The Reminiscences Of James Burrill Angell/ChapterII
II
THE SOUTHERN JOURNEY
SETTING out on my southern journey, I left home October 5, 1850, and went to Peace Dale. Tuesday evening we started for Philadelphia via New York. We spent some days in Philadelphia, where my friend had numerous relatives. During our stay we heard Albert Barnes preach a very plain and simple sermon, somewhat in the style of his then famous notes on the Gospels. We also heard Jenny Lind, then on her first tour, sing. I have never been so impressed by singing as by her rendering of "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Philadelphia had many objects of interest to me, Independence Hall, the Mint, the Schuylkill, Fairmount, etc.
We got our outfit of saddles and bridles and went via Baltimore to Harper's Ferry and Winchester. When we had planned to set out on horseback for a journey through the South, we had clothed ourselves in suits of heavy gray cloth, and steeple-crowned, brick-coloured hats, known as California hats. We had india-rubber ponchos for use in rainy weather. Our effects were packed in saddle bags. We purchased two excellent horses here.
We had letters to some intelligent men in Winchester. From conversation with them we received the impression that the more thoughtful regarded slavery as economically of no advantage to that section; but they did not relish the attitude of the North in criticizing them for continuing to maintain it. Some of them seemed to be in a rather confused state of mind, admiring the prosperity of the North, expressing devotion to the Union, but defending their course in retaining their negroes in bondage.
We were deeply impressed with the prosperity of the Shenandoah Valley as we travelled along its great highway. Wagons laden with corn and the other products of the fertile farms passed on in continuous procession towards Winchester, the terminus of the railway from Harper's Ferry. We visited Weyer's Cave, which though not so extensive as the better known Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, was as beautiful and striking to us who had never seen such a geological formation. From Waynesboro we crossed the Blue Ridge by the Rockfish Gap. Under Monsieur Crozet, a French engineer, the men were driving the tunnel for the railway. Our immediate destination was Charlottesville. We wished to visit Monticello, the home of Jefferson, and the University of Virginia.
We reached Turpin's Hotel in the afternoon. Our costume was hardly calculated to impress strangers with the idea that we were entitled to special civilities at their hands. In fact we had generally been taken by the men' we had met on the road for drovers, who were seeking cattle, or for bill collectors, sent out by northern firms to dun their debtors. More than once those who held the latter theory put whip to their horses to escape from us.
But in the evening we had a fine example of Virginia hospitality. In some way a group of gentlemen sitting near us in the hotel learned the object of our visit to the town, and notwithstanding our costume proffered their services to make our visit agreeable. The oldest of them, Mr. William Gilmer, widely known as we soon learned as Billy Gilmer, introduced himself, saying that he had received courtesies in New England and that he and his friends would be glad to entertain us. He introduced us to them and immediately began to lay out a programme of hospitalities which would have occupied us for a week or ten days. "You will go to dinner with me to-night, to-morrow we will go to Southold's, the next day we will have a fox hunt," and so on. We were obliged to decline this kind offer; but we told him we should be obliged to him if he could help us gain access to Monticello, since we had heard it was closed to visitors. "Oh, yes," he replied, "I will go with you to-morrow morning. As a child I grew up a neighbour of Jefferson and was often in his house. I will see that you get in."
The next morning he appeared at the appointed hour. Monticello is about two miles from the town. As we rode up the hill he told us some interesting stories about Mr. Jefferson, which I here give on his authority.
The view from the hill commands the two fertile counties of Fluvanna and Louisa. "If in the place of them there had been a lake," Jefferson used to say, "this would have been the finest situation on earth." "And," added Mr. Gilmer, "if he could have had his way, he would have sunk them both in the lake."
Pointing to a wooded peak rising behind Monticello, he said that Mr. Jefferson once planned a sawmill to be placed there and driven by a windmill, since there is always a breeze up there. When some woodman asked how he would get the logs up there to be sawed, he was nonplussed.
