I commenced my ride on the east bank of the Mississippi at Bayou Sara. Back of the town is a long hill, at the top of which is the old French village of St. Francisville—a collection of decaying, shanty-like houses, and with a few new, comfortable and handsome mansions.

A group of men at the tavern stared at me as if it were rare for a stranger to pass, and one of them got upon a horse and soon afterward joined me on the road.

Not from a particularly social disposition, however, for he scarcely returned my nod and replied not a word to my salutation, but with a frowning curiosity examined closely my clothing, horse and equipment. Following his example, I discovered a pistol thrust into the watch-fob of his pantaloons. His countenance was such as made me wish that I had been provided myself with a weapon if we were to travel far in company. I asked: “Can you tell me how far it is to Woodville, Sir?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you no idea of the distance?”

“You won’t get beyond there to-night.”

“Can I be sure of getting there before dark?”

”No place for you to stop this side of there, I reckon.”

“You can’t tell me about how many miles it is there?”

“No.”

Gradually I got the better of his taciturnity. He told me the land in the vicinity was owned by “big-bugs. “It used to be thought”`bout the richest sile God Almighty ever shuck up,” and was called the “gardying of the world.” But it was now much deteriorated. He had not lived here many years, but it had grown manifestly less productive under his observation. He pointed out the residences of several of the large Hemipterae aforesaid, mentioning their specific names and the number of negroes they possessed, always sneeringly. He himself was overseer for “one of the biggest kind of bugs,” who was now in Paris. He generally spent the Summer at Saratogy, or Newport, or Paris, “some of them Northern places.”

Suddenly reining off at a fork of the road, he said, without turning his [308]

[309] face at all toward me: “If you are gwine on to Woodville, that’s your road—this is mine,” and rode off, making no reply to my good bye.

Neither at the telegraph station at Bayou Sara, nor at several shops in which I afterward inquired, could I get any exact information about the road to be pursued to Natchez, or the distance to Woodville, which appeared by the map to be the first town upon the proper course. Afterward I made inquiry of twelve different persons, perhaps half of them negroes, whom I met or passed on the way. It was only by pertinacious questioning I could get any of them to give a guess at the distance, in miles; some thought it twenty, some thirty—none gave a number between these. The stupidity of the more brutalized slaves is often described by saying that they cannot count above twenty. I suspect a great many of the whites are but little more educated. This experience with regard to distances, at any rate, is very common. It is rare to find in the plantation districts a man, white or black, who can give you any clear information about the roads or the distances between places in his vicinity.

Coming from the flat coast country, I found the landscape pleasing, though rather tame in its features. For some miles about St. Francisville it has an open, suburban character, with a style of residences indicating rapidly accumulating wealth and advance in luxury among the proprietors. For twenty miles to the north of the town there is on both sides a succession of large sugar and cotton plantations. Much land still remains uncultivated, however. The roadside fences are generally hedges of roses—Cherokee and sweet brier. They are planted first by the side of a common rail fence, which while they are young supports them in the manner of a trellis; as they grow older they fall each way, and meet together finally, forming a confused, sprawling, slovenly thicket, often ten feet in breadth and four to six feet high. Trumpet creepers, grapevines and cat-briers, and, in very rich soil, cane, grow up through the mat of roses, and add to its strength. It is not so pretty as a stiffer hedge, yet very agreeable, and the road being sometimes narrow, deep and circuitous, delightful memories of England were often brought to mind.

There were frequent groves of magnolia grandiflora, large trees, and everyone in blossom. The magnolia does not, however, mass well, and those groves were much finer, which also were not unfrequent, where the beech, elm and liquidambar formed the body, and the magnolias stood singly out, magnificent chandeliers of fragrance. The cucumber magnolia, with a large leaf extremely beautiful at this age of the year, was less frequently seen.

The soil seems generally rich, though much washed off the higher ground. Young pine trees, and other indications of impoverishing agriculture, are seen on many plantations. The cultivation, however, is directed with some care to prevent this.

