The Civil War in America Part 6

MAY 22.--The prevalence of the war spirit here is in everything somewhat exaggerated by the fervor of Gallic origin, and the violence of popular opinion and the tyranny of the ma.s.s are as potent as in any place in the South. The great house of Brown Brothers, of Liverpool and New York, has closed its business here in consequence of the intimidation of the mob, or, as the phrase is, of the "citizens," who were "excited" by seeing that the firm had subscribed to the New York fund, on its sudden resurrection after Fort Sumter had fallen. Some other houses are about to pursue the same course; all large business transactions are over for the season, and the migratory population which comes here to trade has taken wing much earlier than usual. But the streets are full of "Turcos"

and "Zouaves" and "Cha.s.seurs;" the tailors are busy night and day on uniforms; the walls are covered with placards for recruits, the seamstresses are sewing flags, the ladies are carding lint and st.i.tching cartridge bags. The newspapers are crowded with advertis.e.m.e.nts relating to the formation of new companies of Volunteers and the election of officers. There are Pickwick Rifles, Lafayette, Beauregard, Irish, German, Scotch, Italian, Spanish, Crescent, McMahon--innumerable--Rifle Volunteers of all names and nationalities, and the Meagher Rifles, indignant with "that valiant son of Mars" because he has drawn his sword for the North, have re-baptized themselves, and are going to seek glory under a more auspicious nomenclature. About New Orleans I shall have more to say when I see more of it. At present it looks very like an outlying suburb of Chalons when the Grand Camp is at its highest military development, although the thermometer is rising gradually, and obliges one to know occasionally that it can be 95 in the shade already. In the course of my journeying southward I have failed to find much evidence that there is any apprehension on the part of the planters of a servile insurrection, or that the slaves are taking much interest in the coming contest, or know what it is about. But I have my suspicions that all is not right; paragraphs meet the eye, and odd sentences strike the ear, and little facts here and there come to the knowledge which arouse curiosity and doubt. There is one stereotyped sentence which I am tired of: "Our negroes, Sir, are the happiest, the most contented, and the best off of any people in the world."

The violence and reiterancy of this formula cause one to inquire whether anything which demands such insistance is really in the condition predicated, and, for myself, I always say, "It may be so, but as yet I do not see the proof of it. The negroes do not look to be what you say they are." For the present that is enough as to one's own opinions.

Externally the paragraphs which attract attention, and the acts of the authorities, are inconsistent with the notion that the negroes are all very good, very happy, or at all contented, not to speak of their being in the superlative condition of enjoyment; and, as I only see them, as yet, in the most superficial way, and under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, it may be that when the cotton-picking season is at its height, and it lasts for several months, when the labor is continuous from sunrise to sunset, there is less reason to accept the a.s.sertions as so largely and generally true of the vast majority of the slaves. "There is an excellent gentleman over there," said a friend to me, "who gives his overseers a premium of $10 on the birth of every child on his plantation." "Why so?" "Oh, in order that the overseers may not work the women in the family-way overmuch." There is little use in this part of the world in making use of inferences. But where overseers do not get the premium, it may be supposed they do work the pregnant women too much. Here are two paragraphs which do not look very well as they stand:

"Those negroes who were taken with a sudden leaving on Sunday night last will save the country the expenses of their burial if they keep dark from these parts. They and other of the 'breden' will not be permitted to express themselves quite so freely in regard to their braggadocio designs upon virtue in the absence of volunteers."--[Wilmington (Clintock County, Ohio,) _Watchman_ (Republican).

"SERVED HIM RIGHT.--One day last week some colored individual, living near South Plymouth, made a threat that, in case a civil war should occur, 'he would be one to ravish the wife of every Democrat, and to help murder their offspring and wash his hands in their blood.' For this diabolical a.s.sertion he was hauled up before a committee of white citizens, who adjudged him forty stripes on his naked back. He was accordingly stripped, and the lashes were laid on with such good will, that the blood flowed at the end of the castigation.--[Washington (Fayette County, Ohio,) _Register_ (Neutral).

It is reported that the patrols are strengthened, and I could not help hearing a charming young lady say to another, the other evening, that "she would not be afraid to go back to the plantation, though Mrs. Brown Jones said she was afraid her negroes were after mischief."

