LETTER XIV.
Nay, I did not go to Savannah the day I thought of, but went—on an excursion, to which I invite you to accompany me, but without telling you whither we go. We drive to the rail-road, we enter one of the carriages: Mrs. W. H., an agreeable, young man—I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. R. to you—and myself—and now you will accompany us. Away we go, through forest and field, eighteen miles from Charleston. It is late in the afternoon and very warm. We stop; it is in the middle of a thick wood. There is wood on all sides, and not a house to be seen. We alight from the carriages and enter a fir-wood. After we have walked for an hour along unformed paths, the wood begins to be very animated. It swarms with people, in particular with blacks, as far as we can see among the lofty tree-stems. In the middle of the wood is an open space, in the centre of which rises a great long roof, supported by pillars, and under which stand benches in rows, affording sufficient accommodation for four or five thousand people. In the middle of this tabernacle is a lofty, square elevation, and in the middle of this a sort of chair or pulpit. All round the tabernacle, for so I call the roofed-in space supported on pillars, hundreds of tents and booths of all imaginable forms and colours, are pitched and erected in a vast circle, and are seen, shining out white in the wood to a great distance, and everywhere, on all sides, near and afar off, may be seen groups of people, mostly black, busied at small fires, roasting and boiling. Children are running about, or sitting by the fires; horses stand and feed beside the carriages they have drawn thither. It is a perfect camp, with all the varied particoloured life of a camp, but without soldiers and arms. Here everything looks peaceful and festive, although not exactly joyful.
By degrees the people begin to assemble within the tabernacle, the white people on one side, the black on the other; the black being considerably more numerous than the white. The weather is sultry; thunder-clouds cover the heavens, and it begins to rain. Not a very agreeable prospect for the night, my little darling, but there is nothing for it, we must pass the night here in the wild wood. We have no other resource. But stop; we have another resource. That excellent young Mr. R. employs his eloquence, and a tent is opened for us, and we are received into it by a comfortable bookseller's family. The family are red-hot Methodists, and not to be objected to. Here we have coffee and supper.
After this meal I went out to look around me, and was astonished by a spectacle which I never shall forget. The night was dark with the thunder-cloud, as well as with the natural darkness of night; but the rain had ceased, excepting for a few heavy drops, which fell here and there, and the whole wood stood in flames. Upon eight fire-altars, or fire-hills, as they are called, a sort of lofty table, raised on posts, standing around the tabernacle, burned, with a flickering brilliance of flame, large billets of fire-wood, which contains a great deal of resin, whilst on every side in the wood, far away in its most remote recesses, burned larger or smaller fires, before tents or in other places, and lit up the lofty fir-tree stems, which seemed like columns of an immense natural temple consecrated to fire. The vast dome above was dark, and the air was so still that the flames rose straight upwards, and cast a wild light, as of a strange dawn upon the fir-tree tops and the black clouds.
Beneath the tabernacle an immense crowd was assembled, certainly from three to four thousand persons. They sang hymns; a magnificent quire! Most likely the sound proceeded from the black portion of the assembly, as their number was three times that of the whites, and their voices are naturally beautiful and pure. In the tower-like pulpit, which stood in the middle of the tabernacle, were four preachers, who, during the intervals between the hymns, addressed the people with loud voices, calling sinners to conversion and amendment of life. During all this, the thunder pealed, and fierce lightning flashed through the wood like angry glances of some mighty invisible eye. We entered the tabernacle, and took our seats among the assembly on the side of the whites.
Round the elevation, in the middle of which rose the pulpit, ran a sort of low counter, forming a wide square. Within this, seated on benches below the pulpit, and on the side of the whites, sate the Methodist preachers, for the most part handsome tall figures, with broad grave foreheads; and on the side of the blacks their spiritual leaders and exhorters, many among whom were Mulattoes, men of a lofty, noticeable and energetic exterior.
The later it grew in the night, the more earnest grew the appeals; the hymns short, but fervent, as the flames of the light wood ascended, like them, with a passionate ardour. Again and again they arose on high, like melodious, burning sighs from thousands of harmonious voices. The preachers increase in the fervour of their zeal; two stand with their faces turned towards the camp of the blacks, two towards that of the whites, extending their hands, and calling on the sinners to come, come, all of them, now at this time, at this moment, which is perhaps the last, the only one which remains to them in which to come to the Saviour, to escape eternal damnation! Midnight approaches, the fires burn dimmer, but the exaltation increases and becomes universal. The singing of hymns mingles with the invitations of the preachers, and the exhortations of the class-leaders with the groans and cries of the assembly. And now, from among the white people, rise up young girls and men, and go and throw themselves, as if overcome, upon the low counter. These are met on the other side by the ministers who bend down to them, receive their confessions, encourage and console them. In the camp of the blacks is heard a great tumult and a loud cry. Men roar and bawl out; women screech like pigs about to be killed; many having fallen into convulsions leap and strike about them, so that they are obliged to be held down. It looks here and there like a regular fight; some of the calmer participants laugh. Many a cry of anguish may be heard, but you distinguish no words excepting, “Oh, I am a sinner!” and “Jesus! Jesus!”
