University of Virginia Library

LETTER LXIV.

It seems to me very strange that people will not
take folks as they are, and not amuse themselves with
guessing that somebody is somebody else. Now I hear
and see from certain editorial notices of my poor
Needles, that I am not Kate Conyngham at all, but that
this is a nom de plume, a mere masque to conceal my
true features. Another saucy fellow of an editor asserts
that I am not a Miss at all, but that I am a Mister
W., or Mister D., or some other gentleman. Dear me!
What can there be so masculine in my poor Needles as
to give rise to such a hint? Even those sage persons
who believe me to be a lady declare that I am Miss
Pardoe, the authoress; some, that I am the fair daughter
of the Rev. Mr. — of Mobile; and some, that I am
a younger sister of —; and somebody says, I dare
say, that I am nobody at all.

Now, Mr. —, I protest against all this skepticism.
Have I not been for five years, or more, your correspondent?
Can you not bear testimony to my personality
and alleged identity? Have you not seen my letters,
and have you not, at this moment, my daguerreo-type?
I call upon you to bear witness to my having
been Miss Katharine Conyngham, and no other lady else,
and that, though I am now a married dame, I am entitled

to that former name, if I choose to retain it as an authoress.
Because the talented Fanny Fern, Grace Green-wood,
and other brilliant autorial ladies, have noms
de plume, is no reason that every one should have!

Please say to these naughty editors that I am myself,
and nobody else, and that I am not a mere shadow, an
“umbra umbrarum,”—if that is bad Latin recollect it
is lady's Latin; and that ladies can decline Bonus better
than a certain western member of congress, who once
gave, as the relic of schooldom, the following toast:—

“The ladies—Bonus, bonior, bonissimus! good, better,
best! The Lord bless 'em!”

But to our pic-nic campaign! I ended my last letter
with an account of our visit from an imaginary buccaneer.
That night we slept as safely in our tents as we should
have done at home; and as the gentlemen took turns,
two at the time, in standing guard to see that we were
not intruded upon by mischievous animals from land or
water, we felt perfectly secure. I recollect falling asleep,
soothed by the sweet melody of a guitar and a fine manly
voice. It was the cavalier, Louis, serenading outside her
tent the fair Mathilde within.

In the morning we were up bright and early, and,
finding breakfast all prepared by the willing servants,
we were soon ready for the day's adventures. The
order for the day was, that the ladies who chose to do so
should accompany the hunters in the largest yacht, as
the former rowed around the island, in search of game;
and that they should fish, crochet, read, and amuse
themselves as they pleased, while the gentlemen landed
and pursued their sport.

We had a delightful row around the point, to the south

of the island, where we again saw the cutter which we
had taken for a buccaneer. It was a beautiful object, all
grace and symmetry, her white wings spread, and her
taper masts diminishing to mere wands.

With all her lightness and grace, her black hull and
warlike guns gave her a battle air that made me think
of sea fights, and all the horrors of naval warfare.

Far away to the west we saw two other vessels, one of
which was the runaway sloop; but she was now trying
to regain the mouth of the Lafourche, no doubt satisfied
that, as the revenue cutter did not molest us, we were
harmless people, with all our fusilading and huzzaing.

But I will not take up your time, Mr. —, in making
you read a complete journal of our ten days' stay in the
islands of the Gulf, for we did not confine ourselves to
the Isle of Birds, but on the fifth day, during which we
had charming weather, the gentlemen got up an expedition
to Barrataria Bay, a few leagues eastward. They
had got weary of killing! Birds of all wings, alligators,
deer, and fish of all fins, had rewarded them and our
praiseworthy efforts; and a change, for the sake of
variety, was gladly welcomed. We, therefore, left a
guard of two servants with our tents, and, having provisioned
our boats for three days, we all embarked in the
sunny, bright morning on our coasting expedition. At
this season of the year the weather is all unbrokenly
fair, and rain was no more to be feared than an earthquake.

It was a delightful voyage along the curving Gulf
shore, from which we did not venture more than four or
five miles. Now and then we could see a distant sail
that lay low on the horizon, and looking no bigger than

a lady's finger-nail. About noon I discovered, with my
“sharp” eyes, a brown smoke, seemingly rising from
the sea. I pointed it out to Marie, and she exclaimed:

“A volcano at sea!”

Whereupon everybody looked from all the boats.

“It is a steamer, bound from New Orleans to Galveston,”
said my husband, the admiral of our fleet.

“But we see no vessel, only smoke,” remarked Grace,
trying to steady a spy glass, which Louis was holding
with both hands to her eye.

“The boat itself is under the line of the horizon,” said
Colonel M.

“The periphery of the earth conceals it beneath the
curved line of the arc of the convex horizon,” said one
of the young men who had lately left college, and was
entitled to talk learnedly.

The sight of a column of smoke, actually rising from
beneath the level sea line of the horizon, was a novel
sight. With the spy-glass we could see the smoke rolling
and rolling skyward, as if not more than a mile apparent
distance, yet no sign of chimney or masts discernible!
There it ascended from its invisible smoke-pipe, for all
the world like a volcano belching itself up out of the
Gulf. We followed it with our eyes until it gradually
receded westward, and disappeared in an hour far below
the horizon's arc.

It is a very strange sight to see smoke traveling along
the sea in that style, without any apparent cause appended.
What a visible proof of the earth's sphericity
it is! I recollect when we passed Portsmouth, in
England, the masts only of the British fleet were visible,
looking like a forest in the water, the hulls being below

the curve. The truth is, that there can be no such thing
as a perfectly straight line on this globulous earth! Even
the yardstick is but a curved wand, to be sure the are
it makes is not perceptible; and the floors of our houses
if extended far enough, would form an are of the earth's
circle of more or less degrees. The term level is a
misnomer—it does not exist. There is nothing level or
plane—sphericity possesses all things terrestrial.

