Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Harriet Martineau

The stranger has great difficulty in satisfying himself as to the bounds of the unconsciousness of oppression which he finds urged as the exculpatory plea of the slaveholder, while he mourns over it as the great hinderance in the way of social reformation. It has been seen that an audience at the theatre will quietly receive a hit which would subject the author to punishment if he were an abolitionist. When I listened to the stories told by ladies to each other in their morning calls, showing the cleverness of their slaves, I often saw that they could not but be as fully convinced as I was that their slaves were as altogether human as themselves. I heard so many anecdotes—somewhat of the character of the following—that I began to suspect that one use of slaves is to furnish topics for the amusement of their owners.

Sam was sadly apt to get drunk, and had been often reproved by his master on that account. One day his master found him intoxicated, and cried out, "What, drunk again, Sam? I scolded you for being drunk last night, and here you are drunk again." "No, massa, same drunk, massa; same drunk."

But enough of this dark side of the social picture. I find myself dwelling long upon it, and frequently recurring to it, because all other subjects shrink into insignificance beside it; but these others must not be forgotten.

The gay visiting season at New-Orleans was over before we arrived, but we were in several parties. The division between the American and French factions is visible even in the drawing-room. The French complain that the Americans will not speak French; will not meet their neighbours even half way in accommodation of speech. The Americans ridicule the toilet practices of the French ladies; their liberal use of rouge and pearl powder. If the French ladies do thus beautify themselves, they do it with great art. I could not be quite sure of the fact in any one instance, while I am disposed to believe it from the clumsy imitation of the art which I saw in the countenance of an American rival or two. I beheld with strong disgust the efforts of a young lady from Philadelphia to make herself as French as possible by these disagreeable means. She was under twenty, and would have been rather pretty if she had given herself a fair chance; but her coarsely-painted eyebrows, daubed cheeks, and powdered throat inspired a disgust which she must be singularly unwise not to have anticipated. If this were a single case it would not be worth mentioning; but I was told by a resident that it is a common practice for young ladies to paint both white and red, under the idea of accommodating themselves to the French manners of the place. They had better do it by practising the French language than by copying the French toilet. New-Orleans is the only place in the United States where I am aware of having seen a particle of rouge.

Large parties are much alike everywhere, and they leave no very distinct impression. Except for the mixture of languages, and the ample provision of ices, fans, and ventilators, the drawing-room assemblages of New-Orleans bear a strong resemblance to the routs and dinner-parties of a country town in England. Our pleasantest days in the great Southern city were those which we spent quietly in the homes of intimate acquaintances. I vividly remember one which I was told was a true Louisiana day. We ladies carried our workbags, and issued forth by eleven o'clock, calling by the way for a friend, Ailsie's mistress. The house we were to visit was a small shaded dwelling, with glass doors opening into a pretty garden. In a cool parlour we sat at work, talking of things solemn and trivial, of affairs native and foreign, till dinner, which was at two. We were then joined by the gentlemen. We left the dinner-table early, and the gentlemen trundled rocking-chairs and low stools into the garden, where we sat in the shade all the afternoon, the ladies working, the gentlemen singing Irish melodies, telling good native stories, and throwing us all into such a merry mood, that we positively refused the siesta which we were urged to take, and forgot what a retribution we might expect from the moschetoes for sitting so long under the trees. After tea we got to the piano, and were reminded at last by the darkness of the number of hours which this delightful Louisiana visit had consumed. We all walked home together through the quiet streets, the summer lightning quivering through the thick trees in singular contrast with the steady moonlight.

We should have liked to spend every day thus, with friends who always made us forget that we were far from home; but a traveller's duty is to see every variety of society which comes within his reach. I was sought by some, and met accidentally with other persons who were on the eve of departure for Texas. Attempts were made to induce me to go myself, and also to convince me of the eligibility of the country as a place of settlement for British emigrants, in the hope that the arrival of a cargo of settlers from England might afford to the Texans a plea of countenance from the British government. The subject of Texas is now so well understood, that there is no occasion to enlarge upon the state of the question as it was two years and a half ago; and besides, if I were to give a precise account of the conversations between myself and the friends of the Texan aggression, my story would not be believed. The folly and romance of some of the agents employed, and the villany which peeped out of every admission extorted from the advocates of the scheme, would make my readers as astonished as I was myself, that any attempts should be made in the neighbourhood of the scene to gain the sympathy of strangers who were at all above the rank of knaves and fools. Suffice it that one class of advocates told me that I should be perfectly safe there, as the inhabitants were chiefly persons who could fight bravely against the Mexicans, from having nothing to lose, and from their having been compelled to leave the United States by their too free use of arms: while the opposite species of agent enlarged, not only on the beauty of the sunsets and the greenness of the savannahs, but on the delightful security of living under the same laws as the people of the United States, and amid a condition of morals kept perfectly pure by Colonel Austin's practice of having every person whom he conceived to have offended whipped at the cart's tail; the fact being carefully concealed that Colonel Austin was at that time, and had been for two years, in jail in the Mexican capital.

