You will observe, too, the house of the “overseer” standing apart; or, as in the case of the plantation Besançon, at the end of the double row, and fronting the main avenue. This, of course, is of a more pretentious style of architecture; can boast of Venetian blinds to the windows, two stories of height, and a “porch.” It is enclosed with a paling to keep off the intrusion of the children, but the dread of the painted cowhide renders the paling almost superfluous.
As I approached the “quarter,” I was struck with the peculiar character of the picture it presented,—the overseer’s house towering above the humbler cabins, seeming to protect and watch over them, suggesting the similarity of a hen with her brood of chickens.
Here and there the great purple swallows boldly cleft the air, or, poised on wing by the entrance of their gourd-shell dwellings, uttered their cheerful “tweet—tweet—tweet;” while the fragrant odour of the China-trees and magnolias scented the atmosphere to a long distance around.
When nearer still, I could distinguish the hum of human voices—of men, women, and children—in that peculiar tone which characterises the voice of the African. I fancied the little community as I had before seen it—the men and women engaged in various occupations—some resting from their labour, (for it was now after field hours,) seated in front of their tent-like cabins, under the shade-tree, or standing in little groups gaily chatting with each other—some by the door mending their fishing-nets and tackle, by which they intended to capture the great “cat” and “buffalo fish” of the bayous—some “chopping” firewood at the common “wood-pile,” which half-grown urchins were “toating,” to the cabins, so that “aunty” might prepare the evening-meal.
I was musing on the patriarchal character of such a picture, half-inclined towards the “one-man power”—if not in the shape of a slaveholder, yet something after the style of Rapp and his “social economists.”
“What a saving of state machinery,” soliloquised I, “in this patriarchal form! How charmingly simple! and yet how complete and efficient!”
Just so, but I had overlooked one thing, and that was the imperfectness of human nature—the possibility—the probability—nay, the almost certainty, that the patriarch will pass into the tyrant.
Hark! a voice louder than common! It is a cry!
Of cheerful import? No—on the contrary, it sounds like the utterance of some one in pain. It is a cry of agony! The murmur of other voices, too, heard at short intervals, carries to my ear that deep portentous sound which accompanies some unnatural occurrence.
Again I hear the cry of agony—deeper and louder than before! It comes from the direction of the negro quarter. What is causing it?