. Yet she had been to Adelaide all that the
best and most affectionate kind of English mother can be, while Pepita
had been a savage, now cruel and now fond; one day making her teeth
meet in her child's arm, another day stifling her with caresses;
treating her by times as a woman, by times as a toy, and never
conscientious or judicious.
All the same, Leam's fidelity, if touching, was embarrassing as things
were; so was her belief in the continued existence of her mother. But
what can be done with those uncompromising reasoners who will carry
their creeds straight to their ultimates, and will not be put off with
eclectic compromises of this part known and that hidden--so much sure
and so much vague? Mrs. Birkett determined that her husband should
talk to the child and try to get a little common sense into her head,
but she doubted the success of the process, perhaps because in her
heart she doubted the skill of the operator.
By this time they reached the window, and the woman and the girl
passed through into the room.
Mrs. Dundas came forward to meet her stepdaughter kindly--not warmly,
not tumultuously--with her quiet, easy, waxen grace that never saw
when things were wrong, and that always assumed the halcyon seas even
in the teeth of a gale. For her greeting she bent forward to kiss the
girl's face, saying, "My dear child, I am glad to see you," but Leam
turned away her head.
"I am not glad to see you, and I will not kiss you," she said.
Her father frowned, his wife smiled. "You are right, my dear: it is a
foolish habit," she said tranquilly, "but we are such slaves to silly
habits," she added, looking at the rector and his wife in her pretty
philosophizing way, while they smiled approvingly at her ready wit and
serene good-temper.
"Will you say the same to me, Leam?" asked her father with an attempt
at jocularity, advancing toward her.
"Yes," said Leam gravely, drawing back a step.
"Tell me, Mrs, Birkett, what can be done with such an impracticable
creature?" cried Mr. Dundas.
"She will come right: in time, dear husband," said the late marquise
sweetly; and Mrs. Birkett echoed, looking at the girl kindly, "Oh yes,
she will come right in time."
"If you mean by coming right, letting you be my mamma, I never will,"
cried Leam, fronting her stepmother.
"Silence, Leam!" cried Mr. Dundas angrily.
His wife laid her taper fingers tenderly on his. "No, no, dear
husband: let her speak," she pleaded, her voice and manner admirably
effective. "It is far better for her to say what she feels than to
brood over it in silence. I can wait till she comes to me of her own
accord and says, 'Mamma, I love you: forgive me the past'"
"You are an angel," said Mr. Dundas, pressing her hand to his lips,
his eyes moist and tender.
"I always said it," the rector added huskily--"the most noble-natured
woman of my acquaintance."
"I never will come to you and say, 'Mamma, I love you,' and ask you to
forgive me for being true to my own mamma," said Learn. "I am mamma's
daughter, no other person's."
Mrs. Dundas smiled. "You will be; mine, sweet child," she said.
How ugly Leam's persistent hate looked by the side of so much
unwearied goodness! Even Mrs. Birkett, who pitied the poor child,
thought her tenacity too morbid, too dreadful; and the rector honestly
held her as one possessed, and regretted in his own mind that the
Church had no formula for efficient exorcism. Believing, as he did, in
the actuality of Satan, the theory of demoniacal possession came easy
as the explanation of abnormal qualities.
Her father raged against himself in that he had given life to so much
moral deformity. And yet it was not from him that she inherited "that
cursed Spanish blood," he said, turning away with a groan, including
Pepita, Leam, all his past with its ruined love and futile dreams, its
hope and its despair, in that one bitter word.
"Don't say that, papa: mamma and I are true. It is you English that
are bad and false," said Leam at bay.
Mrs. Dundas raised her hand, "Hush, hush, my child!" she said in a
tone of gentle authority. "Say of me and to me what you like, but
respect your father."
"Oh, Leam has never done that," cried Mr. Dundas with intense
bitterness.
"No," said Leam, "I never have. You made mamma unhappy when she was
alive: you are making her unhappy now. I love mamma: how can I love
you?"
And then, her words realizing her thoughts in that she seemed to see
her mother visibly before her, sorrowful and weeping while all this
gladness was about in the place which had once been hers, and whence
she was now thrust aside--these flowers of welcome, these smiling
faces, this general content, she alone unhappy, she who had once been
queen and mistress of all--the poor child's heart broke down, and
she rushed from the room, too proud to let them see her cry, but too
penetrated with anguish to restrain the tears.
"I am sure I don't know what on earth we can do with that girl,"
said Mr. Dundas with a dash of his old weak petulance, angry with
circumstance and unable to dominate it--the weak petulance which had
made Pepita despise him so heartily, and had winged so many of her
shafts.
"Time and patience," said madame with her grand air of noble
cheerfulness. But she had just a moment's paroxysm of dismay as she
looked through the coming years, and thought of life shared between
Leam's untamable hate and her husband's unmanly peevishness. For that
instant it seemed to her that she had bought her personal ease and
security at a high price.
As Leam went up stairs the door of her stepmother's room was standing
open. The maid had unpacked the boxes most in request, and was now at
tea in the servants' hall, telling of her adventures in Paris, where
master and mistress had spent the honeymoon, and in her own way the
heroine of the hour, like her betters in the parlor. The world seemed
all wrong everywhere, life a cheat and love a torture, to Leam, as she
stood within the open door, looking at the room which had been hers
and her mother's, now transformed and appropriated to this stranger,
She did not understand how papa could have done it. The room in which
mamma had lived, the room in which she had died, the window from
which she used to look, the very mirror that used to reflect back her
beautiful and beloved face--ah, if it could only have kept what it
reflected!--and papa to have given all this away to another woman!
Poor mamma! no wonder she was unhappy. What could she, Leam, do to
prevent all this wickedness if the blessed ones were idle and would
not help her?
Her eyes fell on a bottle placed on the console where madame's night
appliances were ranged--her night-light and the box of matches, her
Bible and a hymn-book, a tablespoon, a carafe full of water and a
tumbler, and this bottle marked "Cherry-water--one tablespoonful for
a dose." In madame's handwriting underneath stood, "For my troublesome
heart." Only about two tablespoonsful were left.
