ON THE PLANTATIONS.
A geographical description of these outlying islands of South Carolina is hardly necessary at a time when we are studying the map of the republic under the guidance of bayonets and rifled cannon; and the guns of Admiral Du Pont revealed more of Port Royal and its surroundings than we should ever have learned from our geographies. Previous to the rebellion these islands seem to have been rarely visited—so rarely, indeed, that the presence of one of our naval vessels in the Beaufort river, a few years ago, was the signal for a week's festivities and a general gathering of all the inhabitants to see the strangers—while the 'cotton lords' vied with each other in entertaining the distinguished guests. For the most part the islands are low, abounding in salt-water creeks and marshes, and covered, here and there, with forests of pine and live oak. The climate in winter is delightful, and the rapid advance of vegetation in March and April—the sudden bursting into bloom of a great variety of flowers and flowering shrubs—lends additional charms to the early spring. Sitting, on one of those delicious April days, in the upper piazza of an old plantation house—the eye resting on the long stretch of the cotton fields, now green with the growing plant—or tracing the windings of the creek through the numerous small islands, till it is lost in the haze which covers all the distance—or, again, watching the shadows as they pass over the groves of oak and pine—while over the whole scene there broods the stillness of a midsummer's noon—I could but wonder at the madness which had driven the former dwellers in such a fair land into the desperate hazards and unaccustomed privations of civil war.
Those who visit these islands to-day, must not expect to realize, in the altered condition of affairs, their ideal of plantation life, however that ideal may have been formed. The change which has been wrought in little more than a year, is truly wonderful. The traces of slavery may indeed be found in an exhausted soil and an exhausted race, but all outward signs of the institution have been removed. 'The whip is lost, the handcuff broken,' the whipping post destroyed, and the cotton gins broken down. At the 'great house' you find, instead of the master and overseer, the superintendent and school teacher. In the field, the cotton tasks are comparatively small, but the garden patch in the rear of the cabin is large, well fenced in and well cultivated. If you see few indications of positive happiness, you find no appearances of overburdened misery. There is about the whole place something of the air of a New England farmstead, where labor, being honored, crowns even the humblest with dignity and peace. You take unspeakable comfort in the fact, that, open what door you may into the life of these people, there is no skeleton of oppression to startle and haunt you. Go with me, then, on this calm, bright day of early March, to visit one of the plantations on Port Royal Island, a few miles out of Beaufort. The quartermaster kindly furnishes us with a carriage, somewhat shabby and rickety to be sure, but one of the best that 'Secesh' has left for our use. Our steeds, too, are only slow-moving Government mules, but there is one aristocratic feature of our establishment to remind us of the life that was, viz.: a negro coachman 'educated to drive,' under whose skilful guidance many a happy family party have been conveyed from plantation to plantation on social visits like ours to-day. Uncle Ned speaks kindly of his 'ole massa,' and says he 'would hab stayed wid 'um, ef massa hadn't run away from heself.'
'But why didn't you go with him, uncle?'
'Oh, sah, I could nebber go to de Secesh.'
Doubtless many more of the house slaves and body servants of the planters would have followed their masters, had they not been deterred by fear of the rebel soldiers and hard work in the trenches.
'Use your whip, uncle,' and away we go at a respectable trot over the principal road on the island, which, from the fact of its having been made of oyster shells, is called the 'Shell road,' and extends ten miles to Port Royal Ferry, at the extreme western point of the island. Timely showers have laid the dust, and all the trees and bushes wear clean faces. In the yards there are peach trees in bloom, beautiful crimson japonicas, the jonquil and snowdrop; while everywhere by the roadside we see the ungainly form and coarse flower of the prickly pear. Passing the rifle pits and picket station, we soon turn off from the Shell road, and pass through what was formerly a handsome forest of pines, but which now has been cleared by the soldier's axe, and rejoices in the title of 'pickpocket tract.' Few of the plantations lie on the main road, and many of them, like the one we are now seeking, are approached only by going over several cross roads and by lanes. Our last turn takes us into a handsome avenue of live oaks, whose overarching branches are adorned with long ringlets of the graceful Spanish moss. In the woods on either side of the drive way are dogwood and Pride-of-Asia trees in full blossom, wild honeysuckle, and the sweet yellow jasmine which fills the air with its delicious fragrance. As we drive into the yard, the plantation house suddenly appears to view, half hidden by the dense foliage of magnolia and orange trees. Although called one of the finest residences on the island, the house is inferior to many of our larger farmhouses in New England, and is a simple two-story structure of wood, resting on brick piles, with a veranda in front. Just beyond the path that leads by the house, is a handsome flower garden, while both in the rear of the 'great house' and beyond the flower garden are rows of negro huts. We are soon greeted by our hosts—one, a brave Vermonter, who served faithfully in the army till disabled, the other, a Quaker of Philadelphia, who has left family and friends to labor for the freedman—and ushered into the principal room of the house, where we are presented to a party of the neighboring superintendents and school teachers. Dinner is all ready, and we sit down to a right royal entertainment, the chief dishes of which are portions of an immense drumfish cooked in various fashion. Few entertainers can prove more agreeable than Northern men with Southern hospitality, and we eat and make merry without even a thought of Colonel Barnwell, whose home we have thus 'invaded,' and who, perchance, is shivering in the cold, and suffering the privations of a rebel camp in Eastern Virginia. We must not omit the praise due to our cook, a woman taken from the 'field hands,' and whose only instructors have been our hosts, neither of whom can boast of much knowledge of the art of cooking. It would, however, be hardly safe to trust to an untutored field hand, as I once learned to my cost, when my contraband of the kitchen department called me to dinner by announcing that the eggs had been boiling for an hour, and the oysters stewing for twice that time!