University of Virginia Library

LETTER XV.

I can convey to you no adequate idea of the picturesque
character of the scenery of this estate. It is
made up of groves, uplands, cliffs, grotto-like springs,
level, green meadows, and undulating fields. In whatsoever
direction we ride or walk, there are interesting
features to please the eye. Our drives from the villa
are all charming. Eleven miles in one direction, eastward,
we come to the venerated tomb of Jackson, at the
Hermitage; in another we find ourselves, after three
hours' ride, in the beautiful and wealthy city of Nashville.
A longer ride, south, brings us to the handsome village
of Columbia, where President Polk was born and lived,
and where is one of the most eminent collegiate institutions
for females in the United States; and beyond, an
hour's ride farther, lies Ashwood, the princely domain
of the four brothers Polk, whose estates extend for miles,
in continuous and English like cultivation. Of this lovely
region I shall write you by and by. A shaded road,
leading four miles north of us, terminates on the pebbly
shore of the romantic Cumberland, where, as we sit upon
our horses, we can watch the steamers pass, and the keel
boats and huge barges floating down with the current.
Here, too, we sometimes catch fish, and have a rare picnic
time of it.

Be sure of it, Mr. —, you never will have enjoyed
life till you come to our Park. If I dared tell the colonel
what I was doing, he would heartily invite you through
me; but I would not let him know for the world that I
am “takin' notes an' printin' 'em,” so pray don't send
your paper to him. He doesn't read much, save politics,
or I should tremble lest, when he rides to the city, he
should fall in with my “Needles.” But, then, I have
not said any thing in them very naughty, have I, Mr.
—? I am sure all is love and kindness that I write;
at least, I see them in my inkstand when I dip my pen
therein.

My deer follows me like a greyhound. It has a heart
that holds gratitude as a full cup holds rich wine. When
I look into its intelligent eyes I seem to be looking down
into a pair of deep, shadowy wells, at the bottom of which
I see visible the star of its spirit. It seems to have
almost a human soul! It loves, and is grateful, and is
dependent like a woman! Nothing pleases it so much
as to have me talk to it. It listens, moves its graceful
ears, and smiles out of its eyes, its calm joy! “What,”
asks Emerson, “what is a brute?” Who can answer?
What a mystery they are!

By the way, I nearly lost my life defending my pet
yesterday. I had walked down to a spring that gushes
out of a cavernous rock in a lovely green glen, a short
distance from the house. My deer followed me. As I
sat by the spring and read “Willis's People I have Seen,”
—a very readable book, by-the-bye, my deer ambled off
to a little emerald knob, and began to browse. It was
a quiet scene, and the idea of danger never entered either
of our foolish heads. All at once I heard a wolf-like

bay from a deep throat; then a swift rushing of a bloodhound
so closely past me, that I felt the warm breath
of the animal upon my face. The next moment he was
within a bound of my deer! With a cry of warning,
I thoughtlessly hastened to the rescue of the deer, which
no sooner saw its danger than it sprang into the air,
completely over the dog, as he crouched couchant to
pounce upon him, and flew to me. The bloodhound
doubled and came back after him. The deer stopped
and stood trembling at my side. I threw myself forward,
and endeavored to intimidate the red eyed monster
by shaking Willis at him! But, I know not from what
influence, he turned aside from me and leaped upon the
animal's shoulder. The helpless deer sunk upon its
knees, uttering a piteous cry. At this my courage was
roused, and grasping like a stiletto the steel inlaid paper-cutter
I had been using, I was in the act of driving it
into the fiery eye of the savage brute, when a loud voice
caused the dog to release his hold, and me to suspend the
blow. With a growl like a bear robbed of his prey, the
bloodhound slunk away, evidently fearing to encounter
the owner of the voice, who proved to be the overseer.

“You had an escape, miss,” said the man, politely
raising his broad black hat. “I did not know any one
was in this field, or I should have kept him close by me.
It was the deer he was after. I hope you were not
hurt?”

