University of Virginia Library

LETTER LXIII.

The kind compliments which the newspapers and some
of your correspondents have paid my poor “Needles,”
not only encourage me and inspire me to try and deserve
their commendations, but make me grateful. Nothing
makes me so happy as to make happiness for others; and
if the perusal of one of my letters has beguiled a half
hour of any one, I am well repaid. The greatest reward
of a writer is the happiness to which his pen has contributed.

To be sure, he must be paid in money to buy ink, and
pens, and paper, but those are to enable him to write;
and money, also, is a very nice thing when one wants a
new pair of shoes, or a shawl in cold weather, or bread
and butter, and tea. True, authors are not so much
paid for what they write, as that they receive means to
enable them to write! The writing is given, but the
bodily strength, the ink and paper, the table to write on,
the floor on which the table stands, the roof over head,
the window or lamp for light, the fire to keep him warm,
his breakfasts, dinners, suppers,—the editor and publisher
gives him money only to pay for these; supplies
the fuel “to keep up the steam,” to use a plain American
phrase.

But I will not stray away from the proper subject of

this letter, which is a continuation of the journal of our
romantic expedition to the Gulf and its green islands.

My last closed just as our fleet of pleasure yachts
came in sight of the broad horizon of the Mexican Gulf,
on the afternoon of the second day after leaving Lake
Illiwalla in the interior, our course by the bayous having
been nearly one hundred miles altogether.

The sight of the gulf was hailed by us with shouts.
We had to go yet six miles before debouching into it
from the bayou, which glided like a tortuously moving
and shining serpent between the borders of tall reddish
grass. This grass was the size of a quill and seven feet
tall, and grew not of visible soil, but out of mud under
the water.

As far as the eye could extend there was one vast
plain of grass, level as the sea; but there was not anywhere
visible a foot of land, not a place where Noah's
dove could rest its poor little weary feet.

The sable oarsmen now pulled cheerily to their oars,
as we intended to gain an island a league off the coast,
which was visible like a pale green streak of cloud,
asleep on the horizon. Near this island, as we approached
the mouth of the bayou, we discovered at
anchor a small sloop, which the gentlemen said was
waiting for a wind to run up the bayou we were in, to
load with sugar from the plantations, and take it down
and round to New Orleans, for many of the planters
send their staple to market in this way rather than up
the bayou, past Thibodeaux, and so across into the Mississippi
and to New Orleans. This present mode had
the advantage both of economy and security.

When within a mile of the mouth, a breeze caught our

little flags, and we hoisted sail and gave our rowers rest,
though they showed no fatigue. Indeed, the endurance
of the African slaves is marvelous. They will row hour
after hour, and at the last are as brisk and lively, and
sing their songs as cheerily as in the outset. There
seems no tire to a negro; no end to his good humor
when he is on a party of this kind, for they enjoy it
quite as much as “massa and missus.” Such delightful,
willing, apprehending, anticipating-your-want servants,
never were as this race of bondsmen. They seem in
servitude to be where they wish to be, for they are by
nature dependent, and they love to look up to some one
who “takes the responsibility;” and for this responsibility
they are ready to give in return their labor and
life-service. Certainly free negroes are the worst possible
servants, and for want of healthy authority, and some
stronger head to think and do for them, they become
very degraded. I have just seen a book called “A
South side View of slavery,” by Rev. Dr. Adams, of
Boston, which every man and woman north ought to
read. It is the only reply that has been made to “Uncle
Tom's Cabin,” lately published without intending to be
a reply to it. If our northern friends would read this
book, they would leave slavery to the south and to the
Providence of God for the final adjustment, of all vexed
questions it has given rise to. The south feels the responsibility
as profoundly as the north. The Christians,
and wise, and thinking men in the south have this subject
at heart, and will be the instruments (not the northern
abolitionists) chosen of God for the amelioration and
final emancipation of the race, if God ordain that they
shall ever be free. But every step made by the north to
coerce, is naturally met by southerners (who are quite as
humane as gentlemen, and gentle as ladies, as the northerners,)
with barriers and defences, and more formidable
entrenchments thrown up about their institutions. These,
Mr. —, are the views of a northern woman, who has
dwelt long enough in the south to see things as they are.
Abide God's time! Wait for the Moses of the Lord God
of Hosts! All the efforts of supposable philanthropists
in Egypt could not have hastened one day sooner the
deliverance from bondage of Israel; nay, the first movement
towards it of Moses himself, only caused Pharaoh
to heap additional burdens upon them. Such has been
the result of the mere human movement of the northern
fanatics; they have taken away the straw from the laborers,
and made firmer their bonds. In God's time His
Moses will be found borne upon the waters of time, and
God, and not man, if the slave is to be free, will lead
Africa, as once he did Israel, out of the House of
Bondage.

