Letters of a Traveller Part 3

In another room were about eighty negroes, boys they are called, from the age of twelve years up to manhood, who received the leaves thus prepared, rolled them into long even rolls, and then cut them into plugs of about four inches in length, which were afterwards pa.s.sed through a press, and thus became ready for market. As we entered the room we heard a murmur of psalmody running through the sable a.s.sembly, which now and then swelled into a strain of very tolerable music.

"Verse sweetens toil--"

says the stanza which Dr. Johnson was so fond of quoting, and really it is so good that I will transcribe the whole of it--

"Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound-- All at her work the village maiden sings, Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things."

Verse it seems can sweeten the toil of slaves in a tobacco factory.

"We encourage their singing as much as we can," said the brother of the proprietor, himself a diligent masticator of the weed, who attended us, and politely explained to us the process of making plug tobacco; "we encourage it as much as we can, for the boys work better while singing.

Sometimes they will sing all day long with great spirit; at other times you will not hear a single note. They must sing wholly of their own accord, it is of no use to bid them do it."

"What is remarkable," he continued, "their tunes are all psalm tunes, and the words are from hymn-books; their taste is exclusively for sacred music; they will sing nothing else. Almost all these persons are church-members; we have not a dozen about the factory who are not so. Most of them are of the Baptist persuasion; a few are Methodists."

I saw in the course of the day the Baptist church in which these people worship, a low, plain, but s.p.a.cious brick building, the same in which the sages of Virginia, a generation of great men, debated the provisions of the const.i.tution. It has a congregation of twenty-seven hundred persons, and the best choir, I heard somebody say, in all Richmond. Near it is the Monumental church, erected on the site of the Richmond theatre, after the terrible fire which carried mourning into so many families.

In pa.s.sing through an old part of Main-street, I was shown an ancient stone cottage of rude architecture and humble dimensions, which was once the best hotel in Richmond. Here, I was told, there are those in Richmond who remember dining with General Washington, Judge Marshall, and their cotemporaries. I could not help comparing it with the palace-like building put up at Richmond within two or three years past, named the Exchange Hotel, with its s.p.a.cious parlors, its long dining-rooms, its airy dormitories, and its ample halls and pa.s.sages, echoing to the steps of busy waiters, and guests coming and departing. The Exchange Hotel is one of the finest buildings for its purpose in the United States, and is extremely well-kept.

I paid a visit to the capitol, n.o.bly situated on an eminence which overlooks the city, and is planted with trees. The statue of Washington, executed by Houdon for the state of Virginia, in 1788, is here. It is of the size of life, representing Gen. Washington in the costume of his day, and in an ordinary standing posture. It gratifies curiosity, but raises no particular moral emotion. Compared with the statue by Greenough, it presents a good example of the difference between the work of a mere sculptor--skillful indeed, but still a mere sculptor--and the work of a man of genius.

I shall shortly set out for Charleston, South Carolina.

Letter X.

A Journey from Richmond to Charleston.

Charleston, _March_ 6, 1843.

I left Richmond, on the afternoon of a keen March day, in the railway train for Petersburg, where we arrived after dark, and, therefore, could form no judgment of the appearance of the town. Here we were transferred to another train of cars. Among the pa.s.sengers was a lecturer on Mesmerism with his wife, and a young woman who accompanied them as a mesmeric subject. The young woman, accustomed to be easily put to sleep, seemed to get through the night very comfortably; but the spouse of the operator appeared to be much disturbed by the frequent and capricious opening of the door by the other pa.s.sengers, which let in torrents of intensely cold air from without, and chid the offenders with a wholesome sharpness.

About two o'clock in the morning, we reached Blakely on the Roanoke, where we were made to get out of the cars, and were marched in long procession for about a quarter of a mile down to the river. A negro walked before us to light our way, bearing a blazing pine torch, which scattered sparks like a steam-engine, and a crowd of negroes followed us, bearing our baggage. We went down a steep path to the Roanoke, where we found a little old steamboat ready for us, and in about fifteen minutes were struggling upward against the muddy and rapid current. In little more than an hour, we had proceeded two miles and a half up the river, and were landed at a place called Weldon. Here we took the cars for Wilmington, in North Carolina, and shabby vehicles they were, denoting our arrival in a milder climate, by being extremely uncomfortable for cold weather. As morning dawned, we saw ourselves in the midst of the pine forests of North Carolina. Vast tracts of level sand, overgrown with the long-leaved pine, a tall, stately tree, with spa.r.s.e and thick twigs, ending in long brushes of leaves, murmuring in the strong cold wind, extended everywhere around us. At great distances from each other, we pa.s.sed log-houses, and sometimes a dwelling of more pretensions, with a piazza, and here and there fields in which cotton or maize had been planted last year, or an orchard with a few small mossy trees. The pools beside the roads were covered with ice just formed, and the negroes, who like a good fire at almost any season of the year, and who find an abundant supply of the finest fuel in these forests, had made blazing fires of the resinous wood of the pine, wherever they were at work. The tracts of sandy soil, we perceived, were interspersed with marshes, crowded with cypress-trees, and verdant at their borders with a growth of evergreens, such as the swamp-bay, the gallberry, the holly, and various kinds of evergreen creepers, which are unknown to our northern climate, and which became more frequent as we proceeded.

