“I thought mine pretty good.”
Not a sneer, or a gleam of vanity, and Belshazzar and I warmed up together. Scott’s man of leather occurred to my mind, and I felt sure that I could guess my man’s chord. Cotton! I touched it, and in a moment he became animated, civil; hospitable even. I was immediately informed that this was a famous cotton region: “when it was first settled up by ’Mericans, used to be reckoned the gardying of the world. The almightiest rich sile God Almighty ever shuck down. All on’t owned by big-bugs.” Finally he confided to me that he was an overseer for one of them, “one of the biggest sort.” This greatest of the local hemipteras was not now on his plantation, but had “gone North to Paris or Saratogy, or some of them places.”
Wearing no waistcoat, the overseer carried a pistol, without a thought of concealment, in the fob of his trousers. The distance to Woodville, which, after he had exhausted his subject of cotton, I tried again to ascertain, he did not know, and would not attempt to guess. The ignorance of the more brutalized slaves is often described by saying of them that they cannot count above twenty. I find many of the whites but little more intelligent. At all events, it is rarely that you meet, in the plantation districts, a man, whether white or black, who can give you any clear information about the roads, or the distances between places in his own vicinity. While in or near Bayou Sara and St. Francisville, I asked, at different times, ten men, black and white, the distance to Woodville (the next town to the northward on the map). None answered with any appearance of certainty, and those who ventured to give an opinion, differed in their estimates as much as ten miles. I found the actual distance to be, I think, about twenty-four miles. After riding by my side for a mile or two the overseer suddenly turned off at a fork in the road, with hardly more ceremony than he had used in joining me.
For some miles about St. Francisville the landscape has an open, suburban character, with residences indicative of rapidly accumulating wealth, and advancement in luxury, or careless expenditure, among the proprietors. For twenty miles to the north of the town, there is on both sides a succession of large sugar and cotton plantations. Much land still remains uncultivated, however. The roadside fences are generally hedges of roses—Cherokee and sweet brier. These are planted first by the side of a common rail fence, which, while they are young, supports them in the manner of a trellis; as they grow older they fall each way, and mat together, finally forming a confused, sprawling, slovenly thicket, often ten feet in breadth and four to six feet high. Trumpet creepers, grape-vines, green-briers, and in very rich soil, cane, grow up through the mat of roses, and add to its strength. It is not as pretty as a more upright hedge, yet very agreeable, and, at one or two points, where the road was narrow, deep, and lane like, delightful memories of England were brought to mind.
There were frequent groves of magnolia grandiflora, large trees, and every one in the glory of full blossom. The magnolia does not, however, mass well, and the road-side woods were much finer, where the beech, elm, and liquid amber formed the body, and the magnolias stood out against them, magnificent chandeliers of fragrance. The large-leaved magnolia, very beautiful at this season, was more rarely seen.
The soil seems generally rich, though much washed off the higher ground. The ploughing is directed with some care not to favour this process. Young pine trees, however, and other indications of rapid impoverishment, are seen on many plantations.
The soil is a sandy loam, so friable that the negroes always working in large gangs, superintended by a driver with a whip, continued their hoeing in the midst of quite smart showers, and when the road had become a poaching mud.
Only once did I see a gang which had been allowed to discontinue its work on account of the rain. This was after a heavy thunder shower, and the appearance of the negroes whom I met crossing the road in returning to the field, from the gin-house to which they had retreated, was remarkable. First came, led by an old driver carrying a whip, forty of the largest and strongest women I ever saw together; they were all in a simple uniform dress of a bluish check stuff, the skirts reaching little below the knee; their legs and feet were bare; they carried themselves loftily, each having a hoe over the shoulder, and walking with a free, powerful swing. Behind them came the cavalry, thirty strong, mostly men, but a few of them women, two of whom rode astride on the plough mules. A lean and vigilant white overseer, on a brisk pony, brought up the rear. The men wore small blue Scotch bonnets; many of the women, handkerchiefs, turban fashion, and a few nothing at all on their heads. They were evidently a picked lot. I thought that every one would pass for a “prime” cotton hand.
The slaves generally of this district appear uncommonly well—doubtless, chiefly, because the large incomes of their owners enables them to select the best from the yearly exportations of Virginia and Kentucky, but also because they are systematically well fed.
The plantation residences were of a cottage class, sometimes, but not usually, with extensive and tasteful grounds about them.