After the vessels were filled with milk, the daily and liberal supply of the friendly kine; and the good wife, with her maids and servants, were returning with it to the dairy; the gentleman was at leisure to attend to my enquiries and observations, which he did with complaisance, and apparent pleasure. On my observing to him that his stock of horned cattle must be very considerable to afford so many milch cows at one time, he answered, that he had about fifteen hundred head: “my stock is but young, having lately removed from some distance to this place; I found it convenient to part with most of my old stock and begin here anew; Heaven is pleased to bless my endeavours and industry with success even beyond my own expectations.” Yet continuing my interrogatories on this subject: your stock I apprehend must be very profitable, being so convenient to the capital and sea port, in affording a vast quantity of bees, butter and cheese, for the market, and must thereby contribute greatly towards your emolument: “yes, I find my stock of cattle very profitable, and I constantly contribute towards supplying the markets with beef, but as to the articles of butter and cheese, I make no more than what is expended in my own houshold, and I have a considerable family of black people, who, though they are slaves must be fed, and cared for: those I have were either chosen for their good qualities, or born in the family, and I find from long experience and observation, that the better they are fed, clothed and treated, the more service and profit we may expect to derive from their labour: in short, I find my stock produces no more milk, or any article of food or nourishment, than what is expended to the best advantage amongst my family and slaves.”
He added, come along with me towards the river bank, where I have some men at work squaring Pine and Cypress timber for the West India market; I will show you their day’s work, when you will readily grant that I have reason to acknowledge myself sufficiently gratified for the little attention bestowed towards them. At yonder little new habitation near the bluff on the banks of the river, I have settled my eldest son; it is but a few days since he was married to a deserving young woman.
Having at length arrived near the high banks of the majestic Savanna, we stood at the timber landing: almost every object in our progress contributed to demonstrate this good man’s system of economy to be not only practicable but eligible, and the slaves appeared on all sides as a crowd of witnesses to justify his industry, humanity and liberal spirit.
The slaves comparatively of a gigantic stature, fat and muscular, mounted on the massive timber logs; the regular heavy strokes of their gleaming axes re-echoed in the deep forests; at the same time contented and joyful the sooty sons of Afric forgeting their bondage, in chorus sung the virtues and beneficence of their master in songs of their own composition.
The log or timber landing is a capacious open area, the lofty pines[[46]] having been felled and cleared away for a considerable distance round about, near an almost perpendicular bluff or steep bank of the river, rising up immediately from the water to the height of sixty or seventy feet. The logs being dragged by timber wheels to this yard, and landed as near the brink of this high bank as possible with safety, and laid by the side of each other, are rolled off and precipitated down the bank into the river, where being formed into rafts, they are conducted by slaves down to Savanna, about fifty miles below this place.
Having contemplated these scenes of art and industry, my venerable host in company with his son, conducted me to the neat habitation which is situated in a spacious airy forest, a little distance from the river bank, commanding a comprehensive and varied prospect; an extensive reach of the river in front, on the right hand a spacious lawn or savanna, on the left the timber yard, the vast fertile low lands and forest on the river upwards, and the plantations adjoining. A cool evening arrived after a sultry day. As we approach the door conducted by the young man, his lovely bride arrayed in native innocence and becoming modesty, with an air and smile of grace and benignity, meets and salutes us! what a Venus! what an Adonis! said I in silent transport; every action and feature seem to reveal the celestial endowments of the mind: though a native sprightliness and sensibility appear, yet virtue and discretion direct and rule. The dress of this beauteous sylvan queen was plain but clean, neat and elegant, all of cotton and of her own spinning and weaving.
Next morning early I sat forward prosecuting my tour. I pursued the high road leading from Savanna to Augusta for the distance of one hundred miles or more, and then recrossed the river at Silver Bluff, a pleasant villa, the property and seat of G. Golphin, esquire, a gentleman of very distinguished talents and great liberality, who possessed the most extensive trade, connections and influence, amongst the South and South-West Indian tribes, particularly with the Creeks and Chactaws, of whom I fortunately obtained letters of recommendation and credit to the principal traders residing in the Indian towns.
Silver Bluff is a very celebrated place. It is a considerable height upon the Carolina shore of the Savanna river, perhaps thirty feet higher than the low lands on the opposite shore, which are subject to be overflowed in the spring and fall. This steep bank rises perpendicularly out of the river, discovering various strata of earth; the surface for a considerable depth is a loose sandy loam, with a mixture of sea shells, especially ostreæ; the next stratum is clay, then sand, next marl, then clays again of various colours and qualities, which last insensibly mix or unite with a deep stratum of blackish or dark slate coloured saline and sulphureous earth, which seems to be of an aluminous or vitriolic quality, and lies in nearly horizontal lamina or strata of various thickness. We discovered bellemnites, pyrites, marcasites and sulphureous nodules, shining like brass, some single of various forms, and others conglomerated, lying in this black slaty-like micaceous earth; as also sticks, limbs and trunks of trees, leaves, acorns and their cups, all transmuted or changed black, hard and shining as charcoal; we also see animal substances, as if petrified, or what are called sharks’ teeth, (dentes charchariæ) but these heterogeneous substances or petrifactions are the most abundant and conspicuous where there is a looser kind of earth, either immediately upon this vast stratum of black earth, or in the divisions of the laminæ. The surface of the ground upon this bluff, extends a mile and an half or two miles on the river, and is from an half mile to a mile in breadth, nearly level, and a good fertile soil, as is evident from the vast Oaks, Hickory, Mulberry, Black walnut and other trees and shrubs, which are left standing in the old fields which are spread abroad to a great distance, and discover various monuments and vestiges of the residence of the ancients, as Indian conical mounts, terraces, areas, &c. as well as remains or traces of fortresses of regular formation, as if constructed after the modes of European military architects, and are supposed to be ancient camps of the Spaniards who formerly fixed themselves at this place in hopes of finding silver.
But perhaps Mr. Golphin’s buildings and improvements will prove to be the foundation of monuments of infinitely greater celebrity and permanency than either of the preceding establishments.
The place which at this day is called fort Moore, is a stupendous bluff, or high perpendicular bank of earth, rising out of the river on the Carolina shore, perhaps ninety or one hundred feet above the common surface of the water, and exhibits a singular and pleasing spectacle to a stranger, especially from the opposite shore, or as we pass up or down the river, presenting a view of prodigious walls of party-coloured earths, chiefly clays and marl of various colours, as brown, red, yellow, blue, purple, white, &c. in horizontal strata, one over the other.