CHAPTER XII.
B. Randolph to V. Chevillere.
"High Hills of the Santee, 18—.
"Dear Friend,"From the city of Savannah, I paid my first visit to our old heathen dad, Neptune, and if first impressions of the sea were not as common and as numerous as doggerel verses in a modern lady's album, I might be tempted to become sublime for your edification. I was rowed down from the city, in a beautiful boat made of a single cypress, by the hands of the gentleman who was so polite as to give me this gentle passage. By this you may know that they take as much pride in their boats as the Venetians themselves. It was beautifully painted, and rowed by eight well-formed negroes. Inside of the seat at one end was a marooning chest, as they called it, full of all kinds of liquors and cold meat, with the necessary utensils for their use. The gentleman was an islander; and during the few hours in which we were gliding over the seventeen miles between the city and the ocean, he entertained me with an account of his marooning expeditions. These are their excursions upon the Sea Islands, for purposes of fishing and hunting. These islanders are a peculiar, but delightful people; however, I must not keep you too long in the sea-breeze; at some other time, perhaps, I may indite you a history of these hospitable and isolated gentlemen.
"When I left Savannah, I determined to pursue a different route from the one by which I came. I therefore crossed the Savannah river fifteen or sixteen miles above the city; I then crossed the country in as straight a line as I could draw upon the map, between the ferry and the high hills of Santee; and in a short time found myself in as complete solitude as ever Crusoe experienced upon his desolate island. Nothing was to be seen but the tall and gloomy-looking pines, stretching away into the bosom of the atmosphere, and the interminable sands which lay before me as far as the eye could reach. Twilight presently came on, and those horrible musicians, the tree-frogs, began to chirp and sing. The dolorous note of the whippoorwill was heard, with a horn accompaniment from the throat of a screech-owl. Here was a pretty serenade for a man with his heart attuned for melody, and his stomach attuned for a slash at a cold ham, for I had had no dinner. I struck up an accompaniment from my own pipes, but I soon found that the vacuum was too profound for a due modulation in concert pitch with this sylvan band. I wished them all at the d—l, with their shrill pipes and full crops, and set my horse, or rather your horse, at full gallop, in a vain effort to escape from the intended honour; but the harder I rode, the more enthusiastic they became. I soon made another comfortable discovery; I found that I had been riding for the last two hours in a perfect wilderness, in utter contempt of what two pioneer wheels had made for a highway; nor could I tell the north from the south, nor the east from the west, having foolishly enough turned the horse round and round in order to gaze at the stars. 'Like master like man,' my servant did the same, as if he could read in the pine tops more than I could in the heavens. All my astronomy had gone with my dinner; I could see nothing in the starry regions but what is sometimes called the Frying-pan. Oh! the shades of Thales of Miletus, who first imported astronomy into Greece! to think that a bachelor of such heavenly arts could not look into the face of the Frying-pan without thinking of grilled chickens and rashers of bacon, and the crackling of fire, and the sputtering of fat. I dismounted, and ordered Sam to do likewise, and try to find me a piece of flint by which to strike a light; he declared that he had not seen a stone or a rock since he came into the Carolinas. 'So much for geology and astronomy,' said I. 'I rader tink they all bad fur empty stumuck, masta,' said Sam, considering himself privileged by the exigencies of the case. 'True enough, Sam,' said I, 'it would be an apt scholar that could produce bread or a stone either by his learning, in our circumstances.'
"As I mounted, Sam mounted, not a word more having been uttered; he seemed to be aware of the fact, that language generally fails with the food; a man's ideas in such a case run fast enough, but they are all in humble life; below stairs, diving among pots, and pans, and pantries, and receptacles for cold victuals. As the ideas ran, so ran the horses, until the water began to splash our legs from a thick bushy swamp, into which we found that we had initiated ourselves. 'Now Sam,' said I, 'we are swamped.' Sam said nothing aloud, but was evidently muttering something to himself, being engaged, as I supposed, at his secret devotions, for you must know that he would be a Puritan. Like most of his race, however, he has more faith in the effect of singing hymns, than devotions of any other kind. I saw that he was itching for a trial at his usual relief in all his troubles. I therefore told him not to suppress it on my account, but to give it free utterance; the idea of it naturally excited ludicrous recollections of old Noll and the veteran Rumpers, but Sam saw the new vein I had so inappropriately fallen into, and therefore resisted his inward strivings. I must say, en passant, that I think him honest and sincere in his faith, I therefore do not ridicule him.