Mr. Jefferson, who was much interested in scientific matters, had been led to adopt the theory that the western prairies were almost treeless because the mastodons, believed to be arboraceous, had gnawed down and consumed the trees which originally grew on them. A wag of the neighbour-hood, Billy Preston, was aware of Jefferson's views on this subject. On a journey which Preston made to Illinois, he wrote to Jefferson that he had found a remarkable confirmation of his theory. He had come upon the remains of a mastodon in a slough, in which the animal had been mired, and just where the stomach must have been there was a great mass of what appeared to be sawdust, evidently the tree which had been eaten. Mr. Jefferson was so gratified at this news that he at once wrote a Memoir on the matter and sent it to his scientific correspondents in France.
We passed the monument to Jefferson just before we reached the entrance to the grounds. It was badly mutilated by visitors who had broken off chips of the stone as souvenirs. The steward in charge of the estate happened to be near the gate which, however, was locked. Mr. Gilmer shouted to him from afar in the most familiar manner; but as we reached the gate, the steward informed us that Captain Levy, the naval officer, into whose possession the estate had come through his marriage, had left the strictest orders that during his absence in Europe no one should be admitted to the house. We had heard that Captain Levy had taken offence because he had not been received as persona grata by his neighbours. On the announcement by the steward of this prohibition, Mr. Gilmer evinced deep anguish. "This is really too bad," he exclaimed. "Here are two sons of old acquaintances and friends of Mr. Jefferson, who have ridden hundreds of miles to pay a tribute to his memory, to visit his residence as a sacred shrine, and now they are to be shut out. If Mr. Jefferson were alive, how he would have greeted them! Oh no! This cannot be, my good friend. Allow me, sir, to introduce you to Mr. Charles Francis Adams, the son of John Quincy Adams, and to Mr. Fletcher Webster, the son of Daniel Webster!" As it happened he called me, who was about the size of Mr. Adams, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Hazard, who was six feet high, Mr. Adams. He had not notified us of his intention to play this trick, and it required our best efforts to play the parts assigned us without breaking into laughter. The steward was evidently a little puzzled to explain to himself how so distinguished men should appear in such costume. But he yielded to Mr. Gilmer's request with the remark that he supposed Captain Levy would not object to the admission of such visitors. We were shown about the grounds and the house. In Jefferson's sleeping room was the bed on which he died, July 4, 1826. On the mantel were two small statues of him. In the dining room was a bust of Voltaire. The furniture of the house was wrapped in coverings. In the silence and the dim light which was admitted through the half-closed shutters, the house in which so many statesmen had discussed the gravest public questions seemed in fact a tomb. For once even the merry talk of our friend Gilmer fell with a certain dissonance on the ear.
In the afternoon we rode out to the University. A student, Mr. Chalmers, introduced us to the Librarian, Mr. Wirtenbaker, who received us very cordially. The student's dormitories and the lecture halls, planned as was the University itself by Mr. Jefferson, still stand as we saw them on two sides of the beautiful Green, though other and finer structures have since been added.
Perhaps this is the best place to say that I attended the inauguration of President Alderman, in the spring of 1905. Being invited to speak at the banquet, I found that there were few, if any, persons present whose memory of the town and the University reached back as far as mine. When I gave some of the reminiscences above recorded, the audience seemed highly entertained, especially by my report of the acts and stories of "Billy Gilmer," the reputation of whose wit and humour has survived in that region.
We crossed the Blue Ridge to Staunton. On this journey we first saw negro women working in the fields. In Staunton we visited the State Institution for the Blind and for the Deaf and Dumb, and the State Lunatic Asylum. From Staunton we went to Lexington, then and afterwards noted for the State Military Institute, at which some of the most distinguished confederate officers were educated. Stonewall Jackson was a professor here when the Civil War broke out.
My journey up the Shenandoah Valley proved of essential service to me in my editorial work during the war, because that valley was the scene of so many military operations of importance, which I had occasion to discuss.