There is a great scarcity of powder, which is one of the reasons, perhaps, why it has not yet been expended as largely as might be expected from the tone and temper on both sides. There is no sulphur in the States--nitre and charcoal abound. The sea is open to the North.

There is no great overplus of money on either side. In Missouri, the interest on the State debt due in July will be used to procure arms for the State volunteers to carry on the war. The South is preparing for the struggle by sowing a most unusual quant.i.ty of grain, and in many fields corn and maize have been planted instead of cotton. "Stay laws," by which all inconveniences arising from the usual, dull, old-fashioned relations between debtor and creditor are avoided (at least by the debtor), have been adopted in most of the Seceding States. How is it that the State Legislatures seem to be in the hands of the debtors, and not of the creditors?

There are some who cling to the idea that there will be no war, after all; but no one believes that the South will ever go back of its own free will, and the only reason that can be given for those who hope rather than think in that way, is to be found in the faith that the North will accept some mediation, and will let the South go in peace.

But could there, can there be peace? The frontier question, the adjustment of various claims, the demands for indemnity, or for privileges or exemptions, in the present state of feeling, can have but one result. The task of mediation is sure to be as thankless as abortive. a.s.suredly the proffered service of England would, on one side at least, be received with something like insult. Nothing but adversity can teach these people its own most useful lessons. Material prosperity has puffed up the citizens to an unwholesome state. The toils and sacrifices of the Old World have been taken by them as their birthright, and they have accepted the fruits of all that the science, genius, suffering, and trials of mankind in time past have wrought out, perfected, and won as their own peculiar inheritance, while they have ignorantly rejected the advice and scorned the lessons with which these were accompanied.

MAY 23.--The Congress at Montgomery, having sat with closed doors almost since it met, has now adjourned till July the 20th, when it will rea.s.semble at Richmond, in Virginia, which is thus designated, for the time, capital of the Confederate States of America. Richmond, the princ.i.p.al city of the old Dominion, is about one hundred miles in a straight line south by west of Washington. The rival capitals will thus be in very close proximity by rail and by steam, by land and by water.

The movement is significant. It will tend to hasten a collision between the forces which are collected on the opposite sides of the Potomac.

Hitherto, Mr. Jefferson Davis has not evinced all the sagacity and energy, in a military sense, which he is said to possess. It was bad strategy to menace Washington before he could act. His Secretary of War, Mr. Walker, many weeks ago, in a public speech, announced the intention of marching upon the capital. If it was meant to do so, the blow should have been struck silently. If it was not intended to seize upon Washington, the threat had a very disastrous effect on the South, as it excited the North to immediate action, and caused General Scott to concentrate his troops on points which present many advantages in the face of any operations which may be considered necessary along the lines either of defence or attack. The movement against the Norfolk Navy Yard strengthened Fortress Monroe, and the Potomac and Chesapeake were secured to the United States. The fortified ports held by the Virginians and the Confederate States troops, are not of much value as long as the streams are commanded by the enemy's steamers; and General Scott has shown that he has not outlived either his reputation or his vigor by the steps, at once wise and rapid, he has taken to curb the malcontents in Maryland, and to open his communications through the City of Baltimore.

Although immense levies of men may be got together on both sides for purposes of local defence or for State operations, it seems to me that it will be very difficult to move these ma.s.ses in regular armies. The men are not disposed for regular, lengthened service, and there is an utter want of field trains, equipment, and commissariat, which cannot be made good in a day, a week, or a month.

The bill pa.s.sed by the Montgomery Congress, ent.i.tled "An act to raise an additional military force to serve during the war," is, in fact, a measure to put into the hands of the Government the control of irregular bodies of men, and to bind them to regular military service. With all their zeal, the people of the South will not enlist. They detest the recruiting sergeant, and Mr. Davis knows enough of war to feel hesitation in trusting himself in the field to volunteers. The bill authorizes Mr. Davis to accept volunteers, who may offer their services, without regard to the place of enlistment, "to serve during the war, unless sooner discharged." They may be accepted in companies, but Mr.

Davis is to organize them into squadrons, battalions, or regiments, and the appointment of field and staff officers is reserved especially to him. The company officers are to be elected by the men of the company, but here again Mr. Davis reserves to himself the right of veto, and will only commission those officers whose election he approves.