"We waded through the black regions of this little pandemonium for some three-quarters of a mile, before the dry sand again greeted our hearing. The Frying-pan still stared me in the face, and the sylvan band still plied their pipes. We had not proceeded far by land before we came directly against a fence. I was truly glad to see it, for I was sure it must lead to some inhabited place, and accordingly ordered Sam to let us into the field, which we found to be an immense plain covered with cotton,—the most beautiful of all crops. We rode between the rows, for many a weary foot, until at length the glimmering of many lights greeted our longing eyes. We made directly for them, and soon stood in the midst of an immense negro quarter. On inquiring whether their master's house was near at hand, we found that it was many miles distant. The overseer's house, they told us, was not more than half a mile off; but to these animals I have always had an utter aversion. I therefore bought some fodder for the horses, and two fowls for ourselves, from the driver, who had the privilege of raising them, and employed his wife to pick and grill them upon the coals, and a delightful and savoury prelude they soon sent up to my famished senses; a heartier or a sweeter meal was never made than I thus took; a fowl seasoned with salt, and a large pot of small homminy, served direct to my mouth from a large wooden spoon, without the cumbrous intervention of plates, knives, and forks. Our meal being finished,—for you must know Sam and I dined at the same time and from the same table, which was none other than the ground floor, covered with the head of a barrel,—hunger is a wonderful leveller of distinctions,—as I was saying, our meal being finished, a goodly number of the more aged, respectable, and intelligent blacks of the quarter assembled to entertain us, or be entertained themselves, I scarcely know which. Many of these negroes, I found, were born in Africa, and one poor tattooed fellow claimed to be of royal blood. He told me that his father, the king, had a hundred children. I asked if any of those present could write; they replied that there was one man in the quarter who could write in his own language, and several of them went out and brought in a tall, bald-headed old fellow, who seemed to come with great reluctance. After being told what was desired, he acknowledged to me that he could write when he last tried, which was many years previous. I took out my pocket-book, tore out a blank leaf, and handing him a pen from my pocket inkstand, requested him to give me a specimen. He took the head of the barrel on his lap, and began, if I recollect right, on the right side of the page; the following is a fac simile of his performance:
"The following is a liberal translation into English:—
"'In the name of God the merciful! the compassionate! God bless our Lord Mohammed his prophet, and his descendants, and his followers, and prosper them exceedingly. Praise be to God the Lord of all creatures! the merciful, the compassionate king of the day of judgment! Thee we adore, and of thee we implore assistance! Guide us in the right way, the way of those with whom thou art well pleased, and not of those with whom thou art angry, nor of those who are in error. Amen!'
"The original is written in Arabic. The old fellow's name is Charno, which it seems he has retained, after being enslaved, contrary to their general custom in that respect. I became quite affected and melancholy in talking to this venerable old man, and you may judge from that rare circumstance that he is no common character.
"I now fixed my saddle under my head in a cotton shed to rest for the night; but, weary as I was, I could not directly get to sleep for thinking of sandy deserts, old Charno, chicken suppers, negro quarters, and Virginia Bell! You see she is still the heroine, let my wanderings lay the scenes where they will.
"I have no doubt but you will say, on the reception of this letter, 'Well! I thought Randolph would run his nose into all the out-of-the-way places in Carolina,' I plead guilty! I have a sort of natural instinct for unbeaten paths, and the one by which I arrived at Belville shall be given in my next; until then, fare thee well.
CHAPTER XIII.
Victor Chevillere to B. Randolph.
"New-York, 18—.
"Dear Friend,"At length we have arrived in this flourishing city, not, however, without having experienced many vicissitudes of weather, humour, and adventure, the two latter especially; how could we help it, when the Kentuckian formed so large a part of our little crew, by steamboat and stage? His animal spirits are worth a million.
