Voyage of the Paper Canoe Part 13

When near the inlet, the rice-plantation marshes skirted the sh.o.r.e for some distance. Out of these wet lands flowed a little stream, called Mosquito Creek, which once connected the North Santee River with Winyah Bay, and served as a boundary to South Island. The creek was very crooked, and the ebb-tide strong. When more than halfway to Santee River I was forced to leave the stream, as it had become closed by tidal deposits and rank vegetation.

The ditches of rice plantations emptied their drainage of the lowlands into Mosquito Creek. Following a wide ditch to the right, through fields of rich alluvial soil, which had been wrested by severe toil from nature, the boat soon reached the rice-mill of Commodore Richard Lowndes. A little further on, and situated in a n.o.ble grove of live-oaks, which were draped in the weird festoons of Spanish moss, on the upland arose the stately home of the planter, who still kept his plantation in cultivation, though on a scale of less magnitude than formerly. It was, indeed, a pleasant evening that I pa.s.sed in the company of the refined members of the old commodore's household, and with a pang of regret the next day I paddled along the main ca.n.a.l of the lowlands, casting backward glances at the old house, with its grand old trees. The ca.n.a.l ended at North Santee Bay.

While I was preparing to ascend the river a tempest arose, which kept me a weary prisoner among the reeds of the rice marsh. The hollow reeds made poor fuel for cooking, and when the dark, stormy night shut down upon me, the damp soil grew damper as the tide arose, until it threatened to overflow the land. For hours I lay in my narrow canoe waiting for the tidal flood to do its worst, but it receded, and left me without any means of building a fire, as the reeds were wet by the storm. The next afternoon, being tired of this sort of prison-life, and cramped for lack of exercise, I launched the canoe into the rough water, and crossing to Crow Island found a lee under its sh.o.r.es, which permitted me to ascend the river to the mouth of Atchison Creek, through which I pa.s.sed, two miles, to the South Santee River.

All these rivers are bordered by rice plantations, many of them having been abandoned to the care of the freedmen. I saw no white men upon them. Buildings and dikes are falling into ruins, and the river freshets frequently inundate the land. Many of the owners of these once valuable estates are too much reduced in wealth to attempt their proper cultivation. It is in any case difficult to get the freedmen to work through an entire season, even when well paid for their services, and they flock to the towns whenever opportunity permits.

The North and South Santee rivers empty into the Atlantic, but their entrances are so shallow that Georgetown Entrance is the inlet through which most of the produce of the country--pitch, tar, turpentine, rice, and lumber--finds exit to the sea. As I left the ca.n.a.l, which, with the creek, makes a complete thoroughfare for lighters and small coasters from one Santee River to the other, a renewal of the tempest made me seek shelter in an old cabin in a negro settlement, each house of which was built upon piles driven into the marshes. The old negro overseer of the plantation hinted to me that his "hands were berry spicious of ebbry stranger," and advised me to row to some other locality. I told him I was from the north, and would not hurt even one of the fleas which in mult.i.tudes infested his negroes' quarters; but the old fellow shook his head, and would not be responsible for me if I staid there all night. A tall darkey, who had listened to the conversation, broke in with, "Now, uncle, ye knows dat if dis gemmum is from de norf he is one of wees, and ye must _du_ fur him jis _dis_ time." But "Uncle Overseer" kept repeating, "Some n.i.g.g.e.rs here is mity spicious. Du not no who white man is anyhow." "Well, uncle," replied the tall black, "ef dis man is a Yankee-mans, Ise will see him _froo_."

Then he questioned me, while the fleas, having telegraphed to each other that a stranger had arrived, made sad havoc of me and my patience.

"My name's Jacob Gilleu; what's yourn?" I gave it. "Whar's your home?"

came next. "I am a citizen of the United States," I replied. "De 'Nited States--whar's dat? neber hurd him afore," said Jacob Gilleu. Having informed him it was the land which General Grant governed, he exclaimed: "O, you's a _Grant_ man; all rite den; you is one of wees--all de same as wees. Den look a-here, boss. I send you to one good place on Alligator Creek, whar Seba Gillings libs. He black man, but he treat you jes like white man."