Leam took the bottle in one hand, the other thrust itself mechanically
into her hair. No one was about, and the house was profoundly still,
save for the voices coming up from the room below in a subdued and
not unpleasant murmur, with now and then the child's shrill babble
breaking in through the deeper tones like occasional notes in a
sonata. Out of doors were all the pleasant sights and sounds of the
peaceful evening coming on after the labors of the busy day. The birds
were calling to each other in the woods before nesting for the night;
the homing rooks flew round and round their trees, cawing loudly; the
village dogs barked their welcome to their masters as they came off
the fields and the day's work; and the setting sun dyed the autumn
leaves a brighter gold, a deeper crimson, a richer russet. It was
all so peaceful, all so happy, in this soft mild evening of the late
September--all seemed so full of promise, so eloquent of future joy,
to those who had just begun their new career.
But Leam knew nothing of the poetry of the moment--felt nothing of
its pathetic irony in view of the deed she was half-unconsciously
designing. She saw only, at first dimly, then distinctly, that here
were the means by which mamma's enemy might be punished and swept from
mamma's place, and that if she failed her opportunity now she would be
a traitor and a coward, and would fail in her love and duty to mamma.
No, she would not fail. Why should she? It was the way which the
saints themselves had opened, the thing she had to do; and the sooner
it was done the better for mamma.
She uncorked the bottle of cherry-water, good for that troublesome
heart of poor madame's. All that Alick had told her of the action
of poisons came back upon her as clearly as her mother's words,
her mother's voice. This cherry-water, too, had the smell of bitter
almonds, and was own sister to that in the little phial in her other
hand. Now she understood it all--why she had been taken to Steel's
Corner, why Alick had taught her about poisons, and why her mamma
had told her to steal that bottle. She looked at it with its eloquent
paper marked "Poison" wound about it spirally like a snake, uncorked
it and emptied half into the cherry-water.
"Two drops are enough, and there are more than two there," she said to
herself. "Mamma must be safe now." And with this she left the room and
went into her own to watch and wait.
It was early to-night when Mrs. Dundas retired. There were certain
things which she wanted to do on this her first night in her new home;
and among them she wanted to put that green velvet pocket-book, gold
embroidered, in some absolutely safe place, where it would not be seen
by prying eyes or fall into dangerous hands. She did not intend to
destroy its contents. She knew enough of the uncertainty of life to
hold by all sorts of anchorages; and though things looked safe and
sweet enough now, they might drift into the shallows again, and she
wished her little Fina's future to be assured by one or other of those
charged with it--if the stepfather failed, then to fall back on the
father. Wherefore she elected to keep these papers in a safe place
rather than destroy them, and the safest place she could think of
was Pepita's jewel-case, now her own. It had a curious lock, which no
other key than its own would fit--a lock that would have baffled even
a "cracksman" and his whole bunch of skeleton keys.
In putting them away, obliged for the need of space to take off the
paper wrappings, she was foolish enough to look at the photographs
within--just one last look before banishing them for ever from her
sight, as an honest wife should--and the sight of the handsome young
face which she had loved sincerely in its day, and which was the face
of her child's father, shook her nerves more than she liked them to be
shaken. That troublesome heart of hers had begun to play her strange
tricks of late with palpitation and irregularity. She could not afford
that her nerve should fail her. That gone, nothing would remain to her
but a wreck. But her cherry-water was a pleasant and safe calmant, and
she knew exactly how much to take.
Her maid saw nothing more to-night than she had seen on any other
night of her service. Her mistress, if not quite so sweet to her as to
Mrs. Birkett, say, or the rector, was yet fairly amiable as mistresses
go, and to-night was neither better nor worse than ordinary. Her
attendance went on in the usual routine, with nothing to remark, bad
or good; and then madame laid her fair head on the pillow, and took
a tablespoonful of her calmant to check the palpitation that had
come on, and to still her nerves, which that last look backward had
somewhat disturbed.
How beautiful she looked! Fair and lovely as she had always been to
the eyes of Sebastian Dundas, never had she looked so grand as now.
Her yellow hair was lying spread out on the pillow like a glory: one
white arm was flung above her head, the other hung down from the bed.
Her pale face, with her mouth half open as if in a smile at the happy
things she dreamt, peaceful and pure as a saint's, seemed to him the
very embodiment of all womanly truth and sweetness. He leaned over her
with a yearning rapture that was almost ecstasy. This noble, loving
woman was his own, his life, his future. No more dark moods of
despair, no more angry passions, disappointment and remorse; all was
to be cloudless sunshine, infinite delight, unending peace and love.
"My darling, oh my love!" he said tenderly, laying his hand on her
glossy golden hair and kissing her. "Virginie, give me one word of
love on your first night at home."
She was silent. Was her sleep so deep that even love could not awake
her? He kissed her again and raised her head on his arm. It fell back
without power, and then he saw that the half-opened mouth had a little
froth clinging about the lips.
A cry rang through the house--cry on cry. The startled servants ran up
trembling at they knew not what, to find their master clasping in his
arms the fair dead body of his newly-married wife.
"Dead--she is dead," they passed in terrified whispers from each to
each.
Leam, standing upright in her room, in her clinging white night-dress,
her dark hair hanging to her knees, her small brown feet bare above
the ankle--not trembling, but tense, listening, her heart on fire, her
whole being as it were pressed together, and concentrated on the one
thought, the one purpose--heard the words passed from lip to lip.
"Dead," they said--"dead!"
Lifting up her rapt face and raising her outstretched arms high above
her head, with no sense of sin, no consciousness of cruelty, only with
the feeling of having done that thing which had been laid on her to
do--of having satisfied and avenged her mother--she cried aloud in
a voice deepened by the pathos of her love, the passion of her deed,
into an exultant hymn of sacrifice, "Mamma, are you happy now? Mamma!
mamma! leave off crying: there is no one in your place now."
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
FAMISHING PORTUGAL.
The following paper contains the substance of a remarkable letter and
accompanying documents recently received from Portugal:
LISBON, September, 1875.
