Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

And if he sometimes stumbles over a metre or lets his private friendships and preferences run away with his cool discretion and judgment, why, _bonus dormitat Homerus_, let us, like the miser Euclio, be thankful for the good the gods vouchsafe us. Taken in themselves and without regard to their poetical surroundings, no more comprehensive, faithful, concise portraitures of our authors have ever been produced. They unite in the highest degree candor and justice, and there is withal a tone so kindly and a wit so pure, that we almost believe him to be describing a community of brothers affiliated by the close ties of deep mutual appreciation. He flings his diamonds of learning upon the page, and we recognize the scholar whom no extravagance in knowledge can make bankrupt. We seem to have come by rare chance upon one of those wardrobes of the early kings, wherein are all savory treasures,--the rose and violet colored sugars of Alexandria, sweet almonds, and sharp-toothed ginger. We pardon his puns, indeed we believe them to be inevitable, the flash of the percussion cap, the sparks of electricity, St. Elmo's stars, phosphorescent gleams, playing over the restless ocean of his fruitful imagination. And we are persuaded that if the venerable Democritus (who was uncanonized only because the Holy See was still wavering, an anomalous body, in _Weissnichtwo_, and who existed forty days on the mere sight of bread and honey) had been regaled with the piquant delicacies of Lowell's picture of a Critic, he might have continued unto this present. It is a satire so pleasantly constructed, so full of palpable hits at the 'musty dogmas' of the day, so rich in mirthful allusion, and with such a generously insinuated tribute to the true and earnest-hearted critic, that we know not which most to admire, the sketch, or the soul whence it emanated. The following description of a 'regular heavy reviewer' is complete:

'And here I must say he wrote excellent articles
On the Hebraic points, or the force of Greek particles,
They filled up the space nothing else was prepared for;
And nobody read that which nobody cared for;
If any old book reached a fiftieth edition,
He could fill forty pages with safe erudition;
He could gauge the old books by the new set of rules,
And his very old nothings pleased very old fools.
But give him a new book fresh out of the heart,
And you put him at sea without compass or chart,--
His blunders aspired to the rank of an art;
For his lore was engraft, something foreign that grew in him,
Exhausting the sap of the native, and true in him,
So that when a man came with a soul that was new in him,
Carving new forms of truth out of Nature's old granite,
New and old at their birth, like Le Verrier's planet,
Which, to get a true judgment, themselves must create
In the soul of their critic the measure and weight,
Being rather themselves a fresh standard of grace,
To compute their own judge and assign him his place,
Our reviewer would crawl all about it and round it,
And reporting each circumstance just as he found it,
Without the least malice--his record would be
Profoundly æsthetic as that of a flea,
Which, supping on Wordsworth, should print, for our sakes,
Recollections of nights with the Bard of the Lakes,
Or, borne by an Arab guide, venture to render a
General view of the ruins of Denderah.'

He draws with a few strokes of his magical charcoal a sharp silhouette of Brownson upon the wall of our waiting curiosity, fills in his sketch of Parker with a whole wilderness of classical shades, disposes of Willis with a kiss and a blow, gives pages of sharp pleasantries to Emerson, pays a graceful tribute to Whittier, and Hawthorne,--

'His strength is so tender, his wildness so meek,
That a suitable parallel sets one to seek,--
He's a John Bunyan Fouqué, a Puritan Tieck;
When Nature was shaping him, clay was not granted
For making so full-sized a man as she wanted,
So to fill out her model, a little she spared
From some finer-grained stuff for a woman prepared,
And she could not have hit a more excellent plan
For making him fully and perfectly man.'

Turning backward from these evidences of Lowell's ripening powers to his early poems, astonishment at his versatility is the first emotion produced. It is hard to believe that the 'Biglow Papers' slid from under the hand that wrote the 'Prometheus' and the 'Legend of Brittany.' His genius flashes upon us like a certain flamboyant style of poetic architecture--the flowing, flame-like curves of his humor blending happily with the Gothic cusps of veneration for the old, with quaint ivy-leaves, green and still rustling under the wind and rain, springing easily out of its severer lines. What resistless magic is there in the fingers whose touch upon the same rich banks of keys, summons solemn, vibrant peals as of Beethoven's grandest fugues, endless harmonies as of the deep seas, and the light and graceful fantasies of Rossini, which are as the glad sunshine upon their waves. Truly the poet's gift is a divine and an awful one. His heart must needs be proud and humble too, who is claimed as nearer of kin than a brother by myriads of stranger souls, each, perhaps, owning its separate creed, and in whose unspoken prayers his name is ever present. In his 'Conversations on some of the old Poets,' we discover the alembic through which his crude opinions, his glowing impulses, his exquisitely minute discrimination were distilled;--the old poets, to whom the heart turns ever lovingly as to the wide west at eve. They were the nursing mothers of his intellectual infancy, and it is probably to his reverent but not blind esteem for them, his earnest study of them, not merely as poets, but as men, citizens, and friends, that much of the buoyancy and vigor of his poetry is to be attributed. The 'Conversations' themselves are alive with that enthusiasm and sympathetic inquiry that disproves the false saying of the Parisian Aspasia of Landor--'Poets are soon too old for mutual love.' They are the warm photographs of feeling as it bubbles from a burning heart; sometimes burned over-deep, with a leaning to fanaticism, but with so much of the generosity and justice of maturity in their decisions that these necessary errors of an ardent youth are overlooked, and the more as they have disappeared almost entirely from the productions of later years. He betrays in his quick conception of an author's mood and meaning a delicacy so extreme, an organization so nervously alive to beauties and discords, and a religious sentiment so cultured to the last degree of feeling, that we dread lest we shall encounter the weakness, morbidness or bigotry that naturally results from the contact of such a soul with the passions of everyday life, recalling the oft-quoted '_Medio in fonte leporum_'--

'In the bowl where pleasures swim,
The bitter rises to the brim,
And roses from the veriest brake
May press the temples till they ache.'

