I was then able to show my guests a Savannah picnic, which is an institution peculiar to the place. Leaving the city in a river steamer our party consisting of one hundred people, after a little over an hour’s sail we reached an island in the Atlantic Ocean, known as Dawfuskie, a beautiful spot on which stood a charming residence, with five acres of roses surrounding the house. The heads of families carried, each of them, huge baskets containing their dinner, and a full table service, wine, etc., for say, ten or a dozen people. On our arrival, all formed into groups under the trees, a cloth was laid on the ground, dishes, plates and glasses arranged on it, and the champagne at once frapped in small hand pails. There was then a dance in the open air, on a platform, and in the afternoon, with cushions as seats for the ladies, these improvised dinner-tables were filled. Each had its separate hostess; all was harmony and pleasure. As night approached, the people re-embarked on the steamer and returned home by moonlight.
LIFE AT NEWPORT.
CHAPTER IX.
I Leave the South—A Typical British Naval Officer—An Officer of the Household Troops—Early Newport Life—A Country Dinner—The Way I got up Picnics—Farmers Throw their Houses Open to Us—A Bride Receives us in her Bridal Array—My Newport Farm—My Southdowns and my Turkeys—What an English Lady said of our Little Island—Newport a place to Take Social Root in.
My English friends bidding me farewell, soon after, I gave up my Savannah house and made Newport my permanent home, for I spent nine months of the year there, with a winter trip to the West Indies. I must not omit to mention here that while passing the winter at Nassau, N. P., I made the acquaintance of a most polished, elegant, and courtly man, a captain in the British Navy, who entertained me as one can only be entertained on a British man-of-war, giving me Devonshire cream and every luxury, and all as well served as though it had been ashore. Meeting him repeatedly at dinner at the house of the Governor of the Bahamas, he suggested that as it was a most difficult thing to board the steamship that was to take us to New York, she never crossing the bar, he would himself, in his own gig, take us out to that vessel when we left the island.
I had forgotten this kind promise, but on the day fixed for our departure (it then blowing a gale, one of those terrible “northers” of the West Indies), I received a note from this gallant captain, telling me that his boat’s crew had already crossed the bar, boarded our steamer, and learnt the precise spot where she would lie in the afternoon when she would take on her passengers. In vain did I protest against his undertaking this dangerous piece of work. Do it he would; and taking the tiller himself, we were safely rowed in his gig, twelve miles, and boarded the vessel.