The soil is a sandy loam, so friable that the negroes, always working in large gangs, superintended by a driver with a whip, continued their hoeing in the midst of quite smart showers, and when the road had become a poaching mud.

Once only did I see a gang which had been allowed to discontinue its [310] work on account of the rain. This was after a very heavy thunder-shower, and the appearance of the negroes whom I met crossing the road back to their field, from the gin house, to which they had retreated, was remarkable.

First came, led by an old driver carrying a whip, forty of the largest and strongest women I ever saw together; they were all in a simple uniform dress of a bluish check stuff, the skirts reaching little below the knee; their legs and feet were bare; they carried themselves loftily, each with a hoe sloping over the shoulder and walking with a free powerful swing, like Zouaves on the march. Behind came the cavalry, thirty strong, mostly men, but some women, two of whom rode astride, on the plow mules. In the rear of all a lean and vigilant white overseer on a brisk pony. The men wore small blue Scotch bonnets, the women handkerchiefs, turban fashion, or nothing at all on their heads.

The slaves generally of this district appeared uncommonly well—doubtless because the wealth of their owners has enabled them to select the best from the yearly exportations of Virginia and Kentucky.

The plantation residences were generally of a cottage class, well shaded by trees, and sometimes with quite extensive and tasteful grounds, usually obtained by trimming out the natural groves.

An old gentleman, sensible, polite and communicative, a capital sample of the planters, who rode a short distance with me, said that many of the proprietors were absent, and some of the plantations had dwellings only for the negroes and the overseer. He called my attention to a field of cotton which, he said, had been ruined by his overseer’s laziness. The negroes had been permitted at a critical time to be too careless in their hoeing, and it was now impossible to recover the ground thus lost. Grass grew so rampantly in this black soil that, if it once got a good start ahead of you, you could never overtake it. That was the curse of a rainy season. Cotton could stand drouth better than it could grass The inclosures are not often of less than a hundred acres. Fewer than fifty negroes are seldom found on a plantation; many muster by the hundred. In general the fields are remarkably free from weeds and well tilled.

I arrived shortly after dusk at Woodville, a well-built and pleasant court town, with a small but pretentious hotel. Court I judged was in session, for the house was filled with guests of somewhat remarkable character. The landlord was indifferent, and, when followed up, inclined to be uncivil. At the breakfast-table there were twelve men beside myself, all of them wearing black cloth coats, black cravats and satin or embroidered silk waistcoats; all, too, sleek as if just from a barber’s hands, and redolent of perfume, which really had the best of it with the kitchen fumes. Perhaps it was because I was not in the regulation dress that I found no one willing to converse with me, and could obtain not the slightest information about my road, even from the landlord.

I might have left Woodville with more respect for the excess of decorum if I had not, when shown by a servant to my room, found two beds in it, each of which proved to be furnished with soiled sheets and greasy pillows, nor was it without much perseverance and bribery that I succeeded in getting them [311] changed on the one I selected to take. A gentleman of embroidered waistcoat took the other bed as it was, with no apparent reluctance, soon after I had effected my private arrangements. One washbowl and one towel, which had previously been used by some one else, was expected to answer for both of us, and would have done so but that I now carried a private towel in my saddlebags. Another requirement of a civilized household existed in connection with the hotel, only in an indecent form. A servant, when I inquired for it, confidentially advised me to follow the other gentlemen to the open stable-yard.

The bill was excessive, and the hostler, who had left the mud of yesterday hanging all along the inside of Belshazzar’s legs, and who had put the saddle on so awkwardly that I resaddled him myself after he had brought him to the door, grumbled, in [the] presence of the landlord, because I gave him no larger gratuity than a dime.

As I was riding out of the village, I met a middle aged man, wearing a shabby black suit and a dirty white cravat, perhaps a clergyman. He reined up across the road, so as to stand directly before me, and when I turned to pass, lifted his hands as if he would seize my bridle, at the same time asking abruptly but drawlingly, and in the monotonous, whining tone of a fatigued invalid: “Where did you get that horse?”

“In Texas, Sir.”

“Did you ride him all the way from Texas?”

“I rode to Opelousas and then came by steamboat.”