But among the roses of his criticisms we look in vain for thorns. In style, it is true, these essays are halting and unequal. His adoption of the colloquial form for the expression of opinion to the public has never seemed to us remarkably felicitous, in spite of its venerable precedents. Where his imagery becomes lofty and his flow of thought should be continuous, we are indignant at its sudden arrest, and involuntarily devote the intruder to a temporary bungalow in Timbuctoo.

It is refreshing to lose the moony Tennysonian sensuousness which induced, with Lowell's vigorous imagination, the blank artificiality of style which was visible in several of his early poems. There was a tendency, too, to the Byzantine liberty of gilding the bronze of our common words, a palpable longing after the _ississimus_ of Latin adjectives, of whose softness our muscular and variegated language will not admit. Mr. Lowell's Sonnets, too, we could wish unwritten, not from any defect in their construction, but from a fancied want of congeniality between their character and his own. In spite of its Italian origin, the sonnet always seems to demand the severest classical outlines, both in spirit and expression, calm and steadfastly flowing without ripples or waves, a poem cut in the marble of stately cadences that imprison some vast and divine thought. Lowell is too elastic, impulsive, for a sonneteer. But considered apart from our peculiar ideas of the sonnet, the following is full of a very tender beauty:--

'I ask not for those thoughts that sudden leap
From being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken,
With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken,
And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep;
Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep,
Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise,
Which by the toil of gathering energies
Their upward way into clear sunshine keep,
Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences,
Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green
Into a pleasant island in the seas,
Where, 'mid tall palms, the cave-roofed home is seen
And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour,
Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.'

And what could be more drippingly quaint than his song to 'Violets,' which breathes so gentle and real a sympathy with its subject, that we almost imagine it was written in those early times when men communed with Nature in her own audible language. It is even more beautiful than Herrick's

'Why do ye weep, sweet babe? Can tears
Speak grief in you, who were but born
Just as the modest morn
Teemed her refreshing dew?'

We give but a fragment of the Violet.

'Violet! sweet violet!
Thine eyes are full of tears;
Are they wet
Even yet
With the thought of other years?
Or with gladness are they full,
For the night is beautiful,
And longing for those far-off spheres?
Thy little heart, that hath with love
Grown colored, like the sky above
On which thou lookest ever--
Can it know
All the woe
Of hope for what returneth never,
All the sorrow and the longing
To these hearts of ours belonging?'

And there are touches of what we are wont to call dear, womanly feeling, as when the 'Forlorn,' out in the bitter cold,

'Hears a woman's voice within
Singing sweet words her childhood knew,
And years of misery and sin
_Furl off and leave her heaven blue_.'

The 'Changeling' alone would sustain a reputation. It seems always like the plaintive but sweet warble of some unknown bird rising from the midst of tall water-rushes in the day's dim dawning. A wonderful melody as of Mrs. Browning's best efforts pervades every verse, priceless and rare as some old intaglio. But when we come to his 'Odes to the Past and the Future,' the full power of poesy unfolds before us. Their images are not the impalpable spectres of a poet's dream, but symbols hardened into marble by his skill, and informed with the fire of life by his genius.

'Wondrous and awful are thy silent halls,
O kingdom of the past!
There lie the bygone ages in their palls,
Guarded by shadows vast;
There all is hushed and breathless,
Save when some image of old error falls,
Earth worshiped once as deathless.'

Was ever picture of silence more effective and complete? We can see the desolate quiet of the vast arched halls, left undisturbed by centuries, and as the moldering statue totters forward from its niche, we feel a faith has fallen which was once the heaven of nations, and the awful tumult is audible as a voice from the drear kingdom of death. And the hymn to the Future, with all the joyful Titian hues of its opening strophes, the glowing fervor of its deep yearning, swelling through 'golden-winged dreams' of the 'Land of Promise':--

'To thee the Earth lifts up her fettered hands
And cries for vengeance; with a pitying smile
Thou blessest her, and she forgets her bands,
And her old woe-worn face a little while
Grows young and noble: unto thee the Oppressor
Looks and is dumb with awe;
The eternal law
Which makes the crime its own blindfold redresser,
Shadows his heart with perilous foreboding,
And he can see the grim-eyed Doom
From out the trembling gloom
Its silent-footed steeds toward his palace goading.'