“Only frightened for my poor deer,” I answered.
“Her shoulder bleeds, sir.”

“It is only a tooth mark through the skin. Let me
see that dirk, if you please. If you had stuck him with

that in the eye you would have killed him outright. It
is a little, but sure weapon.”

“It is a paper-cutter, sir,” I said, mortified to think
he should suppose I carried a dirk.

“It is as good a cutter as a knife. I am glad you did
not strike the dog. He is worth a round hundred and
fifty dollars, and he is the only one we have. They will
track a footstep for miles,” he added; “and the negroes
fear them so, that one on a plantation is enough to keep
them from running away. I keep this ugly fellow more
as a preventive than really to hunt them. Come, Tiger,”
he said, calling the dog; and in a few moments I was
left alone with my wounded deer. It was not, fortunately,
badly hurt, and in an hour was as lively as ever.

On my way home, I called at a neat hut, built under
a shady catalpa tree. A clean, broad stone was the doorstep;
white half-curtains were visible at the small windows,
and an air of neatness pervaded the whole. Before it
was a small yard, in which grew two “Pride of China”
trees, for shade, and a cabbage and gourd plat were on
either side of the doorway. In the door sat old Aunt
Phillisy, a negress withered to parchment by extreme
age.

She says she is over a hundred years old, of which I
have no doubt. She is African born, and still retains
many words of her native dialect, with a strange gibberish
of broken English. She was smoking a pipe, made
of corn-cob, and rocking her body to and fro in the sun-shine,
in pure animal enjoyment. Her husband, old
Daddy Cusha, who was nearly as old as his wife, was
seated on a low stool in the room, but where the sun
fell upon him. He was the most venerable object I ever

beheld, in his way. He was stone blind, his head bald,
and shining like burnished copper, and his beard white
as fleeces of wool. His hands were folded upon his
knees, and he seemed to be in silent communion with the
depths of his own spirit. These two persons had not
labored for years, and their master was providing for
them in their old age. On every plantation you will find
one or more old couples thus passing their declining
years, in calm repose, after the toils of life, awaiting
their transfer to another state of being. The care taken
of the aged servants in this country is honorable both to
master and slave.

I had often seen Mammy Phillisy and old Daddy Cusha
—as Isabel, who was attached to them, almost every
day brings them, with her own hand, “something nice”
from the table. The first day I took dinner at the Park,
I noticed this noble girl setting aside several dainties, and
directing the servant in attendance, in a whisper, to place
them on a side table; and I was led from it to believe
some person, some very dear friend in the house, was an
invalid. But I soon found that they were for Aunt Phillisy,
Aunt Daphny, and Father Jack, and other venerable
Africans of the estate, whose age and helplessness were
thus tenderly regarded by the children of the master
they had once faithfully served.

“Good morning, Aunt Phillisy,” I said.

“Eh, goo' mornee, Mishy Katawinee,” answered the
old slave, with a brightening expression, “howee do,
Mishy?”

“Very well, Aunt Phillisy,” replied I, “I hope you and
old Cusha are doing well.”

“Yeesha, Mishy, we welly wellee. Takee seatee,

Mishy,” she said, rising and handing me a wicker chair.
So I sat down and had a long chat with them. Old
Cusha could recollect when he was taken prisoner in
Africa. He said his people and another tribe fought
together, that his tribe was beaten, and he, and his mother,
and brothers, and sisters were all taken by “de
oder brackee men for gold backshee; den dey put me
board de leety ship,” continued Cusha, “and, by'm by,
we come to land, and dey sellee me in Wirginny. Oh,
it long time 'go, Missee!”

