 | XXXI. The South-west |  |
31. XXXI.
Catholic burying-ground—Evening in a grave-yard—Sounds of a
busy city—Night—Disturbers of the dead—Dishumation of human
remains—Mourning cards—A funeral—Various modes of riding—
Yankee horsemanship—Mississipian horsemen—Pacers—A plantation
road—Residence—The grave—Slaves weeping for their
master!—New cemetery.
In a former letter I have alluded to the old cemetery
in the centre of this city, strewed with dismantled
tombs, monuments and fragments of grave-stones,
fenceless and shadeless; a play-ground for
the young academicians, from the adjacent seminary,
and a common for the epicurean cow, it stands
covering the sides and summit of a pleasantly
rounded hill, a monument and a testimony of the
characteristic negligence and indifference of Americans
for the repositories of their dead.
A few evenings since, as the sun was sinking
beneath the level horizon, which was delineated by
a line of green foliage, accurately traced along the
impurpled western sky, I ascended the slight eminence,
upon whose verdant bosom reposes this
of human ashes, over sunken graves and
shattered marble, once reared by the hand of affection
or ostentation, forcibly recalled the littleness
and vanity of man. The dead slumbered beneath
my feet in a marble sleep—cold, silent, and forgotten!
From the streets of the city, which on every
side closed in this future resting place of its living,
the clear laugh, and ringing shout of troops of merry
children at their sports, the playful prattle of a
group of loitering school girls, the rattling of whirling
carriages, from whose windows glanced bright
and happy faces, the clattering of horses, the loud
conversation of their riders, the tramp of pedestrians
along the brick trottoirs, the monotonous song of
the carman, the prolonged call of the teamster, and
the sharp reiterated ringing of his long whip, all
mingled confusedly, struck harshly in the clear
evening air upon the ear, breaking the silence that
should repose over such a scene, and dissipating at
once those reflections, which a ramble among the
lonely dwellings of the dead is calculated to engender.
As I lingered upon the hill, the gradually
deepening shadows of evening fell over the town,
and subsiding with the day, these sounds, by no
means a “concord of enchanting ones,” ceased one
after the other, and the subdued hum of a reposing
city floated over the spot, a strange requiem for
its sepultured and unconscious inhabitants. The
full moon now rose above the tops of the majestic
forest trees, which tower along the eastern suburbs
of the city, and poured a flood of mellow light from
the brow of the solitary hill, and glanced brightly
upon the roof and towers of the now nearly silent
city, which reflected her soft radiance with the
mild lustre of polished silver. As I stood contemplating
the scene, and yielding to its associations,
my attention was drawn to a couple of men ascending
the hill from the street. As they approached
the crest of the hill, I observed that one of them
was equipped with a spade and mattock, and that
the other—whose black face glistened in the moonlight
like japan, betraying him as a son of Afric—
had his head surmounted by a small box. “Resurrectionists,”
thought I. They stopped not far from
me, and the black setting down his box, immediately
commenced digging. After observing them
for a few minutes I advanced to the spot, and on an
inquiry learned that they were disinterring the remains
of a gentleman, and those of several members
of his family, who had lain buried there for
more than thirty years, for the purpose of removing
them for re-interment in the new burying-ground
north of the town. This cemetery is now wholly
disused, and a great number of the dead have been
taken up and removed to the new one, but the
greater portion still rest, where they were first laid,
fresh from among the living; for in all probability
the majority who lie there, have neither existing
name or friends to preserve their bones from desecration.
I was gratified to see that there existed,
after so long a period, some remaining affection for
the dead displayed in the scene before me. But it
neglect which is manifested toward the “unknown,
unhonoured, and forgotten,” whose bones still moulder
there, to be “levelled over,” when the increase
of the city shall compel the living to construct
their habitations over those of the dead. As I
watched the progress of exhumation, as the grave
was emptied by the brawny arms of the muscular
slave, of load after load of the dark loam, my eye
was attracted by a white object glistening upon the
thrown-up heap by the side of the grave. I raised
it from the damp soil—it was a finger-bone! The
next shovel full glittered with the slender, brittle
fragments of what once was man! Not a trace of
the coffin remained, or of the snow-white, scolloped
shroud. The black now threw aside his spade, and
stooping down into the grave, lifted to his companion
a round, glaring, white shell, which was once
the temple of the immortal intellect—the tenement
of mind! A few corroded bones and the half-decayed
skull—all that remained of the “human form
divine”—were hastily heaped into the box, the
grave was refilled, and the desecrators of the repose
of the dead departed, as they came, soon to forget
the solemn lesson, which their transient occupation
may have taught them. As I turned away from the
humiliating scene I had just beheld, with a melancholy
heart, and a gloom of sorrow drawn over my
feelings, I could not but forcibly recall the words of
the preacher—“that which befalleth the sons of
men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth
them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they
above the beast; for all is vanity. All go
unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to
dust again.”