You wish to know what truth there is in the cable reports of "a
drought in the north and south of Portugal, and a threatened famine
in two or three provinces." Shall I tell you all? Well, then, Heaven
nerve me for the task! I shall have an unpleasant story to narrate.
You, who have been in Portugal, need not be reminded that the kingdom
consists of six provinces--Minho, Tras-os-Montes, Beira, Estremadura,
Alemtejo and Algarve. In the early part of this summer a drought
affected the whole kingdom. Toward the end of July abundant rain fell
in Minho, where two products only are raised--wine ("port wine")
and maize. The rain, which, had it fallen in Alemtejo, the principal
wheat-province of the kingdom, would have done incalculable good,
benefited neither the vineyards of Minho nor the maize-crop anywhere.
The consequence is, that this last-named crop, the principal
bread-food of the country, has failed, and famine prevails throughout
the land. Having lived in America, I know what you, so accustomed to
freedom and plenty, will say to this:
"France, Sprain, Morocco, England--all these countries are near to
Portugal. If she is short of bread, let her simply exchange wine for
it, and there need be no fears of a famine."
Ah, my dear American friends, little do you suspect the artlessness
of this reply. Know, then, that those who own the wines of Portugal do
not lack for bread, and those who lack for bread do not own the wines;
that the first of these classes are the aristocrats and foreigners who
live in the cities or abroad, and the second the people at large;
that there exists an abyss between these classes so profound that no
political institutions yet devised have been able to bridge it; that
there is no credit given by one class to the other, and few dealings
occur between them; and that the laws of Portugal discourage the
importation of grain into the kingdom.
You are a straightforward people, and dive at once to the bottom of
a subject. "Why do not the Portuguese devote themselves so largely to
the cultivation of grain that there need never be danger of famine?"
you will now ask. My answer to this is: The people do not own the
land.
"What! Were the reforms of Pombal, the French Revolution, the
Portuguese revolution of 1820 and the various constitutions since that
date, the abolition of serfdom and mortmain, and the law of 1832, all
ineffectual to emancipate the Portuguese peasant from the thralldom of
land?"
Alas! they were indeed all in vain, and the Portuguese peasantry
stands to-day at the very lowest step of European civilization--far
beneath all others. The number of agricultural workers in Portugal is
about eight hundred and seventy-five thousand. Of this number,
some seven hundred thousand are hired laborers, farm-servants,
_emphyteutas_ (you shall presently know the meaning of this ominous
word) and metayers; that is to say, persons who may cultivate only
such products as their employers or landlords choose, and the latter
in their greed and short-sightedness always choose that the former
shall cultivate wine. The remainder, or some one hundred and
seventy-five thousand, consist chiefly of small proprietors, owning
three, four, five and ten acre patches of land, often intersected by
other properties, and therefore not adapted for the cultivation of
grain: such of the _emphyteutas_ and metayers as are practically free
to cultivate what they please make up the remainder of this class.
The quantity of land devoted to grain is therefore exactly what the
aristocratic land-owners choose to make it; and, never suspecting that
a well-fed peasant is more efficient as a laborer than a famished one,
they have made it barely enough, in good years, to keep the miserable
population from entirely perishing. The product in such years is about
six bushels of edible grain per head of total population, together
with a little pulse and a taste of fish or bacon on rare occasions. In
unfavorable years, like the present one, the product of edible grain
falls to five bushels per head, and unless the government suspends the
corn laws for the whole country--which since 1855 it has usually done
on such occasions--famine ensues. The nation (excepting, of course,
the court and aristocracy, who live in or near Lisbon and Oporto) is
thus kept always at the brink of starvation, and every mishap in these
artificial and tyrannical arrangements consigns fresh thousands to the
grave.
The population of Portugal was the same in 1798 that it is
to-day--viz., about four millions--and there has been no time between
those periods when it was greater. Knowing, as we do, that the law
of social progress is growth--in other words, that the condition of
individual development, both physical and intellectual, is that degree
of freedom which finds its expression in the increase of numbers--what
does this portentous fact of a stationary population bespeak? Simply,
the utmost degradation of body and mind; vice in its most hideous
forms; filth, disease, unnatural crimes; a hell upon earth. These are
always the characteristics of nations which have been prevented from
growing. The melancholy proofs of a condition of affairs in Portugal
which admits of this description shall presently be forthcoming.
Antonio de Leon Pinelo, who was one of the greatest lawyers and
historians that Spain ever produced, very profoundly remarked that no
man could possibly understand the history of slavery in America who
had not first mastered the subject of Spanish _encomiedas_. With equal
truth it may be said that the solution of Portuguese history lies
in the subject of _emphyteusis_. Emphyteusis (Greek: zmphutehuis,
"ingrafting," "implanting," and perhaps, metaphorically,
"ameliorating") is a lease of land where the tenant agrees to improve
it and pay a certain rent. The origin of this tenure is Greek, and it
was probably first adopted in Rome after the conquest of the Achaean
League (B.C. 146), when Greece became a Roman province. It was carried
into Carthage B.C. 145, and into Spain and Portugal about B.C. 133,
when those countries fell beneath the Roman arms. Whenever this
occurred the first act of the conquerors was to assume the ownership
of the land. They then leased it on emphyteusis, either to
the original occupiers, to their own soldiers, or to settlers
("carpet-baggers"). The rent was called _vectigal_, and decurions
(corporals in the army) were usually employed to collect it and
administer the lands.
Syria, Greece, Carthage, and the Iberian Peninsula were the first
countries to succumb to the Roman arms outside of Italy. These
conquests all occurred within the space of fifty-seven years (from 190
to 133 B.C.), and this was doubtless the period when emphyteusis was
first employed upon an extensive scale. Originally, the tenants
were liable to have their rents increased, and to be evicted at the
pleasure of the state, and thus lose the benefit of any improvements
effected by them. The result was, that no improvements were effected.
The forests were cut down, the orchards destroyed, the lands exhausted
by incessant cropping; and by the beginning of the present era the
entire coasts of the Mediterranean were exploited.
This great historical fact is replete with significance--not only to
Portugal, but also to the rest of the world, even to America, which,
by abandoning its public lands to the rapacity of monopolists and the
vandalism of ignorant immigrants, is preparing for itself a future
filled with forebodings of evil.
