Visit to a plantation; hospitable reception--By steamer to
Georgetown--Description of the town--A country mansion--Masters
and slaves--Slave diet--Humming-birds--Land irrigation--Negro
quarters--Back to Georgetown.
_April 21st._--In the afternoon I went with Mr. Porcher Miles
to visit a small farm and plantation, some miles from the city,
belonging to Mr. Crafts. Our arrival was unexpected, but the
planter’s welcome was warm. Mrs. Crafts showed us round the place,
of which the beauties were due to nature rather than to art, and so
far the lady was the fitting mistress of the farm.
We wandered through tangled brakes and thick Indian-like jungle,
filled with disagreeable insects, down to the edge of a small
lagoon. The beach was perforated with small holes, in which Mrs.
Crafts said little crabs, called “fiddlers” from their resemblance
_in petto_ to a performer on the fiddle make their abode; but
neither them nor “spotted snakes” did we see. And so to dinner,
for which our hostess made needless excuses. “I am afraid I shall
have to ask you to eke out your dinner with potted meats, but I can
answer for Mr. Crafts giving you a bottle of good old wine.” “And
what better, madam,” quoth Mr. Miles, “what better can you offer a
soldier? What do we expect but grape and canister?”
Mr. Miles, who was formerly member of the United States Congress,
and who has now migrated to the Confederate States of America,
rendered himself conspicuous a few years ago when a dreadful
visitation of yellow fever came upon Norfolk and destroyed one-half
of the inhabitants. At that terrible time, when all who could move
were flying from the plague-stricken spot, Mr. Porcher Miles flew
to it, visited the hospitals, tended the sick; and although a
weakly, delicate man, gave an example of such energy and courage as
materially tended to save those who were left. I never heard him
say a word to indicate that he had been at Norfolk at all.
At the rear of the cottage-like residence (to the best of my belief
built of wood), in which the planter’s family lived, was a small
enclosure, surrounded by a palisade, containing a number of wooden
sheds, which were the negro quarters; and after dinner, as we sat
on the steps, the children were sent for to sing for us. They came
very shyly, and by degrees; first peeping round the corners and
from behind trees, oftentimes running away in spite of the orders
of their haggard mammies, till they were chased, captured, and
brought back by their elder brethren. They were ragged, dirty,
shoeless urchins of both sexes; the younger ones abdominous as
infant Hindoos, and wild as if just caught. With much difficulty
the elder children were dressed into line; then they began to
shuffle their flat feet, to clap their hands, and to drawl out in a
monotonous sort of chant something about the “River Jawdam,” after
which Mrs. Crafts rewarded them with lumps of sugar, which were as
fruitful of disputes as the apple of discord. A few fathers and
mothers gazed at the scene from a distance.
As we sat listening to the wonderful song of the mocking-birds,
when these young Sybarites had retired, a great, big, burly
red-faced gentleman, as like a Yorkshire farmer in high perfection
as any man I ever saw in the old country, rode up to the door, and,
after the usual ceremony of introduction and the collating of news,
and the customary assurance “They can’t whip us, sir!” invited me
then and there to attend a fête champêtre at his residence, where
there is a lawn famous for trees dating from the first settlement
of the colony, and planted by this gentleman’s ancestor.
Trees are objects of great veneration in America if they are of any
size. There are perhaps two reasons for this. In the first place,
the indigenous forest trees are rarely of any great magnitude. In
the second place, it is natural to Americans to admire dimension
and antiquity; and a big tree gratifies both organs--size and
veneration.
I must record an astonishing feat of this noble Carolinian. The
heat of the evening was indubitably thirst-compelling, and we
went in to “have a drink.” Among other things on the table were
a decanter of cognac and a flask of white curaçao. The planter
filled a tumbler half full of brandy. “What’s in that flat bottle,
Crafts?” “That’s white curaçao.” The planter tasted a little, and
having smacked his lips and exclaimed “first-rate stuff,” proceeded
to _water_ his brandy with it, and tossed off a full brimmer of
the mixture without any remarkable ulterior results. They are a
hard-headed race. I doubt if cavalier or puritan ever drank a more
potent bumper than our friend the big planter.
