A Sabbath morning in Natchez--A ramble to the bluff--
Louisiana forests--Natchez under the Hill--Slaves--
Holidays--Negroes going to church--Negro street coteries
--Market-day--City hotel--Description of the landing--
Rail-way--A rendezvous--Neglected Sabbath-bell.
Yesterday was the Sabbath; one of those still, bright, and sunny days
which poetry and religion have loved to challenge as peculiar to that
sacred time. To this beautiful conception, fact, aided somewhat by
fancy, does not, however, refuse its sanction. A serene and awful
majesty has ever appeared to me as peculiarly belonging to the day of
rest. It seems blessed with a holier power than is given to the common
days of earth: a more hallowed silence then reigns in the air and over
nature--a spirit of sanctity, like a "still small voice," breathes
eloquently over the heart, from which better feelings and purer thoughts
ascend and hold communion with the unseen world. A spell, like a mantle
of heavenly texture, seems thrown over all; to break which, by the light
notes of merry music, or the sounds of gay discourse, would seem like
profanation. Such was this Sabbath morning. The sun arose in the glory
of his southern power, "rejoicing to run his race." Bathed in a sea of
his own created light, he poured, with lavish opulence, floods of
radiance over nature--illuminating, beautifying, and enriching all on
which he shone. I had early rambled to the cliff, to get away from the
noise and bustle of the hotel, and to enjoy the luxuriant beauty of the
morning. The windows of the dwellings, and the roofs and spires of the
town, reflected back the rising sun, whose beams glittered from myriads
of dew-drops that spangled the green earth, converting its soft verdure
into a carpet, studded with innumerable gems. The city itself reposed,
as in a deep sleep, on the quiet hills upon which it rested. The
majestic Mississippi was spread out before me like a vast sheet of
liquid steel--its unruffled bosom, dotted and relieved here and there by
a light skiff, or a huge steamer, booming and puffing far away in the
distance; while the lofty, mural precipices which frowned menacingly
over its eastern shore, were reflected from its depth with the accuracy
and distinctness of a sub-marine creation. The Louisianian forests,
clothing the interminable plains which stretch away to the west, with an
almost perennial green, were crested with golden sun-light, and flashing
as they waved in the morning breeze, like a phosphorescent sea of
mingled green and light. Nature wore her richest garb, and her every
feature was eminently beautiful. There was nothing to impair her
loveliness, but that fallen, guilty being, who should be a diadem of
glory for her brow, and the brightest ornament of her bosom--MAN!
proud and sinful man, desecrating all that is fair and pure wherever he
treads--he alone defaced the calm and hallowed character of the scene.
From a row of dilapidated yet inhabited dwellings beneath me, at the
base of the cliff, sounds of rude merriment, mingled with the tones of
loud dispute and blasphemy, rose with appalling distinctness upon the
still air, breaking the Sabbath silence of the hour, in harsh discord
with its sacredness. The streets of the lower town were alive with
boatmen, draymen, buyers and sellers, horsemen and hacks, and scores of
negroes, some wrestling, some fighting, others running foot-races,
playing quoits or marbles, selling the products of their little gardens,
or, with greater probability, their predatory excursions; while from all
combined, a confused murmur, not unlike the harmony which floated around
Babel, rolled upward to the skies--an incense far from acceptable to
Him, who has promulgated amid the thunders of Sinai, "Remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy."