The Spanish and Roman Catholic custom of
sending printed mourning cards to the relatives and
friends of the deceased, is adopted in this country.
On the death of an individual these tickets are immediately
issued and sent throughout the city and
neighbourhood—left indiscriminately, by the carriers,
with friends and strangers, at private houses or
in hotels and bar-rooms. While standing yesterday
at the door of the hotel, one of these cards was
placed in my hands by a mulatto slave, who, with
his hands full of them, was distributing them about
the town. It was a beautifully watered sheet, surrounded
with a deep mourning body; in the centre
of which were two or three lines of invitation, “to
assist, (aider, as the French say) in the funeral
ceremony;” and worded like those often seen inserted
in the daily papers of a large city. The use
of these cards is an established custom, and seldom
if ever deviated from. It is at least a feeling one,
and not unworthy of general imitation.
In company with some gentlemen from the hotel,
I attended this funeral, actuated wholly by a stranger's
curiosity; for, as well as others of the party,
I was a total stranger to the family of the deceased,
who resided a few miles in the country. Our cavalcade
(for we were all mounted upon those long-tailed,
ambling ponies, to which southerners are so
partial) consisted of six—two Yankees, three southerners,
most Yankees do, awkwardly; for Yankees, at
home, are gig-drivers, not horsemen. Giving too
much heed to the poising of their very erect bodies,
they left their legs to take care of themselves; but
when their attention was drawn, for a moment, to
these members, they would rock upon their saddles,
the very images of “tottering equilibriums,” as
Capt. Hall would term them; and fortunate were
they in recovering their nearly forfeited seats again.
—These horses, which advance by first lifting two
legs on one side and then changing to the other, do
not suit brother Jonathan's notions of a riding horse.
So he applies whip and spur, and breaks away into
a long gallop. Then indeed he is in his element.
An Arabian, on being asked what was the best seat
in the world, replied, “The back of a fleet courser.”
If the querist had applied to Jonathan, he would
have said, “A galloping nag.” Whenever you see
a stranger galloping at the south, you will seldom
err in guessing him to be a Yankee. Our English
friend rode cockney fashion; that is, not much unlike
a clothes-pin, or a pair of compasses, astride a
line. Stiff and erect as a Hungarian hussar, he curvetted
along the smooth roads, till he had worked
his slight-framed, spirited animal into a fever of excitement,
which flung the foam over his rider, as he
tossed his head, swelled his curved neck, and
champed his bit in rage, in vain efforts to spring
away, free from his thraldom; but the rider fingered
the slight bridle-rein with the ease and skill of
a master. The southerners of the party rode like
as much at home and at case in their saddles,
as in a well-stuffed arm-chair after dining generously.
The Mississippian sits his horse gracefully,
yet not, as the riding-master would say, scientifically.
He never seems to think of himself, or
the position of his limbs. They yield, as does his
whole body, pliantly and naturally to the motions of
the animal beneath him, with which his own harmonize
so perfectly and with such flexibility, that
there seems to be but one principle actuating both.
He glides easily along upon his pacer, with the bridle
thrown upon its neck, or over the high pummel
of his handsome Spanish saddle; talking as unconcernedly
with his companions, as though lounging,
arm in arm with them, along the streets. He seldom
goes out of a pace. If he is in haste, he only paces
the faster. Of every variety of gaited animals which
I have seen, the Mississippian pacer is the most
desirable. I shall, however, have occasion to allude
hereafter to southern equestrianism more particularly,
and will return from my digression to the
funeral.
We arrived at the entrance gate of the plantation
after a delightful ride of half an hour, along a fine
though dusty road, (for with this impalpable soil it
is either paste or powder) bordered with noble forests
of oak, black gum, the hoary-coated sycamore,
and the rich-leaved, evergreen magnolia, among and
around which the grape vine entwined and hung in
graceful festoons. Through natural vistas in the
wood occasional glimpses could be obtained of white
in the centre of plantations, or among the thick
woods which crowned the swelling hills on every
side. The road was, like most of the roads here, a
succession of gentle ascents and descents, being
laid out so as to intersect transversely parallel ridges,
themselves composed of isolated hills, gently
blending and linking into each other. The country
was luxuriant, undulating, and picturesque. The
general character of the scenery struck me as remarkably
English. The resemblance would be still
more striking, did not the taste or convenience of
the planters lead them to select the site of their
dwellings in the centre of their plantations, or in
the depths of their forests, without any reference to
the public road, (from which they are most universally
concealed) which is always the northern farmer's
guide in such a case, thereby giving a solitary
character to the road scenery, and detracting much
from the general beauty of the country.
