CHAPTER XIX._My Diary: North and South (vol. 1 of 2)

Domestic negroes--Negro oarsmen--Off to the fishing-grounds--The

devil-fish--Bad sport--The drum-fish--Negro quarters--Want of

drainage--Thievish propensities of the blacks--A southern

estimate of Southerners.

_April 27th._--Mrs. Trescot, it seems, spent part of her night in

attendance on a young gentleman of colour, who was introduced into

the world in a state of servitude by his poor chattel of a mother.

Such kindly acts as these are more common than we may suppose; and

it would be unfair to put a strict or unfair construction on the

motives of slave-owners in paying such attention to their property.

Indeed, as Mrs. Trescot says, “When people talk of my having so

many slaves, I always tell them it is the slaves who own me.

Morning, noon, and night, I’m obliged to look after them, to doctor

them, and attend to them in every way.” Property has its duties,

you see, madam, as well as its rights.

The planter’s house is quite new, and was built by himself; the

principal material being wood, and most of the work being done

by his own negroes. Such work as window-sashes and panellings,

however, was executed in Charleston. A pretty garden runs at

the back, and from the windows there are wide stretches of

cotton fields visible, and glimpses of the river to be seen.

After breakfast our little party repaired to the river-side, and

sat under the shade of some noble trees waiting for the boat which

was to bear us to the fishing-grounds. The wind blew up stream,

running with the tide, and we strained our eyes in vain for the

boat. The river is here nearly a mile across,--a noble estuary

rather,--with low banks lined with forests, into which the axe has

made deep forays and clearings for cotton fields.

It would have astonished a stray English traveller, if, penetrating

the shade, he heard in such an out-of-the-way place familiar

names and things spoken of by the three lazy persons who were

stretched out--cigar in mouth--on the ant-haunted trunks which lay

prostrate by the sea-shore. Mr. Trescot spent some time in London

as _attaché_ to the United States Legation, was a club man, and

had a large circle of acquaintance among the young men about town,

of whom he remembered many anecdotes and peculiarities, and little

adventures. Since that time he was Under-Secretary of State in Mr.

Buchanan’s administration, and went out with Secession. He is the

author of a very agreeable book on a dry subject, “The History of

American Diplomacy,” which is curious enough as an unconscious

exposition of the anti-British jealousies, and even antipathies,

which have animated American statesmen since they were created.

In fact, much of American diplomacy means hostility to England,

and the skilful employment of the anti-British sentiment at their

disposal in their own country and elsewhere. Now he was talking

pleasantly of people he had met--many of them mutual friends.

“Here is the boat at last!” I had been sweeping the broad river

with my glass occasionally, and at length detected a speck on its

broad surface moving down towards us, with a white dot marking the

foam at its bows. Spite of wind and tideway, it came rapidly, and

soon approached us, pulled by six powerful negroes, attired in red

flannel jackets and white straw hats with broad ribands. The craft

itself--a kind of monster canoe, some forty-five feet long, narrow,

wall-sided, with high bow and raised stern--lay deep in the water,

for there were extra negroes for the fishing, servants, baskets of

provisions, water buckets, stone jars of less innocent drinking,

and abaft there was a knot of great strong planters,--Elliotts

all--cousins, uncles, and brothers. A friendly hail as they swept

up alongside,--an exchange of salutations.

“Well, Trescot, have you got plenty of Crabs?”

A groan burst forth at his _insouciant_ reply. He had been charged

to find bait, and he had told the negroes to do so, and the negroes

had not done so. The fishermen looked grievously at each other,

and fiercely at Trescot, who assumed an air of recklessness, and

threw doubts on the existence of fish in the river, and resorted

to similar miserable subterfuges; indeed, it was subsequently

discovered that he was an utter infidel in regard to the delights

of piscicapture.

“Now, all aboard! Over, you fellows, and take these gentlemen in!”

The negroes were over in a moment, waist deep, and, each taking

one on his back, deposited us dry in the boat. I only mention

this to record the fact, that I was much impressed by a practical

demonstration from my bearer respecting the strong odour of the

skin of a heated African. I have been wedged up in a column of

infantry on a hot day, and have marched to leeward of Ghoorkhas

in India, but the overpowering pungent smell of the negro exceeds

everything of the kind I have been unfortunate enough to experience.

The vessel was soon moving again, against a ripple, caused by the

wind, which blew dead against us; and notwithstanding the praises

bestowed on the boat, it was easy to perceive that the labour of

pulling such a dead-log-like thing through the water told severely

on the rowers, who had already come some twelve miles, I think.

