University of Virginia Library

LETTER XVIII.

I have a secret for your especial ear-trumpet, but,
perhaps you are not old and deaf, and so don't use a
trumpet; but the only two editors I ever saw, were both
deaf, and kept clapping their ear-trumpets to their tympana,
like two sportsmen bringing Colt's rifles to their
eyes. The secret is this: Last evening, Juba, who brings
our mail from town, placed a letter in my hand, addressed,
“Miss Catharine Conyngham, care of Col.—,
&c.” I thought the hand-writing was my brother's, the
midshipman, and tore the seal with fingers trembling,
and heart bounding. But it proved to be from an editor
—yes, Mr. —, a real editor, and publisher of a weekly
literary paper. And what do you think was the purport
of it? I dare say, if I left it to you to say, you
would be wicked enough to reply, “A declaration of
love.” It was no such thing! It was a very polite request
that I would contribute some “Needles” to his
paper, and if I could not furnish him with a series of
“Needles,” to oblige him with a series of “Tales.”
Tales? I, who have not the least grain of imagination,
write tales! My reply I shall defer, till I hear from you
and have your permission; for, I do not feel that I can,
in justice, contribute to any other columns without your
full consent—for you are my literary god-father, Mr.

—. Suppose I write a tale for you. I will try.
Perhaps it may turn out a simple affair, in that case you
won't publish it, and so no harm will be done. It is one
thing to write sketches, and quite another thing to write
a thrilling tale. In a week or two, I will see what I can
do, and send you the first fruit of my venture into the
world of fiction. “Perhaps it may turn out a song,
perhaps turn out a sermon.”

You will be interested to know that I have not heard
a blow struck on this estate, and the colonel says he has
not punished one of his slaves in seven years. It is
true all men are not like the good colonel, yet for the
most part the planters are kind and considerate towards
their slaves. They often give them Saturday afternoons,
and all day Sunday, when they appear in holiday attire,
gayest of the gay. They are all great lovers of going
to meeting, and delight in hearing preaching, and their
fixed and earnest attention in church, might be an example
to their superiors. Marriages are performed by
the planters themselves, with great show of ceremony,
by gravely reading the service from the prayer-book.
We had a wedding last week; Jenny, the sempstress, a
pretty mulatress, being married to Charles, the ebony
coachman of Dr. Bellman, who lives three miles from us.

At seven o'clock, the whole party made its appearance
in the great hall, at one end of which stood the colonel,
Isabel, myself, and several friends from the neighboring
plantations. Dressed in white—a white satin petticoat,
with book-muslin robe worn over, and with a wreath of
flowers, which Isabel had gathered from rare plants in the
conservatory upon her head, with a high comb, and long
lace veil, ear-rings, bracelets, and satin shoes with spangles,

the bride first entered, attended by her two bride's-maids—one
of these, my handsome negress, Eda. The
bride's-maids were both dressed very richly, Isabel having
given one of them one of her beautiful dresses, and loaned
her diamond pin and ruby bracelets. I also decked out
my Eda in a figured white muslin, two bracelets, a necklace
and brooch, and she really looked superb, with her
large, fine eyes and graceful figure. From the neighboring
estates were several females, handsomely dressed,
and wearing their mistresses' willingly loaned jewels, so
that, at this wedding of slaves, shone more jewels (thanks
to the kind indulgence of masters and mistresses) than
are often seen in more elegant assemblies.

The hall was soon filled, and as far as I could see into
the piazza beyond, was a sea of woolly heads, of “cullered”
gentlemen and ladies. Dr. Bellman, a hale gentleman
of the most frank and cordial manners, white
hair, ruddy cheeks, portly form, and always laughing,
and telling some funny story—he himself “gave away the
bride.” The colonel read the service for the ceremony
in a clear and solemn voice; and all passed off with the
utmost decorum and gravity. The bride was not kissed
by the colonel! The marriage ended, the whole party,
full three hundred Africans in all, went to the lower gallery
that half surrounds the house, and is full one hundred
feet long, by eighteen wide, and here they formed
into cotillions. The gallery, enclosed by venetian blinds,
was lighted up for the occasion, and three fiddlers, and
a banjo, and castinets, were perched upon a platform at
one end, where they played with a zeal and unweariness
that I had never seen equaled. At eleven o'clock, they
were invited by the colonel to supper, which was laid in

the gallery of the kitchen, itself a long structure, enclosed
by a broad piazza. We all stood by and enjoyed
the happiness of the Congoese festivity. One young
“cullered gentleman,” brother to the bride, and something
of a Beau Brummel in his way, remarked to me,
with a low bow, and with his hand on his heart—

“Nebber see, young missis, nebber see so much beauty
afore, at no weddin'. De ladies looks splendid, specially
de purty Miss Edy! She de belle ob de party!”

Throughout the supper the utmost order prevailed—
nay, politeness reigned! Give me “cullered gemmen”
at a “cullered” party for your true and genuine politeness!
The white gemmen are not one half so courteously
polite to us white ladies, as they are to their “fair sec!”
Bows and smiles, and Brummellian bends of the body,
displayings of teeth, and white perfumed pocket handkerchiefs,
and glances of adoring white eyes, were the
chief features of the scene.

