They buried the unfortunate man upon the plantation, and Mr. Clay Gourrier took charge of his effects. The most remarkable thing about this rowing match was the credulity of the people along the route. They accepted Cloud's statement without stopping to consider that if there were any truth in it, the other side, with their five thousand dollars at stake, would surely take some interest in the matter, and have men posted along the route to see that the bet was fairly won. The fact that no bet had been made never seemed to dawn upon them; but, like too many, they sympathized without reasoning.
Being forced to abandon all hopes of taking the Bayou Manchac and the interesting country of the Acadians in my route southward, I rowed down the river, past the curious old town of Plaquemine, and by four o'clock in the afternoon commenced to search for an island or creek where a good camping-ground for Sunday might be found. The buildings of White Castle Plantation soon arose on the right bank, and as I approached the little cooperage-shop of the large estate, which was near the water, a kindly hail came from the master-cooper and his assistant. Acceding to their desire "to look at the boat," I let the two men drag her ashore, and while they examined the craft, I studied the representatives of two very different types of laboring-men. One was from Madison, Indiana; the other belonged to the poor white class of the south. We built a fire near the boat, and passed half the night in conversation.
These men gave me much valuable information about Louisiana. The southern cooper had lived much among the bayous and swamps of that region of the state subjected to overflow. He was an original character, and never so happy as when living a Robinson Crusoe life in the woods. His favorite expression seemed to be, "Oh, shucks!" and his yarns were so interlarded with this exclamation, that in giving one of his stories I must ask the reader to imagine that expressive utterance about every other word. Affectionately hugging his knee, and generously expectorating as he made a transfer of his quid from one side of his mouth to the other, he said:
"A fellow don't always want company in the woods. If you have a pardner, he ort to be jes like yourself, or you'll be sartin to fall out. I was riving out shingles and coopers' stock once with a pardner, and times got mighty hard, sowe turned fishermen. There was some piles standing in Plaquemine Bayou, and the drift stuff collected round them and made a sort of little island. Me and Bill Bates went to work and rived out some lengths of cypress, and built a snug shanty on top of the piles. As it wasn't real estate we was on, nobody couldn't drive us off; so we fished for the Plaquemine folks.
"By-and-by a king-snake swimmed over to our island, and tuck up his abode in a hole in a log. The cuss got kind of affectionate, and after a while crawled right into our hut to catch flies and other varmin. At last he got so tame he'd let me scratch his back. Then he tuck to our moss bed, and used up a considerable portion of his time there. Bill Bates hadn't the manners of a hog, and he kept a-droppin' hints to me, every few days, that he'd 'drap into that snake some night and squeeze the life out of him.' This made me mad, and I nat'rally tuck the snake's part, particularly as he would gobble up and crush the neck of every water-snake that cum ashore on our island. One thing led to another, till Bill Bates swore he'd kill my snake. Sez I to him, 'Billum,' (I always called him Billum when I MEANT BIZNESS,) 'ef you hurt a hair of the head of my snake, I'll hop on to you.' That settled our pardnership. Bill Bates knowed what I meant, and he gathered up his traps and skedaddled.
"Then I went to New Orleans, and out to Lake Pontchartrain, to fish for market. A lot of cussed Chinese was in the bizness, and when they found COARSE fish in their nets, they'd kill 'em and heave 'em overboard. Now, no man's got a rite to waste anything, so we fishermen begun to pay sum attention to the opium-smokers in good arnest."
Here I interrupted the speaker to ask him if it would be safe for me to travel alone through the fishing-grounds of these Chinese.
"Oh, shucks! safe enuf now," he answered. "Once they was a bad set; but a change has cum over 'em—they're CIVILIZED now."
A vision of schools and earnest missionary work was before me while I asked HOW their civilization had been accomplished.
"Shucks! WE dun it—WE WHITE FISHERMEN civilized 'em," was the emphatic reply; "and not a bit too soon either, for the wasteful cusses got so bad they wasn't satisfied with chucking dead fish overboard, but would go on to the prairies, and after using the grass cabins we WHITE fishermen had built to go into in bad weather, the bloody furiners would burn them up to bother us. They thort they'd drive us teetotally out of the diggins; so we thort it was time to CIVILIZE 'em. We hid in the long grass fur a few nights and watched the cusses. One morning a Chinaman was found dead in a cabin. Pretty soon after, one or two others was found floatin' round loose, in the same way; and after that lesson or two the fellers got CIVILIZED; and you needn't fear goin' among 'em now, fur they're harmless as kittens. They don't kill coarse fish now fur the fun of it. Oh, shucks! there's nothin' like a little healthy CIVILIZATION fur Chinamen and Injuns. They both needs it, and, any way, this is a WHITE MAN'S country."