Jacob helped me launch my boat through the soft mud, which nearly stalled us; and following his directions I paddled across the South Santee and coasted down to Alligator Creek, where extensive marshes, covered by tall reeds, hid the landscape from my view. About half a mile from the mouth of the creek, which watercourse was on my direct route to Bull's Bay, a large tide-gate was found at the mouth of a ca.n.a.l. This being wide open, I pushed up the ca.n.a.l to a low point of land which rose like an island out of the rushes. Here was a negro hamlet of a dozen houses, or shanties, and the ruins of a rice-mill. The majority of the negroes were absent working within the diked enclosures of this large estate, which before the war had produced forty thousand bushels of rice annually. Now the place was leased by a former slave, and but little work was accomplished under the present management.

Seba Gillings, a powerfully built negro, came to the dike upon which I had landed the canoe. I quickly told him my story, and how I had been forced to leave the last negro quarters. I used Jacob Gilleu's name as authority for seeking shelter with him from the damps of the half-submerged lands. The dignified black man bade me "fear nuffing, stay here all de night, long's you please; treat you like white man.

I'se mity poor, but gib you de berry best I hab." He locked my boat in a rickety old storehouse, and gave me to understand "dat n.i.g.g.e.rs will steal de berry breff from a man's mouff."

He took me to his home, and soon showed me how he managed "de n.i.g.g.e.rs."

His wife sat silently by the fire. He ordered her to "pound de rice;"

and she threw a quant.i.ty of unhulled rice into a wooden mortar three feet high planted in the ground in front of the shanty. Then, with an enormous pestle, the black woman pounded the grains until the hulls were removed, when, seating herself upon the floor of the dark, smoky cabin, she winnowed the rice with her breath, while her long, slim fingers caught and removed all the specks of dirt from the ma.s.s. It was cooked as the Chinese cook it--not to a glutinous ma.s.s, as we of the north prepare it--but each grain was dry and entire. Then eggs and bacon were prepared; not by the woman, but by the son, a lad of fourteen years.

All these movements were superintended by old Seba, who sat looking as dark and as solemn and as learned as an a.s.sociate judge on the bench of a New Jersey county court. On the blackest of tables, minus a cloth, the well-cooked food was placed for the stranger. As soon as my meal was finished, every member of the family made a dash for the fragments, and the board was cleared in a wonderfully short s.p.a.ce of time.

Then we gathered round the great, black-mouthed fireplace, and while the bright coals of live-oak spread a streak of light through the darkness, black men and black women stole into the room until everything from floor to ceiling, from door to chimney-place, seemed to be growing blacker and blacker, and I felt as black as my surroundings. The scant clothing of the men only half covered their shiny, ebony skins. The whole company preserved a dignified silence, which was occasionally broken by deep sighs coming from the women in reply to a half-whispered "All de way from de norf in a _paper_ canno--bless de Lord! bless de Lord!"

This dull monotony was broken by the entrance of a young negro who, having made a pa.s.sage in a sloop to Charleston through Bull's Bay, was looked upon as a great traveller, and to him were referred disputes upon nautical matters. He had not yet seen the boat, but he proceeded to tell the negroes present all about it. He first bowed to me with a "How'dy, how'dy, cap'n," and then struck an att.i.tude in the middle of the floor. Upon this natural orator Seba Gillings' dignity had no effect--was he not a travelled man?

His exordium was: "How fur you c.u.m, sar?" I replied, about fourteen hundred miles. "Fourteen hundred miles!" he roared; "duz you knows how much dat is, honnies? it's jes _one tousand_ four hundred miles." All the women groaned out, "Bless de Lord! bless de Lord!" and clapped their shrivelled hands in ecstasy.

The little black tried to run his fingers through his short, woolly hair as he continued: "What is dis yere world a-coming to? Now, yous ere folks, did ye's eber hear de likes o' dis--a _paper_ boat?" To which the crones replied, clapping their hands, "Bless de Lord! bless de Lord!

