“Now, all aboard! Over, you fellows, and take these gentlemen in!” The negroes were over in a moment, waist deep, and, each taking one on his back, deposited us dry in the boat. I only mention this to record the fact, that I was much impressed by a practical demonstration from my bearer respecting the strong odour of the skin of a heated African. I have been wedged up in a column of infantry on a hot day, and have marched to leeward of Ghoorkhas in India, but the overpowering pungent smell of the negro exceeds everything of the kind I have been unfortunate enough to experience.
The vessel was soon moving again, against a ripple, caused by the wind, which blew dead against us; and notwithstanding the praises bestowed on the boat, it was easy to perceive that the labour of pulling such a dead-log-like thing through the water told severely on the rowers, who had already come some twelve miles, I think. Nevertheless, they were told to sing, and they began accordingly one of those wild Baptist chants about the Jordan in which they delight,—not destitute of music, but utterly unlike what is called an Ethiopian melody.
The banks of the river on both sides are low; on the left covered with wood, through which, here and there, at intervals, one could see a planter’s or overseer’s cottage. The course of this great combination of salt and fresh water sometimes changes, so that houses are swept away and plantations submerged; but the land is much valued nevertheless, on account of the fineness of the cotton grown among the islands. “Cotton at 12 cents a pound, and we don’t fear the world.”
As the boat was going to the fishing-ground, which lay towards the mouth of the river at Hilton Head, our friends talked politics and sporting combined,—the first of the usual character, the second quite new.
I heard much of the mighty devil-fish which frequents these waters. One of our party, Mr. Elliott, sen., a tall, knotty, gnarled sort of man, with a mellow eye and a hearty voice, was a famous hand at the sport, and had had some hair-breadth escapes in pursuit of it. The fish is described as of enormous size and strength, a monster ray, which possesses formidable antennæ-like horns, and a pair of huge fins, or flappers, one of which rises above the water as the creature moves below the surface. The hunters, as they may be called, go out in parties—three or four boats, or more, with good store of sharp harpoons and tow-lines, and lances. When they perceive the creature, one boat takes the lead, and moves down towards it, the others following, each with a harpooner standing in the bow. The devil-fish sometimes is wary, and dives, when it sees a boat, taking such a long spell below that it is never seen again. At other times, however, it backs, and lets the boat come so near as to allow of the harpooner striking it, or it dives for a short way and comes up near the boats again. The moment the harpoon is fixed, the line is paid out by the rush of the creature, which is made with tremendous force, and all the boats at once hurry up, so that one after another they are made fast to that in which the lucky sportsman is seated. At length, when the line is run out, checked from time to time as much as can be done with safety, the crew take their oars and follow the course of the ray, which swims so fast, however, that it keeps the line taut, and drags the whole flotilla seawards. It depends on its size and strength to determine how soon it rises to the surface; by degrees the line is warped in and hove short till the boats are brought near, and when the ray comes up it is attacked with a shower of lances and harpoons, and dragged off into shoal water to die.
On one occasion, our Nimrod told us, he was standing in the bows of the boat, harpoon in hand, when a devil-fish came up close to him; he threw the harpoon, struck it, but at the same time the boat ran against the creature with a shock which threw him right forward on its back, and in an instant it caught him in its horrid arms and plunged down with him to the depths. Imagine the horror of the moment! Imagine the joy of the terrified drowning, dying man, when, for some inscrutable reason, the devil-fish relaxed its grip, and enabled him to strike for the surface, where he was dragged into the boat more dead than alive by his terror-smitten companions,—the only man who ever got out of the embraces of the thing alive. “Tom is so tough that even a devil-fish could make nothing out of him.”
At last we came to our fishing-ground. There was a substitute found for the favourite crab, and it was fondly hoped our toils might be rewarded with success. And these were toils, for the water is deep and the lines heavy. But to alleviate them, some hampers were produced from the stern, and wonderful pies from Mrs. Trescot’s hands, and from those of fair ladies up the river whom we shall never see, were spread out, and bottles which represented distant cellars in friendly nooks far away. “No drum here! Up anchor, and pull away a few miles lower down.” Trescot shook his head, and again asserted his disbelief in fishing, or rather in catching, and indeed made a sort of pretence at arguing that it was wiser to remain quiet and talk philosophical politics; but, as judge of appeal, I gave it against him, and the negroes bent to their oars, and we went thumping through the spray, till, rounding a point of land, we saw pitched on the sandy shore ahead of us, on the right bank, a tent, and close by two boats. “There is a party at it!” A fire was burning on the beach, and as we came near, Tom and Jack and Harry were successively identified. “There’s no take on, or they would not be on shore. This is very unfortunate.”
All the regret of my friends was on my account, so to ease their minds I assured them I did not mind the disappointment much. “Hallo, Dick! Caught any drum?” “A few this morning; bad sport now, and will be till tide turns again.” I was introduced to all the party from a distance, and presently I saw one of them raising from a boat something in look and shape and colour like a sack of flour, which he gave to a negro, who proceeded to carry it towards us in a little skiff. “Thank you, Charley. I just want to let Mr. Russell see a drum-fish.” And a very odd fish it was,—a thick lumpish form, about 4½ feet long, with enormous head and scales, and teeth like the grinders of a ruminant animal, acting on a great pad of bone in the roof of the mouth,—a very unlovely thing, swollen with roe, which is the great delicacy.
“No chance till the tide turned,”—but that would be too late for our return, and so unwillingly we were compelled to steer towards home, hearing now and then the singular noise like the tap on a large unbraced drum, from which the fish takes its name. At first, when I heard it, I was inclined to think it was made by some one in the boat, so near and close did it sound; but soon it came from all sides of us, and evidently from the depths of the water beneath us,—not a sharp rat-tat-tap, but a full muffled blow with a heavy thud on the sheepskin. Mr. Trescot told me that on a still evening by the river-side the effect sometimes is most curious,—the rolling and pattering is audible at a great distance. Our friends were in excellent humour with everything and everybody, except the Yankees, though they had caught no fish, and kept the negroes at singing and rowing till at nightfall we landed at the island, and so to bed after supper and a little conversation, in which Mrs. Trescot again explained how easily she could maintain a battalion on the island by her simple commissariat, already adapted to the niggers, and that it would therefore be very easy for the South to feed an army if the people were friendly.
April 28th.—The church is a long way off, only available by a boat and then a drive in a carriage. In the morning a child brings in my water and boots—an intelligent, curly-headed creature, dressed in a sort of sack, without any particular waist, barefooted. I imagined it was a boy till it told me it was a girl. I asked if she was going to church, which seemed to puzzle her exceedingly; but she told me finally she would hear prayers from “uncle” in one of the cottages. This use of the words “uncle” and “aunt” for old people is very general. Is it because they have no fathers and mothers? In the course of the day, the child, who was fourteen or fifteen years of age, asked me “whether I would not buy her. She could wash and sew very well, and she thought missus wouldn’t want much for her.” The object she had in view leaked out at last. It was a desire to see the glories of Beaufort, of which she had heard from the fishermen; and she seemed quite wonderstruck when she was informed I did not live there, and had never seen it. She had never been outside the plantation in her life.