We pass by the 'Legend of Brittany,' which, as a mere artistic study of light and shade in words, is worthy an extended notice. Its fine polish and refinement of feeling remind us of Spencer's silver verses, frosted here and there with the old fret-work of his lovable affectations. But we pause at the 'Prometheus,' honestly believing that no poem made up of so many excellences was ever written in America. Its defects are not of conception, but in an occasional carelessness of execution--a gasp in the rhythm; and when we consider its richness and majesty, when we feel its resistless grasp upon the heart, we could pardon it if its great pearls were strung on straws or its diamonds hidden in a sand-hill of sentimentality. But never was poem freer from morbidness: it repels the sickly pallor of our modern stereotyped sorrow, and is made up only of a grief that is regal--more--divine. If any place by its side the Prometheus of Æschylus and appeal to the unapproachable dignity of their model, we can only say that we hold these two poems distinct as the East is from the West, only between them springs boldly the blue arch of a universal humanity that suffered and enjoyed as now when the earth was young. But it must not be forgotten that the Greek lived when with men was born a boundless sympathy for, and pride in, their gods; that what are now to us but the wonderful dreams of a primeval poesy, shadowing mighty truths, were to the ancients living influences that molded their lives. And if it be urged that already faith must have grown dim in so great a mind as that of Æschylus, then indeed we wonder not at the marvels of magnificent despair, the death-in-life of a godlike suffering which reach in his 'Prometheus Chained' a height of sublimity we may scarcely hope to see approached in modern times, for the mind that created it stood in a light shallop, drifting away from the old landmarks of a worn-out creed into the dark, unknown night of doubt and speculation. But the Prometheus of Lowell is not the god-man writhing in an awful conflict with his slavery but begun. His heart

'For ages hath been empty of all joy,
Except to brood upon its silent hope,
As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now.'

The defiant pride and scornful dignity that raised him above our sympathy in Æschylus, are tempered by Lowell with a human longing for comfort that, in its mighty woe, might melt adamant, or draw from the watchful heavens

'Mild-eyed Astarte, his best comforter,
With her pale smile of sad benignity.'

Chained to the rock in utter loneliness he lies. Long since the 'crisped smiles' of the waves and the 'swift-winged winds' had ceased to listen to his call.

'Year after year will pass away and seem
To me, in mine eternal agony,
But as the shadows of dark summer clouds,
Which I have watched so often darkening o'er
The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first,
But, with still swiftness lessening on and on,
Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle where
The gray horizon fades into the sky,
Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet
Must I lie here upon my altar huge,
A sacrifice for man.'

'A sacrifice for man.' The theme has won a high significance with time. One more passage, and we are done--a passage which rivals Shakspeare in its startling vividness, as it whispers with awful power close to our ears. All night had the prisoned god heard voices,--

'Deeper yet
The deep, low breathings of the silence grew

* * * * *

And then toward me came
A shape as of a woman; very pale
It was, and calm; its cold eyes did not move,
And mine moved not, but only stared on them.
Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice;
A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart,
And a sharp chill, as if a dank night-fog
Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt.
And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh,
A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips
Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought
Some doom was close upon me, and I looked
And saw the red morn, through the heavy mist,
Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling,
Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead
And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds merged
Into the rising surges of the pines,
Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loins
Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength,
Sent up a murmur in the morning wind,
Sad as the wail that from the populous earth
All day and night to high Olympus soars,
Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove!'

Mr. Lowell is no fine dreamer, no enthusiast in the filmy questions of some cloud-land of poetry: the sword of power is in his hand, and the stern teachings of Right and Justice ring through his heart. To such men, Destiny looks for her unfolding. Woe to them, if upon their silence, inaction or irresolution in these great days, the steadfast gaze of her high expectation falls unheeded.

* * * * *

RESURGAMUS.

Go where the sunlight brightly falls,
Through tangled grass too thick to wave;
Where silence, save the cricket's calls,
Reigns o'er a patriot's grave;
And you shall see Faith's violets spring
From whence his soul on heavenward wing
Rose to the realms where heroes dwell:
Heroes who for their country fell;
Heroes for whom our bosoms swell;
Heroes in battle slain.
God of the just! they are not dead,--
Those who have erst for freedom bled;--
Their every deed has boldly said
We all shall rise again.

A patriot's deeds can never die,--
Time's noblest heritage are they,--
Though countless æons pass them by,
They rise at last to day.
The spirits of our fathers rise
Triumphant through the starry skies;
And we may hear their choral song,--
The firm in faith, the noble throng,--
It bids us crush a deadly wrong,
Wrought by red-handed Cain.
AND WE SHALL CONQUER! for the Right
Goes onward with resistless might:
His hand shall win for us the fight.
WE, too, shall rise again!

* * * * *

AMONG THE PINES.

My last article left the reader in the doorway of the Colonel's mansion. Before entering, we will linger there awhile and survey the outside of the premises.

The house stands where two roads meet, and, unlike most planters' dwellings, is located in full view of the highway. It is a rambling, disjointed structure, thrown together with no regard to architectural rules, and yet there is a kind of rude harmony in its very irregularities that has a pleasing effect. The main edifice, with a frontage of nearly eighty feet, is only one and a half stories high, and is overshadowed by a broad projecting roof, which somehow, though in a very natural way, drops down at the eaves, and forms the covering of a piazza, twenty-feet in width, and extending across the entire front of the house. At its south-easterly angle, the roof is truncated, and made again to form a covering for the piazza, which there extends along a line of irregular buildings for sixty yards. A portion of the verandah on this side being enclosed, forms a bowling-alley and smoking-room, two essential appendages to a planter's residence. The whole structure is covered with yellow-pine weather boarding, which in some former age was covered with paint of a grayish brown color. This, in many places, has peeled off and allowed the sap to ooze from the pine, leaving every here and there large blotches on the surface, which somewhat resemble the 'warts' I have seen on the trunks of old trees.

The house is encircled by grand, old pines, whose tall, upright stems, soaring eighty and ninety feet in the air, make the low hamlet seem lower by the contrast. They have stood there for centuries, their rough, shaggy coats buttoned close to their chins, and their long, green locks waving in the wind; but man has thrust his long knife into their veins, and their life-blood is fast oozing away.