The residence to which we were riding was invisible
from the road. We passed through a large
gate-way, the gate of which, one of our Yankee
brethren, who had galloped forward, tried in vain to
open, nearly tumbling from his horse in the atttempt,
but which one of our southern friends paced up to,
and scarcely checking his horse, opened with the
merest effort in the world. Winding our way rapidly
along a circuitous carriage-way, at one time
threading the mazes of the forest, at another, coursing
through a cotton field, whitened as though snow
had fallen in large flakes and thickly sprinkled its
deep bayou, with overhanging, precipitous banks,
and now skirting the borders of some brawling rivulet,
we arrived in sight of the “house of mourning.”
The dwelling, like most in Mississippi, was a long,
wooden, cottage-like edifice, with a long piazza, or
gallery, projecting from the roof, and extending along
the front and rear of the building. This gallery is
in all country-houses, in the summer, the lounging
room, reception room, promenade and dining room.
The kitchen, “gin,” stables, out-houses, and negro-quarters,
extended some distance in the rear, the
whole forming quite a village—but more African
than American in its features. We were rather
too late, as the funeral procession was already proceeding
to the grave-yard, which was, as on most
plantations, a secluded spot not far from the dwelling,
set apart as a family burying-ground. I was
struck with the appearance of the procession. Six
mounted gentlemen in black, preceded the hearse
as bearers. A broad band of white cambric encircled
their hats, and streamed away behind in two
pennons nearly a yard in length. A broad white
sash of similar materials was passed over the right
shoulder, from which a pennon of black ribbon fluttered,
and was knotted under the left side, while
the ends were allowed to hang nearly to the feet.
The hearse was a huge black chest, opening at the
end for the admission of the coffin, which, as I discovered
at the grave, was richly covered with black
silk velvet, and studded with a border of gilt nails.
Its top was not horizontal, as you are accustomed to
hearse was followed by several private carriages,
gigs, of which a northern procession would consist,
being not much used in this country. An irregular
procession, or rather crowd of slaves in the rear of
all, followed with sorrowful countenances the remains
of their master, to his last, long home.
When the heavy clods rattled upon the hollow
sounding coffin, these poor wretches, who had anxiously
crowded around the grave, burst into one
simultaneous flood of tears, mingled with expressions
of regret, sorrow and affection. A group of
slaves lamenting over the grave of their master!
Will not our sceptical countrymen regard this as
an anomaly in philanthropy? Half a dozen slaves
then shovelled for a few moments from the fresh
pile of earth upon the coffin, and a mound soon rose,
where, but a few moments before, yawned a grave!
An appropriate prayer was offered over the dead,
and the procession dispersed at the burial-place.
Such is a plantation burial! In this manner are
consigned to the narrow house, four fifths of the
population of this state. The city and town cemeteries
are but little resorted to, for a large proportion
of those who breathe their last in town, unless
they are friendless, or strangers, are borne to some
solitary family burial-place in the country for sepulture:
there are few families in the towns of Mississippi
who have not relatives residing on plantations
in the country.
The grave-yard of Natchez, situated as I have
formerly observed, a little less than a mile north
surface among several small wooded hills, and is
surrounded by cotton fields, from which it has been
redeemed for its present use. It evinces neither
beauty of location, nor taste in the arrangement of
its tombs, of which there are but two or three remarkable
for elegance or neatness. Its avenues
are overgrown with the rank, luxuriant grass, peculiar
to grave-yards, varied only here and there by
clusters of thorns and briars. The wild and naked
features of the spot are occasionally relieved by a
shade tree planted by some kindly hand over the
grave of a friend; but this occasional testimony of
respect will not redeem the cemetery from that
negligence and want of taste in this matter with
which Americans have been, with too much justice,
universally charged by foreigners. In observing
the names upon the various head-stones, I noticed
that the majority of those who slept beneath, were
strangers, mostly from New-England, but many
from Europe. Many of them were young. It is
thus that the scourge of the south has ever reaped
rich, teeming harvests from the north. But those
days of terror, it is to be hoped, are for ever past,
and that henceforth health will smile over the green
hills of this pleasant land, which pestilence has so
long blasted with her frowns.
| XXXI. The South-west | |