How shall I describe the beautiful spectacle our little
fleet presented, with sails all a-spread, as we darted like
a flock of gulls out from the bouche of the narrow bayou
into the open expanse of the gulf! The sun was about
half an hour high, and covering the waves with gold and
orange, while the heavens in the west, where he was going
down, were gorgeous with green, purple, and crimson,
beyond painter's pencil or poet's pen. No wonder the
Indian, in his fresh imagination, believed the western
heavens to be the gate to his celestial hunting grounds!
A little child once gazing on such a sky of glory, said
to me:—

“Aunt Kate, heaven is so full of light and pretty

colors, that when God opens its gate at sun down to let
the sun go in, they burst out, don't they?”

Is not that pretty, Mr. —? Children's sayings are
so fresh and original, often so wonderful, that if parents
would preserve all their speeches in writing, a lovely book
could be made up of them, of the greatest interest.
What mammas will recollect and send to you for a corner
of your paper, all the pretty thoughts out-spoken by
their little ones? A little girl of five years, whose attending
ears had heard talking at home about High and
Low Church, was taken to a church where the pulpit
was unusually lofty. While they were singing she
whispered to her ma, “That minister, ma, must be very
high church, as high as the Communion of Saints!”

But while I am chattering about little people, our
yacht begins to

and curvets and rears like a cantering pony to the undulating
waves, which ever and forever roll and unroll
themselves in the deep sea. The motion is, however, by
no means unpleasant; but we have to look after moveables,
and whoever tries to walk, goes toddling about not
half so gracefully as my little Harry, whose natural gait
being a roll, is quite at home as he moves about the
cabin, his roll, meeting the yacht's roll, counteracts it,
and he goes about straight as an Indian. The weather
is always delightful at this season, and never was a
lovelier evening than that, amid the roseate and golden
beauties of which we sailed across the channel to the
island, which lay like a huge emerald upon a sea of silver
rosée, to gallicise a word.

When about a mile from the island, and just as the
sun descended into the deep, all the gentlemen together
fired off a feu de joie. At this loud fusilade, ten thousand
ducks that were reposing upon the surface of the water
near the island, rose like a black cloud into the sky, and
flew round and round in a wild vortex, about a hundred
feet in the air; while herons, pelicans, and gulls, that
were in the covert of the island-shore, startled from their
propriety, scattered in all ways and in the utmost alarm.
With the spy-glass, an alligator, a rare visitor in salt
water, was seen to plunge into the water; and last, yet
not least, the sloop which was moored about a mile from
us, close under the island, hurriedly slipped her cable,
hoisted her mainsail and jib, and fairly ran away from
us, no doubt believing our merry and peaceful pic-nic
party, a piratical expedition; or at least of such “questionable
shape,” as not to be waited for! Thereupon
the bearded ones of our company set up a wild and loud
huzza, and cheered the flying sloop with the greatest
good humor imaginable.

“Doubtless,” said my quiet husband, “that skipper,
when he reaches New Orleans, will report having seen
and been fired into, and hotly pursued by a flotilla of
seven armed boats, full of men, off the mouth of Bayou
La Fourche! and that he and his crew only escaped, by
slipping his cable and putting to sea.” The result
showed that my husband was in the right.

The wind left our canvass as we drew near the island,
which the Spaniards call “Isla de Boca,” but the old
Frenchmen, “Isle des Oiseaux,” or Isle of Birds. It is
about a league in length and half a mile wide, with
clumps of live oaks sprinkled over its surface, which is

dry and elevated, but without any variation of its
perfect level. The rowers pulled into a little cove,
where we moored our fleet; and by the light of the rising
moon the gentlemen landed in the small boats, and
began to look out a place for the servants to set up the
tent.

On board the admiral's vessel—that is in my ship—
the ladies all assembled to take tea by invitation while
the gentlemen superintended and assisted in landing the
paraphernalia. We had a pleasant time and a laugh-ringing
one, at our supper, which was gracefully handed
round by Petit. In less than an hour the great tent or
“markee” was erected, and lifted its white pyramidal
walls in the soft moonlight like a palace of pearl. In
the centre was suspended a swinging lamp, that brightly
lighted the interior. Camp-stools, a table, lounges, and
all the furniture necessary to make it a handsome drawing-room,
were placed within. There were five other
tents smaller than this, two of which were exclusively
for the ladies' abodes; though one or two of them, from
fear of horrid alligators, imaginary lions, tigers, wolves,
and bears, to say nothing of dreadful elephants, determined
to keep their quarters in the cabins of the
yachts.