With the exception of the negro huts, which are scattered at irregular intervals through the woods in the rear of the mansion, there is not a human habitation within an hour's ride; but such a cosey, inviting, hospitable atmosphere surrounds the whole place, that a stranger does not realize he has happened upon it in a wilderness.

The interior of the dwelling is in keeping with the exterior, though in the drawing-rooms, where rich furniture and fine paintings actually lumber the apartments, there is evident the lack of a nice perception of the 'fitness of things,' and over the whole hangs a 'dusty air,' which reminds one that the Milesian Bridget does not 'flourish' in South Carolina.

I was met in the entrance-way by a tall, fine-looking woman, to whom the Colonel introduced me as follows:--

'Mr. K----, this is Madam ----, my housekeeper; she will try to make you forget that Mrs. J---- is absent.'

After a few customary courtesies were exchanged, I was shown to a dressing-room, and with the aid of 'Jim,' a razor, and one of the Colonel's shirts,--all of mine having undergone a drenching,--soon made a tolerably presentable appearance. The negro then conducted me to the breakfast-room, where I found the family assembled.

It consisted, besides the housekeeper, of a tall, raw-boned, sandy-haired personage, with a low brow, a blear eye and a sneaking look, the Overseer of the plantation; and of a well-mannered, intelligent lad,--with the peculiarly erect carriage and uncommon blending of good-natured ease and dignity which distinguished my host,--who was introduced to me as the housekeeper's son.

Madam P----, who presided over the 'tea things,' was a person of perhaps thirty-five, but a rich olive complexion, enlivened by a delicate red-tint, and relieved by thick masses of black hair, made her appear to a casual observer several years younger. Her face showed vestiges of great beauty, which time, and, perhaps, care, had mellowed but not obliterated, while her conversation indicated high cultivation. She had evidently mingled in refined society in this country and in Europe, and it was a strange freak of fortune that reduced her to a menial condition in the family of a backwoods planter.

After some general conversation, the Colonel remarked that his wife and daughter would pass the winter in Charleston.

'And do _you_ remain on the plantation?' I inquired.

'Oh yes, I am needed here,' he replied; 'but Madam's son is with my family.'

'Madam's son!' I exclaimed in astonishment, forgetting in my surprise that the lady was present.

'Yes, sir,' she remarked, 'my oldest boy is twenty.'

'Excuse me, Madam; I forgot that in your climate one never grows old.'

'There you are wrong, sir; I'm sure I _feel_ old when I think how soon my boys will be men.'

'Not old yet, Alice,' said the Colonel, in a singularly familiar tone; 'you seem to me no older than when you were fifteen.'

'You have been long acquainted,' I remarked, not knowing exactly what to say.

'Oh yes,' replied my host, 'we were children together.'

'Your Southern country, Madam, affords a fine field for young men of enterprise.'

'My eldest son resides in Germany,' replied the lady. 'He expects to make that country his home. He would have passed his examination at Heidelberg this autumn had not circumstances called him here.'

'You are widely separated,' I replied.

'Yes, sir; his father thinks it best, and I suppose it is. Thomas, here, is to return with his brother, and I may live to see neither of them again.'

My curiosity was naturally much excited to learn more, but nothing further being volunteered, and the conversation turning to other topics, I left the table with it unsatisfied.

After enjoying a quiet hour with the Colonel in the smoking-room, he invited me to join him in a ride over the plantation. I gladly assented, and 'Jim' shortly announced the horses were ready. That darky, who invariably attended his master when the latter proceeded from home, accompanied us. As we were mounting I bethought me of Scip, and asked Jim where he was.

'He'm gwine to gwo, massa. He want to say good-by to you.'

It seemed madness for Scip to start on a journey of seventy miles without rest, so I requested the Colonel to let him remain till the next day. He cheerfully assented, and sent Jim to find him. While waiting for the darky, I spoke of how faithfully he had served me during my journey.

'He's a splendid nigger,' replied the Colonel; 'worth his weight in gold. If affairs were more settled I would buy him.'

'But Colonel A---- tells me he is too intelligent. He objects to "knowing" niggers.'

'_I_ do not,' replied my host, 'if they are honest, and I would trust Scip with uncounted gold. Look at him,' he continued, as the negro approached; 'were flesh and bones ever better put together?'

The darky _was_ a fine specimen of sable humanity, and I readily understood why the practiced eye of the Colonel appreciated his physical developments.

'Scip,' I said, 'you must not think of going to-day; the Colonel will be glad to let you remain until you are fully rested.'

'Tank you, massa, tank you bery much, but de ole man will spec me, and I orter gwo.'

'Oh, never mind old ----,' said the Colonel, 'I'll take care of him.'

'Tank you, Cunnel, den I'll stay har till de mornin.'

Taking a by-path which led through the forest in the rear of the mansion, we soon reached a small stream, and, following its course for a short distance, came upon a turpentine distillery, which the Colonel explained to me was one of three that prepared the product of his plantation for market, and provided for his family of two hundred souls.

It was enclosed, or rather roofed, by a rude structure of rough boards, open at the sides, and sustained on a number of pine poles about thirty feet in height, and bore a strong resemblance to the usual covering of a New England haystack.

Three stout negro men, divested of all clothing excepting a pair of coarse gray trowsers and a red shirt,--it was a raw, cold, wintry day,--and with cotton bandannas bound about their heads, were 'tending the still.' The foreman stood on a raised platform level with its top, but as we approached very quietly seated himself on a turpentine barrel which a moment before he had rolled over the mouth of the boiler. Another negro was below, feeding the fire with 'light wood,' and a third was tending the trough by which the liquid rosin found its way into the semi-circle of rough barrels intended for its reception.

