Exaggerate four-fold the peremptory style in which military officers generally think it necessary to deliver their commands, and project the words with a rapidity which nobody but a Frenchman could conceive, and you have the manner in which our Creole constantly spoke to the negroes. The words came from his lips with a rasping, spasmodic sort of energy, that really seemed to infuse a little life in the slow-motioned creatures; though I observed that most of the energy inspired by his tones seemed to be expended in the quaint patois of the replies. Directions to hitch up an enormous, broad-tired, inconceivably clumsy sugar cart, required an amount of shouting that would have sufficed for a western barn-raising; and I feel sure that fully an hour was spent by two able-bodied negroes in the process of harnessing the mules to the shafts, tandem-fashion. A similar storm of “nigger French,” brought us, in the process of time, a number of horses sufficient for the party; and, under the guidance of an old head-negro, pleasantly named “Voisin,” we set out for a ride over the plantation.
Voisin was the plow-driver. Over every foot of the twelve hundred acres he had maneuvered his gang of plows, as a military officer would maneuver his battalion, and he was ready to pour into the ear of the proprietor all the traditions of the plantation; that this land was too wet for cane and ought to be left in grass; that all on this side of the leading ditch had been used for corn from time immemorial; that the finest cane always grew on this side of that levee by the cross-ditch; that that back-land was too stiff for anything, and he’d better not attempt to plow it if he didn’t want to kill off his mules; that cotton ought not to be grown at all; but, if it must be, this land nearest the front levee was the best for it; and so on interminably.
When we rode out of the inclosures around the quarters, sugar-house, and stables, we were in the one field which comprised the entire plantation. From the levee by the river bank it stretched in an unbroken flatness, gradually descending, back to the cypress swamp that bounded the arable land in the rear, and shut in the view. The field was cut by two deep leading ditches, one running down the middle to the swamp, and the other leading from side to side of the place, intersecting the first about midway between the river and the swamp. Into each of these smaller ones emptied, at distances of thirty to sixty yards, and the entire field was thus intersected by a network of open ditches; the water from all of which flowed back to the swamp until it met the obstruction of the back levee.
To understand the object of this, and the nature of the difficulties which the Louisiana sugar-planter has encountered, it must be remembered that all this land bordering on the river was originally a swamp. Successive overflows naturally deposited the most of their sediment near the river banks. Thus the land became highest at the river, and the drainage, instead of inclining in the natural direction, went backward to the swamp. Thenceforward there was a double trouble confronting the adventurous planter who sought to utilize this amazingly fertile soil. The river in his front was dangerous; but the swamp behind him was worse. His levees might protect him from the Mississippi itself; but crevasses, hundreds of miles above, might overflow the back country, or the back streams themselves might do it; and presently, while he was watching the flood at his door, the water from the swamp behind him was creeping up over his land and ruining his prospects for the year.
There was no resource save to fight the water on all sides. Each plantation was therefore protected by front and back levees, and resembled in shape a huge dish; which, but for the energy of its owners, would become a lake. A fresh difficulty was then encountered. The land, being below the surface of the water on both sides of it, was kept constantly soaked by infiltration. Ditches might drain this water back to the swamp, but here the levee met them. A pumping machine thus became necessary; and during the wet season the water was to be fought with levees, before and behind, and that which filtered in was to be pumped out into the swamp.
We found the back levee cut open, and water from the ditches was flowing out through the gap. Voisin explained that as soon as the water in the swamp began to rise, the levee must be closed again, and the pump put in operation.
To Northern eyes, the “swamp” began far enough inside of the swamp levee. Voisin assured us that in old times there was no better land on the plantation; but, riding along the beaten road by the main ditch, over which all the wood used for the engine and at the house was drawn, and along which the cattle were daily driven, our horses sank over their knees in the alluvial mud. On either hand the water stood in small pools over the entire surface of the “back cuts.” A New Englander would have declared it fit for nothing but cranberries. Some of the planters insisted that such land was then in the very best condition for plowing—“it turned over so much easier when it had water standing on it!”
The supply of cypress in the swamp was inexhaustible. Nothing prevented it from being far more profitable than the sugar grown under such difficulties, except the expense of hauling it out, to the river. Sugar-planters generally make little or no account of their swamp land. They reckon their “leveed” land, fronting on the river, and give little attention to the depth back into the swamp the surveyors may have given them. Probably not half of them have ever seen their back lines.
This plantation, only twenty-seven miles from New Orleans, considered among the best on the west side of the river, with its sugar-house and the expensive machinery attached in a condition to be used, with residence comparatively uninjured, quarters for all the hands, good levees, and some cane, sold at auction on terms which represented a cash investment of about fifty-five thousand dollars! I know cotton plantations, further up, which rented, acre for acre, for over two-thirds of this sum! The title was perfect, and there was nothing to prevent the plantation from making as high an average yield as it ever did, as soon as the cane should be reset, unless the free labor system should fail. Other places along the river have since sold at higher figures; but I believe that any one who is willing to devote two or three months to watching for an opportunity, may make equally favorable purchases any time within the next two years.