In "Natchez under the hill," the Sabbath, as a day of rest and public
worship, is not observed according to the strictest letter of the old
"blue laws." On that day the stores are kept open and generally filled
with boatmen and negroes. With the latter this day is a short jubilee,
and, with the peculiar skill of their race, they make the most of
it--condensing the occupation and the jollity of seven days into one. It
is customary for planters in the neighbourhood to give their slaves a
small piece of land to cultivate for their own use, by which, those who
are industrious, generally make enough to keep themselves and their
wives in extra finery and spending money throughout the year. They have
the Sabbath given them as a holiday, when they are permitted to leave
their plantations and come into town to dispose of their produce, and
lay in their own little luxuries and private stores. The various avenues
to the city are consequently on that day filled with crowds of chatting,
laughing negroes, arrayed in their Sunday's best, and adroitly balancing
heavily loaded baskets on their heads, which, from long practice in this
mode of conveyance, often become indurated, like a petrification, and as
flat as the palm of the hand, distending at the sides, and elongating in
proportion to the depression, causing a peculiar conformation of the
skull, which would set phrenology at defiance. Others mounted on mules
or miserable-looking plough-horses, in whose presence Rosinante himself
would have looked sleek and respectable--burthened with their marketable
commodities, jog on side by side, with their dames or sweethearts riding
"double-jaded"--as the Yankees term the mode--behind them; while here
and there market carts returning from the city, (as this is also market
morning) or from the intersecting roads, pour in upon the highway to
increase the life, variety, and motley character of its crowd. But this
unpleasing picture of a Sabbath morning, has brighter tints to redeem
the graver character of its moral shades. Of all that picturesque
multitude of holiday slaves, two-thirds, the majority of whom are women,
are on their way to church, into whose galleries they congregate at the
hour of divine service in great numbers, and worship with an apparent
devoutness and attention, which beings who boast intellects of a higher
order might not disdain to imitate. The female slaves very generally
attend church in this country; but, whether to display their tawdry
finery, of which they are fond to a proverb, or for a better purpose, I
will not undertake to determine. The males prefer collecting in little
knots in the streets, where, imitating the manners, bearing, and
language of their masters, they converse with grave faces and in pompous
language, selecting hard, high-sounding words, which are almost
universally misapplied, and distorted, from their original sound as well
as sense to a most ridiculous degree--astounding their gaping auditors
"ob de field nigger class," who cannot boast such enviable
accomplishments--parading through the streets from mere listlessness, or
gathering around and filling the whiskey shops, spending their little
all for the means of intoxication. Though negroes are proverbially
lovers of whiskey, but few are to be found among them who get drunk,
unless on Christmas holidays, when the sober ones are most easily
numbered; this is owing to the discipline of plantations, the little
means they have wherewith to purchase, and last, though not least, the
fear of punishment--that "_argumentum ad corporem_," which leaves a
stinging conviction behind it, of the painful effects of "old rye" in
the abstract upon the body.
That a market should be held upon the Sabbath in this city, is a "bend
sinister" upon its escutcheon. But this custom is defended, even by
those who admit its evil tendency, upon the plea "that meats in this
climate will not keep over night."--This is no doubt the case during a
great part of the year. A different system of things, in this respect,
is desirable; but the reason just mentioned, combined with others,
peculiar to a southern state of society, renders any change at present
very difficult.
There is, on the whole, with the exception alluded to, very little
difference between the observance of the Sabbath here, and that in
places of the same size in New-England; and the quiet regularity of its
Sabbaths, if he could overlook the vast preponderance of coloured
population in the streets just before church hour, would forcibly remind
the northerner of his own native town. But in the lower town the face of
things very sensibly changes, though the difference is less perceptible
now than formerly. A few years since, its reputation was every way so
exceptionable, that, in a very witty argument, a lawyer of this city
demonstrated, that, so far from being a part and portion of the city
proper, it was not even a part or portion of the state! Where he
ultimately consigned it I did not learn.--It is true the city was not
very tenacious of its rights _quoad_ its reprobate neighbour. But more
recently, its superior advantages for heavy grocery business have
induced many merchants, of high respectability, to remove from the city
to this spot, whose presence has given it a better character.--So much
has it changed from its former reputation, that where it was once
considered disreputable to reside, there are now extensive stores, kept
by gentlemen of excellent character, and a fine hotel, lately erected,
for the convenience of these merchants, (most of whom, like the society
which formerly characterised the city, are bachelors) and for passengers
landing from, or waiting for, the steamboats. There is also, I should
have remarked in a former letter, a commodious brick hotel on
Main-street, in the city, under the superintendence of a young
northerner, which, from its location in the very centre of the city,
independent of other qualifications, is a convenient and agreeable
temporary residence for strangers, with the majority of whom it is a
general place of resort. Few towns, whose inhabitants quadruple those of
Natchez, can boast such fine, commodious, and well-ordered hotels as
this, or a more luxurious _table d'hote_ than is daily spread, between
one and two o'clock, in the long dining-halls of most of them.