During all this tumult the singing continues loud and beautiful, and the thunder joins in with its pealing kettle-drum.
Whilst this spectacle is going forward in the black camp we observe a quieter scene among the whites. Some of the forms which had thrown themselves on their knees at the counter have removed themselves, but others are still lying there, and the ministers seem in vain to talk or to sing to them. One of these, a young girl, is lifted up by her friends and found to be “in a trance.” She now lies with her head in the lap of a woman dressed in black, with her pretty, young face turned upwards, rigid, and as it appears, totally unconscious. The woman dressed in black and another also in the same coloured attire, both with beautiful though sorrowful countenances, softly fan the young girl with their fans and watch her with serious looks, whilst ten or twelve women—most of them young—stand around her, singing softly and sweetly a hymn of the resurrection; all watching the young girl, in whom they believe that something great is now taking place. It is really a beau tiful scene in that thunderous night, and by the light of the fire-altars.
After we had contemplated these scenes, certainly for an hour, and the state of exaltation began to abate, and the principal glory of the night seemed to be over, Mrs. W. H. and myself retired to the tent to rest. This lay at the outskirts of the white camp, and from a feeling of curiosity I walked some distance into the darker portion of the wood. Here horrible things were going on, not among human beings, but among frogs and other reptiles. They also seemed to be holding some sort of a great meeting, and croaked and croaked, and coughed and snorted, and made such wonderful noises and blurts of extraordinary sound, which were like nothing but a regular comedy. Never before did I hear such a concert. It was like a parody of the scenes we had just witnessed.
It was sultry and oppressive in the tent. Our kind hostess did all in her power to make it comfortable for us; and Mrs. W. H. thought merely of making all comfortable for me, taking all the inconvenience to herself. I could not get any rest in the tent, and therefore wished, at least, yet once more, to take a look at the camp before I lay down for the night.
It was now past midnight; the weather had cleared and
the air was so delicious, and the spectacle so beautiful, that
I was compelled to return to the tent to tell Mrs. Rowland,
who at once resolved to come out with me. The altar-fires
now burned low and the smoke hung within the wood.
The transparently bright and blue heaven stretched above
the camp. The moon rose above the wood, and the
planet Jupiter stood brilliantly shining just over the
tabernacle. The singing of hymns still ascended, though
much lower; still the class-leaders exhorted; still the
young girl slept her mysterious sleep; still the women
watched and waited and fanned her, in their attire of
mourning. Some oppressed souls still lay bowed upon
the counter and still were the preachers giving
consolation either by word or song. By degrees, the people
assembled in the tabernacle dispersed, scattered themselveds
through the woods, or withdrew to their tents.
Even the young sleeping girl awoke and was led by
her friends away from the assembly. Mr. R. had
now joined us, and accompanied by him we went the
round of the camp, especially on the black side. And
here all the tents were still full of religious exaltation,
each separate tent presenting some new phasis. We
saw in one, a zealous convert, male or female, as it
might be, who with violent gesticulations gave vent to
his or her newly-awakened feelings, surrounded by devout
auditors; in another, we saw a whole crowd of black
people on their knees, all dressed in white, striking
themselves on the breast and crying out and talking with
the greatest pathos; in a third, women were dancing
“the holy dance” for one of the newly-converted. This dancing, however, having been forbidden by the preachers,
ceased immediately on our entering the tent. I saw
merely a rocking movement of women who held each
other by the hand in a circle, singing the while. In a
fourth, a song of the spiritual Canaan was being sung
excellently. In one tent we saw a fat negro-member
walking about by himself and breathing hard; he was
hoarse, and sighing he exclaimed to himself, “Oh! I
wish I could hollo!” In some tents people were sitting
around the fires, and here visits were received, greetings
were made, and friendly, cheerful talk went on, whilst
everywhere prevailed a quiet, earnest state of feeling,
which we also experienced whenever we stopped to talk
with the people. These black people have a something
warm and kind about them which I like much. One
can see that they are children of the warm sun. The
state of feeling was considerably calmer in the camp
of the whites. One saw families sitting at their covered
tables eating and drinking.
At length we returned to our tent, where I lay upon the family bed with our good hostess and her thirteen-year old daughter, and slept indifferently; yet, thanks to some small white globules of my Downing-medicine, I rested nevertheless, and became calm in the hot feverish night.
