and Sam would throw back his head and laugh a regular contagion into the whole crowd—on the boat and "on de sho", opening a mouth which one of the darkies asserted was "de biggest mouf dis nigger ebber saw on any human bein' 'cept a aligator"; or, as the mate expressed it: "It was like the opening of navigation."
"Dish yer nigger he fire at the middle do';
Shake 'em up libely for to make de boat go",
was a somewhat ornate description of Mr. Marshall's own duties on board the boat. As a matter of fact he did very little firing, personally, although when a race was on he could shovel coal or pitch four-foot wood into the middle door with the best of them, at the same time, singing at the top of his voice. Upon ordinary occasions he let the other darkies pitch the cord wood while he exercised a general supervision over them, as became an acknowledged leader.
To hear these darkies sing the real slave music, which was older than the singers, older than the plantation, as old as Africa itself, wherein the ancestors of some of them at least, might have been kings and princes as well as freemen, was better than the fo'c'sle comedies enacted for the amusement of the passengers. These minor chords carried a strain of heartbreak, as in the lines:
"De night is dark, de day is long
And we are far fum home,
Weep, my brudders, weep!"
And the closing lines:
"De night is past, de long day done,