Mr. Kleim Took Me To His Bachelor
Quarters, Where The Wet Cargo Of The Maria
Theresa Was Dried By The Kitchen Fireplace.
The next day, February 18, I left Seabrook
and followed Skull Creek to Mackay's Creek,
and, passing the mouth of May River, entered
Calibogue Sound, where a sudden tempest arose
and drove me into a creek which flowed out of
the marshes of Bull Island.
A few negro huts
were discovered on a low mound of earth. The
blacks told me their hammock was called Bird
Island.
The tempest lasted all day, and as no shelter
could be found on the creek, a darky hauled my
canoe on a cart a couple of miles to Bull Creek,
which enters into Cooper River, one of the
watercourses I was to enter from Calibogue Sound.
Upon reaching the wooded shores of Bull Creek,
my carter introduced me to the head man of the
settlement, a weazened-looking little old
creature called Cuffy, who, though respectful in his
demeanor to "de Yankee-mans," was cross and
overbearing to the few families occupying the
shanties in the magnificent grove of live-oaks
which shaded them.
Cuffy's cook-house, or kitchen, which was a
log structure measuring nine by ten feet, with
posts only three feet high, was the only building
which could be emptied of its contents for my
accommodation. Our contract or lease was a
verbal one, Cuffy's terms being "whateber de
white man likes to gib an ole nigger." Cuffy
cut a big switch, and sent in his "darter," a girl
of about fourteen years, to clean out the shanty.
When she did not move fast enough to suit the
old man's wishes, he switched her over the
shoulders till it excited my pity; but the girl
seemed to take the beating as an every-day
amusement, for it made no impression on her
hard skull and thick skin.
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