"And what of negroes?" I asked.
"Oh, the niggers is good enuf, ef you let 'em alone. The Carpet- baggers from up north has filled their heads with all kinds of stuff, so now they think, nat'rally enuf, that they ought to be office- holders, when they can't read or write no more than I can. I'd like to take a hand CIVILIZING some of them Carpet-baggers! They needs it more than the Chinamen or Injuns."
During part of the evening, Mr. Sewall, the nephew of the owner of the plantation, was with us round our camp-fire. We spoke of Longfellow's Evangeline, the bay-tree, and Atchafalaya River, which he assured me was slowly widening its current, and would in time, perhaps, become the main river of the basin, and finally deprive the Mississippi of a large portion of its waters. From his boyhood he had watched the falling in of the banks with the widening and increasing of the strength of the current of the Atchafalaya Bayou. Once it was impassable for steamers; but a little dredging opened the way, while the Mississippi and Red rivers had both contributed to its volume of water until it had deepened sufficiently for United States gunboats to ascend it during the late war. It follows the shortest course from the mouth of Red River to the Gulf of Mexico.
I left White Castle Plantation early on Monday morning, when I discovered a lot of fine sweet-potatoes stowed away in the hold of my boat. The northern cooper had purchased them during the night, and having too much delicacy to speak of his gift, secreted them in the boat. I fully appreciated this kind act, knowing it to be a mark of the poor man's sympathy for his northern countryman. The levee for miles was lined with negroes and white men gathering a harvest of firewood from the drift stuff. One old negro, catching sight of my boat, called out to his companion, "Randal, look at dat boat! De longer we libs, de mor you sees. What sort o' queer boat is she?"
Twenty miles below White Castle Plantation is the valuable sugar estate called Houmas, the property of General Wade Hampton and Colonel J. T. Preston. General Hampton does not reside upon his plantation, but makes Georgia his home. Beyond Houmas the parish of St. James skirts the river for twenty miles. Three miles back from the river, on the left side of the Mississippi, and fifty-five miles from New Orleans, is the little settlement of Grand Point, the place most famed in St. James for perique tobacco. The first settler who had the hardihood to enter these solitudes was named Maximilian Roussel. He purchased a small tract of land from the government, and in the year 1824 shouldered his axe and camping-utensils, and started for his new domain. He soon built a hut, and at once began the laborious task of clearing his land, which was located in a dense cypress swamp, alive with wild beasts and alligators. A rough house was completed at the end of a year, and into it Roussel moved his family, consisting of a wife and four children. Here "he lived till he died," as it has been expressively said.
Octave and Louis, two of his sons, and both now grandfathers, still live on the old place, and are highly respected. Only a few years ago the old homestead echoed to the voices of five of Roussel's sons, with their families; but death has taken two, one has removed, and two only now remain to relate the history of the almost unimaginable hardships encountered by the old and hardy pioneer.
There are at present nineteen families in the settlement, and they are all engaged in the cultivation of perique tobacco. An average farm on Grant Point consists of eight acres, and the average yield of manufactured tobacco is four hundred pounds to the acre. These simple- hearted people seem to be very happy and content. They have no saloons or stores of any kind, but their place is well filled with a neat Catholic church and a substantial school-house. Every man, woman, and child is a devout Roman Catholic, and in their daily intercourse with each other the stranger among them hears a patois something like the French language. The whole of the land cultivated by these people would not make more than an average farm in the north, while compared with the vast sugar estates on every side of it the dimensions are infinitesimal.
Villages were now picturesquely grouped along the shores, the most conspicuous feature in each being the large Catholic church, showing the religious belief of the people. Curious little stores were perched behind the now high banks of the levee. The signs over the doors bore such inscriptions as, "The Red Store," "The White Store," "St. John's Store," "Poor Family Store," &c. Busy life was seen on every side, but here, as elsewhere in the south, men seemed always to have time to give a civil answer to any necessary inquiries.
Only a month after I had descended this part of the river, Captain Boyton, clothed in his famous swimming-suit, paddled his way down the current from Bayou Goula to New Orleans, a distance of one hundred miles. The incidents of this curious voyage are now a part of the river's history, and this seems the place for the brave captain to tell his story. He says:
"I arrived at Bayou Goula on the 'Bismarck,' about six o'clock on Thursday morning; and, after considerable delay, succeeded in obtaining quarters at the Buena Vista Hotel in that village. At that point I engaged the services of a colored man named Brown, to pilot me down the river. At ten o'clock I took a breakfast, consisting of five eggs, bread, and a glass of beer, and ate nothing else during the day. At five o'clock precisely I took to the water and began my trip down to the city of New Orleans—a trip which proved to be a much more arduous one than I had anticipated, in consequence of the want of buoyancy in the water, the terrible counter-currents, and the large amount of drift-wood. It was some time before I could master the difficulty about the drift-wood, and at one time I was so annoyed and bruised by the floating debris, that I became somewhat apprehensive about the success of my enterprise. In some of the strong eddies particularly the logs played such fantastic tricks, rolling over and over with their jagged limbs and again standing upon their ends, that I feared I must either be carried under, or have my dress stripped completely off. By constant watching, however, I was enabled to steer out of harm's way and to keep steadily moving down the stream.