From Lexington we went to the Natural Bridge, where the boldness of the scenery surpassed our expectations. We started from the bridge for the Balcony Falls on the James River. On our journey, when we supposed we must be approaching our destination, we inquired of a man whom we met how far it was to Balcony Falls. He looked at us in astonishment. He said he had never heard of them. We expressed our surprise at this, when suddenly he put his hand to his forehead and exclaimed, "Oh, you mean Bel-co-ny (with the accent on the second syllable) Falls," and then gave us the desired information. We found them, a picturesque spot, where the river breaks through a narrow gorge filled with rocks. Passing a tollgate on our ride, we asked the gatekeeper, a woman, how much we had to pay for two of us. She replied that the toll was three cents for one, but she was unable to reckon the total amount for two. As my companion was noted in college for his mathematical attainments, I called on him to solve the problem, which he did, and we passed through.
By almost impassable roads and lanes we went to the Peaks of Otter. We forded one stream thirty-two times in going seven miles. The views from these peaks were very extensive and impressive. None, we were assured, on all the mountain ranges of Virginia are more so. We paused a few hours in Lynchburg, which then had about eight hundred inhabitants. Its chief trade was in tobacco. We went next to Danville. On the way we passed the Isle of Pines, lying in Staunton River, and formerly owned by Patrick Henry. We also passed two small villages known by the significant names of Hard Times and Scuffletown. We were told by one of the natives that in that region they raised "a right smart chance of sheep and snorting crops of tobacco." But the soil was really thin and in a large part of our route covered with forest. We met hardly any travellers in a whole day's ride. So far as we could judge from our conversations with Virginians on our whole journey from Winchester to Danville, that is from Northern to Southern Virginia, opinions as to the desirableness of maintaining slavery were divided. Not a few were convinced that it was of no advantage to their State. But no one could make the journey we did without being impressed with the great natural resources of the State, with the attractiveness of the scenery on both sides of the Blue Ridge, and with the shrewdness, intelligence, and activity of the inhabitants of the Shenandoah Valley.
Passing from Danville into North Carolina, we travelled on a level ridge for twenty-seven miles without crossing a stream. We came also on the first camp we had seen of a slave trader, buying up negroes to take to the gulf states. That was a prosperous business both in Virginia and in the Carolinas. Some of the table arrangements in Danville and in towns further south were novel. Beef steak was served in a large, deep potato dish, from which you drew your rations with a spoon. Butter, a most liberal supply, from one to three pounds, was placed in slices on the largest plate on the table. Sometimes this plate was placed on an inverted bowl, sometimes on a circular board twelve or fifteen inches in diameter, which was supported on a wooden standard a foot high.
Our journey to Greensboro, North Carolina (named after General Green of revolutionary fame), took us over the battlefield of Guilford Court House, and over the region in which Cornwallis and Green contended for some time. A venerable man, said to be the oldest in Martinsville, assured us that Washington fought the battle with Cornwallis and won it. He modestly added that he remembered nothing more about it.
Near Greensboro we visited the Hodgins Gold Mine, which was then worked with profit, but like the other North Carolina gold mines was afterwards abandoned. The gold was found chiefly in the earthy matter which surrounded the loose quartz. Copper was also found. We also went to see the mines of Gold Hill where they were taking out four hundred dollars worth of gold daily.
We passed through Salisbury to Charlotte. There was here a branch mint, where they made no coins larger than five dollar pieces. They employed only four men in their work. We crossed the State line into South Carolina, and traversed Lancaster County, passing over the scene of Sumter's and of Gates' military operations in the Revolution. The soil was light and sandy. Lofty pines were here first encountered. In this region we met the first advocates of secession. Some of them warned us that it would be dangerous for us to approach Columbia. We replied that we would continue our journey until we saw signs of danger.
Camden we found an attractive town of between two and three thousand inhabitants. De Kalb's remains lie beneath a monument in the Presbyterian church. His name was given to a cotton factory which we visited. Near it was the figure of an iron man on which Colonel Dickinson, killed in the Mexican War, had practised with his pistol in preparation for a duel. We were told that a duel had been fought in the town a year before our visit, and another two years before. Public opinion seemed to approve of duelling. Camden was Cornwallis' headquarters at one period in his southern campaign. The Camden Journal was a violent secession sheet.
