The Blacks Of This Region Are A Cheerful, Careless, Dirty Race, Not Hard
Worked, And In Many Respects Indulgently Treated.
It is, of course, the
desire of the master that his slaves shall be laborious; on the other hand
it is the determination of the slave to lead as easy a life as he can.
The
master has power of punishment on his side; the slave, on his, has
invincible inclination, and a thousand expedients learned by long
practice. The result is a compromise in which each party yields something,
and a good-natured though imperfect and slovenly obedience on one side, is
purchased by good treatment on the other. I have been told by planters
that the slave brought from Africa is much more serviceable, though more
high-spirited and dangerous than the slave born in this country, and early
trained to his condition.
I have been impatiently waiting the approach of spring, since I came to
this state, but the weather here is still what the inhabitants call
winter. The season, I am told, is more than three weeks later than usual.
Fields of Indian corn which were planted in the beginning of March, must
be replanted, for the seed has perished in the ground, and the cotton
planting is deferred for fine weather. The peach and plum trees have stood
in blossom for weeks, and the forest trees, which at this time are usually
in full foliage, are as bare as in December. Cattle are dying in the
fields for want of pasture.
I have thus had a sample of the winter climate of South Carolina. If
never more severe or stormy than I have already experienced, it must be an
agreeable one. The custom of sitting with open doors, however, I found a
little difficult to like at first. A door in South Carolina, except
perhaps the outer door of a house, is not made to shut. It is merely a
sort of flapper, an ornamental appendage to the opening by which you enter
a room, a kind of moveable screen made to swing to and fro, but never to
be secured by a latch, unless for some purpose of strict privacy. A door
is the ventilator to the room; the windows are not raised except in warm
weather, but the door is kept open at all seasons. On cold days you have a
bright fire of pine-wood blazing before you, and a draught of cold air at
your back. The reason given for this practice is, that fresh air is
wholesome, and that close rooms occasion colds and consumptions.
Letter XII.
Savannah.
Picolata, East Florida, _April 7, 1843._
As I landed at this place, a few hours since, I stepped into the midst of
summer. Yesterday morning when I left Savannah, people were complaining
that the winter was not over. The temperature which, at this time of the
year, is usually warm and genial, continued to be what they called chilly,
though I found it agreeable enough, and the showy trees, called the _Pride
of India_, which are planted all over the city, and are generally in bloom
at this season, were still leafless. Here I find every thing green, fresh,
and fragrant, trees and shrubs in full foliage, and wild roses in flower.
The dark waters of the St. John's, one of the noblest streams of the
country, in depth and width like the St. Lawrence, draining almost the
whole extent of the peninsula, are flowing under my window. On the
opposite shore are forests of tall trees, bright in the new verdure of the
season. A hunter who has ranged them the whole day, has just arrived in a
canoe, bringing with him a deer, which he has killed. I have this moment
returned from a ramble with my host through a hammock, he looking for his
cows, and I, unsuccessfully, for a thicket of orange-trees. He is
something of a florist, and gathered for me, as we went, some of the
forest plants, which were in bloom. "We have flowers here," said he,
"every month in the year."
I have used the word hammock, which here, in Florida, has a peculiar
meaning. A hammock is a spot covered with a growth of trees which require
a richer soil than the pine, such as the oak, the mulberry, the gum-tree,
the hickory, &c. The greater part of East Florida consists of pine
barrens - a sandy level, producing the long leaved pine and the dwarf
palmetto, a low plant, with fan-like leaves, and roots of a prodigious
size. The hammock is a kind of oasis, a verdant and luxuriant island in
the midst of these sterile sands, which make about nine-tenths of the soil
of East Florida. In the hammocks grow the wild lime, the native orange,
both sour and bitter-sweet, and the various vines and gigantic creepers of
the country. The hammocks are chosen for plantations; here the cane is
cultivated, and groves of the sweet orange planted. But I shall say more
of Florida hereafter, when I have seen more of it. Meantime let me speak
of my journey hither.
I left Charleston on the 30th of March, in one of the steamers which ply
between that city and Savannah. These steamers are among the very best
that float - quiet, commodious, clean, fresh as if just built, and
furnished with civil and ready-handed waiters. We passed along the narrow
and winding channels which divide the broad islands of South Carolina from
the main-land - islands famed for the rice culture, and particularly for
the excellent cotton with long fibres, named the sea-island cotton. Our
fellow-passengers were mostly planters of these islands, and their
families, persons of remarkably courteous, frank, and agreeable manners.
The shores on either side had little of the picturesque to show us.
Extensive marshes waving with coarse water-grass, sometimes a cane-brake,
sometimes a pine grove or a clump of cabbage-leaved palmettoes; here and
there a pleasant bank bordered with live-oaks streaming with moss, and at
wide intervals the distant habitation of a planter - these were the
elements of the scenery.
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