The ruin of the lands of Carthage, Spain, etc. eventually hastened the
ruin of Italy. It put an end to the legitimate supplies of grain which
those countries had been accustomed to contribute; it forced their
populations to crowd into already overcrowded Italy, and increase the
requirements of food in a country which had been exploited like their
own, and, though not so rapidly, yet by similar means;[1] and it gave
rise to the servile wars, to the most corrupt period in Roman history,
to the Empire, and to the endless series of consequences in its train.
[Footnote 1: Although the various states of Italy were conquered
by Rome before Greece was, it is probable that emphyteusis was not
employed in those states until after the year B.C. 146--between that
and B.C. 120.]
After the Western Empire had apparently fallen beneath the Northern
arms--that is to say, five hundred years later--and not until then,
the Roman Code ameliorated the baneful tenure of emphyteusis. A law of
the emperor Zenos (A.D. 474-491) fixed whatever had theretofore been
uncertain in the nature and incidents of emphyteusis. The tenant was
guaranteed from increase of rent and from eviction--the alienation
of the property by the state being held thenceforth to affect the
quit-rent only--and finally he obtained full power to dispose of the
land, which nevertheless remained subject to the quit-rent in whatever
hands it might be. Before these reforms were effected, Portugal was
conquered by the Visigoths, the Roman proprietors of the soil were
expelled, and their laws and institutions suppressed. This occurred
in the year 476. Whether emphyteusis in any form remained is not quite
certain, but it seems not; and during this government, and the Moorish
one which superseded it in the year 711, the Iberian Peninsula enjoyed
an interval of prosperity to which it had been a stranger for ages.
In the eleventh century this happy condition of affairs was disturbed
by the appearance of certain Spanish crusading knights, who, issuing
from the mountainous parts of the country adjacent to their own, began
to war against the Moorish authorities. In the course of a century,
and with little voluntary aid from the peasants, who distrusted
them and their religious pretensions and promises of advantage, they
managed to acquire possession of the country. Now, what do you suppose
was one of the first acts committed by these adventurers? Nothing less
than the re-enactment of the odious Roman tenure of emphyteusis, and
that in its most ancient and worst form--liability to increased
rent and to eviction; not only this, but with certain base services
combined. The wretched inhabitants were required to work so many days
in the week for these lords, to break up a certain amount of waste
land; to furnish so many cattle; to kill so many birds; to provide (in
rural districts remote from the sea) so many salt fish; to furnish so
much incense or so many porringers, iron tools, pairs of shoes, etc.
Talk of the Western Empire having "declined and fallen," as Messrs.
Gibbon and Wegg put it! Why, here it was again, and with the worst
of its ancient crimes inscribed upon its code of law. Emphyteusis was
reintroduced into Portugal by King Diniz (Dennis) in the year 1279,
and was followed by its usual effects--ruin and depopulation. In
1394 was born Prince Henry. He was the son of John I. and Philippa,
daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and was therefore the
nephew of Henry IV. of England. Perceiving and commiserating the
wretchedness of the people, and casting about him for a remedy,
Henry saw but one: that was departure from the land, emigration,
colonization, escape from the tyranny of the soil, of nobles and of
ecclesiastics--a tyranny which both his illustrious rank and his piety
forbade him to oppose. Hence his intense devotion to the discovery and
colonization of strange lands, which is in vain to be accounted for
on the ground of a mere passion, the only one usually advanced by
unthinking historians.
The results of this mania, as it was then considered, of Prince Henry
are well known--the discovery of Madeira, the Azores, Senegambia,
Angola, Benguela, etc., and, after Prince Henry's death, the Cape of
Good Hope, Goa, Macao, the islands, etc.; all of which were colonized
by Portuguese. These colonies, and the commerce which sprang up with
them, afforded outlets for the downtrodden serfs of Portugal. Such was
the beneficial result of this partial measure of freedom that in
the course of the following two centuries Portugal became one of the
leading nations of the world, with a population of 5,000,000 and a
flag respected in every clime.
Unhappily, this interval of prosperity to Portugal was the cause of
infinite misery to the negro race. The discoveries in Africa and Asia
afforded a career to the enslaved Portuguese; yet, by leading, as they
did, to the discovery of America, they were eventually the cause of
the slave-trade, which without America could not have flourished. Such
will ever be the result of the attempt to palliate instead of cure
evil. Moreover, the discovery of America and the resulting slave-trade
were the cause of Portugal's retrogression to the point whence she had
started in Prince Henry's time. When gold and slaves rendered maritime
discovery profitable to the aristocratic class, all the nobles went
into it--not only the aristocrats of Portugal, but those also of
Spain, England, France, Holland, Italy. They all went into the trade
of acquiring empires, and it is not to be wondered at if in this
rivalry of greed and violence Portugal, exploited and burdened with
serfdom and other features of bad government at home, was distanced
and overcome. Her colonies were captured and reduced by foreign
enemies, or invaded and ruined by one of the several political
diseases from which she had never wholly rid herself. For example, the
once magnificent city of Goa, which formerly contained a population of
150,000 Christians and 50,000 Mohammedans, is now an almost deserted
ruin, with but 40,000 inhabitants, _chiefly ecclesiastical_.
When Pombal assumed the reins of government in 1750 the population of
Portugal had been reduced to less than 2,000,000: there was neither
agriculture, manufactures, army nor navy. Perceiving this state of
affairs, and recognizing the cause of it, Pombal caused the vines to
be torn up by the roots and corn planted in their place. Ruffianism
was crushed, the Jesuits were banished, the nobility were taught
to respect the civil law, the peasantry were encouraged. After
twenty-seven years of reforms and prosperity Pombal was dismissed
from office and the old abuses were reinstated, among them those worst
incidents of emphyteusis which had been devised by the base ring of
nobles and ecclesiastics who held the land in their grasp.
These abuses remained without material change until 1832, and thus you
have a complete history of emphyteusis from the first to the last day
of its institution in Portugal. In truth, however, its last day has
not come even yet, for many of its incidents still linger in the code
of laws.