Nevertheless, they were told to sing, and they began accordingly

one of those wild Baptist chants about the Jordan in which they

delight,--not destitute of music, but utterly unlike what is called

an Ethiopian melody.

The banks of the river on both sides are low; on the left covered

with wood, through which, here and there, at intervals, one could

see a planter’s or overseer’s cottage. The course of this great

combination of salt and fresh water sometimes changes, so that

houses are swept away and plantations submerged; but the land is

much valued nevertheless, on account of the fineness of the cotton

grown among the islands. “Cotton at 12 cents a pound, and we don’t

fear the world.”

As the boat was going to the fishing-ground, which lay towards the

mouth of the river at Hilton Head, our friends talked politics and

sporting combined,--the first of the usual character, the second

quite new.

I heard much of the mighty devil-fish which frequents these waters.

One of our party, Mr. Elliott, sen., a tall, knotty, gnarled sort

of man, with a mellow eye and a hearty voice, was a famous hand

at the sport, and had had some hair-breadth escapes in pursuit

of it. The fish is described as of enormous size and strength, a

monster ray, which possesses formidable antennæ-like horns, and a

pair of huge fins, or flappers, one of which rises above the water

as the creature moves below the surface. The hunters, as they may

be called, go out in parties--three or four boats, or more, with

good store of sharp harpoons and tow-lines, and lances. When they

perceive the creature, one boat takes the lead, and moves down

towards it, the others following, each with a harpooner standing

in the bow. The devil-fish sometimes is wary, and dives, when it

sees a boat, taking such a long spell below that it is never seen

again. At other times, however, it backs, and lets the boat come so

near as to allow of the harpooner striking it, or it dives for a

short way and comes up near the boats again. The moment the harpoon

is fixed, the line is paid out by the rush of the creature, which

is made with tremendous force, and all the boats at once hurry up,

so that one after another they are made fast to that in which the

lucky sportsman is seated. At length, when the line is run out,

checked from time to time as much as can be done with safety, the

crew take their oars and follow the course of the ray, which swims

so fast, however, that it keeps the line taut, and drags the whole

flotilla seawards. It depends on its size and strength to determine

how soon it rises to the surface; by degrees the line is warped in

and hove short till the boats are brought near, and when the ray

comes up it is attacked with a shower of lances and harpoons, and

dragged off into shoal water to die.

On one occasion, our Nimrod told us, he was standing in the bows

of the boat, harpoon in hand, when a devil-fish came up close to

him; he threw the harpoon, struck it, but at the same time the

boat ran against the creature with a shock which threw him right

forward on its back, and in an instant it caught him in its horrid

arms and plunged down with him to the depths. Imagine the horror

of the moment! Imagine the joy of the terrified drowning, dying

man, when, for some inscrutable reason, the devil-fish relaxed

its grip, and enabled him to strike for the surface, where he was

dragged into the boat more dead than alive by his terror-smitten

companions,--the only man who ever got out of the embraces of the

thing alive. “Tom is so tough that even a devil-fish could make

nothing out of him.”

At last we came to our fishing-ground. There was a substitute found

for the favourite crab, and it was fondly hoped our toils might

be rewarded with success. And these were toils, for the water is

deep and the lines heavy. But to alleviate them, some hampers were

produced from the stern, and wonderful pies from Mrs. Trescot’s

hands, and from those of fair ladies up the river whom we shall

never see, were spread out, and bottles which represented distant

cellars in friendly nooks far away. “No drum here! Up anchor, and

pull away a few miles lower down.” Trescot shook his head, and

again asserted his disbelief in fishing, or rather in catching,

and indeed made a sort of pretence at arguing that it was wiser

to remain quiet and talk philosophical politics; but, as judge of

appeal, I gave it against him, and the negroes bent to their oars,

and we went thumping through the spray, till, rounding a point of

land, we saw pitched on the sandy shore ahead of us, on the right

bank, a tent, and close by two boats. “There is a party at it!” A

fire was burning on the beach, and as we came near, Tom and Jack

and Harry were successively identified. “There’s no take on, or

they would not be on shore. This is very unfortunate.”

All the regret of my friends was on my account, so to ease their

minds I assured them I did not mind the disappointment much.

“Hallo, Dick! Caught any drum?” “A few this morning; bad sport now,

and will be till tide turns again.” I was introduced to all the

party from a distance, and presently I saw one of them raising from

a boat something in look and shape and colour like a sack of flour,

which he gave to a negro, who proceeded to carry it towards us in a

little skiff. “Thank you, Charley. I just want to let Mr. Russell

see a drum-fish.” And a very odd fish it was,--a thick lumpish

form, about 4½ feet long, with enormous head and scales, and teeth

like the grinders of a ruminant animal, acting on a great pad of

bone in the roof of the mouth,--a very unlovely thing, swollen with

roe, which is the great delicacy.