The "Landing," which more popular term has of late superseded the old
notorious cognomination, "Natchez under the Hill," properly consists of
three dissimilar divisions. The northern is composed mostly of wretched
dwellings, low taverns, and drinking shops, where are congregated free
negroes, more wretched than their brother bondmen, and poor whites. At
the termination of this division are an excellent steam saw-mill and an
oil-mill, where oil of a superior quality for lamps is extracted from
cotton seed, heretofore a useless article, except for manure, but now
disposed of with considerable profit. About the centre of this northern
division is suspended a strangely-constructed rail-way, springing from
the Levee to the summit of the cliff. It was laid down, or rather built
up, a short time since, for the more convenient carriage of cotton to
the Landing; but has failed in its object, and is now disused and
neglected. Viewed from the Levee, it is a striking feature, rising
boldly from the feet of the observer, a mammoth pile of frame-work, at
an angle of 45 degrees, and terminating at the height of one hundred and
sixty feet, upon the verge of the bluff. The sides are closed up, and a
portion is occupied by stores or dwellings, while another part is
appropriated for a bowling alley. The noise of the iron-wheeled cars
rolling down the steep track, with the roar of thunder, over the heads
of the players, must have been a novel accompaniment to the sound of
their own balls. The southern division of the Landing consists of one
short street, parallel with the river, over which it hangs on one side,
while the houses on the other are overhung by a spur of the cliff,
which, like an avalanche, threatens every moment to slide and overwhelm
it. This street is lined with dancing-houses, tippling-shops, houses of
ill-fame, and gambling-rooms.--Here may always be heard the sound of the
violin, the clink of silver upon the roulette and faro-tables, and the
language of profanity and lewdness: and the revellers, so far from being
interrupted by the intervention of the Sabbath, actually distinguish it
by a closer and more persevering devotion to their unhallowed pursuits
and amusements. The remaining division of the Landing, which lies
between the other two, is a short street, extending from the base of
the cliff to the Levee, a great part of which it comprises, and along an
intersecting street, which skirts the foot of the bluff as far as the
rail-way: here are congregated store-houses, boarding-houses, and
bachelors' halls--which many of the merchants keep over their own
stores, hiring or buying some old black woman to officiate as the
representative of Monsieur Ude--the commodious hotel before alluded to,
conducted by a "Green Mountain boy," and wholesale and retail grocery
and dry goods stores. Neither of these kinds of goods is made, by
itself, the sole stock of a dealer, either here or on the hill; but with
the various articles in every kind of commercial dealing they pile their
shelves and fill their warehouses; the whole forming a mixed assortment,
appropriately adapted to the peculiar wants of their country, town, and
steamboat customers. These stores are all kept open upon the Sabbath, on
which day there is often more business done than on any other. The
blacks, who have no other opportunity of making their little purchases,
crowd around the counters--the boatmen trade off their cargoes, and the
purchasers store them--steamers are constantly arriving and departing,
lading and unlading--and the steam ferry-boat makes its oft-repeated
trip from shore to shore--all giving a life, bustle, and variety to the
scene, of a very unsabbath-like character. The merchants plead the
necessity of supplying steamers. This is readily admitted; but it has
given rise to a train of unforeseen evils, which have little relation to
this basis of the custom. The numerous drinking shops in the other
parts of the Landing are, on that day, as much at least, if not more
than on other days, filled with a motley assemblage of black, white, and
yellow, drinking and carousing.
Nearly two hundred feet below me, as I stood upon the bluff, and within
the huge shadow of the cliff, stretched a long, low building, over which
proudly waved the star-spangled banner, and to whose inhabitants the
sun, already high in the heavens, had not yet risen. From this building
issued the sound of bestial revelry, drowning the hum of business and
the shouts of boyish merriment. The coarse gray clothing (a shame to our
army) of most of those lounging about the door, designated it, in
conjunction with the flag over their heads, as a rendezvous--even had
not the martial eloquence of a little, half-tipsy, dapper man in a gray
doublet, whose voice now and then reached my ear in the intervals of the
uproarious proceedings--expatiating to a gaping crowd of grinning
Africans--nightcapped or bare-headed white females, in slattern apparel
and uncombed locks--two or three straight, blanketed, silent
Indians--noisy boys and ragged boatmen--upon the glories of a soldier's
life, sufficiently indicated its character.
"The sound of the church-going bell" pealed idly over their heads,
unheard, or if heard, disregarded; and to the crowds which the eye of an
observer could take in from his elevation upon the bluff, the divine
institution of the Sabbath is invalid.