Records of Later Life

by Fanny Kemble

I supposed so, too, but did not inquire whether the gentleman extended his inference.

We pursued our way from Wilmington to Havre de Grace on the railroad, and crossed one or two inlets from the Chesapeake, of considerable width, upon bridges of a most perilous construction, and which, indeed, have given way once or twice in various parts already. They consist merely of wooden piles driven into the river, across which the iron rails are laid, only just raising the train above the level of the water. To traverse with an immense train, at full steam-speed, one of these creeks, nearly a mile in width, is far from agreeable, let one be never so little nervous; and it was with infinite cordiality each time that I greeted the first bush that hung over the water, indicating our approach to terra firma. At Havre de Grace we crossed the Susquehanna in a steamboat, which cut its way through the ice an inch in thickness with marvelous ease and swiftness, and landed us on the other side, where we again entered the railroad carriages to pursue our road.

DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL. We arrived in Baltimore at about half-past two, and went immediately on board the Alabama steamboat, which was to convey us to Portsmouth, and which started about three-quarters of an hour after, carrying us down the Chesapeake Bay to the shores of Virginia. We obtained an unutterably hard beefsteak for our dinner, having had nothing on the road, but found ourselves but little fortified by the sight of what we really could not swallow. Between six and seven, however, occurred that most comprehensive repast, a steamboat tea; after which, and the ceremony of choosing our berths, I betook myself to the reading of "Oliver Twist" till half-past eleven at night. I wonder if Mr. Dickens had any sensible perception of the benedictions which flew to him from the bosom of the broad Chesapeake as I closed his book; I am afraid not. Helen says, "'tis pity well-wishing has no body," so it is that gratitude, admiration, and moral approbation have none, for the sake of such a writer, and yet he might, peradventure, be smothered. I had a comical squabble with the stewardess,—a dirty, funny, good-humored old negress, who was driven almost wild by my exorbitant demands for towels, of which she assured me one was a quite ample allowance. Mine, alas! were deep down in my trunk, beyond all possibility of getting at, even if I could have got at the trunk, which I very much doubt. Now I counted no less than seven handsome looking-glasses on board of this steamboat, where one towel was considered all that was requisite, not even for each individual, but for each washing-room. This addiction to ornament, and neglect of comfort and convenience, is a strong characteristic of Americans at present, luxuries often abounding where decencies cannot be procured. 'Tis the necessary result of a young civilization, and reminds me a little of Rosamond's purple jar, or Sir Joshua Reynolds's charming picture of the naked child, with a court cap full of flowers and feathers stuck on her head.

After a very wretched night on board the boat, we landed about nine o'clock, at Portsmouth, Virginia. I must not omit to mention that my morning ablutions were as much excepted to by the old negress as those of the preceding evening. Indeed, she seemed perfectly indignant at the forbearance of one lady, who withdrew from the dressing-room on finding me there, exclaiming—

"Go in, go in, I tell you; they always washes two at a time in them rooms."

At Portsmouth there is a fine dry dock and navy yard, as I was informed.... The appearance of the place in general was mean and unpicturesque. Here I encountered the first slaves I ever saw, and the sight of them in no way tended to alter my previous opinions upon this subject. They were poorly clothed; looked horribly dirty, and had a lazy recklessness in their air and manner as they sauntered along, which naturally belongs to creatures without one of the responsibilities which are the honorable burthen of rational humanity.

Our next stopping-place was a small town called Suffolk. Here the negroes gathered in admiring crowds round the railroad carriages. They seem full of idle merriment and unmeaning glee, and regard with an intensity of curiosity perfectly ludicrous the appearance and proceedings of such whites as they easily perceive are strangers in their part of the country. As my child leaned from the carriage-window, her brilliant complexion drew forth sundry exclamations of delight from the sooty circle below, and one woman, grinning from ear to ear, and displaying a most dazzling set of grinders, drew forward a little mahogany-colored imp, her grandchild, and offered her to the little "Missis" for her waiting-maid. I told her the little missis waited upon herself; whereupon she set up a most incredulous giggle, and reiterated her proffers, in the midst of which our kettle started off, and we left her.

To describe to you the tract of country through which we now passed would be impossible, so forlorn a region it never entered my imagination to conceive. Dismal by nature, indeed, as well as by name, is that vast swamp, of which we now skirted the northern edge, looking into its endless pools of black water, where the melancholy cypress and juniper-trees alone overshadowed the thick-looking surface, their roots all globular, like huge bulbous plants, and their dark branches woven together with a hideous matting of giant creepers, which clung round their stems, and hung about the dreary forest like a drapery of withered snakes.

It looked like some blasted region lying under an enchanter's ban, such as one reads of in old stories. Nothing lived or moved throughout the loathsome solitude, and the sunbeams themselves seemed to sicken and grow pale as they glided like ghosts through these watery woods. Into this wilderness it seems impossible that the hand of human industry, or the foot of human wayfaring should ever penetrate; no wholesome growth can take root in its slimy depths; a wild jungle chokes up parts of it with a reedy, rattling covert for venomous reptiles; the rest is a succession of black ponds, sweltering under black cypress boughs,—a place forbid.

The wood which is cut upon its borders is obliged to be felled in winter, for the summer, which clothes other regions with flowers, makes this pestilential waste alive with rattlesnakes, so that none dare venture within its bounds, and I should even apprehend that, traveling as rapidly as one does on the railroad, and only skirting this district of dismay, one might not escape the fetid breathings it sends forth when the warm season has quickened its stagnant waters and poisonous vegetation.