At sunrise I heard something which resembled the humming of an enormous wasp caught in a spider's web. It was a larum which gave the sign for the general rising. At half-past five I was dressed and out. The hymns of the negroes, which had continued through the night, were still to be heard on all sides. The sun shone powerfully—the air was oppressive. People were cooking and having breakfast by the fires, and a crowd already began to assemble on the benches under the tabernacle. At seven o'clock the morning sermon and worship commenced. I had observed that the preachers avoided exciting the people's feelings too much, and that they themselves appeared without emotion. This morning their discourses appeared to me feeble, and especially to be wanting in popular eloquence. They preached morality. But a mere moral sermon should not be preached when it is the heart that you wish to win; you should then tell, in the language of the heart, the miracle of spiritual life. It was, therefore, a real refreshment to me when the unimpassioned and well-fed preachers, who had spoken this morning, gave place to an elderly man with a lively and somewhat humourous expression of countenance, who from out the throng of hearers ascended the pulpit and began to speak to the people in quite another tone. It was familiar, fresh, cordial, and humourous; somewhat in the manner of Father Taylor. I should like to have heard him address these people, but then, I am afraid the negroes would have been quite beside themselves!
The new preacher said that he was a stranger,—he was evidently an Englishman—and that it was a mere chance which brought him to this meeting. But he felt compelled, he said, to address them as “my friends,” and to tell them how glad he had been to witness the scenes of the preceding night (he addressed himself especially to the blacks) and to give them his view of the Gospel of God as made known in the Bible, and of what the Bible teaches us of God. “Now, you see, my friends,”—this was the style of his discourse—“when a father has made his will, and his children are all assembled to open it and learn from it what are the latest wishes of their father; they do not know how their father has disposed of and arranged his property; and many of them think, ‘perhaps, there is nothing for me; perhaps he never thought of me!’ But now, when they open the will and find that there is something for John, and something for Mary, and something for Ben, and something for Betsy, and something for every one, and something for all, and that altogether—every individual one has got a like share in the father's property, and that he thought alike tenderly of them all;—then they see that he loved them all equally; that he wished them all equally well:—and then, my friends,—if we were these children, and if we all of us had obtained this inheritance in the father's house, should we not, all of us, love this father and understand his love for us and obey his commands?”
“Yes! yes! Oh, yes! Glory! Glory! Amen!” shouted the assembly with beaming glances and evident delight.
The speaker continued in his good-tempered, naïve manner, and described to them the happy life and death of a pious Christian, a true child of God. He himself, the speaker, had been the witness of such a man's death, and although this man was a sailor, without superior education, and though he made use of the expressions which belonged to his calling, yet they testified of so clear a spiritual life, that even now, after his death, they might testify of it before this assembly. The man had been long ill of fever, which had deprived him of consciousness. He appeared to be dying, and his relations stood round his bed believing that they should never more hear his voice, and waiting merely for his last sigh, for he lay as if in a sleep of death. But all at once, he opened his eyes, raised his head, and cried, in a strong joyful voice, “Land a-head!” After that his head sank down, and they thought it was all over with him. But again he looked up and cried, “Turn, and let go the anchor!” Again he was silent, and they believed he would be so for ever. Yet once more however he looked up brightly and said, with calm assurance, “All's well!” And then he was at peace.
“Amen! Amen! Glory and glory!” cried the assembly, and never did I see such an expression of joy and rapture as I then saw beaming from the countenances of these children of Africa: the class-leaders in particular were regularly beside themselves; they clapped their hands, laughed, and floods of light streamed from their eyes. Some of these countenances are impressed upon my memory as some of the most expressive and the most full of feeling that I ever saw. Why do not the painters of the New World avail themselves of such scenes and such countenances? The delight occasioned by the speaker's narrative would here and there have produced convulsions, had not Mr. Martin, the principal preacher of the assembly, indicated, by the movements of his hand from his pulpit, its discontinuance, and immediately the increasingly excited utterance ceased. Already during the night had he warned the people against these convulsive outbreaks, as being wrong, and disturbing both to themselves and others. The Wesleyan preacher left the pulpit amid continued expressions of delight from the people.
The principal sermon of the day was preached about eleven o'clock by a lawyer from one of the neighbouring States, a tall, thin gentleman, with strongly marked keen features, and deep-set brilliant eyes. He preached about the Last Judgment, and described in a most lively manner, “the fork-like, cloven flames, the thunder, the general destruction of all things,” and described it as possibly near at hand. “As yet, indeed,” exclaimed he, “I have not felt the earth tremble under my feet; it yet seems to stand firm,” and he stamped vehemently on the pulpit floor; “and as yet I hear not the rolling of the thunder of doom; but it may nevertheless be at hand,” and so on; and he admonished the people therefore immediately to repent and be converted.
Spite of the strength of the subject, and spite of the power in the delineation, there was a something dry and soulless in the manner in which it was presented, which caused it to fail of its effect with the congregation. People seemed to feel that the preacher did not believe, or rather did not livingly feel, that which he described and preached. A few cries and groans were heard it is true, and some sinners came forth; but the assembly upon the whole continued calm, and was not agitated by the thunders of the Last Judgment. The hymns were, as on the former occasion, fervent and beautiful on the side of the negroes' camp. This people seem to have a keen perception of the most beautiful doctrines of religion, and understand particularly well how to apply them. Their musical talents are remarkable. Most of the blacks have beautiful, pure voices, and sing as easily as we whites talk.