_April 22nd._--To-day was fixed for the visit to Mr. Pringle’s
plantation, which lies above Georgetown near the Peedee River.
Our party, which consisted of Mr. Mitchell, an eminent lawyer of
Charleston, Colonel Reed, a neighbouring planter, Mr. Ward of New
York, our host, and myself, were on board the Georgetown steamer at
seven o’clock, A.M., and started with a quantity of commissariat
stores, ammunition, and the like, for the use of the troops
quartered along the coast. There was, of course, a large supply
of newspapers also. At that early hour invitations to the “bar”
were not uncommon, where the news was discussed by long-legged,
grave, sallow men. There was a good deal of joking about “old Abe
Lincoln’s paper blockade,” and the report that the Government had
ordered their cruisers to treat the crew of Confederate privateers
as “pirates” provoked derisive and menacing comments. The full
impulses of national life are breathing through the whole of this
people. There is their flag flying over Sumter, and the Confederate
banner is waving on all the sand-forts and headlands which guard
the approaches to Charleston.
A civil war and persecution have already commenced. “Suspected
Abolitionists” are ill-treated in the South, and “Suspected
Secessionists” are mobbed and beaten in the North. The news of the
attack on 6th Massachusetts, and the Pennsylvania regiment, by
the mob in Baltimore, has been received with great delight; but
some long-headed people see that it will only expose Baltimore and
Maryland to the full force of the Northern States. The riot took
place on the anniversary of Lexington.
The “Nina” was soon in open sea, steering northwards and keeping
four miles from shore in order to clear the shoals and banks which
fringe the low sandy coasts, and effectually prevent even light
gunboats covering a descent by their ordnance. This was one of the
reasons why the Federal fleet did not make any attempt to relieve
Fort Sumter during the engagement. On our way out we could see the
holes made in the large hotel and other buildings on Sullivan’s
Island behind Fort Moultrie, by the shot from the fort, which
caused terror among the negroes “miles away.” There was no sign
of any blockading vessel, but look-out parties were posted along
the beach, and as the skipper said we might have to make our
return-journey by land, every sail on the horizon was anxiously
scanned through our glasses.
Having passed the broad mouth of the Santee, the steamer in three
hours and a-half ran up an estuary, into which the Waccamaw River
and the Peedee River pour their united waters.
Our vessel proceeded along shore to a small jetty, at the end
of which was a group of armed men, some of them being part of a
military post, to defend the coast and river, established under
cover of an earthwork and palisades constructed with trunks of
trees, and mounting three 32-pounders. Several posts of a similar
character lay on the river banks, and from some of these we were
boarded by men in boats hungry for news and newspapers. Most of the
men at the pier were cavalry troopers, belonging to a volunteer
association of the gentry for coast defence, and they had been out
night and day patrolling the shores, and doing the work of common
soldiers--very precious material for such work. They wore grey
tunics, slashed and faced with yellow, buff belts, slouched felt
hats, ornamented with drooping cocks’ plumes, and long jack-boots,
which well became their fine persons and bold bearing, and were
evidently due to “Cavalier” associations. They were all equals. Our
friends on board the boat hailed them by their Christian names,
gave and heard the news. Among the cases landed at the pier were
certain of champagne and pâtés, on which Captain Blank was wont
to regale his company daily at his own expense, or that of his
cotton broker. Their horses picketed in the shade of trees close to
the beach, the parties of women riding up and down the sands, or
driving in light tax-carts, suggested images of a large pic-nic,
and a state of society quite indifferent to Uncle Abe’s cruisers
and “Hessians.” After a short delay here, the steamer proceeded on
her way to Georgetown, an ancient and once important settlement
and port, which was marked in the distance by the little forest
of masts rising above the level land, and the tops of the trees
beyond, and by a solitary church-spire.