“No chance till the tide turned,”--but that would be too late for

our return, and so unwillingly we were compelled to steer towards

home, hearing now and then the singular noise like the tap on a

large unbraced drum, from which the fish takes its name. At first,

when I heard it, I was inclined to think it was made by some one

in the boat, so near and close did it sound; but soon it came from

all sides of us, and evidently from the depths of the water beneath

us,--not a sharp rat-tat-tap, but a full muffled blow with a heavy

thud on the sheepskin. Mr. Trescot told me that on a still evening

by the river-side the effect sometimes is most curious,--the

rolling and pattering is audible at a great distance. Our friends

were in excellent humour with everything and everybody, except the

Yankees, though they had caught no fish, and kept the negroes at

singing and rowing till at nightfall we landed at the island, and

so to bed after supper and a little conversation, in which Mrs.

Trescot again explained how easily she could maintain a battalion

on the island by her simple commissariat, already adapted to the

niggers, and that it would therefore be very easy for the South to

feed an army if the people were friendly.

_April 28th._--The church is a long way off, only available by

a boat and then a drive in a carriage. In the morning a child

brings in my water and boots--an intelligent, curly-headed

creature, dressed in a sort of sack, without any particular waist,

barefooted. I imagined it was a boy till it told me it was a girl.

I asked if she was going to church, which seemed to puzzle her

exceedingly; but she told me finally she would hear prayers from

“uncle” in one of the cottages. This use of the words “uncle” and

“aunt” for old people is very general. Is it because they have no

fathers and mothers? In the course of the day, the child, who was

fourteen or fifteen years of age, asked me “whether I would not

buy her. She could wash and sew very well, and she thought missus

wouldn’t want much for her.” The object she had in view leaked out

at last. It was a desire to see the glories of Beaufort, of which

she had heard from the fishermen; and she seemed quite wonderstruck

when she was informed I did not live there, and had never seen it.

She had never been outside the plantation in her life.

After breakfast we loitered about the grounds, strolling through

the cotton fields, which had as yet put forth no bloom or flower,

and coming down others to the thick fringes of wood and sedge

bordering the marshy banks of the island. The silence was profound,

broken only by the husky mid-day crowing of the cocks in the negro

quarters.

In the afternoon I took a short drive “to see a tree,” which was

not very remarkable, and looked in at the negro quarters and

the cotton mill. The old negroes were mostly indoors, and came

shambling out to the doors of their wooden cottages, making clumsy

bows at our approach, but not expressing any interest or pleasure

at the sight of their master and the strangers. They were shabbily

clad; in tattered clothes, bad straw hats and felt bonnets, and

broken shoes. The latter are expensive articles, and negroes cannot

dig without them. Trescot sighed as he spoke of the increase of

price since the troubles broke out.

The huts stand in a row, like a street, each detached, with a

poultry house of rude planks behind it. The mutilations which the

poultry undergo for the sake of distinction are striking. Some

are deprived of a claw, others have the wattles cut, and tails

and wings suffer in all ways. No attempt at any drainage or any

convenience existed near them, and the same remark applies to very

good houses of white people in the south. Heaps of oyster shells,

broken crockery, old shoes, rags, and feathers were found near

each hut. The huts were all alike windowless, and the apertures,

intended to be glazed some fine day, were generally filled up

with a deal board. The roofs were shingle, and the whitewash

which had once given the settlement an air of cleanliness, was

now only to be traced by patches which had escaped the action of

the rain. I observed that many of the doors were fastened by a

padlock and chain outside. “Why is that?” “The owners have gone

out, and honesty is not a virtue they have towards each other.

They would find their things stolen if they did not lock their

doors.” Mrs. Trescot, however, insisted on it that nothing could

exceed the probity of the slaves in the house, except in regard to

sweet things, sugar and the like; but money and jewels were quite

safe. It is obvious that some reason must exist for this regard

to the distinctions twixt meum and tuum in the case of masters

and mistresses, when it does not guide their conduct towards each

other, and I think it might easily be found in the fact that the

negroes could scarcely take money without detection. Jewels and

jewellery would be of little value to them; they could not wear

them, could not part with them. The system has made the white

population a police against the black race, and the punishment is

not only sure but grievous. Such things as they can steal from each