Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

251 them, the taste displayed in their gardens, etc.; for every man has all the material and time at his command to make himself and his family as comfortable as he pleases. Ihe huts of some bore as happy nn air as one might desire; neat palings enclosed them ; the gardens were full of flowers, and bloom ing vines clambered over the doors and win dows. Others, again, had been suffered by the idle occupants to fall into sad decay; no evidence of taste or industry was to be seen in their hingeless doors, their fallen fences, or their weed-grown gardens. These lazy fellows were accustomed even to cut down •the shade-trees which had been kindly plant ed before their homes, rather than walk a few yards further for other and even better fuel. The more industrious of the negroes here, as elsewhere, employ their leisure hours, which are abundant, in the culture of vegetables, and in raising fowls, which they sell to their masters, and thus supply themselves with the means to purchase many little luxuries of life. For necessaries they have no concern, since they are amply and generously provided with all which they can require. Others who will not thus work for their pin-money, are de pendant upon the kindness of their masters, or more frequently upon their ingenuity at thieving. Many of them sell to their master in the morning the produce they have stolen from him the previous night. At least, they all manage to keep their purses filled ; and I was assured that not one, had he occasion or desire to visit Charleston or Augusta, but could readily produce the means to defray his expenses. One old woman was pointed out to me, who had several times left the plantation with permission to remain away as long as she pleased ; yet, although her ab sences were sometimes of long continuance, she was too wise not to return to a certain and good home. Wander how and whither she would, in due time her heart would join the burden of the sing : “ Oh ! carry me back to old Virginny, To old Virginny's shore!” While once visiting some friends in Caro lina, I had the pleasure of witnessing the bri dal festivities of one of the servants of the family, a girl of some eighteen years. The occasion was one of those pleasant things which long hold place in the memory. For days previous, the young ladies of the house hold gaily busied themselves in kind prepa rations for the event; in instructions to the bride, in the preparation of her white muslin . robe, of her head-dress, and other portions of her toilet, in writing her notes of invitation to her sable friends —Mr. Sambo Smith, or Miss Clara Brown, according to the baptis mals of their respective masters, whose names the negroes of the South always assume. In my quality of artist, 1 had the pleasure to expend my water colors in wreathes of roses, and pictures of cupids, hearts and darts, and so on, upon the icings of the cakes which the young ladies had prepared for the bridal feast; and who knows but that my chef d'- (Liivres were consumed by ebony lips on that memorable night! The ceremony took place in the cabin of the bride, and in presence of the whites—and then followed revelry, feast ing and dancing upon the lawn, much to the delight of the happy pair and their dark friends, and scarcely less to the pleasure of the bride’s kind mistresses and myself, who witnessed their sports from the parlor win dows. By the way, when you journey in the South, line your pockets with tobacco, dispense it generously to the darkies, and they are your friends for life. As I have said, Woodlands and its vicin 'age will enlighten you as to the genus of the scenery of all the low-lands of the South. This genus , however, you will find as ycu ramble from the sea-board towards the inte rior, subdivided into many species, each wide ly varying from the other. Upon the sea board, and its many lovely and luxuriant isl ands, you will find the beau ideal of Southern §©©‘u , oi§{Rffl kaIfIBIB A(E ¥ SASBTfTFS* soil, climate, vegetation, architecture, and character. Here abound those lovely inlets and bays, which make up for the absence of the lake-scenery of the North. These bay ous and lakelets are covered with the rank est tropical vegetation ; they abound in eve ry species of wild fowl—birds of the most gorgeous plumage, songsters of the sweetest notes —the mocking-bird and the nightingale, the robin, and a host of other equally cele brated warblers. Here, the foliage is so dense and rich in form and color, that a poor imagination will readily people the spot with elves and sprites; and there, again, so dark and solemn are the caverns, overshadowed by the impenetrable roofs of leaves, that you may readily interpret the screech of the owl, the groan of the bull-frog, and the hiss of the serpent into the unearthly wail of damned spirits. These are fitting haunts for the sad and contemplative mind at the witching hour of night. Here, the rice and sugar plantations abound. Many of them are of great extent, some of the planters employing several hundred slaves. The white population is thus necessarily thin, yet opulent. The cabins of the negroes on these extensive domains, surrounding the mansion and its many out-buildings of the proprietor, give to every settlement the aspect of a large and thriving village. There is something peculiarly fascinating in