“Came where by steamboat?”

“To Bayou Sara.”

“Belong in Bayou Sara?”

“No, Sir.”

“Don’t belong about here, do you?”

“No.”

“Belong in Opelousas?”

“No, Sir, I belong in New-York.”

“In New-York—long way from home arn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Yes; Don’t belong in Texas then?”

“No, Sir.”

“What was you a doin’ there?”

“Traveling.”

“What did you come here for?”

“I am on the road to Natchez.”

“Going to Natchez?”

“Yes.”

“Yes—You’ll take boat, there I reckon; sell your horse, won’t you?”

“No, Sir, I intend to ride home to New-York.”

“To New-York! It’s a long way to New-York, arn’t it? Well, it’s a right good chunk of a horse for a journey; what you reckon he’s worth?” &c.

[312]

I tried several times to pass him, and finally did so, with some apology for my haste, to which he paid no attention, but after my back was turned upon him, calling out, “Nigger dog?”

“No, Sir,” I replied, with a smile; then recollecting the sort of men I had seen at the Hotel, I turned to look at him again, but his next question, made in the same stupid, good-natured tone, and a look in his wooden face, removed all suspicion.

“Didn’t you hear of no revivals, `spose, along?”

“No, Sir,—rather the other way.”

“I ’spose—Seems like there was a general holdin’ up don’t it? Bretherin ought to pray more. Smart sprinklin’ o’ Baptists, I expect, in Texas?”

I turned away again to conceal my emotions, and answered as soon as I could.

“I should think not, where I was best acquainted.”

“Heap o’ Methodist bretherin there, ain’t ther?”

“More of the Methodists, I believe.”

He returned to my side.

“Skuss o’ Baptists, then, in Texas?”

“Yes, Sir, so I heard at San Antonio. In that town I understood there were no Baptists.”

“Nary Baptis—humph—sharp is she?”

“Rather.”

“Expect you don’t want to sell her?”

“No, Sir.”

“Expect you wouldn’t take her weight in gold for her?”

“I don’t know but I would. But good morning, Sir; I must jog along.”

“Don’t reckon to be partin’ with her then?”

“No, Sir.” I rode on, and he followed me.

“I should like to keep her for you, if you wanted to leave her.”

“I thank you, Sir; I do not.”

He walked along by my side. At length I asked what he would give for her.

“Oh, I did not expect you wanted to sell her.”

“I did not, Sir; but I would like to know what you would be willing to give for her.”

“I reckoned perhaps you’d like to leave her behind, if you could be sure of leaving her in good hands—if you could have some one that would take an interest in her. I wan’t thinking of buying your dog. Don’t know but I’d give ye a dollar for her.”

“I would not sell her, Sir, for fifty.”

He turned and left me without another word.

This man’s voice was a most exasperating, drawling whine. I noticed the same in the next man I conversed with this day. Among the lowest class of the Southerners the nasal tone is quite as common and intense and painful as in [313] the worst of the New-Englanders. It is not as often found among the middle and more educated class at the South as in New-England, however; but more or less of negro tones and idioms are common to all Southerners—even the most educated. The Yankee of the stage and of Punch, whom I never saw in New-England, I first met with in perfection in real life in South Carolina. Long, dry and dead hair and open mouth; slow, harsh, nasal utterance, and a vigilant, peering, sinister eye; wearing a narrow, swallow-tailed, snuff-colored coat, with brass buttons, short waistcoat and loose pantaloons, very short at top and bottom. Pork and molasses, generally called a New-England dish, I saw eaten for the first time, on land, in Mississippi.

The Mississippians and the Southerners generally are remarkably deficient in the kind of curiosity which characterizes the New-England Yankee; but an endless questioning without purpose, merely as an expression of social disposition, is a very common experience among the better sort of uneducated people. I do not think that I ever met with anything which I believed to have an impertinent basis or intention in any Southerner. Pure rudeness or surliness is another thing, and is more commonly met with by far in Mississippi than in any other country in which I have traveled.

Hernando (Miss.) Advance, June 22, 1854