Hammocks and iron-framed bedsteads were provided
for those who chose to sleep in the tents. The spot
where our little snow-white city was thus magically built
was very picturesque. A crescent shaped cove of sparkling
sand was in front, where the yachts lay moored,
bows outward, in a half-circle, like a fleet protecting a
harbor; overhead spread the interlaced branches of three
great oaks, and near was a well of pure water, which the

buccaneers who had once resorted to this island, had dug;
for this island is not far from Barrataria Bay and Isle,
where “Lafitte” had his rendezvous before the last war
with England; and in the sweet place where we pitched
our camp, Theodore and Constanza had doubtless walked
and sighed and loved beneath the same golden moon that
shone on us.

“Suppose,” said one of our romantic young ladies
“that there should be buccaneers here now, and that they
should suddenly appear in one of their terrible long, low,
black schooners opposite our cove, and come in and fight
with our defenders, conquer them, and carry us all off to
some remote isle, where in some splendid cavern they
live like kings and lords!”

The pretty Marié ejaculated, “Not for the world!”
The noble Mathilde smiled and said, “How romantic it
would be!” Grace Lyndall, one of our belles, clapped
her beautiful hands and exclaimed,

“Of all things how I should like it!”

“Don't speak of such things, I beg of you,” said the
young and charming Madame Dumont, who with her
husband had joined us, the evening before, from their
plantation.

“The tents are all pitched and ready for occupation,
fair dames all,” said Monsieur M. from the shore, “but
what are you talking about?—the pirates?”

“Yes, colonel, and we were wishing that a nice, long,
low, black, saucy-looking schooner, would pay us a
sudden visit, and carry us all off,” said Grace; and this
girl had the richest voice, that I ever heard from
woman's lips; every sound that music knows were mingled

with a surfeit of sweetness in the golden alembic
of its tones.

We were soon all on shore, and were perfectly charmed
with the preparations which the taste and attention of
the gentlemen had made for us. The green sward, the
bright moon, a violin which Scipio (one of our boatmen)
was tuning, and the joyousness of the occasion tempted
us to dance; and for an hour we outdid Queen Mab and
her fairy ball. Suddenly, while we were in the midst
of our gaiety, a long, low, black, ominous-looking vessel
poked her sharp nose around the point, and as her tall
sails became visible in the broad moonbeams, Grace
Lyndall, who first espied it, as she was splendidly schottisching
with her cousin Louis, uttered the loudest and
most terrified shriek, that I ever heard or ever hope to
hear!

It transfixed us all like statues, and Scipio's music
froze stiff on the strings of his fiddle bow. Grace ended
her scream in total unconsciousness, for she became
instantly insensible on Louis' arm. The rest of the
ladies, beholding the same dreadful vision, took up the
key-note, and screamed “most musically,” each clinging
to one of the gentlemen.

Marié gasped to my husband, “Save—oh—save me!”
As for myself, I was petrified with bewildering astonishment.
That it could be a buccaneer, I could not
for a moment believe; but reflecting where we were,
and what the island had been, I began to wish little
Harry and myself and husband and all of us safe at home
again.

The younger gentlemen ran for their arms; but before
any defensive steps could be taken, the whole

hull of the schooner came in open view, not three
hundred yards distant, and from her deck came a
hoarse hail, that nearly killed out what little courage I
had left.

“Ahoy! what boats are those?”

And with the words we could see a lighted fusee in
the hand of a man who was standing by a cannon that
was pointing towards poor us.

“Pirates without question!” said my husband gravely;
“and we must make the best battle we can!”

“Oh, no—no!” cried the ladies; “it cannot be so bad
as that!”

“Ahoy, ashore! Give an account of yourselves, or
we fire into you!” was again thundered from her deck.

“A pleasure party,” answered the colonel; “nothing
more! Are you the surveying Revenue Cutter?”

“Yes,” answered the officer on deck, laughing so that
we could hear him; “beg pardon for disturbing you.
But we were informed by the skipper of a sloop, an hour
ago, that hailed us on the south side of the island, that
he had been chased by a fleet of armed boats. The
ladies will please accept my apologies and regrets for
alarming them.”

We were now all mortification and laughter. The
captain of the cutter was hailed, and invited to land,
which he did in a four-oared boat. He was a fine-looking
young officer, and enjoyed our fright vastly,
when the gentlemen—to two of whom he was known
—informed him of our table chat about “Lafitte.”
We invited him to dine with us next day, as he gracefully
took his leave of us, and in a little while we

saw the vessel which had caused us such a terrible fright
gliding slowly and beautifully away until she was lost in
the distant haze of mist and moonbeams.