"You cannot conceive any thing more agreeable to an emancipated and sombre student, than to get a comfortable high backed leather seat in one of these fine northern coaches, his cloak collar put up like a mask, and the rim of his cap drawn down to meet it, just leaving a peeping-hole sufficient to see and enjoy every thing worth enjoying, at the same time defying the gaze of intruding eyes.
"If there should fortunately happen to be such a reckless, yet generous spirit as Damon among the company, the student's happiness is complete, for you cannot imagine what a protector he is against intruders. In our American stage-coaches (and perhaps in all others) there are sometimes men, full of brandy eloquence, which is kept so constantly on the stretch by repeated libations; or boisterous politicians, with their mouths so full of the last importation of news from Washington, or of the contents of the morning papers, that a complaisant young man is almost compelled to make himself ridiculous, by getting into a political controversy.
"Damon took all that sort of work off our hands, in the most generous and chivalrous spirit imaginable. His eye was ever bright and ready; there was no sinking into dull student-like lethargy one moment, and flashing out into erratic folly the next; he was ready with lance in rest, to take a tilt against anybody's windmill; at home upon all subjects, being exactly in such a state of refinement as not to be ashamed to show his ignorance, and always eager to acquire information. Nor is his mind dull or unapt; he will rebut or ridicule an adversary with astonishing shrewdness. One of his peculiarities amused me much; he was evidently more excited in the stage-coaches than in the boats. He was never satisfied until he had let down the front glasses, so that he could see the horses; then he would talk fluently to his near neighbour, and keep his neck stretched all the while, so as to have all the horses in view, throwing out occasional digressive remarks as to their various powers, as thus, 'that's my little hearty, make a straight back to it;' and then turning to his antagonist he would continue his remarks, as if nothing had drawn off his attention.
"But I must not take up all your time with our comic adventures. When I get into that vein more completely, you shall have his exploits in the city. By-the-by, I suggested to Lamar that he should take that part of the correspondence off my hands, but he said, 'Randolph knows I'm not one of the writing sort, therefore you must write for us both; action,' said he, with a mock heroic flourish, 'is my forte.'
"We are comfortably situated at the City Hotel in Broadway. After we had selected our rooms, I sallied out into that gay and brilliant promenade, which intersects the city from north-east to south-west. You may there see, on a fine sunshiny afternoon, all the fashion and beauty of this great city; the neat, tasteful, Parisian costume, in close contrast with the more sober guise of London. There you may hear intermingled the language of the Gaul, the German, and the modern Roman. To the right and left you see the spires of various Christian temples; and smiling faces, and happy hearts, will greet you at every step.
"To a secluded college novice like myself, there is something new and moving in all this life and bustle; it irresistibly brings to my mind ideas of gay feats, tilts, tournaments, and brilliant fairs. Within the finished bow-windows are wealth and splendour, and brilliancy, which we poor southerns have not seen in our own native land; marble buildings, stores with granite columns, and the streets crowded with immense omnibuses (these are stages to transport persons from one part of the city to another); splendid private equipages, republican liveries, and carts loaded with merchandise.
"Seeing some trees and a comfortable green plat a little farther up the street, I worked through the crowd of persons, and carts, and stages, and found myself in the midst of the far famed Park, and immediately in front of that proud edifice the City Hall. I ascended the marble platform, and surveyed the gay throng, as they moved on in one continued and dense current, with merry faces, miserable hearts, and empty heads and pockets; but to talk of these stale things, you know, in the present age, is all stuff and sheer nonsense. I therefore put my reflections in my portfolio to carry home with me, and proceeded to the house-keeper's room, as I had been directed, to obtain the good lady's pilotage, or that of some deputy, to the governor's room, which I readily found. There is nothing remarkable in the two rooms which contain the paintings, except that they command from the windows a fine view of the park and the surrounding streets. Yes, there are two venerable old stuffed chairs. The one in the north wing was used by Washington at his inauguration as first President of the United States, and the one in the east room by the elder Adams. There are portraits of George Washington, George Clinton, Alexander Hamilton, Commodore Bainbridge, Monroe, Jackson, Duane, Varick, Livingston, Clinton, Willet, Radcliff, Captain Hull, Governor Lewis, Macomb, Yates, Van Buren, Brown, Perry, La Fayette, Decatur, Tompkins, Colden, Allen, Paulding, Hone, Stuyvesant, Bolivar, Columbus, Monkton, Williams: some of these last are only half-length. Over the portrait of Washington is a blue flag rolled up, with the following inscription in golden letters:—'This standard was displayed at the inauguration of George Washington, first President of the United States, on the 30th day of April, 1789. And was presented to the Corporation of New-York by the Second Regt. of N. Y. State Artillery, Nov. 25th, 1821.'