One wouldn't suppose that such a big world as ours
would betray its roundness, in so short a distance as lay
between us and the steamer. I have no doubt, with
proper data to start with, that the height of a steamer's
chimney being known, and also her exact distance from
the eye, a calculation could be made which would reach
a figure that would show the earth's circumference in
miles.

Last summer, while at the beautiful watering place at
Pass Christian, I made a curious and perhaps new
calculation of ascertaining the distance of an object.
There is a light-ship moored nine miles off the town. I
found that by placing a small needle at arm's length
horizontally until the needle and ship appeared to be exactly
the same length, which is when the needle covers
the ship's length completely, that I could verify the distance
to be nine miles. I did it in this way: I first fixed
the needle horizontally by striking it in a post level with
my eye. I then stepped back until the needle and ship
were blended in one another exactly. I then measured
the distance between my eye and the needle in inches.
As I knew the length of the needle and of the ship, with
these three known terms, I obtained accurately, the
fourth unknown one. Perhaps the process is known to

mathematicians; if so, I will not take out a patent. I
wish some of your “great cypherers” would verify this
process.

But I am getting too learned, and must go back to our
pic-nic. All that day we coasted along the level green
shores of the Gulf, with not a tree visible for two and
three leagues inland, and then they looked like round blue
clouds. No shores can be more tame!

At length, just as the lovely day was closing, we came
into the mouth of “Lafitte's Bay,” as it is termed, and
on our right saw the island Barrataria, where the buccaneer
had his rendezvous. Now it looked peaceful enough.
A few fishermen and a fleet of oyster boats were anchored
around it, plying their fishy trade; and we could discover
above a group of trees the roof of a mansion where resides,
or did reside, a planter, who had a sugar plantation on the
island. The gentleman's name I believe is Bennet, and
he has fair daughters, whose presence throw a grace over
the scenes of ancient buccaneerdom, that disassociates
the island of all its former renown, as the home of the
pirates. We remained on board our boats all night; and
such a star bright night never was! The atmosphere appeared
to be full of light. The splendor of the fixed stars,
and the milder lustre of the planets were unsurpassed.
The heavens seemed to come nearer to us. Every star
above had a star beneath it on the sea; and when the
moon arose about eleven o'clock, there was a pavement
of silver across the water from our feet to her very
throne.

The next day we wandered over the island, and picnic'd
on the grassy glacis of the ruined fortress which
Lafitte fortified to defend his island home against cruisers.

A large oak stood near, beneath which he had his tent,
which, says tradition, was more luxuriously furnished
than an Oriental prince's. We were shown by an old
French fisherman, who knew Lafitte, a gun that once
belonged to his vessel; and as the old man, who could
not have been less than seventy, loved to talk of the
famous smuggler, we let him relate his stories to which
we listened—being on the ground itself of the scenes—
with lively interest.

Louis read aloud several pages from one of the romances,
and we sought to verify all the descriptions; but
novelists cannot always make use of placid and level
scenery, and they remove mountains and place them
where they want them; and gardens, waterfalls, vales
and groves, cliffs and rivulets, all obey the waving of
their wand, and presto! appear when they command.
But we found mainly the novel and the scene in gratifying
harmony, one with the other; and where there was
a difference, was evidently owing to the changes produced
by time and circumstances. Our visit was a most
satisfactory one, and we re-embarked at evening, delighted
with our excursion over the Pirate's Isle.

On the evening of the third day we reached our encampment
without mishap, and found all safe. The
next morning we struck tents, and, with our boats filled
with game and its trophies, we set sail, with a fine landward
wind, for the mouth of La Fourche. As you already
know the scenery of that bayou, Mr. —, I will
not describe our voyage home, which we reached on the
third day, all well, and marvelously sun-browned; looking
like so many gipsies. As for my Harry, the little
fellow's cheeks are as brown as a chinquapin; but he has

gained full four pounds, and is more saucy and handsome
than ever.

I was charmed to be once more at home. Not all the
beautiful cabins and pretty yachts, and fishing and
camping out under markees, can compensate for one's
own home. Home is home, and nothing else could be
home! I would rather live in a cabin of logs, and feel
that it was my home; that there was a peg for my husband's
hat; a place for his chair in one corner, and my
work-stand in the other; on my right hand my little tea
cup-board, and on the other the stand with the large
Bible, the cat on the rug, and old Buck, the house-dog,
chained in his kennel; my milch-cow and her calf in the
neat yard, and nobody to molest or rule over us, as one
finds it even in the best of boarding-houses.

There is a wretched and unhappy custom in vogue, for
young married couples to go to a hotel or boarding-house!
When should husband and wife love to be by
themselves in their own home, if not the first months
and year of marriage? It is a miserable life, garish,
hollow, artificial, love-killing, heart-withering life, this
boarding, for young couples! Girls, better wait a-wee!
better delay than be married and put under the peculiar
system of keen-eyed espionage and authority common to
boarding-houses. Boarders have no souls of their own
—that is, they dare not say so! Keep house—if only
in one room! You will be happier, and your husband
will love you better, and it will be far better for you
both. A boarding-house life, for the fresh young hearts
of new married folks, is, with all deference and respect
for all lady-like, and good, kind landladies, like a killing

frost upon the young buds of spring. One never lives
that boards! One only stays and endures!