The absence of cavalry and the deficiency of artillery may prevent either side obtaining any decisive results in one engagement, but no doubt there will be great loss whenever these large ma.s.ses of men are fairly opposed to each other in the field. Of the character of the Northern regiments I can say nothing more from actual observation, nor have I yet seen in any place such a considerable number of the troops of the Confederate States moving together, as would justify me in expressing any opinion with regard to their capacity for organized movements such as regular troops in Europe are expected to perform. An intelligent and trustworthy observer, taking one of the New York State Militia regiments as a fair specimen of the battalions which will fight for the United States, gives an account of them which leads me to the conclusion that such regiments are much superior when furnished by the country districts to those raised in the towns and cities. It appears in this case, at least, that the members of the regular militia companies in general send subst.i.tutes to the ranks. Ten of these companies form the regiment, and in nearly every instance they have been doubled in strength by volunteers. Their drill is exceedingly incomplete, and in forming the companies there is a tendency for the different nationalities to keep themselves together. In the regiment in question, the rank and file often consists of quarrymen, mechanics, and ca.n.a.l boatmen, mountaineers from the Catskill, bark peelers and timber cutters--ungainly, square-built, powerful fellows, with a Dutch tenacity of purpose crossed with an English indifference to danger. There is no drunkenness and no desertion among them. The officers are almost as ignorant of military training as their men. The Colonel, for instance, is the son of a rich man in his district, well educated, and a man of travel. Another officer is a shipmaster. A third is an artist; others are merchants and lawyers, and they are all busy studying "Hardee's Tactics," the best book for infantry drill in the United States. The men have come out to fight for what they consider the cause of theo c.u.n.try, and are said to have no particular hatred of the South or of its inhabitants, though they think they are "a darned deal too high and mighty, and require to be wiped down considerably." They have no notion as to the length of time for which their services will be required, and I am a.s.sured that not one of them has asked what his pay is to be.

Reverting to Montgomery, one may say without offence, that its claims to be the capital of a Republic which a.s.serts that it is the richest, and believes that it will be the strongest in the world, are not by any means evident to a stranger. Its central position, which has reference rather to a map than to the hard face of matter, procured for it a distinction to which it had no other claim. The accommodations which suited the modest wants of a State Legislature vanished or were trans.m.u.ted into barbarous inconveniences by the pressure of a central government, with its offices, its departments, and the vast crowd of applicants which flocked thither to pick up such crumbs of comfort as could be spared from the Executive table. Never shall I forget the dismay of myself, and of the friends who were travelling with me, on our arrival at the Exchange Hotel, under circ.u.mstances with some of which you are already acquainted. With us were men of high position, Members of Congress, Senators, ex-Governors, and General Beauregard himself. But to no one was greater accommodation extended than could be furnished by a room held, under a sort of ryot-warree tenure, in common with a community of strangers. My room was shown to me. It contained four large fourpost beds, a ricketty table, and some chairs of infirm purpose and fundamental unsoundness. The floor was carpetless, covered with litter of paper and ends of cigars, and stained with tobacco juice. The broken gla.s.s of the window afforded no ungrateful means of ventilation. One gentleman sat in his shirt sleeves at the table reading the account of the marshalling of the Highlanders at Edinburgh in the Abbotsford edition of Sir Walter Scott; another, who had been wearied, apparently, by writing numerous applications to the Government for some military post, of which rough copies lay scattered around, came in, after refreshing himself at the bar, and occupied one of the beds, which, by-the-bye, were ominously provided with two pillows apiece. Supper there was none for us in the house, but a search in an outlying street, enabled us to discover a restaurant, where roasted squirrels and baked opossums figured as luxuries in the bill of fare. On our return we found that due preparation had been made in the apartment by the addition of three mattresses on the floor. The beds were occupied by unknown statesmen and warriors, and we all slumbered and snored in friendly concert till morning. Gentlemen in the South complain that strangers judge of them by their hotels, but it is a very natural standard for strangers to adopt, and in respect to Montgomery it is almost the only one that a gentleman can conveniently use; for, if the inhabitants of this city and its vicinity are not maligned, there is an absence of the hospitable spirit which the South lays claim to as one of its animating principles, and a little bird whispered to me that from Mr. Jefferson Davis down to the least distinguished member of his Government, there was reason to observe that the usual attentions and civilities offered by residents to ill.u.s.trious stragglers had been "conspicuous for their absence." The fact is, that the small planters, who const.i.tute the majority of the land-owners, are not in a position to act the Amphytrion, and that the inhabitants of the district can scarcely aspire to be considered what we would call gentry in England, but are a frugal, simple, hog and hominy-living people, fond of hard work and, occasionally, of hard drinking.