As the “Nina” approaches the tumble-down wharf of the old town, two
or three citizens advance from the shade of shaky sheds to welcome
us, and a few country vehicles and light phaetons are drawn forth
from the same shelter to receive the passengers, while the negro
boys and girls who have been playing upon the bales of cotton and
barrels of rice, which represent the trade of the place on the
wharf, take up commanding positions for the better observation of
our proceedings.
There is about Georgetown, an air of quaint simplicity and
old-fashioned quiet, which contrasts refreshingly with the bustle
and tumult of American cities. While waiting for our vehicle
we enjoyed the hospitality of Colonel Reed, who took us into
an old-fashioned, angular, wooden mansion, more than a century
old, still sound in every timber, and testifying, in its quaint
wainscotings, and the rigid framework of door and window, to the
durability of its cypress timbers and the preservative character
of the atmosphere. In early days it was the grand house of the old
settlement, and the residence of the founder of the female branch
of the family of our host, who now only makes it his halting-place
when passing to and fro between Charleston and his plantation,
leaving it the year round in charge of an old servant and her
grandchild. Rose-trees and flowering shrubs clustered before the
porch and filled the garden in front, and the establishment gave
one a good idea of a London merchant’s retreat about Chelsea a
hundred and fifty years ago.
At length we were ready for our journey, and, in two light covered
gigs, proceeded along the sandy track which, after a while, led us
to a road cut deep in the bosom of the woods, where silence was
only broken by the cry of a woodpecker, the scream of a crane,
or the sharp challenge of the jay. For miles we passed through
the shades of this forest, meeting only two or three vehicles
containing female planterdom on little excursions of pleasure or
business, who smiled their welcome as we passed. Arrived at a deep
chocolate-coloured stream, called Black River, full of fish and
alligators, we find a flat large enough to accommodate vehicles and
passengers, and propelled by two negroes pulling upon a stretched
rope, in the manner usual in the ferry-boats of Switzerland.
Another drive through a more open country, and we reach a fine
grove of pine and live oak, which melts away into a shrubbery
guarded by a rustic gateway: passing through this, we are brought
by a sudden turn to the planter’s house, buried in trees, which
dispute with the green sward and with wild flower-beds the space
between the hall-door and the waters of the Peedee; and in a few
minutes, as we gaze over the expanse of fields marked by the
deep-water cuts, and bounded by a fringe of unceasing forest,
just tinged with green by the first life of the early rice crops,
the chimneys of the steamer we had left at Georgetown, gliding
as it were through the fields, indicate the existence of another
navigable river still beyond.
Leaving the verandah which commanded this agreeable foreground,
we enter the mansion, and are reminded by its low-browed,
old-fashioned rooms, of the country houses yet to be found in parts
of Ireland or on the Scottish border, with additions, made by the
luxury and love of foreign travel, of more than one generation
of educated Southern planters. Paintings from Italy illustrate
the walls, in juxtaposition with interesting portraits of early
colonial governors and their lovely womankind, limned with no
uncertain hand, and full of the vigour of touch and naturalness of
drapery, of which Copley has left us too few exemplars; and one
portrait of Benjamin West claims for itself such honour as his own
pencil can give. An excellent library--filled with collections of
French and English classics, and with those ponderous editions of
Voltaire, Rousseau, the “Mémoires pour Servir,” books of travel
and history which delighted our forefathers in the last century,
and many works of American and general history--affords ample
occupation for a rainy day.
It was five o’clock before we reached our planter’s house--White
House Plantation. My small luggage was carried into my room by
an old negro in livery, who took great pains to assure me of my
perfect welcome, and who turned out to be a most excellent valet.
A low room hung with coloured mezzotints, windows covered with
creepers, and an old-fashioned bedstead and quaint chairs, lodged
me sumptuously; and after such toilette as was considered necessary
by our host for a bachelor’s party, we sat down to an excellent
dinner, cooked by negroes and served by negroes, and aided by
claret mellowed in Carolinian suns, and by Madeira brought down
stairs cautiously, as in the days of Horace and Mæcenas, from the
cellar between the attic and the thatched roof.