'Hello, Junius, what in creation are you doing there?' asked the Colonel, as we approached, of the negro on the turpentine barrel.

'Holein' her down, Cunnel; de ole ting got a mine to blow up dis mornin; I'se got dis barrl up har to hole her down.'

'Why, you everlasting nigger, if the top leaks you'll be blown to eternity in half a second.'

'Reckon not, massa; de barrl and me kin hole her. We'll take de risk.'

'Perhaps _you_ will,' said the Colonel, laughing, 'but I won't. Nigger property isn't of much account, but you're too good a darky, June, to be sent to the devil for a charge of turpentine.'

'Tank you, massa, but you dun kno' dis ole ting like I do. You cudn't blow her up nohow; I'se tried her afore dis way.'

'Don't you do it again; now mind; if you do I'll make a white man of you.' (This I suppose referred to a process of flaying with a switch; though the switch is generally thought to _redden_, not _whiten_, the darky.)

The negro did not seem at all alarmed, for he showed his ivories in a broad grin as he replied, 'Jess as you say, massa; you'se de boss in dis shanty.'

Directing the fire to be raked out, and the still to stand unused until it was repaired, the Colonel turned his horse to go, when he observed that the third negro was shoeless, and his feet chapped and swollen with the cold. 'Jake,' he said, 'where are your shoes?'

'Wored out, massa.'

'Worn out! Why haven't you been to me?'

''Cause, massa, I know'd you'd jaw; you tole me I wears 'em out mighty fass.'

'Well, you do, that's a fact; but go to Madam and get a pair; and you, June, you've been a decent nigger, you can ask for a dress for Rosey. How is little June?'

'Mighty pore, massa; de ma'am war dar lass night and dis mornin', and she reckun'd he's gwine to gwo sartain.'

'Sorry to hear that,' said the Colonel. I'll go and see him. Don't feel badly, June,' he continued, for the tears welled up to the eyes of the black man as he spoke of his child; 'we all must die.'

'I knows dat, massa, but it am hard to hab em gwo.'

'Yes, it is, June, but we may save him.'

'Ef you cud, massa! Oh, ef you cud!' and the poor darky covered his face with his great hands and sobbed like a child.

We rode on to another 'still,' and there dismounting, the Colonel explained to me the process of gathering and manufacturing turpentine. The trees are 'boxed' and 'tapped' early in the year, while the frost is still in the ground. 'Boxing' is the process of scooping a cavity in the trunk of the tree by means of a peculiarly shaped axe, made for the purpose; 'tapping' is scarifying the rind of the wood above the boxes. This is never done until the trees have been worked one season, but it is then repeated year after year, till on many plantations they present the marks of twenty and frequently thirty annual 'tappings,' and are often denuded of bark for a distance of thirty feet from the ground. The necessity for this annual tapping arises from the fact that the scar on the trunk heals at the end of a season, and the sap will no longer run from it; a fresh wound is therefore made each spring. The sap flows down the scarified surface and collects in the boxes, which are emptied six or eight times in a year, according to the length of the season. This is the process of 'dipping,' and it is done with a tin or iron vessel constructed to fit the cavity in the tree.

The turpentine gathered from the newly boxed or virgin tree is very valuable, on account of its producing a peculiarly clear and white rosin, which is used in the manufacture of the finer kinds of soap, and by 'Rosin the Bow,' and commands, ordinarily, nearly five times the price of the common article. When barreled, the turpentine is frequently sent to market in its crude state, but more often is distilled on the plantation, the gatherers generally possessing means sufficient to own a still.

In the process of distilling, the crude turpentine is 'dumped' into the boiler through an opening in the top,--the same as that on which we saw Junius composedly seated,--water is then poured upon it, the aperture made tight by screwing down the cover and packing it with clay, a fire built underneath, and when the heat reaches several hundred degrees Fahrenheit, the process of manufacture begins. The volatile and more valuable part of the turpentine, by the action of the heat, rises as vapor, then condensing flows off through a pipe in the top of the still, and comes out spirits of turpentine, while the heavier portion finds vent at a lower aperture, and comes out rosin.

No article of commerce is so liable to waste and leakage as turpentine. The spirits can only be preserved in tin cans, or in thoroughly seasoned oak barrels, made tight by a coating of glue on the inner side. Though the material for these barrels exists at the South in luxuriant abundance, they are all procured from the North, and the closing of the Southern ports has now entirely cut off the supply; for while the turpentine farmer may improvise coopers, he can by no process give the oak timber the seasoning which is needed to render the barrel spirit-tight. Hence it is certain that a large portion of the last crop of turpentine must have gone to waste. When it is remembered that the one State of North Carolina exports annually nearly twenty millions in value of this product, and employs fully three-fourths of its negroes in its production, it will be seen how dearly the South is paying for the mad freak of secession. Putting out of view his actual loss of produce, how does the turpentine farmer feed and employ his negroes? and, pressed as these blacks inevitably are by both hunger and idleness, those prolific breeders of sedition, what will keep them quiet?

'What effect would secession have on your business?' I asked the Colonel, after a while.

'A favorable one. I should ship my crop direct to Liverpool and London, instead of selling it to New York middlemen.'

'But is not the larger portion of the turpentine crop consumed at the North?'

'Oh, yes. We should have to deal with the Yankees anyhow, but we should do as little with them as possible.'

'Suppose the Yankees object to your setting up by yourselves, and put your ports under lock and key?'