On the road from Camden to Columbia we passed large fields of cotton, one a mile long. As the Legislature was in session we found it impossible to gain admission to any hotel, but after a long search in the evening were received at a boarding house. The next day being Sunday, we had the good fortune to hear Rev. Dr. Thornwell, one of the most distinguished preachers in the South, deliver the baccalaureate sermon to the graduating class of the University of South Carolina. It was a discourse of great power.
On the next day we attended the Commencement exercises. The Governor (Seabrook), the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and a group of prominent citizens occupied the stage. We were rather surprised to see a supply of cuspidors on the stage for tobacco chewers, and they were by no means superfluous furniture. We thought the students' speeches were only moderately good. The President's address to them was solely an appeal to them to abide by the State in the dissolution of the Union which he regarded as inevitable. He exhorted them to fight and conquer or fall beneath the Palmetto banner. Several of the students' speeches referred to the secession of the States as certain to come.
On the following day we visited the Legislature. The halls were hung in mourning for Calhoun. During this session the speeches abounded with allusions to the coming dissolution of the Union. In the evening we took tea with Mrs. McCord, a most gifted and learned woman, the daughter of that eminent statesman, Langdon Cheves. Though extremely cordial to us personally, she expressed what seemed to be the general feeling in Columbia when she said to us, "We ought to fight you of the North." It will be remembered that this was nearly nine years before the attack on Fort Sumter.
From Columbia we set out for Augusta, Georgia. At the end of the second day's journey we halted before a house and inquired for Leestown, which appeared on the map. No other house was visible. "This is Leestown," responded a man, who proved to be Mr. Lee. He informed us — we had not failed to observe it — that the land in that neighbourhood produced little or nothing. The country we had passed through was of course very sparsely settled. We lodged at Mr. Lee's. As we entered Hamburg, opposite Augusta, we saw twenty negroes marching round a piazza singing merrily. They were for sale. Not even this fact depressed their spirits.
We found Augusta the most attractive southern city we had seen. It had about twelve thousand inhabitants. The two principal streets were lined with fine dwellings. One of them, a mile or more in length, had two rows of trees in the middle, and one row on each side. There were two large cotton mills under the charge of a man brought from Lowell, Massachusetts. They were as well equipped as any we had seen at home. The operatives were all white. We made a vain attempt to sell our horses, as we learned that owing to the sparseness of the population in southwestern Georgia we should find it very uncomfortable travelling on horseback to middle Florida, where we had decided to go for the remainder of the winter. We left the horses in Augusta, while we went by rail to Charleston, South Carolina.
We had to leave at five A.M., without breakfast. We stopped for breakfast near Aiken. Mr. Hazard paid for our meals. As we were sitting by the fire near a Virginian, the whistle blew and we three started for the train. A negro waiter came running after us, exclaiming, "Didn't one of you gemmens forgit to pay for breakfast?" Mr. Hazard replied, "We paid." The Virginian, looking the negro fiercely in the eye, said sharply, "Which is it? Point him out." "I d'n know," said the negro. "Point him out," repeated the Virginian. By this time the cars were moving and we all jumped in. "That is my fix," coolly remarked the Virginian to us.
Till we were within four miles of Charleston, we were passing through a succession of cypress swamps and pine barrens. We spent a few days in Charleston most agree-ably. Our classmate, Mendenhall, and friends to whom we had letters, received us with the hospitality characteristic of that city. The houses were generally built in the Grecian style of architecture, with broad piazzas on three sides. Magnolias and live oaks abounded in the open spaces. We made an excursion up Cooper's River to see the rice fields, and to Sullivan's Island, which was then a summer resort for the Charlestonians. We obtained our trunks which we had sent by sea from Baltimore. Mr. Hazard had been robbed of a part of his wardrobe; but we were enabled to lay aside our suits of Vermont gray and dress in proper form to receive the hospitalities of our friends.
Mr. and Mrs. McCord having invited us when we were at Columbia to spend the Christmas holidays with them on their plantation at Fort Motte, some thirty miles south of Columbia, we gladly availed ourselves of the opportunity to see something of plantation life under so auspicious circumstances. On December nineteenth we went by rail from Charleston. We were most cordially received by our host and hostess who were living in a fine mansion surrounded by grounds laid out in excellent taste.