Our party was increased by a neighbouring planter, and after dinner
the conversation returned to the old channel--all the frogs praying
for a king--anyhow a prince--to rule over them. Our good host is
anxious to get away to Europe, where his wife and children are, and
all he fears is being mobbed at New York, where Southerners are
exposed to insult, though they may get off better in that respect
than Black Republicans would down South. Some of our guests talked
of the duello, and of famous hands with the pistol in these parts.
The conversation had altogether very much the tone which would have
probably characterised the talk of a group of Tory Irish gentlemen
over their wine some sixty years ago, and very pleasant it was.
Not a man--no, not one--will ever join the Union again! “Thank
God!” they say, “we are freed from that tyranny at last.” And yet
Mr. Seward calls it the most beneficent government in the world,
which never hurt a human being yet!
But alas! all the good things which the house affords, can be
enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has expanded every
charm, developed every grace, and clothed the scene with all
the beauty of opened flower, of ripening grain, and of mature
vegetation, on the wings of the wind the poisoned breath comes
borne to the home of the white man, and he must fly before it or
perish. The books lie unopened on the shelves, the flower blooms
and dies unheeded, and, pity ’tis, ’tis true, the old Madeira
garnered ’neath the roof, settles down for a fresh lease of life,
and sets about its solitary task of acquiring a finer flavour
for the infrequent lips of its banished master and his welcome
visitors. This is the story, at least, that we hear on all sides,
and such is the tale repeated to us beneath the porch, when the
moon while softening enhances the loveliness of the scene, and the
rich melody of mocking-birds fills the grove.
Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better than he
did with Nasidienus, and drink such wine as can be only found among
the descendants of the ancestry who, improvident enough in all
else, learnt the wisdom of bottling up choice old Bual and Sercial,
ere the demon of oidium had dried up their generous sources for
ever. To these must be added excellent bread, ingenious varieties
of the _galette_, compounded now of rice and now of Indian meal,
delicious butter and fruits, all good of their kind. And is
there anything better rising up from the bottom of the social
bowl? My black friends who attend on me are grave as Mussulman
Khitmutgars. They are attired in liveries and wear white cravats
and Berlin gloves. At night when we retire, off they go to their
outer darkness in the small settlement of negro-hood, which is
separated from our house by a wooden palisade. Their fidelity is
undoubted. The house breathes an air of security. The doors and
windows are unlocked. There is but one gun, a fowling-piece, on the
premises. No planter hereabouts has any dread of his slaves. But I
have seen, within the short time I have been in this part of the
world, several dreadful accounts of murder and violence, in which
masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is something
suspicious in the constant never-ending statement that “we are
not afraid of our slaves.” The curfew and the night patrol in the
streets, the prisons and watch-houses, and the police regulations,
prove that strict supervision, at all events, is needed and
necessary. My host is a kind man and a good master. If slaves are
happy anywhere, they should be so with him.
These people are fed by their master. They have half a pound per
diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They rear poultry and sell
their chickens and eggs to the house. They are clothed by their
master. He keeps them in sickness as in health. Now and then there
are gifts of tobacco and molasses for the deserving. There was
little labour going on in the fields, for the rice has been just
exerting itself to get its head above water. These fields yield
plentifully; the waters of the river are fat, and they are let in
whenever the planter requires it by means of floodgates and small
canals, through which the flats can carry their loads of grain to
the river for loading the steamers.
_April 23rd._--A lovely morning grew into a hot day. After
breakfast, I sat in the shade watching the vagaries of some little
tortoises, or terrapins, in a vessel of water close at hand, or
trying to follow the bee-like flight of the humming-birds. Ah
me! one wee brownie, with a purple head and red facings, managed
to dash into a small grape or flower conservatory close at hand,
and, innocent of the ways of the glassy wall, he or she--I am much
puzzled as to the genders of humming-birds, and Mr. Gould, with his
wonderful mastery of Greek prefixes and Latin terminations, has not
aided me much--dashed up and down from pane to pane, seeking to
perforate each with its bill, and carrying death and destruction
among the big spiders and their cobweb-castles which for the time
barred the way.