'They won't do that, and if they did England would break the blockade.'

'We might rap John Bull over the knuckles in that event,' I replied.

'Well, suppose you did, what then?'

'Merely, England would not have a ship in six months to carry your cotton. A war with her would ruin the shipping trade of the North. Our marine would seek employment at privateering, and soon sweep every British merchant ship from the ocean. We could afford to give up ten years' trade with you, and have to put down seccession by force, for the sake of a year's brush with John Bull.'

'But, my good friend, where would the British navy be all the while?'

'Asleep. The English haven't a steamer that can catch a Brookhaven schooner. The last war proved that vessels of war are no match for privateers.'

'Well, well! but the Yankees won't fight.'

'Suppose they do. Suppose they shut up your ports, and leave you with your cotton and turpentine unsold? You raise scarcely anything else--what would you eat?'

'We would turn our cotton-fields into corn and wheat. Turpentine-makers, of course, would suffer.'

'Then why are not _you_ a Union man?'

'My friend, I have two hundred mouths to feed. I depend on the sale of my crop to give them food. If our ports are closed, I can not do it,--they will starve, and I be ruined. But sooner than submit to the domination of the cursed Yankees, I will see my negroes starving and my child a beggar.'

At this point in the conversation we arrived at the negro shanty where the sick child was. Dismounting, the Colonel and I entered.

The cabin was almost a counterpart of the 'Mills House,' described in my previous paper, but it had a plank flooring, and was scrupulously neat and clean. The logs were stripped of bark, and whitewashed. A bright, cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, and an air of rude comfort pervaded the whole interior. On a low bed in the farther corner of the room lay the sick child. He was a boy of about twelve years, and evidently in the last stages of consumption. By his side, bending over him as if to catch his almost inaudible words, sat a tidy, youthful-looking colored woman, his mother, and the wife of the negro we had met at the 'still.' Playing on the floor, was a younger child, perhaps five years old, but while the faces of the mother and the sick lad were of the hue of charcoal, _his_ skin, by a process well understood at the South, had been bleached to a bright yellow.

The woman took no notice of our entrance, but the little fellow ran to the Colonel and caught hold of the skirts of his coat in a free-and-easy way, saying, 'Ole massa, you got suffin' for Dickey?'

'No, you little nig,' replied the Colonel, patting his woolly head as I might have done a white child's, 'Dickey isn't a good boy.'

'Yas, I is,' said the little darky; 'you'se ugly ole massa, to gib nuffin' to Dickey.'

Aroused by the Colonel's voice, the woman turned towards us. Her eyes were swollen and her face bore traces of deep emotion.

'Oh massa!' she said, 'de chile am dyin'! It'm all along ob his workin' in de swamp,--no _man_ orter work dar, let alone a chile like dis.'

'Do you think he is dying, Rosey?' asked the Colonel, approaching the bedside.

'Shore, massa, he'm gwine fass. Look at 'em.'

The boy had dwindled to a skeleton, and the skin lay on his face in crimpled folds, like a mask of black crape. His eyes were fixed, and he was evidently going.

'Don't you know massa, my boy?' said the Colonel, taking his hand tenderly in his.

The child's lips slightly moved, but I could hear no sound. The Colonel put his ear down to him for a moment, then, turning to me, said,--

'He _is_ dying. Will you be so good as to step to the house and ask Madam P---- here, and please tell Jim to go for Junius and the old man.'

I returned in a short while with the lady, but found the boy's father and 'the old man'--the darky preacher of the plantation--there before us. The preacher was a venerable old negro, much bowed by years, and with thin wool as white as snow. When we entered he was bending over the dying boy, but shortly turning to my host, said,--

'Massa, de blessed Lord am callin' for de chile,--shall we pray?'

The Colonel nodded assent, and we all, blacks and whites, knelt down on the floor, while the old preacher made a short, heart-touching prayer. It was a simple, humble acknowledgment of the dependence of the creature on the Creator,--of His right to give and to take away, and was uttered in a free, conversational tone, as if long communion with his Maker had placed the old negro on a footing of friendly familiarity with Him, and given the black slave the right to talk with the Deity as one man talks with another.

As we rose from our knees my host said to me, 'It is my duty to stay here, but I will not detain you. Jim will show you over the plantation. I will join you at the house when this is over.' The scene was a painful one, and I gladly availed myself of the Colonel's suggestion.

Mounting our horses, Jim and I rode off to the negro house where Scip was staying.

Scip was not at the cabin, and the old negro woman told us he had been away for several hours.

'Reckon he'll be 'way all day, sar,' said Jim, as we turned our horses to go.

'He ought to be resting against the ride of to-morrow. Where has he gone?'

'Dunno, sar, but reckon he'm gwine to fine Sam.'

'Sam? Oh, he's the runaway the Colonel has advertised.'

'Yas, sar, he'm 'way now more'n a monfh.'

'How can Scip find him?'

'Dunno, sar. Scipio know most ebery ting,--reckon he'll track him. He know him well, and Sam'll cum back ef he say he orter.'

'Where do you think Sam is?'

'P'raps in the swamp.'

'Where is the swamp?'

''Bout ten mile from har.'

'Oh, yes! the shingles are cut there. I should think a runaway would be discovered where so many men are at work.'

'No, massa, dar'm places dar whar de ole debil cudn't fine him, nor de dogs nudder.'

'I thought the bloodhounds would track a man anywhere.'

'Not t'ru de water, massa; dey lose de scent in de swamp.'