Aunt Phillisy's memory traveled no farther back than
“the big blue sea.” Her life in a slaver seemed to have
made such an indelible impression upon her that it had
become the era of her memory. Before it, she remembered
nothing. Her face, breast, and arms were tattooed
with scars of gashes, as were those also of her husband.
While I was talking with them, one of their great-grand-children
came into the cabin. It was as black, as thick
of lip, as white of eye, as long of heel, as thick of skull,
as its genuine Afric forebears; which proved to me that
the African loses none of his primal characteristics by
change of climate and circumstances, nor by the progress
of generations. The reflection was then forced upon my
mind that these familiar looking negroes, which we see
every day about us, are indelibly foreigners! Yet what
Southerner looks upon his slave as a barbarian, from a
strange, barbarous land, domesticated in his own house,
his attendant at table, the nurse of his children? Yet
no alien in America is so much a foreigner as the negro!

What a race they are! How naturally they fall into
the dependence of bondage! How familiarly they dwell

in Southern households! How intimately they are associated
with the inmates! How necessary to the happiness
and comfort of the beautiful daughter or aristocratic
lady of the planter, is the constant presence of an Africaness,
black, thick-lipped, and speaking broken English,
—a black daughter of Kedar—whose grandmother may
have danced the Fetish by the fires of human bones, and
whose father sacrificed to idols more hideous than themselves!
How little, I say, does the Southerner realize
who and what the negro is! Yet these descendants of
barbarians and wild Afric tribes are docile, gentle, affectionate,
grateful, submissive, and faithful! In a word,
they possess every quality that should constitute a good
servant. No race of the earth makes such excellent domestics.
It is not in training! They seem to be born
to it! Look at the American Indian, and contrast him
with the African.

In the early history of the United States, many of
these were forced into bondage, but soon pined and died!
In the West Indies the Spaniards would have made the
native Indians slaves, and did compel them to toil, but
in what island of the West Indies are now to be found
any of their descendants in bondage? Perished all!
The proud spirit of the Indian will not brook vassalage.
His will bends not, but breaks! A few months' subjection
to imprisonment broke the great heart of Osceola!
Oh, when I think on the base act of treachery (and by
an American officer, too) by which that gallant and
chivalrous chief was inveigled into the hands of the
Americans, my pulse throbs quicker, and I feel my
cheek warm! It is the darkest act that stains American
history! And our government connived at it!

Our government, which, next to God's, should be supreme
in greatness and glory, justice and mercy, over
the earth, our government availed itself of the treachery,
and so made it its own! Shame on the American arms!
Infamy on the name of an officer, who, under a flag of
truce, could thus violate every principle of honor!

There is just now a good deal of talk about the dissolution
of the Union.[1] We ladies even engage in the
discussion, and, if not with ability, at least with warmth
and patriotism. With but one exception, I am glad to
find all the Tennessee ladies I have met are firm unionists.
This lady said she hoped to see the “North cast
off,” Nashville the capital of a new republic or kingdom,
when Charleston would rival New York, and New Orleans
would be the Constantinople of the world! How
my heart pitied her! Dissolve the Union! It is to expatriate
ourselves. It is to blot the name of America
from the scroll of nations. I have no patience with
such talkers. They know not what they say. What a
speech Mr. Clay has given the nation! Last and mightiest
effort of all. As he advances in years, his intellect
seems to catch glory from the splendor of the world to
which he is near approaching! His speech will be remembered
through all time.

Why should such a man as Mr. Clay or Mr. Webster
wish to be President? This position can add no new
lustre to their names. As Presidents they would be
lost in the long list of Presidents that is to be unrolled
along the tide of time; but simply as American Senators,
(titles, than which none are more dignified on
earth,) they will descend to posterity as the Cicero and

Demosthenes of the early ages of the republic. I would
say to them, “Senators, if you wish to be great for all
time, lie down in your sepulchres with the senatorial
mantle folded upon your breasts.”

You must pardon my bit of politics, Mr. —, but
the Tennessee ladies are all politicians, I believe the most
zealous to be found anywhere, and I have caught their
spirit. It strikes me that every true American woman
should understand the affairs of government, political
motives, great men, and exciting questions of public interest.
So did the Roman matrons, and, doubtless, the
Roman maidens.

But, my paper tells me I must close.