After this service came the hour of dinner, when I visited various tents in the black camp, and saw tables covered with dishes of all kind of meat, with puddings and tarts; there seemed to be a regular superfluity of meat and drink. Several of the tents were even furnished like rooms, with capital beds, looking-glasses, and such like.
The people seemed gay, happy, and gentle. These religious camp-meetings—my little heart, thou hast now been at a camp meeting!—are the saturnalia of the negro-slaves. In these they luxuriate both soul and body, as is their natural inclination to do; but on this occasion every thing was carried on with decency and befitting reverence. These meetings have of late years greatly improved in moral character, and masters allow their servants and slaves to be present at them, partly for pleasure, and partly because they are often productive of good results. I did not observe the slightest circumstance which was repugnant to my feelings or unbecoming, except, if people will, the convulsive excitement. I had some conversation on this subject with the leader of the meeting, the amiable and agreeable Mr. Martin, the Methodist preacher, and he disapproved of it, as I had already heard. These excited utterances however, said he, appear to belong to the impulsive negro temperament, and these sudden conversions, the result of a moment of excitement, have this good result, that such converts commonly unite themselves to churches and ministers, become members of a so-called class, and thus obtain regular instruction in the doctrines of religion, learn hymns and prayers, and become generally from that time good Christians and orderly members of society.
In the great West, as well as here in the South, and in all places where society is as yet uncultivated, it is the Methodists and the Baptists who first break the religious ground, working upon the feelings and the senses of these children of nature. Afterwards come the Calvinists, Lutherans, and many others, who speak rather to the understanding. Missionaries who assemble the people and talk to them under God's free heaven, who know how to avail themselves of every circumstance presented by the time, the scenery around them, and their own free positions, are likely to produce the most powerful results; and I have heard extraordinary instances related of their influence over the masses, and of the contagious effect of that excitement of mind which frequently occurs on these occasions. These camp meetings continue from three to seven days. The one at which we were present was to break up on the following day, and it was expected that a great number of conversions would take place on the following night. Nevertheless this seemed to depend upon casual circumstances, and probably more than any thing else, upon—a preacher whose sermon had that tendency.
We spent yet a few hours in observing the spiritual and physical occurrences of the camp, wandering in the wood and botanising. Mr. K. gathered for me many new flowers, among which was a small very pretty little yellow flower, called the saffron-flower.
At five in the afternoon we returned to Charleston by a train which conveyed certainly two thousand persons, two-thirds of them blacks. They sang the whole way, and were in high spirits.
The next morning, with a little basket of bananas and sponge-cake, which my kind hostess and friend Mrs. W. H. provided for me, I was on my way to Savannah. She herself accompanied me on board the steam-boat, and would willingly have accompanied me the whole journey: and how willingly would I have had her with me! She is one of the persons with whom I can get on extremely well. But I set off alone, with her fruit and a bouquet of flowers from Mrs. Holbrook. Yet I was not alone, for my heart was full of many things. The day was glorious, and the vessel steamed up the Savannah, which, with a thousand windings, flows between verdant shores, which, though flat, are ornamented with charming woods and plantations, with their large mansions and pretty little slave villages, so that the whole was like a refreshing pleasure trip. True, the slave villages are not a gladdening sight, but I have hitherto seen far more happy than unhappy slaves, and therefore I have not as yet a gloomy impression of their condition here.
The crew of this little steamboat consisted merely of slaves, blacks, and mulattoes. The captain told me that they were very happy, as well as faithful and clever.
“That man,” said he, indicating with his glance an elderly man, a mulatto, with a remarkably handsome, but as it seemed to me, melancholy countenance, “is my favourite servant, and I need wish for no other as caretaker and friend by my death-bed.”
The crew appeared to be well fed and cared for. A handsome and fat mulatto woman said to me, in an under tone, when we were alone,—
“What do you say about the institution of slavery here in the South?”
“I think,” replied I, “that the slaves in general appear happy and well cared for.”
“Yes, yes,” said she, “it may seem, but—” and she gave a very significant glance, as if to say, “All is not gold that glitters.”
“You do not consider them to be well treated, then?” asked I.
“Some are, certainly,” said she, “but—” and again she gave a significant glance.
I could have wished that she had said more, but as she belonged to the vessel I could not ask any questions. I would not become a spy; that is against my nature, and anything which I could not become acquainted with by my own experience, or by my own direct ability, that—I would not know. Scarcely in any case could the mulatto woman have told me anything which I did not already know: there are good and there are bad masters; happy and unhappy slaves; and the institution is—a great lie in the life of human freedom, and especially in the New World.
There were on board the steamer, some persons with whom I was acquainted, among them Miss Mary P., a lively, intelligent young girl from the State of New York, who was spending the winter in Savannah on account of her health. She had a pulmonary affection, and suffered greatly from the winters of the Northern States; but with the southern air, especially the air of Savannah, and homœopathic treatment, she was recovering. I associated with people as little as possible; enjoyed the silence and the river-journey, the beautiful day, the quiet delicious scenery, so unlike the occurrences of the preceding day. When the sun went down, and the evening suddenly became dusk—as is always the case in these latitudes, I saw a clear white light ascend from the southern heavens to the zenith. They told me it was the zodiacal light. It was not flashing, coloured and brilliant, as our northern lights are most frequently, but calm, soft and clear. A grave, elderly gentleman, in whose company I contemplated the starry heavens on the upper deck, told me that later on in the summer the southern cross might be perceived on the horizon, as well as the uppermost star in the ship Argo. Thus you see that new lights and new constellations now rise above my head! I bid them welcome!