Only the Yankee-mens up norf can make de _paper_ boats. Bless de Lord!"

"And what," continued the orator, "and what will the Yankee-mens do next? Dey duz ebery ting. Can dey bring a man back agen? Can dey bring a man back to bref?" "No! no!" howled the women; "only de Lord can bring a man back agen--no Yankee-mens can do dat. Bless de Lord! bless de Lord!"

"And what sent dis Yankee-man _one tousand_ four hundred miles in his _paper_ boat?" "De Lord! de Lord! bless de Lord!" shouted the now highly excited women, violently striking the palms of their hands together.

"And why," went on this categorical negro, "did de _Lord_ send him down souf in de _paper_ boat?" "Kase he couldn't hab c.u.m in de _paper_ boat ef de Lord hadn't a-sent him. O, bless de Lord! bless de Lord!" "And what duz he call his paper boat?" "Maria Theresa," I replied. "Maria Truss Her," cried the orator. "He calls her Maria Truss Her. Berry good, berry good name; kase he truss his life in her ebry day, and dat's why he calls his little boat Truss Her. Yes, de Yankee-mans makes de gunboats and de paper boats. Has de gemmin from de norf any bacca for dis yere chile?"

As the women had become very piously inclined, and were in just the state of nervous excitement to commence "de shoutings," old Uncle Seba rudely informed them that "de Yankee-mans wants sleep," and cleared the room of the crowd, to my great relief, for the state of the atmosphere was beyond description. Seba had a closet where he kept onions, muskrat skins, and other pieces of personal property. He now set his wife to sweeping it out, and I spread my clean blankets with a sigh upon the black floor, knowing I should carry away in the morning more than I had brought into Seba's dwelling.

I will not now expatiate upon the small annoyances of travel; but to the canoeist who may follow the southern watercourses traversed by the paper canoe, I would quietly say, "Keep away from cabins of all kinds, and you will by so doing travel with a light heart and even temper."

When I cast up my account with old Seba the next morning, he said that by trading the rice he raised he could obtain "bout ebbry ting he wanted, 'cept rum." Rum was his medicine. So long as he kept a little stowed away, he admitted he was often sick. Having been dest.i.tute of cash, and consequently of rum for some time, he acknowledged his state of health remarkable; and he was a model of strength and manly development. All the other negroes were dwarfish-looking specimens, while their hair was so very short that it gave them the appearance of being bald.

When the canoe was taken out of the storehouse to be put into the ca.n.a.l, these half-naked, ebony-skinned creatures swarmed about it like bees.

Not a trace of white blood could be detected in them. Each tried to put a finger upon the boat. They seemed to regard it as a Fetich; and, I believe, had it been placed upon an end they would have bowed down and paid their African devotions to it. Only the oldest ones could speak English well enough to be understood. The youths chattered in African tongue, and wore talismans about their necks. They were, to say the least, verging on barbarism. The experience gathered among the blacks of other lands impressed me with the well-founded belief, that in more than one place in the south would the African Fetich be set up and worshipped before long, unless the church bestirs herself to look well to her _home_ missions.

In all my travels, outside of the cities, in the south it has not been my good fortune to find an educated white man preaching to negroes, yet everywhere the poor blacks gather in the log-cabin, or rudely constructed church, to listen to ignorant preachers of their own color.

The blind leading the blind.

A few men of negro extraction, with white blood in their veins, not any more negro than white man, consequently _not_ negroes in the true sense of the word, are sent from the negro colleges of the south to lecture northern congregations upon the needs of _their_ race; and these one-quarter, or perhaps three-quarters, white men are, with their intelligence, and sometimes brilliant oratory, held up as true types of the negro race by northerners; while there is, in fact, as much difference between the pure-blooded negro of the rice-field and this false representative of "his needs," as can well be imagined.

An Irishman, just from the old country, listened one evening to the fascinating eloquence of a mulatto freedman. The good Irishman had never seen a pure-blooded black man. The orator said, "I am only half a black man. My mother was a slave, my father a white planter." "Be jabbers,"

shouted the excited Irishman, who was charmed with the lecturer, "if you are only half a n.i.g.g.e.r, what must a _whole one_ be like!"

