There is an air of quaint simplicity and old-fashioned quiet about Georgetown, refreshingly antagonistic to the bustle and tumult of most American cities, and one can, without much stretch of imagination, fancy the old loyal burghers in cocked hats, small-swords, and long, square-cut sober suits, stalking solemnly down its streets, rejoicing in the progress of the city which recalled the name of the King and the old country, or hastening down to the river’s side to hear the tidings brought from home by the Bristol bark that has just anchored in the stream. Instead thereof, however, there are the tall, square forms of eager citizens bowed over their newspapers in the shade before the bar-room, or the shuffling negro delighting in the sunshine, and kicking up the dust in the centre of the road as he goes on his errand.
While waiting for our vehicle, we enjoyed the hospitality of one of our friends, who took us into an old-fashioned angular wooden mansion, more than a century old, still sound in every timber, and testifying, in its quaint wainscotings and the rigid framework of door and window, to the durability of its cypress timbers, and the preservative character of the atmosphere. In early days it was the crack house of the old settlement, and the residence of the founder of the female branch of the family of our host, who now only makes it his halting-place when passing to and fro between Charleston and his plantation, leaving it the year round in charge of an old servant and her grandchild. Rose trees and flowering shrubs clustered before the porch, and filled the garden in front, and the establishment gave one a good idea of a London merchant’s retreat about Chelsea a hundred and fifty years ago.
At length we were ready for our journey, and, mounted in two light covered vehicles, proceeded along the sandy track which, after a while, led us to a cut, deep in the bosom of the woods, where silence was only broken by the cry of a woodpecker, the boom of a crane, or the sharp challenge of the jay. For miles we passed through the shades of this forest, meeting only two or three vehicles containing female planterdom on little excursions of pleasure or business, who smiled their welcome as we passed. Not more than twice in a drive of two hours did we come upon any settlement or get a view of any white man’s plantation, and then it was only when we had emerged from the wood and got out upon the broad, brown plains, where bunds, and water-dykes, and machinery for regulating the flooding of the lake indicated the scenes of labor. These settlements consisted of rows of some ten or twelve quadrangular wooden sheds, supported upon bricks, so as to allow the air, the children, and the chickens to play beneath; sometimes with brickwork chimneys at the side, occasionally with ruder contrivances of mud and woodwork to serve the same purpose.
Arrived at a deep chocolate-colored stream, called Black River, full of fish and alligators, we find a flat large enough to accommodate vehicles and passengers, and propelled by two negroes pulling upon a stretched rope, in the manner usual in the ferryboats of Switzerland, ready for our reception. Another drive through a more open country, and we reach a fine grove of pine and live oak, which melts away into a shrubbery, guarded by a rustic gateway, passing through which we are brought by a sudden turn into the planter’s house, buried in trees, which dispute with the green sward, and with wild flower beds, every yard of the space which lies between the hall-door and the waters of the Pedee; and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the expanse of fields, just tinged with green by the first life of the early rice crops, marked by the deep water-cuts, and bounded by a fringe of unceasing forest, the chimneys of the steamer we had left at Georgetown gliding, as it were, through the fields, indicate the existence of another navigable river still beyond.
Leaving with regret the veranda which commanded so enchanting a foreground of flowers, rare shrubbery, and bearded live oaks, with each graceful sylvan outline distinctly penciled upon the waters of the river, we enter the house, and are reminded by its low-browed, old-fashioned rooms, of the country houses yet to be found in parts of Ireland or the Scottish border, with additions made by the luxury and love of foreign travel of more than one generation of educated Southern planters. Paintings from Italy illustrate the walls in juxtaposition with interesting portraits of early Colonial Governors and their lovely womankind, limned with no uncertain hand, and full of the vigor of touch and naturalness of drapery, of which Copley has left us too few exemplars, and one portrait of Benjamin West claims for itself such honor as his own pencil can give. An excellent library, filled with collections of French and English classics, and with those ponderous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the Memoires pour Servir, books of travel and history, such as delighted our forefathers in the last century, and many works of American and general history, afford ample occupation for a rainy day. But alas! these, and all good things which the house affords, can be enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has expanded every charm, developed every grace, and clothed the scene with all the beauty of opened flower, of ripening grain, and of mature vegetation, on the wings of the wind the poisoned breath comes borne to the home of the white man, and he must fly before it or perish. The books lie unopened on their shelves, the flower blooms and dies unheeded, and, pity ’tis ’tis true, the old Madeira, garnered ’neath the roof, settles down for a fresh lease of life, and sets about its solitary task of acquiring a finer flavor for the infrequent lips of its banished master and his welcome visitors. This is the story, at least, that we hear on all sides, and such is the tale repeated to us beneath the porch, when the full moon enhances, while softening, the loveliness of the scene, and the rich melody of hundreds of mocking-birds fills the grove.
Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better than he did with Nasidienus, and drink such wine as can be only found among the descendants of an ancestry who, improvident enough in all else, learned the wisdom of bottling up choice old Bual and Sercial ere the demon of odium had dried up their generous sources for ever. To these must be added excellent bread, ingenious varieties of the gallette, compounded now of rice and now of Indian meal, delicious butter and fruits, all good of their kind. What more is needed for one who agrees with Mr. Disraeli in thinking bread and wine man’s two first luxuries and his best? And is there anything bitter rising up from the bottom of the social bowl? My black friends who attend on me are grave as Mussulman Khitmutgars. They are attired in liveries, and wear white cravats and Berlin gloves. At night, when we retire, off they go to their outer darkness in the small settlement of negrohood, which is separated from our house by a wooden palisade. Their fidelity is undoubted. The house breathes an air of security. The doors and windows are unlocked. There is but one gun, a fowling-piece, on the premises. No planter hereabouts has any dread of his slaves.
But I have seen within the short time that I have been here in this part of the world several dreadful accounts of the murder and violence in which masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is something suspicious in the constant, never-ending statement, that “We are not afraid of our slaves.” The curfew and the night patrol in the streets, the prisons and watch-houses, and the police regulations prove that strict supervision, at all events, is needed and necessary. My host is a kind man and a good master. If slaves are happy anywhere, they should be so with him.
These people are fed by their master. They have upward of half a pound per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They rear poultry, and sell their chickens and eggs to the house. They are clothed by their master. He keeps them in sickness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of tobacco and molasses for the deserving. There was little labor going on in the fields, for the rice has been just exerting itself to get its head above water. These fields yield plentifully, for the waters of the river are fat, and they are let in, whenever the planters require it, by means of floodgates and small canals, through which the flats can carry their loads of grain to the river for loading the steamers.
LETTER VIII.
FACTS AND OPINIONS AT THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL.
Montgomery, Capital of the Confederate States }
of America, May 8, 1861. }