In the deep twilight came a boat rowing up to the steamer. Several blacks and one white man were in the boat. The white man came on board after taking a friendly leave of the blacks, a voice from among whom cried after him,—“Don't forget yourself long away, massa!” “No! no!” cried massa back to them.
At about half past eleven we reached Savannah. I accompanied Miss P., her sister, and a young agreeable physician, to the largest hotel in the city, the Palasky House: so called from the Polish hero of that name, who fought and fell in the American War of Independence, and whose monument, a handsome, white marble obelisk, stands upon a green spot of ground before the hotel, surrounded by splendid trees.
At seven o'clock the next morning I was in a railway carriage on my way to Maçon, a long and very wearisome day's journey, especially in the great heat, and with the smoke and steam which filled the carriages. The road lay through a barren, sandy extent of country, overgrown with pine-forest, and almost entirely without human habitations, excepting on the railway stations, where small colonies began to form themselves, trades were followed, and the meagre soil cultivated. At a few of these I alighted, and botanised in the wood, where I found several yellow orchises.
The amusement of the journey was in the carriage in which I sate, from a fat, jolly-looking gentleman, in a cap and grey coat, in person not unlike a mealsack, upon which the head was set, round and moveable as a top, and who talked politics, and poured out his vials of wrath against the late Tom Jefferson, President, and author of the “Declaration of Independence:” called him, in a loud voice, the worst of names, always turning himself as he did so to a tall, very thin military man, of a noble appearance, who sate on the other side of the carriage, and who seemed to be half amused by the fat man's ebullitions, although he endeavoured to appease them. But it was like pouring oil upon fire.
“Sir!” exclaimed our fat gentleman, with a stentorian voice, on one occasion, while the train stood still, “Sir, I say that if it had not been for Tom Jefferson, the whole union would be five hundred years farther advanced, and Carolina at least a thousand!”
“Oh! do you think so?” said the other, smiling.
“Yes, I say that Tom Jefferson was the worst man who has yet been placed at the head of a nation; he has done more mischief than all the Presidents after him can do good!”
“Yet he drew up our Act of Independence!” said the thin gentleman.
“He stole it, sir!” exclaimed the fat one; “he stole it, stole it! I can prove to you that he did. There is,” &c. And here followed proofs and many observations and replies between the two gentlemen, which I could not exactly follow.
At length, up sprung the fat gentleman, and grasping with both hands at two seats, stood before the thin one exclaiming,—
“Sir! I regard Tom Jefferson as the compound of everything which is rascally, mean, wicked, dishonourable—&c. &c. &c. &c.—” the great flood of accusation continuing certainly for three minutes, and ending with, “yes, that is what I say, sir!”
“That is strong language, sir!” said the other, still calm, and half smiling.
“Sir!” again exclaimed the other, “Tom Jefferson was the cause of my father losing fifty thousand dollars, through the embargo!”
With these words he reseated himself, red in the face as a turkey-cock, and with an air as if to say, that after that nothing could be said. A smile was on almost every countenance in the railway carriage; and when Tom Jefferson's enemy almost immediately after took his departure, the thin gentleman turned to me, saying in his good-tempered calm way,—
“That settles it! Jefferson was certainly a bad man. But in any case he was a patriot.”
A hundred young men, soldiers from Charleston, travelled by this train, on a visit to the Georgia militia in Maçon. They were handsome, pleasant-looking, merry young fellows, who got out at every station to refresh themselves, and then hurried in again.
A couple of so-called Indian mounds, that is ancient burial hills of the Indians, and which resemble our sepulchral mounds, excepting that they are larger and flatter at the top, and in which arms and weapons are found, were the only remarkable things we saw on the way.
At sunset we reached Maçon. The country had now assumed another character; we saw verdant hills and valleys, and beautiful white country houses shining out upon the hills amid their gardens.
On all hands lay lofty trees; we drove over a couple of small rivers, with chocolate-hued water, and wooded banks; the city lay, as it were, imbedded in wood. It looked young and romantic, half concealed in the valley, and half stretching itself out on the open hills. It took my fancy; I was glad to be there, and had besides a certain pleasure in finding myself here alone and unknown, and able to live at an inn. I engaged a room at the hotel, “Washington House,” where I found a remarkably handsome and kind landlady; had the pleasure of washing off the dust, putting on fresh linen, and drinking a glass of excellent milk, and then to be still, and contemplate the life and movement in the market-place, the largest in the city, and near to which the hotel stood.
