I waded to my knees in the mud before the
canoe could be landed, and, as it stormed all
night, I slept on the floor of the humble cot of
the negro Echard Holmes, having first treated
the household to crackers and coffee. The
negroes gathered from other points to examine the
canoe, and, hearing that I was from the north,
one grizzly old darky begged me to "carry"
his complaints to Washington.
"De goberment," he said, "has been berry
good to wees black folks. It gib us our
freedom, - all berry well; but dar is an noder ting
wees wants; dat is, wees wants General Grant to
make tings stashionary. De storekeeper gibs a
poor nigger only one dollar fur bushel corn,
sometimes not so much. Den he makes poor nigger
gib him tree dollars fur bag hominy, sometimes
more'n dat. Wees wants de goberment to make
tings stashionary. Make de storekeeper gib
black man one dollar and quarter fur de bushel
of corn, and make him sell de poor nigger de
bag hominy fur much less dan tree dollars.
Make all tings stashionary. Den dar's one ting
more. Tell de goberment to do fur poor darky
'nodder ting, - make de ole massa say to me,
You's been good slave in ole times, - berry
good slave; now I gib you one, two, tree, five
acres of land for yoursef.' Den ole nigger be
happy, and massa be happy too; den bof of um
bees happy. Hab you a leetle bacca fur dis ole
man?"
From the Styles mansion it was but three
miles to Ossabaw Sound. Little Don Island
and Raccoon Key are in the mouth of the
Vernon. Between the two flat islands is a deep
passage through which the tides rush with great
force; it is called Hell Gate. On the south
side of Raccoon Key the Great Ogeechee River
pours its strong volume of water into Ossabaw
Sound.
I entered the Great Ogeechee through the
Don Island passage, and saw sturgeon-fishermen
at work with their nets along the shores of
Ossabaw, one of the sea islands. Ossabaw Island
lies between Ossabaw and St. Catherine's
sounds, and is eight miles long and six miles
wide. The side towards the sea is firm upland,
diversified with glades, while the western
portion is principally marshes cut up by numerous
creeks. All the sea islands produce the long
staple cotton known as sea-island cotton, and
before the war a very valuable variety. A few
negroes occupy the places abandoned by the
proprietor, and eke out a scanty livelihood.
There are many deer in the forests of
Ossabaw Island. One of its late proprietors
informed me that there must be at least ten
thousand wild hogs there, as they have been
multiplying for many years, and but few were shot
by the negroes. The domestic hog becomes a
very shy animal if left to himself for two or
three years. The hunter may search for him
without a dog almost in vain, though the woods
may contain large numbers of these creatures.
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.
