CHAPTER XVII. Visit to a plantation
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.