“Massa,” said he, “eber since poor missus died from eaten hogs wid dere heads on, I feel kinder faint when I sees clams, I hab neber swallowed one since, and neber will. De parfume gits into my stomach, as it did when de General’s cook used water instead of milk, in his soup. I don’t spose you ab any clove-water, but if you will let me take jist a tumblerfull ob dis, I tink it would make me survive a little,” and without waiting for leave he helped himself to a bumper. “Now, Massa,” he said, “I show you what cookin’ is, I know,” and making a scrape of his leg, he left the cabin.
“Doctor,” said I, “I am glad you have seen this specimen of a southern negro. He is a fair sample of a servant in the houses of our great planters. Cheerful, grateful, and contented, they are better off and happier than any portion of the same race I have met with in any part of the world. They have a quick perception of humour, a sort of instinctive knowledge of character, and great cunning, but their reasoning powers are very limited. Their appetites are gross, and their constitutional indolence such that they prefer enduring any suffering and privation to regular habits of industry.
“Slavery in the abstract is a thing that nobody approves of, or attempts to justify. We all consider it an evil—but unhappily it was entailed upon us by our forefathers, and has now grown to be one of such magnitude that it is difficult to know now to deal with it—and this difficulty is much increased by the irritation which has grown out of the unskilful and unjustifiable conduct of abolitionists. The grossest exaggerations have been circulated as to the conduct and treatment of our slaves, by persons who either did not know what they were talking about, or who have wilfully perverted facts. The devil we have painted black, and the negro received the same colour from the hand of his Maker. It only remained to represent the planter as of a deeper dye than either. This picture however wanted effect, and latterly lights and shades have been judiciously introduced, by mingling with these groups eastern abolitionists, white overseers, and English noblemen, and ladies of rank. It made a clever caricature—had a great run—has been superseded by other follies and extravagancies, and is now nearly forgotten. The social evil still remains, and ever will, while ignorant zeal, blind bigotry, hypocrisy, and politics, demand to have the exclusive treatment of it. The planter has rights as well as the slave, and the claims of both must be well weighed and considered before any dispassionate judgment can be formed.
“In the mean time invective and misrepresentation, by irritating the public, disqualify it for the deliberate exercise of its functions. If the slaves have to mourn over the want of freedom, the planters may lament the want of truth in their opponents; and it must be admitted that they have submitted to the atrocious calumnies that have been so liberally heaped upon them of late years, with a contempt that is the best refutation of falsehood, or a meekness and forbearance that contrast very favourably with the violence and fury of their adversaries.”
My object however, Squire, is not to write a lecture on emancipation, but to give you a receipt for cooking “a dish of clams.”
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
THE DEVIL’S HOLE; OR, FISH AND FLESH.
“Sorrow,” said the doctor, “seems to me to consider women, from the way he flatters his mistress, as if she was not unlike the grupers at Bermuda. There is a natural fish-pond there near Flats Village, in which there is a great lot of these critters, which are about the size of the cod. They will rise to the surface, and approach the bank for you to tickle their sides, which seems to afford them particular delight.”
“It is what you would call, I suppose, practical soft sawdering.”
“But it is an operation of which the rest are exceedingly jealous, and while you are thus amusing one of them, you must take care others do not feel offended, and make a dash at your fingers. With true feminine jealousy too they change colour when excited, for envy seems to pervade all animate nature.”
“It’s called the Devil’s Hole where they are, ain’t it?” sais I.