this spe cies of softened feudal life. The slaves are, for the most part, warmly attached to their masters, and they watch over their interests as they would their own. Indeed, they con sider themselves part and parcel of tlmir mas ter’s family. They bear his name, they share his bounty, and their fortune depends wholly upon his. Through life they have every comfort; the family physician attends them when sick, and in their old age and imbecili ty, they are well protected. They glory in their master’s success and happiness; their pride is in exact proportion to the rank of the family they serve; and, whatever that may he, they still cherish a haughty and self-sat isfied contempt for “poor white folks.” “Go ’way, Sambo,” I once heard one of these jovial lads exclaim to another, whose ill-fortune it was to serve a less opulent plan ter than himself; “go ’way, Sambo, your massa only got fifty niggers ; my massa got hundred!” And he pulled up his shirt-col lar, and marched pompously off with the step and air of a millionaire. The masters, themselves, descended from an old chevalier stock; and, accustomed through many generations to the seclusion ot country life, and that life under Southern skies, and surrounded with all the appliances of wealth and homage, have acquired an ease, a grace, a generosity, and largeness of char acter, incompatible with the daily routine of the petty occupations, stratagems, and strug gles of modern commercial and metropolitan life, be it in the South or the North. Where the swamps and bayous do not ex tend, the country, still flat, is mostly of a rich sandy soil, which deeply tinges the waters of all the rivers from the Atlantic to the Missis sippi. This is the grand characteristic of the southern portions of all the Gulf States. The rivers, as they extend towards the inte rior, are lined with high sandy bluffs, which, still further northward, give place, in their turn, to mountain-ledges and granite-walls. These streams, from the Mississippi to the Alabama, the Chattahoochee and the Savan nah. to the smaller rivers of Carolina and Florida, are filled with sandy islands, ever changing their position and form. Frequent high freshets occur in them, completely alter ing their channels, and hearing away the pro duce of whole plantations, from the cotton bale to the family domicil, and the century aged tree which shaded it. In crossing the smaller water-courses of the South, I have often observed marks of the extent of a fresh et upon high trees at an elevation of fifty or sixty feet above my head. They are some- times an excessive bore to the hurried travel er, holding him water-bound for days togeth er, and invariably in places where, of all oth ers, he does not love to tarry. I happened to be in Augusta, some years ago, during a great rise in the waters of the Savannah. In the course of some few hours, the river had extended its limits throughout the city, and over the plain for miles in every direction. It was a novel and beautiful sight to gaze, from your balcony, upon this un looked-for Venice. Boats were sailing in every direction through the streets —even the ponderous crafts of the Savannah, capable of holding fifty or sixty men. I observed the pretty vessel of the “Augusta Boat Club,’’ dashing up Broad-street and under the hotel windows, with the crew in full dress, music sounding, and gay banners waving upon the air! A ferry was established to pick up pas sengers at their doors or windows, and con vey them to the base of the Sand-hills, a summer retreat, some three miles to the north ward. The cross-streets, leading from the river, were washed away to the depth of ma ny feet, and for days afterwards passengers were transported across them in fiats and bat teaux. From these freshets, with the innumerable stagnant pools which they leave, together with the miasma arising from immense quan tities of decaying vegetable matter, spring ma ny of the local fevers and diseases of the South. In Augusta, the yellow fever fol lowed the great freshet, and carried du ring the brief space of a few weeks, nearly three hundred of the inhabitants. This ter rible scourge had not previously visited the city for eighteen years. Now that we are chatting, dear reader, of the low-lands of the South, it would be plea sant to recall other apropos scenes and inci dents of travel; Savannah and its miniature parks ; Tallahassee and its orange-trees; St. Augustine and its balmy air; Mobile and its noble bay; New Orleans and its hundred at tractive features; hut it is time that we should hasten on to the mountains. I leave you here, the more abruptly, perhaps, from the remembrance that my first visit to the hill-re gion of Carolina involved a very abrupt de parture from the lower portions of the State. It so happened, that a sensitive friend, voya ging with me, was suffering from a slight at tack of that terrible epidemic, which the French materia medica calls la grande pas sion, and which he had lately caught frem the bright eyes of fair demoiselle from Yankee land, then journeying in the South, with the ostensible purpose of recruiting her health. Whatever the actual condition of the lady’s pulse, it is very certain that the heart of my affected companion was heating with fearful rapidity. While we were speculating upon our mountain tour, as a thing to be done at some future period of leisure, the ladies (of course there’s a dowager in the case,) an nounced their purpose of at once following the very route we were contemplating. They went —and what could we possibly do, but follow l A DOMESTIC PICTURE. Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire, To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire; Blest that abode where want and pain repair, And every stranger finds a ready chair; Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jest or pranks that never fail; Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale ; Or press the bashful stranger to his food, And learn the luxury of doing good.—Goldsmith. Not So Bad. —Twenty years ago, it was common to trim straw bonnets with artificial wheat and barley in ears, on which the fol lowing lines were written; W ho now of threatening famine dare complain, When every female’s forehead teems with grain 1 See how the wheat sheaves nod amid the plumes ! Our barns uro now transferred to drawing roomiJ, And husbands who indulge in active lives, To fill their granaries may thrash their wives. Popular ftalcs. From the Literary World, THE MAN IN THE RESERVOIR. A FANTASIE PIECE. BV CHARLES FENNO HOFF MA V You may see some of the best society in New York on the top of the Distributing R e servoir, any of these fine October morning* There were two or three carriages in waiting and half a dozen senatorial-looking mothers with young children, pacing the parapet as we basked there the other cay in the sunshine —now watching the pickerel that glide along the lucid edges of the black pool within, and now looking off upon the scene of rich and wondrous variety that spreads along the two rivers on either side. “They may talk of Alpheus and Arethu sa,” murmured an idling sophomore, who had found his way thither during recitation hours, but the Croton in passing over an arm of the sea at Spuyten-duyvil, and bursting to sight again in this truncated pyramid, beats it all hollow. By George, too, the Bay yonder looks as blue as ever the iEgean Sea to By ron’s eye, gazing from the Acropolis! But the painted foliage on those crags!—the Greeks must have dreamed of such a vegeta ble phenomenon in the midst of their greyish olive groves, or they never would have sup plied the want of it in their landscape by em broidering their marble temples with gay co lors. Did you see that pike break, Sir ?” “ I did not.” “Zounds! his silver fin flashed upon the black Acheron, like a restless soul that hoped yet to mount from the pool.” “ The place seems suggestive of fancies to you,” we observed, in reply to the rattle-pate. “It is, indeed, for I have done up a good deal of anxious thinking within a circle of a few yards where that fish broke just now.” “ A singular place for meditation—the mid dle of the reservoir.” “You look incredulous, Sir—but it’s a fact. A fellow can never tell, until he is tried, in what situation his most earnest med itations may be concentrated. lam boring you, though!” “ Not at all. But you seem so familiar with the spot, I wish you could tell me why that ladder leading down to the water is lash ed against the stone-work in yonder corner.” “That ladder,” said the young man, bright ening at the question, “ why, the position, perhaps the very existence of that ladder, re sulted from my meditations in the reservoir, at which you smiled just now. Shall 1 tell you all about them V J “ Pray do.” “ Well, you have seen the notice forbidding any one to fish in the reservoir. Now, when I read that warning, the spirit of the thing struck me at once, as inferring that one should not sully the temperance potations of our cit izens by steeping bait in it, of any kind; but you probably know the common way of tak ing pike with a slip-noose of delicate wire. 1 was determined to have a touch at the fellows with this kind of tackle. “ I chose a moonlight night, and an hour before the edifice was closed to visitors. I secreted myself within the walls, determined to pass the night on the top. All went as 1 could wish it. The night proved cloudy, hut it was only a variable drift of clouds which obscured the moon. I had a walking-cane rod with me, which would reach to the mar gin of the water, and several feet beyond, if necessary. To this was attached the wire, about fifteen inches in length. “ I prowled along the parapet for a consid erable time, but not a single fish could I see. The clouds made a flickering light and shade, that wholly foiled my steadfast gaze. I was convinced that should they come up thicker, my whole night's adventure Avould he thrown away. ‘Why should I not descend the slop ing xvall, and get nearer on a level with the fish, for thus alone can I hope to see one . The question had hardly shaped itself in mv mind, before I had one leg over the iron railing. “If you look nround you will see now that there are some half-dozen weeds growing here and there, among the fissures of the sol id masonry. In one of the fissures from whence these spring, I planted a foot, and be* gan my descent. The reservoir was fuh ei than it is now, and a few strides would ha v ® carried me to the margin of the water. Hom ing on to the cleft above, 1 felt round wiu* one foot for a place to plant it below me. “ In that moment the flap of a pound pk e made me look round, and the roots of the weed upon which I partially depended, g^J e way as I was in the act of turning-