“Malaria?” I hazard interrogatively.
“Worse—what we call country fever, which is more dangerous and often fatal. If it once gets thoroughly into the system people die of it, or are sufferers for life.”
Presently we are overtaken by waggon loads of men, both black and white—all singing merry rollicking songs, and driving at a rapid pace towards the city. We draw our modest vehicle to one side as they rattle and clatter past us. We then learn that they are the factory phosphate hands, driving back to their homes in the city. Although the phosphate works are only an hour’s distance from Charleston they are totally deserted every evening; not a single living creature remains upon the premises, as it is injurious to breathe the poisonous air after the sun has set, for then the noxious vapours rise and fill the air with disease and death. Over the extensive works, where the sound of pickaxe and shovel and whirring wheels and human voices are echoing all the day, a silence falls, and the malarial fiend wanders through its confined space seeking, but seeking in vain, for some human prey to torment and kill with its subtle kiss.
This lurking evil lies only in the one direction of the city; on the other side and extending round the harbour are some delightful summer resorts, Mount Pleasant and Sullivan Island being among the most prominent, both being easily reached by a pleasant river trip. The Ferry Company’s boats make the journey in about an hour, and make it many times in the day; but perhaps the loveliest of all Charleston’s surroundings is Summerville, which is reached by the South Carolina railway. It is situated in the heart of the pine woods, on a ridge which extends from the Ashley to the Cooper river; the climate is health-giving and invigorating, and in summer, though the days are warm, there is always a deliciously cool breeze in the evening, and there are no mosquitoes to make night horrible to the sleeper; it is serene and peaceful as a corner of the original paradise.
On our way to Fort Sumter we have to pass through the market, which is quite unique of its kind. It is a remarkably fine building in the form of a temple; the front faces Meeting Street, the most picturesque of all Charleston thoroughfares. Passing through a handsome lofty archway with a carved stone front and iron gates—now open, as the marketing operations are in full swing—we find ourselves in a long narrow corridor with groined roof and wide windows and doors on either side, where gawky, ill-looking buzzards are gathered, flapping their wings and feeding upon refuse.
As we walk up this narrow aisle piles of rich luscious fruit rise to the right and the left of us; there are hills of pine-apples, and yellow and red bananas, festoons of purple grapes, and mountains of strawberries, bushels of black and white currants, pumpkins, and that arch impostor, the great green water-melon, all artistically arranged, and forming a perfect mosaic of nature’s own colouring—only the rough red face of the honest British gooseberry is nowhere to be seen.
Next comes the vegetable department, where everything green looks crisp and fresh, with the diamond dew-drops still decorating the folded leaves, and everything coloured seems painted in Nature’s brightest hues. Dainty young carrots, and tiny turnips, looking like baby snowballs, are nestling among the sedate old cabbages, whose great white hearts seem enlarged almost to bursting; and the oyster and egg plant, unknown in European markets, are hiding among the common but useful rough-coated potato; and the delicate asparagus, with its purple tips and straight white stems, bound up in big bundles, the large and well-proportioned rallying round and covering up the crippled weaklings of their kind, and performing this manœuvre so artfully that the most Argus-eyed housekeeper is sometimes taken in by the false pretence. The scarlet runners and fine marrowfat peas seem bursting out of their skins with joy at being gathered at last; from the very moment when they first unfolded their pink and purple buds they have been forced to creep up and cling to those tormenting sticks, twisting and twining and working so hard, night and day, till they were tired of living, and would really have gone soon to seed, and once more hidden themselves in their native earth. Now they are at rest—they don’t know they are going to be boiled in an hour.
Here and there we come upon a silly-looking turtle lying on its back, its flabby flippers wriggling feebly as though trying to turn over and crawl back to its native element.
Next we arrive at the fish and poultry division. There are golden pats of butter dressed in white frills and ornamented with violets, which, it is said, impart to it a delicious fragrance and flavour; and eggs from all the feathery tribe, white and brown, speckled and light blue, are eternally rolling over, trying to crack one another’s shells with all their might. Here plump young chickens, who were unfortunate enough to be born in the early spring, are strung up beside their tough old grandfathers; and prairie hens, and other wild birds from desolate regions, hang with stretched necks and drooping wings above the slabs of white marble, where fish from all waters are spread in tempting array. The shining red mullet, and the fat ugly sheep’s-head, and even the humble red horse, lie side by side with the aristocratic salmon; and the poor little baby porker, slaughtered in its infancy, before it had even had time to wear a ring through its nose or grout in the gutter, is lying close by, stiff and stark, with a lemon in its mouth.
Framed, like a picture, by the archway at the opposite end of this long aisle, lie the sparkling waters of the bay, with the swelling green hills beyond, and the little wheezy vessel which is to take us to Fort Sumter bobbing up and down by the pier. The little steamer, with the stars and stripes fluttering front the masthead, is puffing and blowing and making a great fuss, plunging head foremost, and shrieking like an angry virago for us to make haste, as she is in a hurry to get away.