We Saw Large
Tracts Covered With The Standing Trunks Of Trees Already Killed By It; And
Other Tracts Beside Them Had Been Freshly Attacked By The Spoiler.
I am
told that the tree which grows up when the long-leaved pine is destroyed,
is the loblolly pine, or, as it is sometimes called, the short-leaved
pine, a tree of very inferior quality and in little esteem.
About half-past two in the afternoon, we came to Wilmington, a little town
built upon the white sands of Cape Fear, some of the houses standing where
not a blade of grass or other plant can grow. A few evergreen oaks, in
places, pleasantly overhang the water. Here we took the steamer for
Charleston.
I may as well mention here a fraud which is sometimes practiced upon those
who go by this route to Charleston. Advertisements are distributed at New
York and elsewhere, informing the public that the fare from Baltimore to
Charleston, by the railway through Washington and Richmond, is but
twenty-two dollars. I took the railway, paying from place to place as I
went, and found that this was a falsehood; I was made to pay seven or
eight dollars more. In the course of my journey, I was told that, to
protect myself from this imposition, I should have purchased at Baltimore
a "through ticket," as it is called; that is, should have paid in advance
for the whole distance; but the advertisement did not inform me that this
was necessary. No wonder that "tricks upon travellers" should have become
a proverbial expression, for they are a much-enduring race, more or less
plundered in every part of the world.
The next morning, at eight o'clock, we found ourselves entering Charleston
harbor; Sullivan's Island, with Fort Moultrie, breathing recollections of
the revolution, on our right; James Island on our left; in front, the
stately dwellings of the town, and all around, on the land side, the
horizon bounded by an apparent belt of evergreens - the live-oak, the
water-oak, the palmetto, the pine, and, planted about the dwellings, the
magnolia and the wild orange - giving to the scene a summer aspect. The
city of Charleston strikes the visitor from the north most agreeably. He
perceives at once that he is in a different climate. The spacious houses
are surrounded with broad piazzas, often a piazza to each story, for the
sake of shade and coolness, and each house generally stands by itself in a
garden planted with trees and shrubs, many of which preserve their verdure
through the winter. We saw early flowers already opening; the peach and
plum-tree were in full bloom; and the wild orange, as they call the
cherry-laurel, was just putting forth its blossoms. The buildings - some
with stuccoed walls, some built of large dark-red bricks, and some of
wood - are not kept fresh with paint like ours, but are allowed to become
weather-stained by the humid climate, like those of the European towns.
The streets are broad and quiet, unpaved in some parts, but in none, as
with us, offensive both to sight and smell. The public buildings are
numerous for the size of the city, and well-built in general, with
sufficient space about them to give them a noble aspect, and all the
advantage which they could derive from their architecture. The
inhabitants, judging from what I have seen of them, which is not much, I
confess, do not appear undeserving of the character which has been given
them, of possessing the most polished and agreeable manners of all the
American cities.
I may shortly write you again from the interior of South Carolina.
Letter XI.
The Interior of South Carolina. A Corn-Shucking.
Barnwell District, South Carolina, _March 29, 1843._
Since I last wrote, I have passed three weeks in the interior of South
Carolina; visited Columbia, the capital of the state, a pretty town;
roamed over a considerable part of Barnwell district, with some part of
the neighboring one of Orangeburg; enjoyed the hospitality of the
planters - very agreeable and intelligent men; been out in a racoon hunt;
been present at a corn-shucking; listened to negro ballads, negro jokes,
and the banjo; witnessed negro dances; seen two alligators at least, and
eaten bushels of hominy.
Whoever comes out on the railroad to this district, a distance of seventy
miles or more, if he were to judge only by what he sees in his passage,
might naturally take South Carolina for a vast pine-forest, with here and
there a clearing made by some enterprising settler, and would wonder where
the cotton which clothes so many millions of the human race, is produced.
The railway keeps on a tract of sterile sand, overgrown with pines;
passing, here and there, along the edge of a morass, or crossing a stream
of yellow water. A lonely log-house under these old trees, is a sight for
sore eyes; and only two or three plantations, properly so called, meet the
eye in the whole distance. The cultivated and more productive lands lie
apart from this tract, near streams, and interspersed with more frequent
ponds and marshes. Here you find plantations comprising several thousands
of acres, a considerable part of which always lies in forest; cotton and
corn fields of vast extent, and a negro village on every plantation, at a
respectful distance from the habitation of the proprietor. Evergreen trees
of the oak family and others, which I mentioned in my last letter, are
generally planted about the mansions. Some of them are surrounded with
dreary clearings, full of the standing trunks of dead pines; others are
pleasantly situated in the edge of woods, intersected by winding paths. A
ramble, or a ride - a ride on a hand-gallop it should be - in these pine
woods, on a fine March day, when the weather has all the spirit of our
March days without its severity, is one of the most delightful recreations
in the world.
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