Now for its effects on the land. What growth of forest trees had
followed the abolition of emphyteusis under the Gothic and Saracenic
monarchs was destroyed under the government of Christian nobles, and
to-day there is scarcely a tree in Portugal--the woods, including
fruit and nut trees, covering less than 400,000 out of 22,000,000
acres, the entire area of the country. The destruction of the woods,
to say nothing of its effects upon the rainfall, caused the top soil
to be washed away, and thus impoverished the arable land, filling the
rivers with earth, rendering them innavigable, and converting them
from gently-flowing streams to devastating torrents, which annually
bestrew the valleys and plains with sand and stones.[2] In the next
place, emphyteusis has caused every kind of improvement to be avoided.
The soil has been exhausted by over-cropping; public works, like
roads, wells, irrigating canals, etc., have been neglected; and the
numerous works left by the industrious Saracens have been allowed to
go to ruin. Finally, the tenant, being placed entirely in the power of
the lord, was continually kept at the point of starvation. To escape
this dreadful fate he has committed every conceivable offence against
the laws of Nature and humanity. Tyranny and starvation have made
of him a liar, thief, smuggler, assassin, beast. The very ground is
tainted with his tread, the air is redolent of his crimes.
[Footnote 2: The Mondega annually overflows its banks, changes its
course and buries thousands of once fertile acres under sand and
stones; the Vonga has converted the once productive land between
Aveiro and Ovar into a vast morass; the Douro is periodically
converted into a frightful and resistless torrent which sweeps
everything before it.]
I am aware of the eminently legal, and therefore judicial, mind of
Americans; therefore I shall give nothing of importance on my own
testimony alone. It shall be seen what the Portuguese peasant is from
the descriptions that travelers have written, and from the fragments
of statistical evidence which the deeply-culpable ruling classes have
permitted to be published.
But first let me describe the degree of destitution to which the
peasant has been reduced, for without this destitution this criminal
character would not have been his.
Baron Forrester says:[3] "The poverty of the inhabitants of the
interior of Portugal is equal to that of the Irish." (This was written
in 1851, immediately after the Irish famine.) "The wretchedness of
their condition checks marriage and promotes clandestine intercourse."
William Doria writes:[4] "The inhabitants (all ages) do not obtain
half (scarcely one-third) as much as the minimum of animal food
required to sustain active vitality, which is one hundred grammes,
about one-fifth of a pound, per day." Marques says:[5] "The daily
ration of an able-bodied man should consist of at least twelve hundred
grammes, of which one-fourth (about three-fifths of a pound) should be
animal food. The Portuguese soldier (much better fed than the peasant)
receives but seventeen grammes (little over half an ounce) of animal
food." Notwithstanding the superior food of the soldier, such is the
hatred of the peasant for the aristocratic classes, in whose service
the army is employed, that he will mutilate himself to escape the
conscription.[6] Says Malte-Brun: "During four months of the year
the inhabitants of the Algarve have little to eat but raw figs. This
causes a disease called _mal de veriga_, which sweeps away numbers of
the people." Says Doria: "All the women work in the fields;" and Dr.
Farr[7] tells us that "when women are employed in any but domestic
labors they discharge the duties of mother imperfectly, and the
mortality of children is high." Says Forrester: "Leavened bread
is beginning to be known in the principal cities, but not in the
provinces. Gourds, cabbages and turnip-sprouts, with bread made from
chestnuts (which are always wormy), form the peasant's diet." "In
Algarve carob-beans are commonly roasted, ground into flour and made
into bread." Says Da Silva:[8] "The growth of the peasantry is stunted
by insufficient nourishment, which consists largely of chestnuts,
beans and chick-peas."
[Footnote 3: _Prize Essay on Portugal_, London, 1854.]
[Footnote 4: _Parliamentary Papers_, London, 1870.]
[Footnote 5: _Estudos Estatisticos, hygienicos e administrativas sobre
as doenças e a mortalidade do exercito Portuguez_, etc., by Dr. José
Antonio Marques, Lisbon, 1862.]
[Footnote 6: Doria, p. 184.]
[Footnote 7: The Registrar-General of England.]
[Footnote 8: L.A. Rebello da Silva (minister of marine), _Economia.
Rural_, Lisbon, 1868.]
The utmost area of land which the average Portuguese peasant can
cultivate is two and a half acres: in the United States the average of
cultivated land per laborer is over thirty-two acres; on prairie-land
sixty acres is not uncommon. Forrester writes: "In the Alto Douro, the
richest portion of the kingdom, the villages are formed of wretched
hovels with unglazed windows and without chimneys. Instead of bread or
the ordinary necessaries of life, one finds only filth, wretchedness
and death. Emigration is the one thought of the people."
Now for the moral, intellectual and physical results of the
destitution thus evinced. The work entitled _Voyage du Duc du Châtelet
en Portugal_, although usually quoted under this title, was really
written by M. Comartin, a royalist of La Vendée, and written during
the French Revolution. If it had any bias at all, that bias was all in
favor of Portugal, yet this is his description of her people: "Il est,
je pense, peu de peuple plus laid que celui de Portugal. Il est petit,
basané, mal conformé. L'intérieur répond, en général, assez à cette
repoussante envelope, surtout à Lisbonne, où les hommes paroissent
réunir tous les vices de l'âme et du corps. II y a, au reste, entre
la capitale et le nord de ce royaume, une différence marquée sous ces
deux rapports. Dans les provinces septentrionales, les hommes sont
moins noirs et moin laids, plus francs, plus lians dans la société,
bien plus braves et plus laborieux, mais encore plus asservis, s'il
est possible, aux préjugés. Cette différence existe également pour
les femmes; elles sont beaucoup plus blanches que celles du sud.