Our friends indulged us in what they knew to be our favourite pleasure, in country drives. There can be no great choice of drives in the neighbourhood of a city which stands in a swamp; but such places as were attainable we reached. One was a ropewalk, 1200 feet long, under a roof. It looked picturesque, like every other ropewalk that I ever saw; but what struck me most about it was the sudden and profound repose we plunged into from the bustle of the city. The cottages of the negroes were imbowered in green, and the whole place had a tropical air, with its thickets of fig and catalpa, and its rows of Pride-of-India trees. This last tree looks to my eye like a shrub which has received mistaken orders to grow into a tree. Its fragrance is its great charm. The mixture of its lilach flowers with its green leaves impairs the effect of the foliage, as far as colour is concerned; and the foliage is, besides, not massy enough. A single sprig of it is beautiful; and, probably, its fragrance propitiates the eyes of those who plant it, for I found it considered a beautiful tree. The dark shades of these thickets are enlivened by a profusion of roses, and the air is fanned by myriads of insects' wings. How the negroes make friendship with the tribes of insects which drive the white man to forego the blessing of natural shade, I could never understand; but the black never looks more contented than when he shrouds himself in rank vegetation, and lives in a concert of insect chirping, droning, and trumpeting.

We were taken to the Battle-ground, the native soil of General Jackson's political growth. Seeing the Battle-ground was all very well; but my delight was in the drive to it, with the Mississippi on the right hand, and on the left gardens of roses which bewildered the imagination. I really believed at the time that I saw more roses that morning than during the whole course of my life before. Gardens are so rare in America, from want of leisure and deficiency of labour, that, when they do occur, they are a precious luxury to the traveller, especially when they are in their spring beauty. In the neighbourhood of Mobile, my relative, who has a true English love of gardening, had introduced the practice; and I there saw villas and cottages surrounded with a luxuriant growth of Cherokee roses, honeysuckles, and myrtles, while groves of orange-trees appeared in the background; but not even these equalled what I saw, this warm 4th of May, on our way to the Battle-ground. One villa, built by an Englishman, was obstinately inappropriate to the scene and climate; red brick, without gallery, or even eaves or porch; the mere sight of it was scorching. All the rest were an entertainment to the eye as they stood, white and cool, amid their flowering magnolias, and their blossoming alleys, hedges, and thickets of roses. In returning, we alighted at one of these delicious retreats, and wandered about, losing each other among the thorns, the ceringas, and the wilderness of shrubs. We met in a grotto, under the summer-house, cool with a greenish light, and veiled at its entrance with a tracery of creepers. There we lingered, amid singing or silent dreaming. There seemed to be too little that was real about the place for ordinary voices to be heard speaking about ordinary things.

The river was rising, as we were told in a tone of congratulation. The eddies would be filled, and our voyage expedited. The canes in the sugar-grounds were showing themselves above the soil; young sprouts that one might almost see grow. A negro was feed to gather flowers for us, and he filled the carriage with magnolia, honeysuckle, and roses, grinning the while at our pleasure, and at his own good luck in falling in with us.

The Battle-ground is rather more than four miles from the city. We were shown the ditch and the swamp by which the field of action was bounded on two sides, and some remains of the breastwork of earth which was thrown up. There has been great exaggeration about the cotton-bags, of which there were only a few in a line with the earthen defence, instead of an entire breastwork, as has been supposed in all the jokes and all the admiration which have been expended on the expedient. It was a deadly battle-field. It makes the spectator shudder to see the wide open space, the unsheltered level, over which the British soldiers were compelled to march to certain destruction. Never was greater bravery shown by soldiers; and never, perhaps, was bravery more abused by the unskilfulness of leaders. The result proves this. The British killed were nearly 3000: the Americans had six killed and seven wounded. By all accounts, General Jackson showed consummate ability throughout the whole brief campaign, and the British leaders an imbecility no less remarkable.