The weather was now delightful, and had I
possessed a light tent I would not have sought
shelter at night in a human habitation anywhere
along the route. The malaria which arises from
fresh-water sinks in many of the sea islands
during the summer months, did not now make
camping-out dangerous to the health. Crossing
the Great Ogeechee above Middle Marsh Island,
I followed the river to the creek called Florida
Passage, through which I reached Bear River,
with its wide and long reaches, and descended it
to St. Catherine's Sound.
Now the sea opened to full view as the canoe
crossed the tidal ocean gateway two miles to
North Newport River. When four miles up the
Newport I entered Johnson's Creek, which flows
from North to South Newport rivers. By
means of the creek and the South Newport
River, my little craft was navigated down to the
southern end of St. Catherine's Island to the
sound of the same name, and here another inlet
was crossed at sunset, and High Point of Sapelo
Island was reached.
From among the green trees of the high bluff
a mansion, which exhibited the taste of its
builder, rose imposingly. This was, however,
but one of the many edifices that are tombs of
buried hopes. The proprietor, a northern
gentleman, after the war purchased one-third of
Sapelo Island for fifty-five thousand dollars in
gold. He attempted, as many other enterprising
northerners had done, to give the late slave a
chance to prove his worth as a freedman to the
world.
"Pay the negro wages; treat him as you
would treat a white man, and he will reward
your confidence with industry and gratitude."
So thought and so acted the large-hearted
northern colonel. He built a large mansion, engaged
his freedmen, paid them for their work, and
treated them like men. The result was ruin,
and simply because he had not paused to
consider that the negro had not been born a
freedman, and that the demoralization of slavery was
still upon him. Beside which facts we must
also place certain ethnological and moral
principles which exist in the pure negro type, and
which are entirely overlooked by those
philanthropic persons who have rarely, if ever, seen a
full-blooded negro, but affect to understand him
through his half-white brother, the mulatto.
Mud River opened its wide mouth before me
as I left the inlet, but the tide was very low, and
Mud River is a sticking-point in the passage of
the Florida steamers. It became so dark that I
was obliged to get near the shore to make a
landing. My attempt was made opposite a
negro's house which was on a bluff but the water
had receded into the very narrow channel of
Mud River, and I was soon stuck fast on a flat.
Getting overboard, I sank to my knees in the
soft mud.