NEW ORLEANS, May 24, 1861.

It is impossible to resist the conviction that the Southern Confederacy can only be conquered by means as irresistible as those by which Poland was subjugated. The South will fall, if at all, as a nation prostrate at the feet of a victorious enemy. There is no doubt of the unanimity of the people. If words mean anything, they are animated by only one sentiment, and they will resist the North as long as they can command a man or a dollar. There is nothing of a sectional character in this disposition of the South. In every State there is only one voice audible. Hereafter, indeed, State jealousies may work their own way.

Whatever may be the result, unless the men are the merest braggarts--and they do not look like it--they will fight to the last before they give in, and their confidence in their resources is only equalled by their determination to test them to the utmost. There is a noisy vociferation about their declarations of implicit trust and, reliance on their slaves, which makes one think they do "protest too much," and it remains to be seen whether the slaves really will remain faithful to their masters should the Abolition army ever come among them as an armed propaganda. One thing is obvious here. A large number of men who might be usefully employed in the ranks are idling about the streets. The military enthusiasm is in proportion to the property interest of the various cla.s.ses of the people; and the very boast that so many rich men are serving in the ranks is a significant proof either of the want of substratum, or of the absence of great devotion to the cause of any such layer of white people as may underlie the great slaveholding, mercantile, and planting oligarchy. The whole State of Louisiana contains about 50,000 men liable to serve when called on. Of that number only 15,000 are enrolled and under arms in any shape whatever; and if one is to judge of the state of affairs by the advertis.e.m.e.nts which appear from the Adjutant-General's office, there was some difficulty in procuring the 3,000 men--merely 3,000 volunteers--"to serve during the war," who are required by the Confederate Government. There is plenty of "prave lords," and if fierce writing and talking could do work, the armies on both sides would have been killed and eaten long ago. It is found out that "the lives of the citizens" at Pensacola are too valuable to be destroyed in attacking Pickens. A storm that shall drive away the ships, a plague, yellow fever, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, small-pox--any of these agencies is looked to with confidence to do the work of shot, sh.e.l.l, and bayonet. Our American "brethren in arms" have yet to learn that great law in American cookery, that "if they want to make omelets they must break eggs." The "moral suasion" of the la.s.so, of head-shaving, ducking, kicking, and such processes, are, I suspect, used not unfrequently to stimulate volunteers; and the extent to which the acts of the recruiting officer are somewhat aided by the arm of the law, and the force of the policeman and the magistrate, may be seen from paragraphs in the morning papers now and then, to the effect that certain gentlemen of Milesian extraction, who might have been engaged in pugilistic pursuits, were discharged from custody, unpunished, on condition that they enlisted for the war. With the peculiar views entertained of freedom of opinion and action by large cla.s.ses of people on this continent, such a mode of obtaining volunteers is very natural, but resort to it evinces a want of zeal on the part of some of the 50,000 who are on the rolls; and, from all I can hear--and I have asked numerous persons likely to be acquainted with the subject--there are not more than those 15,000 men of whom I have spoken in all the State under arms, or in training, of whom a considerable proportion will be needed for garrison and coast defence duties. It may be that the Northern States and Northern sentiments are as violent as the South, but I see some evidences to the contrary. For instance, in New York ladies and gentlemen from the South are permitted to live at their favorite hotels without molestation; and one hotel-keeper at Saratoga Springs advertises openly for the custom of his Southern patrons. In no city of the South which I have visited would a party of Northern people be permitted to remain for an hour if the "citizens" were aware of their presence. It is laughable to hear men speaking of the "unanimity" of the South. Just look at the peculiar means by which unanimity is enforced and secured.

This is an extract from a New Orleans paper:

"CHARGES OF ABOLITIONISM.--Mayor Monroe has disposed of some of the cases brought before him on charges of this kind by sending the accused to the workhouse.