The blacks were kind and civil, as they usually are when fairly treated.

They stood upon the dike and shouted unintelligible farewells as I descended the ca.n.a.l to Alligator Creek. This thoroughfare soon carried me on its salt-water current to the sea; for I missed a narrow entrance to the marshes, called the Eye of the Needle (a steamboat thoroughfare), and found myself upon the calm sea, which pulsated in long swells. To the south was the low island of Cape Roman, which, like a protecting arm, guarded the quiet bay behind it. The marshes extended from the main almost to the cape, while upon the edge of the rushy meadows, upon an island just inside of the cape, rose the tower of Roman Light.

This was the first time my tiny sh.e.l.l had floated upon the ocean. I coasted the sandy beach of the muddy lowlands, towards the light-house, until I found a creek debouching from the marsh, which I entered, and from one watercourse to another, without a chart, found my way at dusk into Bull's Bay. The sea was rolling in and breaking upon the sh.o.r.e, which I was forced to hug closely, as the old disturbers of my peace, the porpoises, were visible, fishing in numbers. To escape the dangerous racc.o.o.n oyster reefs of the shoal water the canoe was forced into a deeper channel, when the lively porpoises chased the boat and drove me back again on to the sharp-lipped sh.e.l.ls. It was fast growing dark, and no place of refuge nearer than the upland, a long distance across the soft marsh, which was even now wet with the sea.

The rough water of the sound, the oyster reefs which threatened to pierce my boat, and a coast which would be submerged by the next flood-tide, all seemed to conspire against me. Suddenly my anxiety was relieved, and grat.i.tude filled my heart, as the tall masts of a schooner rose out of the marshes not far from the upland, telling me that a friendly creek was near at hand. Its wide mouth soon opened invitingly before me, and I rowed towards the beautiful craft anch.o.r.ed in its current, the trim rig of which plainly said--the property of the United States. An officer stood on the quarterdeck watching my approach through his gla.s.s; and, as I was pa.s.sing the vessel, a sailor remarked to his mates, "That is the paper canoe. I was in Norfolk, last December, when it reached the Elizabeth River."

The officer kindly hailed me, and offered me the hospitality of the Coast-Survey schooner "Caswell." In the cosiest of cabins, Mr. W. H.

Dennis, with his co-laborers Messrs. Ogden and Bond, with their interesting conversation soon made me forget the discomforts of the last three days spent in the muddy flats among the lowland negroes. From poor, kind Seba Gillings' black cabin-floor, to the neat state-room, with its snowy sheets and clean towels, where fresh, pure water could be used without stint, was indeed a transition. The party expected to complete their work as far as Charleston harbor before the season closed.

The Sunday spent on the "Caswell" greatly refreshed me. On Sat.u.r.day evening Mr. Dennis traced upon a sheet of paper my route through the interior coast watercourses to Charleston harbor; and I left the pretty schooner on Monday, fully posted for my voyage. The tide commenced flooding at eleven A. M., and the flats soon afforded me water for their pa.s.sage in the vicinity of the sh.o.r.e. Heavy forests covered the uplands, where a few houses were visible. Bull's Island, with pines and a few cabbage palms, was on my left as I reached the entrance of the southern thoroughfare at the end of the bay. Here, in the intricacies of creeks and pa.s.sages through the islands, and made careless by the possession of Mr. Dennis' chart, I several times blundered into the wrong course; and got no further that afternoon than Price's Inlet, though I rowed more than twenty miles. Some eight miles of the distance rowed was lost by ascending and descending creeks by mistake.

After a weary day's work shelter was found in a house close by the sea, on the sh.o.r.es of Price's Inlet; where, in company with a young fisherman, who was in the employ of Mr. Magwood, of Charleston, I slept upon the floor in my blankets. Charles Hucks, the fisherman, a.s.serted that three albino deer were killed on Caper's Island the previous winter. Two were shot by a negro, while he killed the third. Messrs.