"While I was standing at one of the front windows again looking over the moving masses of Broadway, I saw a lady approach on the eastern footway of the Park, with a hurried step, until she came nearly opposite to the Hall. Crossing Chatham, she turned abruptly down one of the narrow streets running at right angles to the eastern line of the Park. There was something in the figure and carriage of this lady which, unknown at first to my consciousness, quickened my pulsations; but when she approached to the nearest point in her course, I felt morally certain that it was none other than that mysterious charmer, who by her father's connivance, or rather management, slipped through my fingers at Baltimore, and that, too, without my even having asked her address in this city. The recollection of this latter circumstance prompted me instantly to seize my hat and hurry after her. Throwing the accustomed fee to my obliging pilotess, I walked with all possible haste to the corner of the street which I supposed she had taken. I found that a little crowd of ragged urchins had collected upon some occasion of their own, and asked the most intelligent-looking among them if he had seen a lady in black go down that street,—pointing down the hill from Tammany Hall; and, by way of reply, one of the most disgusting, discordant, and ill-timed peals of laughter that I ever heard burst upon my senses.
"'Lady in black!' said the most forward fellow, 'you will find plenty of black ladies down that street, with black eyes to boot.' I retreated in perfect disgust with these precocious vagabonds, not, however, before I was saluted with another peal of laughter, accompanied by the epithets—'greenhorn,' 'young 'un,' 'bumpkin,' &c. &c.
"You cannot conceive of any more thoroughly disgusting feeling than that produced upon the mind of a young man bred up in the country, upon this first exhibition of the detestable forms which vice and dissipation assume in every large city,—young females with bloated countenances,—boys with black eyes and bruised faces, with their disgusting slang and familiar nicknames, of Sal, Bet, Kate, Tom, Josh, Jack, or Jim, and their unmeaning oaths, Billingsgate wit, and filthy and ragged garments. There are certain districts of the city in which these are always to be seen, I am informed,—but of these more anon. I turned down the street, and pursued the course which I supposed the lady had taken, until I got to the bottom of what had once been a deep glen in its rural days. I could see nothing but entrances to tanyards, and warehouses full of leather and morocco. The houses, too, looked at least a century and a half behind those on the hill, in architectural taste. Turning to a woman who was sweeping the little narrow pavement in front of one of the houses, I asked her what part of the city I was in.
"'This is called the swamp, sir,' was the reply.
"'This,' thought I to myself, 'is a very different affair from our swamps.' Just at that moment, casting my eye along one of the narrow streets, I caught a glimpse of the same figure, attended only by her maid, entering a low, Dutch, dingy-looking house, with the gable end to the street. I walked as rapidly as I could in the same direction, and was within some twenty yards of the house, when two young men issued from the door, with the air and dress of gentlemen. I did not immediately observe their faces, because my mind was intently occupied with the lady, and the probable cause of her visit to such a strange part of the city. These reflections were suddenly interrupted by some one slapping me on the back, and exclaiming in my ear, 'Ha! my Chevillere! you here! how do you do? what brought you here?' but I am resolved to put your curiosity to a serious test; names in my next. Yours, truly,
CHAPTER XIV.
V. Chevillere to B. Randolph.
(In continuation.)"New-York, 18—.