Les Portugais, considérés en général, sont vindicatifs bas, vains,
railleurs, présomptueux à l'excès, jaloux. et ignorans. Après avoir
retracé les défauts que j'ai cru appercevoir en eux, je serois injuste
si je me taisois sur leurs bonnes qualités. Ils sont attachés à leur
patrie, amis géneréux, fidèles, sobres, charitables. Ils seroient bons
Chrètiens si le fanatisme ne les aveugloit pas. Ils sont si accoutumés
aux pratiques de la religion qu'ils sont plus superstitieux que
dévots. Les hidalgos, ou les grands de Portugal, sont très bornés dans
leur éducation, orgueilleux et insolens; vivant dans la plus grande
ignorance, ils ne sortent presque jamais de leur pays pour aller voir
les autres peuples." Time and changed circumstances have somewhat
softened these traits, but their general correctness is still
recognizable.
"Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices and you have the Portuguese
character," says Dr. Southey. "They are deceitful and cowardly--have
no public spirit nor national character," says Semple. "The morals of
both sexes are lax in the extreme; assassination is a common
offence; they rank about as low in the social scale as any people
of Christendom," says McCulloch. "Their songs are licentious: the
national dance or the _toffa_ is so lascivious that every stranger who
sees it must deplore the corruption of the people, and regret to find
such exhibitions permitted, not only in the country, but in the heart
of towns, and even on the stage," says Malte-Brun. "Portugal is a
paradise inhabited by demons and brutes," says Madame Junot--a phrase
taken probably from Byron's description of Cintra.
My countrymen will be enraged with me for thus repeating the worst
that has been said about them, but I repeat it for their own benefit,
like the surgeon, who, to save the patient's life, cruelly probes
the wound or lays bare the corruption from which he is suffering.
Moreover, I shall have still darker spots to exhibit in a national
character which has been stamped with centuries of feudal and
ecclesiastical tyranny.
In a country possessing a fair share of the natural resources commonly
in demand a free and prosperous population will double in numbers
every fifteen years, an increase of about 4-1/2 per cent. per annum
compounded. The United States, a country rich in natural resources,
and one whose government offers but few obstacles to freedom and
individual prosperity, has doubled its population every twenty-two and
a half years since 1790. This is equal to over 3 per cent. per
annum. In that country the annual number of births in every 10,000
of population is 500,[9] of immigrants, 75; total increase, 575. The
deaths are 250, leaving 325 in 10,000, or 3-1/2 per cent. gain as the
net result of the year's growth and decay of population.
There is no reason for believing that the proportion of births in
Portugal is less than it is in Germany, or even the United States: on
the contrary, "in climates where the waste of human life is excessive
from the combined causes of disease and poverty affecting the mass of
the inhabitants, the number of births is proportionately greater
than is experienced in countries more favorably circumstanced....
Population does not so much increase because more are born, as because
fewer die."[10] Hence, the presumption is that the rate of births in
Portugal is equal to that in Carthagena de Colombia, where it is 8 to
10 per cent., or at least that of some parts of Mexico, where it is
6.21 per cent. Yet the population of Portugal has not increased during
a hundred years. What, then, has become of the 250,000 human beings
annually called into existence in Portugal? One-half of them took
their chances with the rest of the population, were registered at
birth, died according to rule, were duly entered upon statistical
tables and buried in consecrated ground: the other half were strangled
by their mothers, flung into ditches, exposed to die, starved to
death, assassinated in some manner. The crimes of foeticide
and infanticide have become so common that there is scarcely a
peasant-woman in Portugal not guilty of them, either as principal or
accessory.
[Footnote 9: It is understood, of course, that the census figures of
births are admittedly and grossly inaccurate.]
[Footnote 10: Porter's _Progress_, p. 21.]
Illegitimacy is more common in Portugal than in any country of Europe.
This fact can be proved from a comparison of marriages, births and
baptisms; but since the statistics on these subjects are defective,
the better testimony is to be derived from the number of deposits at
the foundling hospitals. The foundling of the house of Misericordia in
Lisbon, that of the Real Casapin in Belem and the foundling at Oporto
together receive nearly five thousand foundlings during the year, of
whom two-thirds[11] perish in the establishments, which thus become
"charnels and houses of woe." Almost every town or village in the
kingdom has its _roda dos expostos_--literally, a "wheel for exposed
ones"--where, upon the ringing of a bell, the children deposited in
a turning-basket or wheel are passed into the interior of the
establishment without inquiry. Although their term of stay is limited
to a few weeks, less than one-half of them ever pass out of the
establishment alive! Says Dr. T. de Carvalho: "The _roda_ is the
_açouque_ ('slaughter-house') for children. It is the permanent and
legal means of infanticide. _Abaixo a roda dos expostos!_"
Notwithstanding this frightful mortality, the number of infants always
on hand in the foundlings of Portugal is nearly 40,000, or 1 per cent
of the entire population. One-eighth of all the reported births in the
kingdom become foundlings: as for the non-reported ones, their fate
is known only to the recording angel. Says Claudio Adriano da Costa:
"Promiscuous intercourse has become common all over the country;"
and he attributes it, though I think superficially, to the "misplaced
indulgence to concubinage awarded by the rodas."[12]
[Footnote 11: During the thirteen years from 1840-52 the number of
children deposited in the Oporto foundling was 15,608, of whom no less
than 11,310, or 72.4 per cent.--_nearly three-fourths_--died while in
the hospital. Most of the remainder died during infancy after leaving
the hospital.]
[Footnote 12: In some districts of Portugal the proportion of married
to single persons is as 1 to 173!]
The true cause of Portuguese immorality and crime is the unequal
distribution of wealth, which leaves the mass of the inhabitants a
prey to the vicissitudes of the seasons, the tyranny of the powerful
and wealthy and the despair of insecurity. The origin of this evil
state of affairs was the tenure of emphyteusis: its active and
unfeeling promoters have been always the nobility and ecclesiastics,
and its only powerful enemy, the only hope of the people, the Crown.
After what has been mentioned it is unnecessary to speak of minor
crimes--- of street assassinations, highway robberies and the
like. Your own McCulloch will inform you that according to official
information reported to the Cortes there occurred in one year, and
merely in the two districts of Oporto and Guarda, no less than three
hundred and forty-two assassinations and four hundred and sixty
robberies. It is true that life is not quite so insecure now as when
McCulloch wrote. Some few rays of light have penetrated the profound
abyss of misery and evil in which the country was then plunged;
nevertheless, the improvement has been but slow and partial, and
nothing short of revolution can accelerate it. There is but one man
in the world who possesses the means to render that revolution
successful, and that man--His Majesty Dom Pedro II., the emperor of
Brazil--is now, or soon will be, on his way to the United States.