We walked out with Mr. McCord to the negro quarters. He had one hundred and thirty-seven negroes, and was building new and comfortable tenements for them. He had a house in which all the negro children were kept during the day in charge of attendants, and a hospital provided with nurses. Every negro had his particular task and drew his ration of food. The arrangements were very systematical. The children sang hymns for us and all of them down to the veriest tot sang con amore, as legs, arms, and bodies were all called into requisition. The plantation called "Lang Syne" had about three thousand acres and produced from one hundred and eighty to two hundred bales of cotton. We were hospitably entertained by dinner parties and hunting parties on the plantations in the neighbourhood. Partridges, rabbits, and squirrels were the game sought. The negroes running and shouting rivalled the dogs in securing the game shot.
Our visit corrected our impression that the life of the planter and his wife was one free from care. They did have more leisure than the northern farmer. But careful management was required to secure good profits. And the negroes, careless about their health, called for much attention. Our hostess, during our visit, was up all night caring for a sick negro baby. She had made a careful study of political economy and had translated a valuable French work on that subject. She had given much attention to the economics of plantation life. She told us that she would prefer to have $25,000 in good bank stock rather than $100,000 in negroes and plantations. The negroes of "Lang Syne" seemed cheerful and merry, especially when they came on Christmas day to the house to draw their extra Christmas rations. But we were much impressed by an incident which occurred while, on our departure, we were on the way to the railway station. The negro driver was a grave elderly man, a Baptist preacher, in fact, for his people. I ventured to say to him, "You servants must all be very happy in your lot with such a kind master and mistress." He answered not a word, but looked at me with a surprised and pathetic air, which seemed to me to say, "You, who are from the North, ought to know that slavery is not a happy condition." I dropped the conversation, but I have never forgotten the expression of his countenance.
While waiting for a delayed train at the station, we met a hotel keeper from Quincy, Florida, whose commendations of his town decided us to go there for the winter. Mr. Hazard stopped at Aiken, where we were to remain a few days, and I went on to Augusta to bring the horses down. The people at the hotel hardly recognized me, as I no longer wore the riding costume in which they had seen me. The horses having been in the stable three weeks I had a lively time, riding one and leading the other. It rained heavily all day. I arrived at Aiken soaked to the skin. The next day as Mr. Hazard and I were taking a ride, his horse ran away and he was thrown heavily against a tree, but fortunately my fear that he was seriously hurt proved to be unfounded. We sold the horses and saddles and bridles for a little more than they cost us. We remained a week in Aiken. It rained almost every day, and once we had snow three or four inches deep at which some of the negro children were much excited, as they had never before seen it.
On January 6, 1851, we set out from Aiken for Florida. We sat up, as there were no sleeping cars on the trains in those days, all night on the journey from Augusta to Atlanta. This place was just getting started as the junction point of three rail-roads. We went on at once to Macon, the farthest point on our route which we could then reach by rail. At 10.30 P.M. we started from there in a small coach. Why I know not, but all through the South the coaches which we took generally started in the night, some of them at 2 A.M. We had hardly left the town when the coach was upset, and unluckily the only door was on the side next to the ground. We broke the window on the other side and crawled out into the mud. I took the driver's lantern and walked ahead, while Mr. Hazard held up the coach to keep it from capsizing again. After awhile we remounted, but had not gone far before the coach fell plump into a mud hole so as to pitch off a clergyman from the driver's seat and to pitch the driver off headlong after him. It proved we were near a camp of negro teamsters who had a lightwood fire and some loads of furniture. We cut down chairs and sat by the fire and waited until nearly daylight, when a larger and better coach came to our relief. Frequently, during the journey the mud was so deep that we had to alight and walk in the night as well as in the daytime to enable the horses to draw the empty vehicle. As I sat with the driver, he pointed out to me the sloughs in which the coach had been upset on previous trips. The food at the inns was as bad as could be.
