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ROLL JORDAN.

Little children sitting on the tree of life. To hear the Jordan roll; O
roll, Jordan roll, Jordan roll, Jordan roll. We march the angel march, O
march the angel march, O my soul is rising heavenward To hear the Jordan roll.

The verses vary only in recitation. If Mr. Jones is present he will hear, "Mr. Jones is sitting on the tree of life." There is no pause, and before the last roll is ended the one giving the recitative places another personage on the tree, and thus Jordan rolls along.

As the song goes on the enthusiasm rises. They sing louder and stronger. The recitative is given with increased vigor, and the chorus swells with increasing volume. They beat time, at first, with their hands, then their feet. They rise from their seats. William begins to shuffle his feet. Anna, a short, thick-set woman, wearing a checkered dress, and an apron, which once was a window-curtain, claps her hands, makes a short, quick jerk of her body, stamps her feet on the unaccented part of the measure, keeping exact syncopation. Catherine and Sancho catch the inspiration. They go round in a circle, shuffling, jerking, shouting louder and louder, while those outside of the circle respond with increasing vigor, all stamping, clapping their hands, and rolling out the chorus. William seems to be in a trance, his eyes are fixed, yet he goes on with a double-shuffle, till the perspiration stands in beads upon his face. Every joint seems hung on wires. Feet, legs, arms, head, body, and hands swing and jump like a child's dancing Dandy Jim. Sancho enters into it with all his heart, soul, mind, and might, clapping his hands, rolling his eyes, looking upward in ecstasy and outward upon the crowd, as if he were their spiritual father and guardian.

Thus it went on till nature was exhausted. When the meeting broke up, they all came round in procession, shaking hands with the superintendent and the strangers present, and singing a parting song,

"There's a meeting here to-night!"

The superintendent informed me that the children who attended school could not be coaxed to take part in those praise meetings. They had learned to sing Sunday-school songs, and evidently looked upon the plantation songs of their fathers and mothers as belonging to their bondage and not worthy to be sung now that they were free.

A short distance from Hilton Head is the town of Mitchelville, laid out by the lamented astronomer, General Mitchell, who fell a victim to the yellow-fever in the summer of 1862. The town is on a broad sandy plain, bordered by groves and thickets of live-oak, palmetto, and the coast pine.

At that time there were about seventy houses,—or cabins rather,—of the rudest description, built of logs, chinked with clay brought up from the beach, roofs of long split shingles, board floors, windows with shutters,—plain board blinds, without sash or glass. Each house had a quarter of an acre of land attached. There was no paint or lime, not even whitewash, about them. It was just such a place as might be expected in a new country, where there were no saw-mills or brick-kilns,—a step in advance of a hole in the ground or a bark wigwam. It was the beginning of the experiment of civilization on the part of a semi-barbarous people just released from abject bondage, and far from being free men.