May he not peruse in vain this sad account of famine and crime in
Portugal!
There are persons with nervous organisms so abused that a sudden cry,
whether it be of boisterousness or despair, will cause them great
agony: so there are others with moral susceptibilities so overstrained
that the story of a nation's misery and crime, such as I have
endeavored to sketch, will evoke within them more pain than interest.
Regard for such exceptional persons has created a namby-pambyism in
literature which would banish these topics--the greatest and holiest
in which human sympathy can be enlisted--to the domains of science.
But science cannot aid unhappy Portugal. Sympathy and prayer alone can
mitigate our sufferings. Therefore sympathize with and pray for us,
you who stand in the broad glare of freedom, filled with plenty and
surrounded by promise, Pray for unhappy Portugal!
AT THE OLD PLANTATION.
TWO PAPERS.--I.
The life of the low-country South Carolina planter, until broken up by
the war, had changed but little since colonial times. It was the life
which Washington lived at Mount Vernon, with some slight differences
of local custom. The two-storied house, with its ten or twenty rooms
and broad piazza, had probably been built in ante-Revolutionary days
by the British country gentleman or Huguenot exile from whom the
present owner drew his descent. I well remember how the old house
at Hanover bore near the top of the chimney stack the legend "_Peu à
peu_" written with a stick in the soft mortar with which the bricks
had been covered. The old Huguenot builder had burned his bricks by
guess, and three times the work had to stop until the kiln could
be replenished and a new lot prepared. The top was finally reached,
however, and the triumphant _Peu à peu_ was only his French way
of proclaiming to posterity _Perseverantia vincit omnia_. In many
instances, however, fire has destroyed the original structure--a
danger to which the country residence is specially exposed--but the
new one has usually been modeled after that which it succeeded. Indian
names, flowing softly from the tongue, have usually come down with
the tracts to which they originally belonged, as _Pooshee, Wantoot,
Wampee, Wapahoula_, though Chelsea, White Hall, Sarrazin's or
Sans Souci often betrays the English or French origin of the first
patentee.
To understand the home and life of the wealthy Carolina planter we
must remember that he was the most contented man in the world. The
greed of gain was unknown to him, and his deep-rooted conservatism
forbade everything like speculation. Solid, substantial comfort and
large-hearted hospitality were the objects in all his expenditures. He
never invested his surplus money except in another plantation to
put his surplus negroes on, for he never sold a negro except for
incorrigible bad qualities or to pay some pressing debt. He had no
expensive tastes except for rare old madeira and racing-stock, from
the last of which his splendid saddle-horses were always selected;
and these were usually of the best and purest blood. He was as much at
home in the saddle as an English fox-hunter or a Don Cossack, and the
only wheeled vehicles in his spacious carriage-house were the heavy
family coach, and the light sulky in which his summer trips were made
between the pineland and the plantation.
Come back with me now to the days when the North-eastern Railroad was
a possibility of the future, and join me in a Christmas visit to old
Pooshee. We take the little steamer for the head of Cooper River, the
December sun being warm enough to tempt us from the close cabin to
the airy deck. The graceful spire of old St. Michael's cuts sharply
against the sky, reminding you, if you have visited the suburbs of
London, of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, that fine specimen of Sir
Christopher Wren's style, after which it was modeled. The old
customhouse looks just as it did when Governor Rutledge had the tea
locked up in its store-rooms, and the gray moss droops in weeping
festoons from the live-oaks of beautiful Magnolia. I wonder how the
miles of green marsh through which we pass can seem to you such a
dreary waste. To my eye it is all alive with interest. I never tire
of watching how the lonely white heron spears his scaly prey, how the
clapper-rail floats on his raft of matted rushes, how the marsh-wren
jerks his saucy little tail over his bottle-shaped nest, or how
with quick and certain stroke the oyster-catcher extracts the juicy
"native" from his bivalved citadel. We are now getting above the
salt-water line, and on either hand the rice-fields, now covered
with water, stretch away from the banks, their surface covered with
countless thousands of ducks. As the winding river brings the channel
somewhat nearer to the shore, the splash of the paddles startles the
feeding multitude, and they rise with a rush and roar of wings which
might be heard for miles. Could we stop for a day or two at Rice Hope,
we might have rare sport among the mallards and bald-pates as they
fly out between sunset and dark, or in the early morning from behind
a well-constructed blind. But we must decline the cordial invitation
which urges us to do so as the boat casts off from the landing, and in
a couple of hours more we step ashore at Fairlawn, where we find the
carriage waiting to take us over the twelve remaining miles of our
journey. The road, like the marsh, may seem lonely and tedious to
you, but I know every turn and bend of it, and the trees are all old
friends. I'm sure I know that green heron which "skowks" to me as he
springs from the rail of the bridge, and there is something familiar
in the bark of the black squirrel which has just rushed up that pine.
Hark! that was the yelp of a turkey. Stop the horses for a moment and
we may see them. One, two, four, seven! What a splendid old gobbler
last crossed the road, and no guns loaded! And there is the track
of as noble a buck as I ever saw: that's where he jumped into the
pea-field, and ten to one he's lying now in that patch of sedge.
"Well!" I think I hear you say, "you have seen more to interest you in
a hundred yards than I should have found in two miles."
Exactly; and that is why I enjoy the country so much. Learn to love
Nature in her every mood and to study her every feature, and you will
never know the feeling of loneliness if you keep outside the walls of
a jail. But we are at the outer gate, and our journey is nearly over.