One day we had a long fast because we reached no inn. The country was very sparsely settled. The roads were indescribably bad; swamps, corduroys, roots of trees, gullies, mud holes, creeks to be forded, were our obstacles. Three nights we travelled in these conditions, much of the time in heavy rain, and finally reached Quincy at 2 A.M., after the most fatiguing and uncomfortable journey we had ever taken. This was Friday morning and we had not been in bed since Sunday night. Southwestern Georgia, as we saw it, was not very inviting.
As we were taking a late breakfast in the hotel, the morning of our arrival, we witnessed a scene which was disturbing to northern young men. The negro waiter whom we had sent to the kitchen to fill our order, in crossing the back yard, fell into a fight with another negro. In the midst of the tumult a white man appeared with a raw hide and began to lay it on the back of our waiter with great force. The boy in his pain ran and struck his head repeatedly against the brick wall as if to dash out his brains. But the white man continued his blows until the negro fell to the ground. We were told that the white man was his owner and was a citizen of New Jersey, of a family so distinguished that if I should mention his name most readers of these lines would recall it as familiar. It is needless to say that we did not care for any more breakfast.
We walked out soon after to the front of the courthouse, where a crowd was gathered. We found they were selling at auction the slaves of a citizen who had recently died. The negro families that were to be separated were evincing much feeling. A fine looking girl, about eighteen years old, was mounting the block as we arrived. The auctioneer rudely proceeded to speak of her good points, as he might of those of a horse. He made her show her teeth, coarse men came to feel of her ankles and the calves of her legs, to test the quality of her muscles. It was the most repulsive and disgusting spectacle we had ever seen. We felt that this scene and that at the hotel were showing us a side of slavery that we had learned nothing of in the hospitable homes of South Carolina. Near the town there were constantly camps of negroes, whom slave dealers had brought from the northern slave states.
We spent three months in Quincy. A considerable company of invalids were wintering there. As we met each morning at the post-office, their habitual conversation concerning their coughs and expectorations and other tuberculous symptoms, were not very exhilarating, though fortunately we were not ill enough to be much disturbed by them. We were very hospitably received by the citizens, many of whom were persons of intelligence and excellent character. That part of Florida had been mainly settled from the Carolinas. Not a few of the men, after unsuccessful business ventures elsewhere, had come there to make a fresh start in life, and were as devoted to money-getting as they supposed the Yankees to be. Land was cheap and well adapted to the growth of cotton, which was the chief crop. As no railways had reached that section, marketing the cotton was difficult and costly. It was sent for shipment to St. Marks. There were in the neighbourhood an undesirable number of men who had fled from creditors with no intention of paying their debts and of men who had committed crimes in their old homes. Among this rougher element, drunkenness and violence were not uncommon. The rooms we rented were over a surgeon's office. It was a rare week when some one who had been wounded in a fray did not require the surgeon's attention. On the other hand the town was an educational centre for Middle Florida. There was an excellent boarding school for girls, kept by two cultivated women from Connecticut. There was also a boarding school for boys. The churches had one undesirable feature in their construction. They had no under-pinning, but rested on posts three or four feet high. Unhappily the swine which were allowed to run in the streets made their lounging place under the churches. The rain flowed into the excavation they made, and in these pools fleas were bred in profusion. Unhappily also the floors of some of the churches were so loosely laid that the fleas often made their way up through the cracks, and climbing up under the garments of the worshippers greatly interfered with a reverential enjoyment of the services.
We thought that there and generally in the South a larger proportion of the people attended church than in the North. I have been struck with the fact that Southern political orators indulge much more than Northern speakers in scriptural allusions and quotations. Is it because the Southerners are more familiar with the Bible than the Northerners? I will mention one incident which may show that some of the southern children are as unfamiliar with it as the Northern children, whose unfamiliarity with it is so often commented on in our days. Finding that the daughter of our boarding-house keeper and some of her companions, girls of fourteen or fifteen years of age, were not much interested in the Biblical narratives, I imitated a device, which I had somewhere read about, that Franklin tried with a company of French infidels with success. Having promised to tell them an Oriental story which I thought would interest them, I narrated in my own language the story of Esther. Not one of them, it proved, had read it. When they expressed their delight with it, I told them where they would find it told in a more much touching manner.