We pa.s.sed through extensive forests of pine, which had been _boxed_, as it is called, for the collection of turpentine. Every tree had been scored by the axe upon one of its sides, some of them as high as the arm could reach down to the roots, and the broad wound was covered with the turpentine, which seems to saturate every fibre of the long-leaved pine. Sometimes we saw large flakes or crusts of the turpentine of a light-yellow color, which had fallen, and lay beside the tree on the ground. The collection of turpentine is a work of destruction; it strips acre after acre of these n.o.ble trees, and, if it goes on, the time is not far distant when the long-leaved pine will become nearly extinct in this region, which is so sterile as hardly to be fitted for producing any thing else. We saw large tracts covered with the standing trunks of trees already killed by it; and other tracts beside them had been freshly attacked by the spoiler. I am told that the tree which grows up when the long-leaved pine is destroyed, is the loblolly pine, or, as it is sometimes called, the short-leaved pine, a tree of very inferior quality and in little esteem.

About half-past two in the afternoon, we came to Wilmington, a little town built upon the white sands of Cape Fear, some of the houses standing where not a blade of gra.s.s or other plant can grow. A few evergreen oaks, in places, pleasantly overhang the water. Here we took the steamer for Charleston.

I may as well mention here a fraud which is sometimes practiced upon those who go by this route to Charleston. Advertis.e.m.e.nts are distributed at New York and elsewhere, informing the public that the fare from Baltimore to Charleston, by the railway through Washington and Richmond, is but twenty-two dollars. I took the railway, paying from place to place as I went, and found that this was a falsehood; I was made to pay seven or eight dollars more. In the course of my journey, I was told that, to protect myself from this imposition, I should have purchased at Baltimore a "through ticket," as it is called; that is, should have paid in advance for the whole distance; but the advertis.e.m.e.nt did not inform me that this was necessary. No wonder that "tricks upon travellers" should have become a proverbial expression, for they are a much-enduring race, more or less plundered in every part of the world.

The next morning, at eight o'clock, we found ourselves entering Charleston harbor; Sullivan's Island, with Fort Moultrie, breathing recollections of the revolution, on our right; James Island on our left; in front, the stately dwellings of the town, and all around, on the land side, the horizon bounded by an apparent belt of evergreens--the live-oak, the water-oak, the palmetto, the pine, and, planted about the dwellings, the magnolia and the wild orange--giving to the scene a summer aspect. The city of Charleston strikes the visitor from the north most agreeably. He perceives at once that he is in a different climate. The s.p.a.cious houses are surrounded with broad piazzas, often a piazza to each story, for the sake of shade and coolness, and each house generally stands by itself in a garden planted with trees and shrubs, many of which preserve their verdure through the winter. We saw early flowers already opening; the peach and plum-tree were in full bloom; and the wild orange, as they call the cherry-laurel, was just putting forth its blossoms. The buildings--some with stuccoed walls, some built of large dark-red bricks, and some of wood--are not kept fresh with paint like ours, but are allowed to become weather-stained by the humid climate, like those of the European towns.

The streets are broad and quiet, unpaved in some parts, but in none, as with us, offensive both to sight and smell. The public buildings are numerous for the size of the city, and well-built in general, with sufficient s.p.a.ce about them to give them a n.o.ble aspect, and all the advantage which they could derive from their architecture. The inhabitants, judging from what I have seen of them, which is not much, I confess, do not appear undeserving of the character which has been given them, of possessing the most polished and agreeable manners of all the American cities.

I may shortly write you again from the interior of South Carolina.

Letter XI.

The Interior of South Carolina. A Corn-Shucking.

Barnwell District, South Carolina, _March 29, 1843._

Since I last wrote, I have pa.s.sed three weeks in the interior of South Carolina; visited Columbia, the capital of the state, a pretty town; roamed over a considerable part of Barnwell district, with some part of the neighboring one of Orangeburg; enjoyed the hospitality of the planters--very agreeable and intelligent men; been out in a rac.o.o.n hunt; been present at a corn-shucking; listened to negro ballads, negro jokes, and the banjo; witnessed negro dances; seen two alligators at least, and eaten bushels of hominy.