Five and twenty years ago the ground on which the city stood, and the whole region around, was Indian territory and Indian hunting-ground. Where those wild dances were danced, and their wigwams stood, now stands Maçon, with six thousand inhabitants, and shops and workshops, hotels and houses, and an annually increasing population; and in the middle of its great market stands Canova's Hebe in a fountain, dispensing water. The young militia of Carolina and Georgia paraded the streets and the market-place this evening by moonlight. All the windows were open, and the negro people poured out of the houses to see the young men march past with their music.
I was up early the next morning, because it was glorious; the world looked young and fresh as morning, and I myself felt as fresh as it. I went out on a voyage of discovery with merely a couple of bananas in my old man (you know that I give my travelling-bag that appellation). All was as yet still in the city; every thing looked fresh and new. I had a foretaste of the young life of the west. The pale crescent moon sank slowly amid a violet-tinted mist, which wrapped the horizon in the west, but a heaven of the most beautiful blue was above me. Trees and grass glittered with dew in the rising sunlight. I walked along streets planted with trees, and, leaving the city, found myself upon a broad high road, on each side of which lay a dense, dark forest. I walked on; all was hushed and silent, but my heart sang. That which I had wished for, and longed for through the whole of my youth; that which I seemed to myself to be more excluded from than anything else, a living acquaintance with the manifold forms of life, had now become mine, had become so in an unusual degree. Did I not now wander free—free as few could be, in the great, free, new world, free to see and to become acquainted with whatever I chose? Was I not free and unfettered as a bird? My soul had wings, and the whole world was mine! Precisely because I am so alone, that I go so solitarily, relying on God's providence, through the great wide world, and become associate with it,—precisely this it is which gives me such an unspeakable feeling of vigour and joy; and that I do not positively know whither I would go, or what I would do during my solitary wanderings; this makes me ever ready to set out on my journeys of discovery, and every thing within me be so particularly new and invigorating.
I was not, however, on this occasion, wholly without an object; I knew that at some distance from Maçon there was a beautiful new cemetery, called Rose-hill Cemetery, and I was now bent upon finding it. In the meantime as the road which I had taken seemed to lead down to the quiet sea, I determined to make inquiries after Rose-hill at a dwelling which I saw upon a height not far from the road. It was one of those white, well-built, and comfortable frame-houses which one so often sees in the rural districts of America. I knocked at the door, and it was opened, but by a person who almost shocked me; it was a young lady, tolerably handsome, but with an appearance of such a horridly bad temper that—it quite troubled me. She looked thoroughly annoyed and worn out, and bade me, crossly enough, to go as far as the road went, or till it parted. I went, almost astonished on so beautiful a morning, amid such beautiful, youthfully fresh scenes, to meet with so perfectly inharmonious a human temper. Ah! human feelings, dispositions, and tempers are every where the same, and can everywhere embitter life; in every new paradise can close the gates of paradise. But sad impressions could not long remain in my mind this morning. I advanced onward along the high road which now ascended a hill. On the top of this hill I could look around me I thought. Arrived here, I saw an iron gate on my right hand, which led into a beautiful, well-kept park. I opened the gate without any difficulty, and was soon in a very beautiful park, the ground of which was undulating, through which wound roads and foot-paths, with lofty trees and groves on all hands, and beds of flowering, fragrant shrubs and plants. It was some time before I could see a single monument, before I discovered that I really was in the place consecrated to death, and that my little travelling-fairy had faithfully conducted me to my goal, Rose Cemetery.
Wandering on through the silent solitary park I came to the banks of a river which ran in gentle windings between banks as beautiful, and as youthfully verdant as we, in our youth, imagine the Elysian fields. On my side of the river I beheld white marble monuments glancing forth from amid the trees, speaking of the city of the dead. Tall trees here and there, bent over the water. Large, splendid butterflies, the names of which I did not know, flew softly with fluttering wings backwards and forwards over the stream, from one bank to the other. I thought of the words:—
“And he showed me a clear river of living water,” &c.
And the whole scene was to me, at the same time, a living symbol of the most beautiful presentiments of the human race regarding the mystery of death. Here was the city of the dead, and here, beside it, living water pouring from invisible fountains, whispering in the fields of death, of life and the resurrection; here were trees, that glorious life of nature, bearing abundant fruit, and the leaves of which serve for the “healing of the heathen;” there, on the other shore, were the fields of the blessed, where no weariness and no woe shall ever enter; where none that are accursed shall come any more, where the light of God's countenance enlightens all; and the butterflies represented the souls which, now released from earthly enthralment, are borne by their wings from the one shore to the other, to sip all the flowers of the field!
I seated myself on a piece of rock which shot out into the river in a convenient ledge-like form, and beside which grew some beautiful wild flowers. And here I inhaled deep draughts of the elixir of life, which both nature and the spirit presented to me. More glorious refreshment could not have been offered to a wanderer. And much such have I received, and shall yet enjoy during my pilgrimage.
