Sweet Heav-En Am-A-My-Am,
Sweet Heav-En Am-A-My-Am,
Sweet Heav-En Am-A-My-Am,
I'll Git Home To Heav-En When I Die,"
While visiting a town in Georgia, where the
negroes had made some effort to improve their
condition, I made a few notes relating to the
freedman's debating society of the place.
Affecting high-sounding words, they called their
organization, "De Lycenum," and its doings were
directed by a committee of two persons, called
respectively, "de disputaceous visitor," and "de
lachrymal visitor." What particular duties devolved
upon the "lachrymal visitor," I could
never clearly ascertain. One evening these
negroes debated upon the following theme,
"Which is de best - when ye are out ob a ting,
or when ye hab got it?" which was another form
of expressing the old question, "Is there more
pleasure in possession than in anticipation?"
Another night the colored orators became
intensely excited over the query, "Which is de
best, Spring Water or Matches?"
The freedmen, for so unfortunate a class, seem
to be remarkably well behaved. During several
journeys through the southern states I found
them usually temperate, and very civil in their
intercourse with the whites, though it must be
confessed that but few of them can apply
themselves steadily and persistently to manual labor,
either for themselves or their employers.
CHAPTER XV. DOWN UPON THE SUWANEE RIVER.
THE RICH FOLIAGE OF THE RIVER. - COLUMBUS. - ROLINS'
BLUFF. OLD TOWN HAMMOCK. - A HUNTER KILLED BY A
PANTHER, DANGEROUS SERPENTS. - CLAY LANDING. THE
MARSHES OP THE COAST, - BRADFORD'S ISLAND. - MY LAST
CAMP. - THE VOYAGE ENDED.
Some friends, among whom were Colonel
George W. Nason, Jr., of Massachusetts,
and Major John Purviance, Commissioner of
Suwanee County, offered to escort the paper
canoe down "the river of song" to the Gulf of
Mexico, a distance, according to local authority,
of two hundred and thirty-five miles. While
the members of the party were preparing for the
journey, Colonel Nason accompanied me to the
river, which was less than three miles from
Rixford, the proprietors of which sent the canoe
after us on a wagon drawn by mules. The point
of embarkation was the Lower Mineral Springs,
the property of Judge Bryson.
The Suwanee, which was swollen by some
recent rains in Okefenokee Swamp, was a wild,
dark, turbulent current, which went coursing
through the woods on its tortuous route with
great rapidity. The luxurious foliage of the
river-banks was remarkable. Maples were in
blossom, beech-trees in bloom, while the
buckeye was covered with its heavy festoons of red
flowers. Pines, willows, cotton-wood, two kinds
of hickory, water-oak, live-oak, sweet-gum,
magnolia, the red and white bay-tree, a few
red cedars, and haw-bushes, with many species not
known to me, made up a rich wall of verdure on
either side, as I sped along with a light heart to
Columbus, where my compagnons de voyage
were to meet me. Wood-ducks and egrets, in
small flocks, inhabited the forest.
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