"A Mexican, named Bernard Cruz, born in Tampico, and living here with an Irish wife, was brought before the Mayor this morning, charged with uttering Abolition sentiments. After a full investigation, it was found that from the utterance of his incendiary language, that Cruz's education was not yet perfect in Southern cla.s.sics, and his Honor therefore directed that he be sent for six months to the Humane Inst.i.tution for the Amelioration of the Condition of Northern Barbarians and Abolition Fanatics, presided over by Professor Henry Mitch.e.l.l, keeper of the workhouse, and who will put him through a course of study on Southern ethics and inst.i.tutions.

"The testimony before him on Sat.u.r.day, however, in the case of a man named David O'Keefe, was such as to induce him to commit the accused for trial before the Criminal Court. One of the witnesses testified positively that she heard him make his children shout for Lincoln; another, that the accused said, 'I am an Abolitionist,'

&c. The witnesses, neighbors of the accused, gave their evidence reluctantly, saying they had warned him of the folly and danger of his conduct. O'Keefe says he has been a United States soldier, and came here from St. Louis and Kansas.

"John White was arraigned before Recorder Emerson on Sat.u.r.day for uttering incendiary language while travelling in the baggage car of a train of the New Orleans, Ohio and Great Western Railroad, intimating that the decapitator of Jefferson Davis would get $10,000 for his trouble, and the last man of us would be whipped like dogs by the Lincolnites. He was held under bonds of $500 to answer the charge on the 8th of June.

"Nicholas Gento, charged with declaring himself an Abolitionist, and acting very much like he was one by harboring a runaway slave, was sent to prison, in default of bail, to await an examination before the Recorder."

Such is "freedom of speech" in Louisiana! But in Texas the machinery for the production of "unanimity" is less complicated, and there are no insulting legal formalities connected with the working of the simple appliances which a primitive agricultural people have devised for their own purposes. Hear the Texan correspondent of one of the journals of this city on the subject. "It is to us astonishing," he says,

"That such unmitigated lies as those Northern papers disseminate as anarchy and disorder here in Texas, dissension among ourselves, and especially from our German, &c., population, with dangers and anxieties from the fear of insurrection among the negroes, &c., should be deemed anywhere South worthy of a moment's thought. It is surely notorious enough that in no part of the South are Abolitionists or other disturbers of the public peace so very unsafe as in Texas. The _la.s.so_ is so _very_ convenient!"

Here is an excellent method of preventing dissension described by a stroke of the pen; and, as such, an ingenious people are not likely to lose sight of the uses of a revolution in developing peculiar principles to their own advantage, repudiation of debts to the North has been proclaimed and acted on. One gentleman has found it convenient to inform Major Anderson that he does not intend to meet certain bills which he had given the Major for some slaves. Another declares he won't pay anybody at all, as he has discovered it is immoral and contrary to the laws of nations to do so. A third feels himself bound to obey the commands of the Governor of his State, who has ordered that debts due to the North shall not be liquidated. As a _naive_ specimen of the way in which the whole case is treated, take this article and the correspondence of "one of the most prominent mercantile houses of New Orleans:"

SOUTHERN DEBTS TO THE NORTH.

"_The Cincinnati Gazette_ copies the following paragraph from _The New York Evening Post_:

"'BAD FAITH.--The bad faith of the Southern merchants in their transactions with their Northern correspondents is becoming more evident daily. We have heard of several recent cases where parties in this city, retired from active business, have, nevertheless, stepped forward to protect the credit of their Southern friends.

They are now coolly informed that they cannot be reimbursed for these advances until the war is over. We know of a retired merchant who in this way has lost $100,000.'--and adds:

"'The same here. Men who have done most for the South are the chief sufferers. Debts are coolly repudiated by the Southern merchants, who have heretofore enjoyed a first-cla.s.s reputation. Men who have grown rich upon the trade furnished by the West are among the first to pocket the money of their correspondents, asking, with all the impudence and a.s.surance of a highwayman, "What are you going to do about it?" There is honor among thieves, it is said, but there is not a spark of honor among these repudiating merchants. People who have aided and trusted them to the last moment are the greatest losers. There is a future, however. This war will be over, and the Southern merchants will desire a resumption of their connections with the West. As the repudiators--such as Goodrich & Co. of New Orleans--will be spurned, there will be a grand opening for honest men.

"'There are many honorable exceptions in the South, but dishonesty is the rule. The latter is but the development of latent rascality.

The rebellion has afforded a pretext merely for the swindling operations. The parties previously acted honestly, only because that was the best policy. The sifting process that may now be conducted will be of advantage to Northern merchants in the future.