In the course of the evening, a strange, odd, amusing
sea captain dropped in. He had been all over the
world, and lived longer on a ship than on land. He was
now on a visit to his sister, who was married to a planter
who lives near us, and where we visit intimately, and
whom he had not seen in twenty years past. Among
other curiosities which he brought her, and which included
two live monkeys, to say nothing of ugly-faced gods
of all the heathen nations on earth, was a Bengal tiger!
The animal had been given him when a cub, for some
service he had performed for some Rajah, and he had
kept it as a pet till it had got nearly its full growth, and
too large to stay in his ship. Indeed, he said that it
had, on the voyage home to New Orleans, nearly killed

one of his seamen. So he brought him up to Tennessee
in a eage, and his monkeys in another, and some half
score of splendid foreign birds in a third. No wonder,
as he laughingly says they did, that they took him for
a menagerie exhibitor. His sister was delighted with
the birds! amused with the pranky monkeys! and horrified
at the Bengal gentleman in velvet!

This famous captain, having, as he said, “boarded us
in the midst of the sport,” after looking on awhile, came
to the resolution to show us a regular built “Guinea Coast
fandango dance,” which he said he had often witnessed
on the coast of Africa. Never was any thing so ridiculous
as the scene which now took place. The captain,
having selected eight of the genteel “cullered pussons,”
four men and four women, the former in white waistcoats,
the latter in white muslins and net gloves, proceeded
to explain the dance to them with amusing minuteness.

He seemed to be much surprised that they showed so
little aptitude to learn, expressing it as his opinion that
the dance ought to come to them naturally. But he
soon found that the fashionable African gentlemen and
ladies, whom he was trying to initiate into the heathen
mysteries of their ancestors, had no more penchant towards
such outlandish doings, than other civilized people.
Indeed, the cullered circle upon which he would have
forced this “old country” cotillion, felt their feelings
hurt by the insinuation which his efforts conveyed. The
civilized negro is very desirous to bury his pagan jubajumping
ancestors in oblivion. He wishes to forget his
heathen origin; and the more removed he is from them, the
more aristocratic he is. A newly-imported African is

decidedly vulgar! The merry captain at last gave up
his pupils in despair, and entertained us for an hour
after we reached the drawing-room, with graphic and
well given stories of what he had seen in far lands, “beyond
the rising place of the sun.”

At twelve the party broke up, and the invited guests
from other plantations mounted their plough horses or
mules, loaned for the purpose, and sought their own
dwellings, galloping away in the moonlight, and laughing
and talking like children on a holiday, till they were
out of hearing.

I forgot to say that the supper had been gotten up
by Isabel and myself, and that it was both handsome
and costly. A dozen frosted cakes, jellies, preserved
fruits, pies, custards, floating island, blanc mange, and
other nice things too numerous to mention, were upon
the table. In the centre, and at each end, was a pyramid
of cake, wreathed with flowers. Indeed, had the
colonel given a party to Isabel, her supper could not
have been much more elegant or expensive.

The captain, who accepted the colonel's hospitality for
the night, caused a great deal of sport this morning by
trying to ride! He absolutely knew nothing about a
horse; hardly can tell the stirrup from the bridle! With
a horse-block to aid him, he got into the saddle, but the
horse had not trotted six steps before he was out of it
on the ground, having lost his balance. After three
attempts, each of which ended in his being tossed out
of his seat, by the motion of the horse, he insisted on
being tied by the feet, or “lashed under the keel,” as
he called it. Peter, the black hostler, always accustomed
to obey, gratified him by performing this favor for him,

and thus firmly secured, he gave the animal the bit
and a blow with his fist simultaneously on the haunch.
The consequence was that Arab, who is a spirited fellow,
set off with him at full gallop, and as the park-gate was
fortunately not open to the forest, he swept with him at
full speed round and round the circular carriage-way of
the lawn. Isabel and I were already in our saddles, for
we were going out on a morning gallop, and we began to
feel some anxiety for the worthy captain, who passed us
bare-headed, his teeth set, and his hands grasping Arab's
mane, while the reins flew wildly in the air. If the
rope, by which his feet were tied, had parted, he would
have been dashed to the earth. As it was, he began to
slip, and hang sidewise upon the horse's neck, and I
really believe if the colonel's commanding voice had not
caused Arab to stop, the captain would the next minute
have been underneath the horse, with his feet bottom
upwards over the saddle!

“I would rather ride out an equinoctial gale, lashed
to the fore-top gallant cross-trees!” cried the captain,
as he was relieved from his perilous situation, “than
mount a live animal again! Nature never intended the
critters to be backed!”

I like the captain, because I have discovered that he
saw and spoke with my recovered brother in the Mediterranean,
where he visited his ship; and I felt with him
in his defeat, and declined to ride.

How necessary it is that we should behold men in their
proper position and pursuits, in order to know and give
them due honor! Out of them they are often ridiculous,
helpless, and ignorant. Here is a man who could battle
with a storm on the ocean, and ride upon the wings of

the hurricane, its master! who would unerringly guide a
mighty ship across the pathless waste of waters, and
who, by his skill, had belted the round earth; whose
courageous eye had met fearful perils without quailing,
and whose manly voice had given courage and rekindled
hope in the sinking bosom of the timid—here was this
man, on land, in unfamiliar scenes, surpassed and laughed
at by the least, ragged, black urchin that can bestride a
wild colt.