"Who do you think it was who met me at such an unlucky moment, just, perhaps, as I was about to stumble upon some clew to unravel the mysteries of this fair little breathing ignis fatuus? It was no other than young Arthur, our old schoolfellow, from Kentucky. He has come hither to attend a course of medical lectures, though they have medical lectures in his own State. Arthur was not of our class, nor yet one of the glorious three, but he was an old and respected friend and schoolmate, and therefore his acquaintance could not be cut quite so unceremoniously at the very moment of its renewal; and even if I had made some silly excuse to avoid him for the moment, he would undoubtedly have seen me kicking my heels in the street, 'like a strange dog in a crowd,' as Damon has it; so I reluctantly wheeled about with him. His companion was also a student of medicine, and a native of this city; he was introduced to me by the name of Hazlehurst. I am aware you are anxious to know what they could be seeking in the identical house in which I had just blockaded my fair fugitive. I wish, as heartily as you can do, that I could explain that matter to our mutual satisfaction. I pumped our inchoate doctors in vain; they explained their own visit to the house very satisfactorily, upon the grounds of professional business, in the name and on behalf of their preceptor, for it seems Arthur has been here all the summer; but they neither saw nor heard of any lady in the premises, and all further inquiries were of course ended by the interpretation which Arthur chose to put upon my inquiries concerning a fair fugitive, so soon after my arrival. He was not a little pleased to hear that Lamar was in the city, in close league with a countryman of his own.
"By-the-way, Arthur is a noble fellow and an accomplished gentleman. He has all the prerequisites of natural capacity and elementary acquirements, for the study of his arduous profession. I know no young gentleman who has chosen a profession in every way better suited to his peculiarities of mind and temperament. You will doubtless recollect that he always had a fondness for the natural sciences, and this, after all, is the true 'condition precedent' for making a profound and philosophic physician. How lamentable it is that such minds are always thrown in the background in our colleges! This results from that everlasting dingdong hammering at languages, before the pupil has discovered their uses, and without any regard to his peculiarities of mind. Those students who, like Arthur, exhibit an apt capacity for the study of things, and their properties and relations, are almost always dull at the study of their representatives, or, in other words, languages; why, then, do the instructers in these institutions destroy the energies and the vigour of such a mind, by making him fail at those things for which nature has disqualified him, or, rather, for which nature has too nobly endowed him? I am no enemy to the study of the vehicles by which we communicate with our fellow-men, but I am an enemy to the uniform, monotonous drilling, which all collegians in this country receive alike, because I have observed in this process, that third-rate minds invariably rank first. There are, in every college, numbers of young gentlemen who have parrot-like capacities, and memories that retain little words; but who, if required to originate ideas of their own, would soon show the native barrenness of their understandings.
"Look around you now in the world, and see what has become of these distinguished linguists! One out of a hundred, perhaps, has received a professorship in some new institution, and the others are all falsifying the promises of their precocious youth; while of the thoughtful and abstract dunces, as they were considered in college, many are building up lasting reputations, upon the deep and solid foundations which our hackneyed systems of education could not develop. Necessity and the world develop them; and these, we soon find, are very different from college life. Now, college discipline should imitate the world in this respect; it should develope every man's peculiar genius. Neglect of this is the true reason why so many men distinguish themselves in the world, who were considered asses in college, and why so many who were considered amazingly clever in college, are found to be little better than asses in the world.
"Now that I have somewhat recovered from the chagrin of Arthur's mal-apropos appearance, I am really glad that he is here. I must surely see the lady again. Indeed, I am resolved to do so, if I have to stay here twelve months; and then Arthur's presence will much facilitate our design of surveying the under-currents of the busy world. You know that I am not prone to trust the surface of things. I shall therefore follow him into many places besides his fashionable resorts. He tells me that a malignant epidemic is said to be prevailing here, and that their visit to the sick person before mentioned was with a view to ascertain whether the patient really had malignant symptoms. They think she had not. I was not so much interested in the affairs of their patient during the discussion on the subject, as I was in their possible consequences upon others,—but of that more in my next. Young Doctor Hazlehurst seems to be a very fashionable personage, but gentlemanly in his manners, and unaffected in his deportment.
"They walked with me to our hotel, in order to see Lamar, but unfortunately he was out. However, Arthur left college greetings for him, and young Hazlehurst left his address, and invitations for us both to call at his father's house, who, it seems, lives in the city; so you see we have made the first step towards seeing both the upper and under-currents during our sojourn. Whatever they bring forth shall be as faithfully chronicled as your own adventures. Truly,