The present losses will be fully made up by subsequent gains.'

"We have been requested to copy the following reply to this tirade from one of our most prominent mercantile houses, Messrs. Goodrich & Co.:

"'NEW ORLEANS, May 24, 1861.

"'CINCINNATI GAZETTE.--We were handed, through a friend of ours, your issue of the 18th inst., and attention directed to an article contained therein, in which you are pleased to particularize us out of a large number of highly respectable merchants of this and other Southern cities as repudiators, swindlers, and other epithets, better suited to the mouths of the Wilson Regiment of New York than from a once respectable sheet, but now has sunk so low in the depths of n.i.g.g.e.rdom, that it would take all the soap in Porkopolis and the Ohio River to cleanse it from its foul pollution.

"'We are greatly indebted to you for using our name in the above article, as we deem it the best card you could publish for us, and may add greatly to our business relations in the Confederate States, which will enable us in the end to pay our indebtedness to those who propose cutting our throats, destroying our property, stealing our negroes, and starving our wives and children, to pay such men in times of war. You may term it rascality, but we beg leave to call it patriotism.

"'Giving the sinews of war to your enemies have ever been considered as treason.--Kent.

"'Now for 'repudiating.' We have never, nor do we ever expect to repudiate any debt owing by our firm. But this much we will say, never will we pay a debt due by us to a man, or any company of men, who is a known Black Republican, and marching in battle array to invade our homes and firesides, until every such person shall be driven back, and their polluted footsteps shall, now on our once happy soil, be entirely obliterated.

"'We have been in business in this city for twenty years, have pa.s.sed through every crisis with our names untarnished or credit impaired, and would at present sacrifice all we have made, were it necessary, to sustain our credit in the Confederacy, but care nothing for the opinions of such as are open and avowed enemies. We are sufficiently known in this city not to require the indors.e.m.e.nt of _The Cincinnati Gazette_, or any such sheet, for a character.

"'The day is coming, and not far distant, when there will be an awful reckoning, and we are willing and determined to stand by our Confederate flag, sink or swim, and would like to meet some of _The Gazette's_ editors _vis-a-vis_ on the field of blood, and see who would be the first to flinch.

"'Our senior partner has already contributed one darkey this year to your population, and she is anxious to return, but we have a few more left which you can have, provided you will come and take them yourselves.

"'We have said more than we intended, and hope you will give this a place in your paper.

GOODRICH & Co.'"

There is some little soreness felt here about the use of the word "repudiation," and it will do the hearts of some people good, and will carry comfort to the ghost of the Rev. Sydney Smith, if it can hear the tidings, to know I have been a.s.sured, over and over again, by eminent mercantile people and statesmen, that there is "a general desire" on the part of the repudiating States to pay their bonds, and that no doubt, at some future period, not very clearly ascertainable or plainly indicated, that general desire will cause some active steps to be taken to satisfy its intensity, of a character very unexpected, and very gratifying to those interested. The tariff of the Southern Confederation has just been promulgated, and I send herewith a copy of the rates. Simultaneously, however, with this doc.u.ment, the United States steam frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have made their appearance off the Pas-a-l'Outre, and the Mississippi is closed, and with it the port of New Orleans. The steam-tugs refuse to tow out vessels for fear of capture, and British ships are in jeopardy.

MAY 25.--A visit to the camp at Tangipao, about fifty miles from New Orleans, gave an occasion for obtaining a clearer view of the internal military condition of those forces of which one reads much, and sees so little, than any other way. Major-General Lewis of the State Militia, and staff, and General Labuzan, a Creole officer, attended by Major Ranney, President of the New-Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railway, and by many officers in uniform, started with that purpose at 4:30 this evening in a rail-carriage, carefully and comfortably fitted for their reception. The militia of Louisiana has not been called out for many years, and its officers have no military experience, and the men have no drill or discipline.

Emerging from the swampy suburbs, we soon pa.s.s between white clover pastures, which we are told invariably salivate the herds of small but plump cattle browsing upon them. Soon cornfields "in ta.s.sel," alternate with long narrow rows of growing sugar-cane, which, though scarcely a fourth of the height of the maize, will soon over-shadow it; and the cane-stalks grow up so densely together that nothing larger than a rattle-snake can pa.s.s between them.