'But how can a negro live there,--how get food?'

'De darkies work dar and dey take 'em nuff.'

'Then the other negroes often know where the runaways are; don't they sometimes betray them?'

'Neber, massa; a darky neber tells on anoder. De Cunnel had a boy in dat swamp once, good many years.'

'Is it possible? Did he come back?'

'No, he died dar. Sum ob de hands found him dead one mornin' in de hut whar he lib'd, and dey buried him dar.'

'Why did Sam run away?'

''Cause de Oberseer flog him. He use him bery hard, massa.'

'What had Sam done?'

'Nuffin', massa.'

'Then why was he flogged? Did the Colonel know it?'

'Oh, yas; Moye cum de possum ober de Cunnel, and make him b'lieve Sam war bad. De Cunnel dunno de hull ob dat story.'

'Why didn't _you_ tell him? The Colonel trusts you.'

'Twudn't hab dun no good; de Cunnel wud hab flogged _me_ for tellin' on a wite man. Nigga's word ain't ob no account.'

'What is the story about Sam?'

'You won't tell dat _I_ tole you, massa?'

'No, but I'll tell the Colonel the truth.'

'Wal den, sar, you see Sam's wife am bery good-lookin', her skin's most wite,--her mudder war a mulatter, her fader a wite man,--she lub'd Sam 'bout as well as de wimmin ginrally lub dar husbands,' (Jim was a bachelor, and his observation of plantation morals had given him but little faith in the sex), 'but most ob 'em, ef dey'm married or no, tink dey must smile on de wite men, so Jule she smiled on de Oberseer,--so Sam tought,--and it made him bery jealous. He war sort o' sassy, and de Oberseer strung him up and flog him bery hard. Den Sam took to de swamp, but he didn't know whar to gwo, and de dogs tracked him; he'd ha' got 'way dough ef de Oberseer hadn't shot him; den he cudn't run. Den Moye flogged him till he war 'most dead, and arter dat chained him up in de ole cabin and gabe him 'most nuffin' to eat. De Cunnel war gwine to take Sam to Charles'on and sell him, but sumhow he got a file and sawed fru de chain and got 'way in de night to de 'still.' When de Oberseer cum dar in de mornin', Sam jump on him and 'most kill him. He'd hab sent him whar dar ain't no niggas ef Junius hadn't a holed him. _I'd_ a let de ole debil gwo.'

'Junius, then, is a friend of the Overseer.'

'No, sar; _he_ hain't no friends, 'cep de debil; but June am a good nigga, and he said 'twarn't right to kill ole Moye so sudden, for den dar'd be no chance for de Lord forgibin' him.'

'Then Sam got away again?'

'O yas; nary one but darkies war round, and dey wouldn't hole him. Ef dey'd cotched him den, dey'd hung him, shore.'

'Why hung him?'

''Cause he'd struck a wite man; it 'm shore death to do dat.'

'Do you think Scip will bring him back?'

'Yas; 'cause he 'm gwine to tell massa de hull story. De Cunnel will b'lieve Scipio ef he _am_ brack. Sam'll know dat, and he'll come back. De Cunnel'll make de State too hot to hole ole Moye, when he fine him out.'

'Does Sam's wife "smile" on the Overseer now?'

'No; she see de trubble she bring on Sam, and she bery sorry. She won't look at a wite man now.'

During the conversation above recorded, we had ridden for several miles over the western half of the plantation, and were then again near the house. My limbs being decidedly stiff and sore from the effects of the previous day's journey, I decided to alight and rest at the house until the hour for dinner.

I mentioned my jaded condition to Jim, who said,--

'Dat's right, massa; come in de house. I'll cure de rumatics; I knows how to fix dem.'

Fastening the horses at the door, Jim accompanied me to my sleeping-room, where he lighted a pile of pine knots, and in a moment the fire blazed up on the hearth and sent a cheerful glow through the apartment; then, saying he would return after stabling the horses, the darky left me.

I took off my boots, drew the sofa near the fire, and stretched myself at full length upon it. If ever mortal was tired, 'I reckon' I was. It seemed as if every joint and bone in my body had lost the power of motion, and sharp, acute pains danced along my nerves, as I have seen lightning play along the telegraph wires. My entire system had the toothache.

Jim soon returned, bearing in one hand a decanter of 'Otard,' and in the other a mug of hot water and a crash towel.

'I'se got de stuff dat'll fix de rumatics, massa.'

'Thank you, Jim; a glass will do me good. Where did you get it?' I asked, thinking it strange the Colonel should leave his brandy-bottle within reach of the darkies, who have an universal weakness for spirits.

'Oh, I keeps de keys; de Cunnel hisself hab to come to me wen he want suffin' to warm hisself.'

It was the fact; Jim had exclusive charge of the wine-cellar; in short, was butler, barber, porter, footman, and body-servant, all combined.

'Now, massa, you lay right whar you is, and I'll make you ober new in less dan no time.'

And he did; but I emptied the brandy-bottle. Lest my temperance friends should be horror-stricken, I will mention, however, that I took the fluid by external absorption. For all rheumatic sufferers, I would prescribe, hot brandy in plentiful doses, a coarse towel, and an active Southern darky, and if on the first application the patient is not cured, the fault will not be the nigger's. Out of mercy to the chivalry, I hope our government, in saving the Union, will not annihilate the order of body-servants. They are the only perfect institution in the Southern country, and, so far as I have seen, about the only one worth saving.