Magwood, Terry, and Noland, of Charleston, one summer penned beside the water one thousand old terrapin, to hold them over for the winter season. These "diamond-backs" would consume five bushels of shrimps in one hour when fed. A tide of unusual height washed out the terrapins from their "crawl," and with them disappeared all antic.i.p.ated results of the experiment.

The next day, Caper's Island and Inlet, Dewees' Inlet, Long Island, and Breach Inlet were successively pa.s.sed, on strong tidal currents.

Sullivan's Island is separated from Long Island by Breach Inlet. While following the creeks in the marshes back of Sullivan's Island, the compact ma.s.s of buildings of Moultrieville, at its western end, at the entrance of Charleston harbor, rose imposingly to view.

The gloomy mantle of darkness was settling over the harbor as the paper canoe stole quietly into its historic waters. Before me lay the quiet bay, with old Fort Sumter rising from the watery plain like a spectral giant, as though to remind one that this had been the scene of mighty struggles. The tranquil waters softly rippled a response to the touch of my oars; all was peace and quiet here, where, only a few short years before, the thunder of cannon woke a thousand echoes, and the waves were stained with the lifeblood of America,--where war, with her iron throat, poured out destruction, and G.o.d's creatures, men, made after his own image, destroyed each other ruthlessly, having never, in all that civilization had done for them, discovered any other way of settling their difficulties than by this wholesale murder.

The actors in this scene were scattered now; they had returned to the farm, the workshop, the desk, and the pulpit. The old flag again floated upon the ramparts of Sumter, and a government was trying to reconstruct itself, so that the Great Republic should become more thoroughly a government of the people, founded upon equal rights to all men.

A sharp, sc.r.a.ping sound under my boat roused me from my revery, for I had leaned upon my oars while the tide had carried me slowly but surely upon the oyster-reefs, from which I escaped with some slight damage to my paper sh.e.l.l. Newspaper reading had impressed upon me a belief that the citizens of the city which played so important a part in the late civil war might not treat kindly a Ma.s.sachusetts man. I therefore decided to go up to the city upon the ferry-boat for the large mail which awaited my arrival at the Charleston post-office, after receiving which I intended to return to Mount Pleasant, and cross the bay to the entrance of the southern watercourses, leaving the city as quietly as I entered it.

My curiosity was, however, aroused to see how, under the new reconstruction rule, things were conducted in the once proud city of Charleston. As I stood at the window of the post-office delivery, and inquired through the narrow window for my letters, a heavy shadow seemed to fall upon me as the head of a negro appeared. The black post-office official's features underwent a sudden change as I p.r.o.nounced my name, and, while a warm glow of affection lighted up his dark face, he thrust his whole arm through the window, and grasped my hand with a vigorous shake in the most friendly manner, as though upon his shoulders rested the good name of the people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RECEPTION AT CHARLESTON POST-OFFICE.]

"_Welcome_ to Charleston, Mr. B----, _welcome_ to our beautiful city,"

he exclaimed. So _this_ was Charleston under reconstruction.

After handing me my mail, the postmaster graciously remarked, "Our rule is to close the office at five o'clock P. M., but if you are belated any day, tap at the door, and I will attend you."

This was my first welcome to Charleston; but before I could return to my quarters at Mount Pleasant, members of the Chamber of Commerce, the Carolina Club, and others, pressed upon me kind attentions and hospitalities, while Mr. James L. Frazer, of the South Carolina Regatta a.s.sociation, sent for the Maria Theresa, and placed it in charge of the wharfinger of the Southern Wharf, where many ladies and gentlemen visited it.

When I left the old city, a few days later, I blushed to think how I had doubted these people, whose reputation for hospitality to strangers had been world-wide for more than half a century.

While here I was the guest of Rev. G. R. Brackett, the well-loved pastor of one of Charleston's churches. It was with feelings of regret I turned my tiny craft towards untried waters, leaving behind me the beautiful city of Charleston, and the friends who had so kindly cared for the lonely canoeist.