I have often thought that it would be well if running water could be included or introduced into large cemeteries, the resting-places of the dead, as a symbol at once beautiful and appropriate. Here, for the first time, have I seen my idea carried out. The river in this cemetery is Ocrnulgee, an Indian word for the beautiful. It is of that warm red tinge, like English sepia, or chocolate mixed with milk, which is said to be peculiar to nearly all the rivers of the south, from the Rio Colorado, in New Mexico, to the Savannah, and the Pee-Dee, and others, in the east, and is said to be caused by the reddish sandy soil peculiar to the Southern States. This tint of water produces a remarkably beautiful effect in contrast with the rich, bright green vegetation of the banks. Ocmulgee is, besides, a rapid and abundant river, and is in all respects deserving of its name.
As my spirit had not by any means failed of its object, I began to think of my body and my bananas, on which I made a splendid breakfast. I have become very fond of this fruit, which is very beneficial to me. I can eat it at any time of the day, and always find that it agrees with me. I fancy that I could live on it and bread alone; (N.B. Swedish clap-bread, I miss that here.) A little lizard, which seemed to study me very profoundly, was my companion on the rock, and turned its little head this way and that, with its glimmering black eyes always riveted upon me. Neither man nor human dwelling were within sight. It was a scene of the profoundest solitude.
This beautiful morning was the 1st of May. I wonder what sort of morning it was in the park at Stockholm!
I would willingly have spent a day in Maçon and its beautiful neighbourhood; but when I returned to my hotel, I was met by an agreeable and respectable gentleman, who was going to the seminary at Montpellier, to fetch his daughter thence, and who invited me to accompany him. As I did not know whether Bishop Eliott was aware of the day on which I might be expected at Maçon, and as I wished, besides this, to spare him the trouble of sending for me, there being neither railroad nor public conveyance to Montpellier, and as the polite gentleman seemed to be very agreeable; I gratefully accepted his offer, begged the hostess of the hotel to take charge of my portmanteau, and soon was seated most excellently in a large, comfortable, and spacious covered carriage, beside my kind conductor. We had not, however, driven a couple of hours when we met a dusty travelling carriage, within which was Professor Sherbe, whom I had met at Mr. Emerson's, at Concord, and who was now a teacher at the seminary in Montpellier. It was the carriage to fetch me to the Eliotts'. I therefore returned with him to Maçon, where the horses rested, and Sherbe refreshed himself after the fatiguing morning's journey. The after part of the day we spent in great heat on the journey to Montpellier, along roads of which you would say, “ça n'a pas de nom!” and the description of which is wearisome—I continually believed we should be upset—and over bridges which looked like fabrics simply designed to help the carriage and the people down into the rivers over which they were scrambled together—built I cannot say. We seemed to be in a wild and newly-inclosed country. At Bishop Eliott's lovely country seat all was again cultivated and beautiful—a continuation of the romantic and luxurious district around Maçon; and in the bishop himself I became acquainted with one of the most beautiful examples of that old cavalier race which gives tone and stamp to the nobler life of the Southern States. Personal beauty and dignity, and the most agreeable manners, were in this instance ennobled by great Christian earnestness.
Bishop E. is said to have been in his youth a great lover of social life, of dancing, and ladies' society, and to have been a great favourite in the gay world. His conversion to religious earnestness, is said to have been rapid and decided. He is now known as one of the most pre-eminently religious men in the country; and his kindness and amiability win all hearts. Mine he also won; but of that by and by.
On the evening of my arrival I sate with him and his family on the piazza in front of his house, and saw the fireflies shining in the air, among the trees and on the grass everywhere in the park. These little insects produce an effect which delights me during the dark evenings and nights here. They are small beetles, somewhat larger, and certainly longer, than our wood-louse, and they emit as they fly along a bright light, quickly shining out and then again extinguished, like a lightning-flash, but soon renewing itself again. It is a phosphoric light, and presents an incessant display of fireworks in the air and on the earth at this season. If these little creatures are injured, nay even trampled upon, as I have seen happen by accident, they still give out light, and shine beautifully as long as there is any life left in them. Their light is never utterly extinguished but with their life, and even outlives that a good hour.
The bishop's wife is an agreeable lady, lively and intellectual, and truly musical, playing on the piano as the bird sings, and who seems to have inherited from her Indian foster-mother an unusual degree of acuteness and perfection of organisation. Her husband often jokes her on this subject. The family consists of several pretty children, among which “the outlaw,” the youngest son, a lovely, good, little lad, who leapt about unrestrained without shoes and stockings, was my especial favourite.
The family state of mind was not at this moment cheerful, from various causes, and the good bishop was evidently depressed. How agreeable he was, nevertheless, during the few hours which he was able to devote to social intercourse and conversation! In him I found much of the Emersonian truth and beauty of mind, both in expression and manner, without any of his critical severity, and permeated by the spirit of Christian love as by a delicious summer air. He is one of those rare men of the south who can see, with a clear and unprejudiced glance, the institution of slavery on its dark aspect. He believes in its ultimate eradication within the United States, and considers that this will be effected by Christianity.