I must repeat one incident illustrating how one's native place is to him the centre of the world. A rather dull, overgrown boy of fifteen once asked me where we came from. I replied "from Rhode Island." "How far away is that?" he asked. "About thirteen hundred miles," said I. "Golly," he rejoined, "I don't see how you stand it to live so fur off." In fact the knowledge of the life and industries and ideas of the North among even the more intelligent was naturally very limited. But they were charitable enough to me to urge me very strongly to remain in Quincy and teach.
In March we made an excursion to Tallahassee and St. Marks. The road to the capitol lay through forests and swamps. At one point near Ocklocknee Channel, posts were set up to guide the stage driver in swimming his horses where water overflowed the road. Tallahassee was made attractive by its beautiful gardens. On coming south we were impressed by the fact that the farther south we came the more intensely Calvinistic and severe was the theology which inspired the preaching. In Tallahassee we heard by far the sternest and most sulphurous discourse we listened to.
A dilapidated railway, on which a car was drawn by horses, connected the city with Newport. The one public building in this new town was used for a church, an academy, a masonic lodge, a courthouse, and a jail. From Newport we walked three miles to St. Mark's, the old seaport for this region. One warehouse and half-a-dozen dilapidated, weather-beaten houses composed the town. The remains of the old Spanish fort showed still a part of the wall and parapets and moat. General Jackson seized it in 1818. Creepers and peach trees were growing from its sides. We sailed down to the lighthouse, eight miles, passing Port Leon on the way, and gained our first view of the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Here, too, we first saw cormorants and alligators. When returning by the railway we found that fire in the forests had set the track on fire at several points; but the driver put whip to his horses and carried our street car safely through the fire.
The next day we drove sixteen miles to see the Wakulla Spring. We passed a few cabins on the road, tenanted by sallow, wretched-looking people. This spring, of which the Indian name Wakulla is said to mean "Mystery," breaks out of a sub-merged limestone cliff, one hundred and ninety feet down and forms a pool one hundred feet wide. The water is so clear that one can see a button dropped to the bottom. At certain angles one sees beautiful prismatic hues. The shadow of your boat is plainly perceptible on the bottom. You seem to be floating in the air. Near by were some of the bones of a mastodon which had been taken from the spring. The remainder of the skeleton had been sent to Barnum's Museum.
On April 2 we bade adieu to our good friends of Quincy, not one of whom have I ever seen since. We drove to Chattahoochee over a dreadful road, and in the evening took the steamer Palmetto for Columbus, where we arrived the next day at 1 P.M. The river with its precipitous banks largely covered with cypresses was of more interest than we had expected. Columbus was a prosperous city of six thousand inhabitants. Several cotton mills were in process of construction.
The next morning at 2 A.M., the usual hour in the South for stages to start, we set out for Opelika. Hardly had we seated ourselves when one of the two women passengers said to the other, "Wall, Poll, I s'pose we might as well begin to rub snuff. You got your bottle." Poll produced it and they began this disgusting habit of rubbing a little wooden swab dipped in snuff in their mouths. The odor of the smoke of the lamps and a fresh wind furnished us some relief. I may as well say in this connection that in Florida the young women of good breeding were often addicted to this habit, though in private. On this journey we met with a remarkable negro. He had purchased his freedom. He was on his way to release from arrest for drunkenness his former owner to whom he had frequently shown this kindness. He was the builder of a very long bridge which we crossed. We were told that when the builders of the capitol at Montgomery were puzzled in framing the dome, he was called in to extricate them from their trouble.
From Opelika we went seventy miles by rail to Montgomery. The view from the Capitol to the north extended over an interminable forest, clothed in the delicate green of early spring. The city lies in a semi-circle of hills, and appeared to be fairly prosperous. As we were passing some negroes, one asked, "How's de peoples up de country?" "Oh, dey's all extant," replied another. We gathered from conversation that the sentiment in Montgomery and the adjacent country was by no means unanimous for secession, though the subject was under discussion.