The dinner-bell sounded a short while after Jim had finished the scrubbing operation, and I went to the table with an appetite I had not felt for a week. My whole system seemed rejuvenated, and I am not sure that I should, at that moment, have declined a wrestling match with Heenan himself.

I found at dinner only the Overseer and the young son of Madam P----, the Colonel and the lady being still at the cabin of the dying boy. The dinner, though a queer mixture of viands, would not have disgraced, except, perhaps, in the cooking, the best of our Northern hotels. Venison, bacon, wild fowl, hominy, poultry, corn-bread, French 'made-dishes,' and Southern 'common doin's,' with wines and brandies of the choicest brands, were placed on the table together.

'Dis, massa,' said Jim, 'am de raal juice; it hab ben in de cellar eber since de house war built. Massa tole me to gib you some, wid him complimen's.'

Passing it to my companions, we drank the Colonel's health in as fine wine as I ever tasted.

I had taken an instinctive dislike to the Overseer at the breakfast-table, and my aversion was not lessened by learning his treatment of Sam; curiosity to learn what manner of man he was, however, led me, towards the close of our meal, to 'draw him out,' as follows:--

'What is the political sentiment, sir, of this section of the State?'

'Wal, I reckon most of the folks 'bout har' is Union; they're from the "old North," and gin'rally pore trash.'

'I have heard that the majority of the turpentine getters are enterprising men and good citizens,--more enterprising, even, than the cotton and rice planters.'

'Wal, they is enterprisin', 'cause they don't keer for nuthin' 'cep' money.'

'The man who is absorbed in money-getting is generally a quiet citizen.'

'P'raps that's so. But I think a man sh'u'd hev a soul suthin' 'bove dollars. Them folks will take any sort o' sarce from the Yankees, ef they only buy thar truck.'

'What do you suffer from the Yankees?'

'Suffer from the Yankees? Don't they steal our niggers, and hain't they 'lected an ab'lishener for President?'

'I've been at the North lately, but I am not aware that is so.'

'So! it's damnably so, sir. I knows it. We don't mean to stand it eny longer.'

'What will you do?'

'We'll secede, and then give 'em h--l, ef they want it!'

'Will it not be necessary to agree among yourselves before you do that? I met a turpentine farmer below here who openly declared that he is friendly to abolishing slavery. He thinks the masters can make more money by hiring than by owning the negroes.'

'Yes, that's the talk of them North County[A] fellers, who've squatted round har. We'll hang every mother's son on 'em, by G----.'

[Footnote A: The 'North Counties' are the north-eastern portion of North Carolina, and include the towns of Washington and Newberne. They are an old turpentine region, and the trees are nearly exhausted. The finer virgin forests of South Carolina, and other cotton States, have tempted many of these farmers to emigrate thither, within the past ten years, and they now own nearly all the trees that are worked in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. They generally have few slaves of their own, their hands being hired of wealthier men in their native districts. The 'hiring' is an annual operation, and is done at Christmas time, when the negroes are frequently allowed to go home. They treat the darkies well, give them an allowance of meat (salt pork or beef), as much corn as they can eat, and a gill of whisky daily. No class of men at the South are so industrious, energetic, and enterprising. Though not so well informed, they have many of the traits of our New England farmers; in fact, are frequently called 'North Carolina Yankees.' It was these people the Overseer proposed to hang. The reader will doubtless think that 'hanging was not good enough for them.']

'I wouldn't do that: in a free country every man has a right to his opinions.'

'Not to sech opinions as them. A man may think, but he mustn't think onraasonable.'

'I don't know, but it seems to me reasonable, that if the negroes cost these farmers now one hundred and fifty dollars a year, and they could hire them, if free, for a hundred, that they would make by abolition.'

'Ab'lish'n! By G----, sir, ye ain't an ab'lishener, is ye?' exclaimed the fellow, in an excited tone, bringing his hand down on the table in a way that set the crockery a-dancing.

'Come, come, my friend,' I replied, in a mild tone, and as unruffled as a basin of water that has been out of a December night; 'you'll knock off the dinner things, and I'm not quite through.'

'Wal, sir, I've heerd yer from the North, and I'd like to know if yer an ab'lishener.'

'My dear sir, you surprise me. You certainly can't expect a modest man like me to speak of himself.'

'Ye can speak of what ye d---- please, but ye can't talk ab'lish'n har, by G----,' he said, again applying his hand to the table, till the plates and saucers jumped up, performed several jigs, then several reels, and then rolled over in graceful somersaults to the floor.

At this juncture, the Colonel and Madam P---- entered.

Observing the fall in his crockery, and the general confusion of things, the Colonel quietly asked, 'What's to pay?'

I said nothing, but burst into a fit of laughter at the awkward fix the Overseer was in. That gentleman also said nothing, but looked as if he would like to find vent through a rat-hole or a window-pane. Jim, however, who stood at the back of my chair, gave _his_ eloquent thoughts utterance, very much as follows:--

'Moye hab 'sulted Massa K----, Cunnel, awful bad. He hab swore a blue streak at him, and called him a d---- ab'lishener, jess 'cause Massa K---- wudn't get mad and sass him back. He hab disgrace your hosspital, Cunnel, wuss dan a nigga.'

The Colonel turned white with rage, and, striding up to the Overseer, seized him by the throat, yelling, rather than speaking, these words: 'You d---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----, have you dared to insult a guest in my house?'

'I didn't mean to 'sult him,' faltered out the Overseer, his voice running through an entire octave, and changing with the varying pressure of the Colonel's fingers on his throat; 'but he said he war an ab'lishener.'