At the end of a long enclosed road, shaded by trees--which, however,
do not form an avenue, such as you may see near the coast, where the
live-oaks flourish more vigorously--stands the spacious mansion, with
its white walls, green Venetian shutters and red tin roof. There is no
enclosure about it save that which is formed by the rail fences of the
distant fields. The "yard" contains about forty acres of grassy
lawn shaded by spreading forest trees--white-oaks, water-oaks and
hickories--from which hang the graceful folds of the Spanish moss. The
out-buildings are scattered about without the slightest reference to
distance, except in the case of the kitchen, which is at the back and
some twenty yards from the dwelling. The stable and carriage-house
stand on either side, _in front_, but at a distance sufficient to
prevent unsightliness or discomfort. In the background are the large
"cotton-houses," with their bleaching-platforms, the "gin-house," the
corn-house, the fodder-house and the poultry-house, which is nearly
as large as any of them; while nearer the mansion are grouped the
"loom-house," the dairy and the oven-shed, under which is built the
huge brick oven capable of baking to a sugary confection several
bushels of yam "slips" at a time. On the left is the "negro-yard"
(never called "the quarter" in this region), with its fifty or sixty
substantial cabins, each gleaming with whitewash and having its own
little vegetable patch and chicken-house.
It is Saturday evening, and the sun is just entering the heavy
cloud-bank which rests on the western horizon as we drive up to the
door. Our genial and venerable host, "the old doctor," is at the
stables superintending the feeding of his horses, and thither we bend
our steps with a sense of exhilaration which only the crisp, fresh
country air can impart, and a new vigor thrilling through every muscle
as the foot presses the green and springy sod. Our old friend is a
worthy representative of the old _régime_, the only change which the
lapse of thirty years has made in his costume being the substitution
of black for blue broadcloth in the velvet-collared, brass-buttoned,
narrow-skirted coat with its side-pocket flaps. The collar sits as
high in the neck; the red silk handkerchief peeps out behind; the
trousers are cut with the "full fall," over which hangs the watch
fob-chain with its heavy seals; the low-crowned beaver hat has the
same wide brim; and the silver snuff-box is still redolent of Scotch
maccaboy.
"The hounds have got fat waiting for you, and the birds are almost
tame enough to put salt on their tails," says the old gentleman after
the hearty welcome is over. "Old Nannie says the foxes are eating up
all her turkeys, and Loudon tells me that he sees deer-tracks coming
out of the new ground every morning."
"How _are_ ye, gentlemen?" says stout John Myers, the "obeshay," which
is negro for "overseer."--"I say, there! you Cuffee, that basket ain't
half full o' corn.--I s'pose you're goin' to clean out all the game by
Chris'mas?--You Cæsar, why don't you fill up old Chester's stall with
trash? You niggers are gittin' too lazy to live;" and he walks off to
see that the negroes, who are watching us with open mouths and eyes,
do not allow their astonishment to interfere with the comfort of the
horses. Five sturdy negro men are doing the work of two boys, forking
in the "pine-trash" from the huge pile outside, and bringing ear-corn
in oak bushel-baskets on their shoulders from the corn-house three
hundred yards away.
We cross over to this building when the stable-door has been locked
and watch the eager crowd which is waiting for the weekly "'lowance."
Sturdy, strapping women, with muscular arms and stout calves freely
displayed under the skirts which are tucked around their waists,
are standing in picturesque attitudes or sitting on their upturned
baskets, while ragged, wild-looking little "picknies" are clinging
to the said skirts and peeping with great staring eyes at the strange
"buckrah man." Each will take the week's supply of ear-corn and
potatoes for her household--a peck for each member of the family,
large and small--and will grind her own grist at the mill-house, or
more probably trade away the entire supply at the cross-roads store
for flour, sugar and coffee.
"Why, Rose, is that you? How are you, and how are the children?"
"De Lawd! Wha' dat? who dat da' talk me? Bless de Lawd! da' nyoung
maussa! Ki! enty you tek wife yet? Go 'way! Look! he done got bayd
(beard) same like ole nanny-goat! Bless de Lawd!"
"I'm glad to see you looking so young, Kitty: your children must be
grown up."
"Tenk de Lawd, maussa," with a low curtsey, "I day yah yet! Dem
pickny, da big man an' 'oman now. Enty you got one piece t'bacca fo'
po' ole nigger?"
The tobacco is forthcoming, together with a few gaudy
head-handkerchiefs and little parcels of sugar, and "nyoung maussa"
has it all his own way with the simple creatures. These negroes are as
near the original wild African type as if a few years instead of more
than a century of contact with civilization had passed over them.
They are all the direct descendants of original importations, chiefly
Ghoolahs and Ashantees; indeed, "Gullah niggah" is a favorite term
of playful reproach among them. Their _male_ names are still largely
Ashantee, as "Cudjo," "Cuffee," "Quarcoo," "Quashee," etc., and
their dialect, a mixture of "pigeon English" and Ghoolah, strongly
impregnated with the French of the Huguenot masters of their
forefathers, is simply incomprehensible to a stranger, whether white
or black. Indeed, when excited and talking rapidly even those who
have grown up among them can scarcely understand the lingo. "Coom,
Hondree," says an old nurse to her little charge at bedtime, "le' we
tek fire go atop:" in English, "Come, Henry, let's take a light and go
up stairs." "Child" is "pickny;" "white man" (or woman), "buckrah;"
"I don't know," "Me no sabbée;" "Is it not?" "Enty?"; "watermelon" is
"attermillion" or "mutwilliam;" and so on.
Paying a medical visit, I enter a house where the patient is a sick
child: the old crone who is sitting in the doorway with a boy's head
between her knees, performing the office of which monkeys are so fond,
calls out, "Lindy! de buckrah coom."
"What's the matter with the child?" I inquire.
"Ki, maussa! me no sabbée wha' do a pickny," replies the intelligent
Lindy, who wishes me to know that she knows nothing about the case.
We shall see more of them before leaving the plantation.
A day on the water and a long drive are excellent preparatives for
a supper of broad rice-waffles toasted crisp and brown before the
crackling hickory fire, of smoking spare-ribs and luscious tripe,
of rich, fragrant Java coffee with boiled milk and cream; nor does a
sound night's sleep unfit one for enjoying at breakfast a repetition
of the same, substituting link sausages and black pudding for the
tripe and spare-ribs, and superadding feathery muffins and soft-boiled
eggs.