We proceeded by steamer to Mobile, a sail of a day and a half, through rather tame and monotonous scenery. As we passed the steamboats at the. wharves in Mobile, one of our negro men would lead off in a song and the negroes on the other boats would join in a chorus. This made an animated scene of our arrival. We spent a happy day with some good friends, but were obliged to hurry on to New Orleans. The business, mainly in cotton, of Mobile had been declining, but they hoped that the completion of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad would revive it. The harbour was so shallow that much of the cotton for export had to be carried thirty miles in lighters.
We went by steamer to New Orleans. At that time, steamers and sailing ships, foreign and American, crowded the levee for miles. The products of the Mississippi Valley lay piled in confusion as far as the eye could see. Thousands of negroes were busy loading drays and ships, singing as they toiled. No other such scene could be witnessed in America. The visit to the foreign quarters, the mingling of French and Spanish with the English, the cemeteries with their peculiar tombs, the thousand sights which characterize a European city, were all strange and fascinating to us. Visiting the steamer Peytona to bid fare-well to some friends, we had our first and only view of Henry Clay who was departing for home on that boat. As was the custom, a concourse of ladies were kissing him good-bye. That proved, I think, to be his last visit to New Orleans. We dined with Jacob Barker, the most distinguished merchant in the city, who once won a famous lawsuit, which turned on the contention raised by him that a whale is not a fish but a mammal.
On ascending the river we passed two or three large crevasses through which the water, pouring like a river, had flooded the country as far as we could see, and to the depth of several feet. The people had fled from their houses in boats. We stopped at Baton Rouge long enough to visit the capitol, not quite completed, and the state prison, whose inmates were employed in a cotton mill established within the walls. We continued on the steamer we took at Baton Rouge until we reached Paducah. There we heard a Judge charging the jury in a very original manner. He always referred to the Court as "She," and inveighed against demagogues "honeyfogling the people."
We went by steamer to Nashville. We found the views of the bluffs on the river in refreshing contrast to the low, level, and monotonous banks of the Mississippi. The city has a fine site in the hills overlooking the Cumberland River. State prisoners were erecting the Capitol. They had been at work on it six years, and it was supposed that three years more would be required to complete it.
From Nashville we went by stage coach to the Mammoth Cave. We spent two days in exploring that most famous of all caves. A tedious stage coach journey took us from the Cave to Louisville. After a brief visit with friends, one of them our college classmate, Reuben T. Durrett, since well known as a scholar, learned in the history of Kentucky, we took the steamer for Cincinnati.
We spent Sunday in that city. By chance we went to the church of which Dr. Willis Lord, once pastor of my own church in Providence, was the pastor and heard an excellent sermon from him. On climbing the hill back of the city, we gained a view of Professor Mitchell's Observatory, of which years afterwards I heard him speak so frequently. He used to relate with pride, that in a hundred days from his departure for Europe he returned with his telescope. Few astronomers could tell in so eloquent language as he did of the revelations made to him by his instrument.
We left Cincinnati by coach at 4 o'clock A.M. for Dublin, Indiana, to visit the Vanuxems, Quaker relatives of Mr. Hazard. This drive took us through a most fertile country, inhabited by an industrious and thrifty people. When I saw a white man actually sawing his own wood, I felt like going to shake hands with him. We had come to a land where honest physical toil was honourable. The beautiful beech and maple groves of eastern Indiana, having no undergrowth, were charming to our eyes. We spent a week most pleasantly with the simple, hospitable, prosperous people of Dublin and Cambridge, and returned to Cincinnati in a long day's drive to take the steamer for Pittsburg.
No scenery we had beheld was so enchanting as that on the voyage up the Ohio. We looked up our friends, the Randolphs and Tanners, and passed a pleasant day with them. We made the journey to Johnstown by canal boat, a most agreeable mode of travelling through the romantic valleys. At Johnstown we were drawn up an inclined plane and started by rail for Philadelphia. We called upon our old friends. I left Mr. Hazard there and reached home on May 22, after an absence of seven months and eighteen days, reinvigorated in health.