“Already,” said he, “is Christianity labouring to elevate the being of the negro population, and from year to year their condition improves, both spiritually and physically; they will soon be our equals as regards morals, and when they become our equals, they can no longer be our slaves. The next step will be for them to receive wages as servants; and I know several persons who are already treating their slaves as such.”
This conversation delighted me, for I am convinced that Eliott's views on this subject are correct.
The school examination was already nearly over, and a great number of the young girls, the flowers of the Southern States, had left. Still I saw a part of them, and heard their compositions in prose and verse. Nearly all the teachers were from the Northern States; mostly from New England, and mostly also young, pretty, and agreeable girls. All were assembled at the house of the bishop in the evening of the concluding day of the examination. I was not well that day, partly from the heat, and partly from the fear I have of company, and the duties which it imposes upon me; but in the midst of the heat and the company I was roused by my Scandinavian spirit, and proposed the game of “lend me your fire-stick,” into which all the, hitherto stiff, young girls entered merrily, and there was a deal of laughter, and the good bishop himself became so amused that he laughed heartily; and when we rested from that game, he himself began another—a quiet and intellectual game, in which his clever little wife distinguished herself, as did he also. Thus passed the evening, amid games and merriment, and I forgot the heat and weariness and indisposition, and went lightly and cheerfully to rest, glad in particular that I had seen the good bishop cheerful.
The next morning I was to set off with Bishop Eliott, and two of the young girls. We assembled, the bishop's family and I, to morning prayers. But how deeply was I affected this morning, when after the customary prayers (the bishop and we all, as usual, kneeling), I heard him utter for the stranger who was now visiting in his family, a prayer as warm, as beautiful, as appropriate, as if he had read the depths of my heart and knew its secret combats, its strivings, its object,—my own soul's inmost infinite prayer. I could merely, with tears in my eyes, press his hand between mine.
Accompanied by him and the two young ladies, I found myself once more on the paths of the wilderness between Montpellier and Maçon, where I was received under the roof of his curate, young Mr. S., and his handsome young wife; for the bishop would not permit me to return to the hotel, which I greatly wished to do. I have had, however, beneath the young oaks near the curate's house, a conversation with him on the trials which the Christian may experience under ordinary circumstances, in the everyday world, which I shall never forget, because much that had occurred in my own soul had occurred also in his; and I saw in him a cross-bearer—but one greater and more patient than most. On the following day, which was Sunday, he preached in the Episcopal church of Maçon, a small but handsome building, in which some youthful communicants were to receive the Lord's Supper for the first time. Eliott's sermon had reference to the occasion; he was about to consecrate them to the Christian faith, its duties, trials, and greatness; to the crown of thorns and the crown of glory; an excellent sermon, full of truth, in the admonition to the life both human and divine. Not brilliant and dazzling, not merely half true aphorisms; but the purest light, shining because it was pure and perfect, and because it contained the whole truth.
After divine service I took leave of the noble bishop, glad to have become acquainted with him, and in him a true Christian gentleman. I hope to see him again, probably in the west, whither he goes this autumn, to a great assembly of the clergy. He has now lately returned from an official journey to Florida, up the beautiful river St. John, and speaks of the exuberance of natural life on its shores, the beauty of its flowers and birds, so that I have a great desire to go there. I parted from Eliott, grieving that human sorrow should thus depress so good, so noble, and so amiable a man.
If you wish to see upon what spot of all the globe I am now to be found, you must look into the very middle of the American State of Georgia, where is a small town by the name of Maçon; and near to it a pretty village of country houses and gardens, called Vineville, in one of the prettiest of which I may be found with the amiable and highly esteemed family of a banker, named M., who came up to me in the church, after divine service at Maçon, and invited me to his house.
Everywhere throughout this country, in the south as well as in the north of the United States, do I meet with the same cordiality, the same incomparable hospitality. And my little travelling fairy goes everywhere with me, and makes everything happen for the best; and should anything go contrary, I consider that is for the best also, and doubt not but it is so, or will be. The morning after to-morrow I intend returning to Savannah; I cannot now extend my journey farther west, into Alabama, as I wished to do, on account of the heat of the season. I must contrive to reach Washington before I am melted.
The 8th.—When do I think of going home, my Agatha? Whenever you and mamma wish it next month, next week, in the morning! My own wishes, it is true, have been for some time a little expansive; but they can be restrained. I have, however, wished to remain in this hemisphere through another winter, that I might see certain portions of it and certain things which otherwise I cannot see, and thus obtain a glimpse of the tropical glory in Cuba. I wish to leave certain impressions time to mature; certain old ones time to fall off under the influence of the New World. The indisposition under which I suffered last winter has deprived me of at least three months, for during that time I was merely half alive, often merely in a state of suffering. But as I have said, my child, this is a floating wish ready to be done away with on the least call from home; and in that case we shall see each other next autumn. No feeling of inward necessity like that which bade me come hither, bids me now remain here over the winter. And my wish to stay here will, on the first earnest call of my beloved ones, dissolve into that of returning to them; and I shall in that case consider it as for the best. Merely one word from you and mamma, and —— I hasten home to you!