The humming-bird had, as the Yankees say, a bad time of it, for
its efforts to escape were incessant, and our host said tenderly,
through his moustaches, “Pooty little thing, don’t frighten it!” as
if he was quite sure of getting off to Saxony by the next steamer.
Encumbered by cobwebs and exhausted, now and then our little friend
toppled down among the green shrubs, and lay panting like a living
nugget of ore. Again he, she, or it took wing and resumed that
mad career; but at last on some happy turn the bright head saw an
opening through the door, and out wings, body, and legs dashed, and
sought shelter in a creeper, where the little flutterer lay, all
but dead, so inanimate, indeed, that I could have taken the lovely
thing and put it in the hollow of my hand. What would poets of
Greece and Rome have said of the humming-bird? What would Hafiz,
or Waller, or Spenser have sung, had they but seen that offspring
of the sun and flowers?
Later in the day, when the sun was a little less fierce, we walked
out from the belt of trees round the house on the plantation
itself. At this time of year there is nothing to recommend to the
eye the great breadth of flat fields, surrounded by small canals,
which look like the bottoms of dried-up ponds, for the green rice
has barely succeeded in forcing its way above the level of the rich
dark earth. The river bounds the estate, and when it rises after
the rains, its waters, loaded with loam and fertilising mud, are
let in upon the lands through the small canals, which are provided
with sluices and banks and floodgates to control and regulate the
supply.
The negroes had but little to occupy them now. The children of
both sexes, scantily clad, were fishing in the canals and stagnant
waters, pulling out horrible-looking little catfish. They were so
shy that they generally fled at our approach. The men and women
were apathetic, neither seeking nor shunning us, and I found that
their master knew nothing about them. It is only the servants
engaged in household duties who are at all on familiar terms with
their masters.
The bailiff or steward was not to be seen. One big slouching negro,
who seemed to be a gangsman or something of the kind, followed
us in our walk, and answered any questions we put to him very
readily. It was a picture to see his face when one of our party,
on returning to the house, gave him a larger sum of money than he
had probably ever possessed before in a lump. “What will he do
with it?” Buy sweet things,--sugar, tobacco, a penknife, and such
things. “They have few luxuries, and all their wants are provided
for.” Took a cursory glance at the negro quarters, which are not
very enticing or cleanly. They are surrounded by high palings, and
the _entourage_ is alive with their poultry.
Very much I doubt whether Mr. Mitchell is satisfied the Southerners
are right in their present course, but he and Mr. Petigru are
lawyers, and do not take a popular view of the question. After
dinner the conversation again turned on the resources and power
of the South, and on the determination of the people never to go
back into the Union. Then cropped out again the expression of
regret for the rebellion of 1776, and the desire that if it came
to the worst, England would receive back her erring children, or
give them a prince under whom they could secure a monarchical form
of government. There is no doubt about the earnestness with which
these things are said.
As the “Nina” starts down the river on her return voyage from
Georgetown to-night, and Charleston Harbour may be blockaded at
any time, thus compelling us to make a long _détour_ by land, I
resolve to leave by her, in spite of many invitations and pressure
from neighbouring planters. At midnight our carriage came round,
and we started in a lovely moonlight to Georgetown, crossing the
ferry after some delay, in consequence of the profound sleep of
the boatmen in their cabins. One of them said to me, “Musn’t go
too near de edge ob de boat, massa.” “Why not?” “Becas if massa
fall ober, he not come up agin likely,--a bad ribber for drowned,
massa.” He informed me it was full of alligators, which are always
on the look-out for the planters’ and negroes’ dogs, and are hated
and hunted accordingly.
The “Nina” was blowing the signal for departure, the only sound
we heard all through the night, as we drove through the deserted
streets of Georgetown, and soon after three o’clock, A.M., we were
on board and in our berths.