Whoever comes out on the railroad to this district, a distance of seventy miles or more, if he were to judge only by what he sees in his pa.s.sage, might naturally take South Carolina for a vast pine-forest, with here and there a clearing made by some enterprising settler, and would wonder where the cotton which clothes so many millions of the human race, is produced.

The railway keeps on a tract of sterile sand, overgrown with pines; pa.s.sing, here and there, along the edge of a mora.s.s, or crossing a stream of yellow water. A lonely log-house under these old trees, is a sight for sore eyes; and only two or three plantations, properly so called, meet the eye in the whole distance. The cultivated and more productive lands lie apart from this tract, near streams, and interspersed with more frequent ponds and marshes. Here you find plantations comprising several thousands of acres, a considerable part of which always lies in forest; cotton and corn fields of vast extent, and a negro village on every plantation, at a respectful distance from the habitation of the proprietor. Evergreen trees of the oak family and others, which I mentioned in my last letter, are generally planted about the mansions. Some of them are surrounded with dreary clearings, full of the standing trunks of dead pines; others are pleasantly situated in the edge of woods, intersected by winding paths. A ramble, or a ride--a ride on a hand-gallop it should be--in these pine woods, on a fine March day, when the weather has all the spirit of our March days without its severity, is one of the most delightful recreations in the world. The paths are upon a white sand, which, when not frequently travelled, is very firm under foot; on all sides you are surrounded by n.o.ble stems of trees, towering to an immense height, from whose summits, far above you, the wind is drawing deep and grand harmonies; and often your way is beside a marsh, verdant with magnolias, where the yellow jessamine, now in flower, fills the air with fragrance, and the bamboo-briar, an evergreen creeper, twines itself with various other plants, which never shed their leaves in winter. These woods abound in game, which, you will believe me when I say, I had rather start than shoot,--flocks of turtle-doves, rabbits rising and scudding before you; bevies of quails, partridges they call them here, chirping almost under your horse's feet; wild ducks swimming in the pools, and wild turkeys, which are frequently shot by the practiced sportsman.

But you must hear of the corn-shucking. The one at which I was present was given on purpose that I might witness the humors of the Carolina negroes.

A huge fire of _light-wood_ was made near the corn-house. Light-wood is the wood of the long-leaved pine, and is so called, not because it is light, for it is almost the heaviest wood in the world, but because it gives more light than any other fuel. In clearing land, the pines are girdled and suffered to stand; the outer portion of the wood decays and falls off; the inner part, which is saturated with turpentine, remains upright for years, and const.i.tutes the planter's provision of fuel. When a supply is wanted, one of these dead trunks is felled by the axe. The abundance of light-wood is one of the boasts of South Carolina. Wherever you are, if you happen to be chilly, you may have a fire extempore; a bit of light-wood and a coal give you a bright blaze and a strong heat in an instant. The negroes make fires of it in the fields where they work; and, when the mornings are wet and chilly, in the pens where they are milking the cows. At a plantation, where I pa.s.sed a frosty night, I saw fires in a small inclosure, and was told by the lady of the house that she had ordered them to be made to warm the cattle.

The light-wood fire was made, and the negroes dropped in from the neighboring plantations, singing as they came. The driver of the plantation, a colored man, brought out baskets of corn in the husk, and piled it in a heap; and the negroes began to strip the husks from the ears, singing with great glee as they worked, keeping time to the music, and now and then throwing in a joke and an extravagant burst of laughter.

The songs were generally of a comic character; but one of them was set to a singularly wild and plaintive air, which some of our musicians would do well to reduce to notation. These are the words:

Johnny come down de hollow.

Oh hollow!

Johnny come down de hollow.

Oh hollow!

De n.i.g.g.e.r-trader got me.

Oh hollow!

De speculator bought me.

Oh hollow!

I'm sold for silver dollars.

Oh hollow!

Boys, go catch de pony.

Oh hollow!

Bring him round de corner.

Oh hollow!

I'm goin' away to Georgia.

Oh hollow!

Boys, good-by forever!

Oh hollow!

The song of "Jenny gone away," was also given, and another, called the monkey-song, probably of African origin, in which the princ.i.p.al singer personated a monkey, with all sorts of odd gesticulations, and the other negroes bore part in the chorus, "Dan, dan, who's de dandy?" One of the songs, commonly sung on these occasions, represents the various animals of the woods as belonging to some profession or trade. For example--

De cooter is de boatman--

The cooter is the terrapin, and a very expert boatman he is.

De cooter is de boatman.

John John Crow.