University of Virginia Library

LETTER LXV.

I am, for a few days, sojourning in this lovely shore-side
village of villas, Pass Christian. It is, as the map
will, or ought to show you, on Lake Pontchartrain, where
the south border of Mississippi is washed by the waves
of the salt sea. The “Pass,” as it is familiarly called,
is celebrated for its pure and salubrious air, the beauty
of its site, the elegance of its private mansions, the refinement
and wealth of its citizens, its excellent academy
of education for young misses, and its military school;
moreover, it is the favorite summer resort of the more
opulent New Orleanois, many of whom have built tasteful
abodes along the shore facing the lake, where gardens
and lawns, porticoes and verandahs, enchant the
eye.

There is properly only one street comprising the town;
but this street is four miles long, open one side to the
breezes of gulf, and on the other bordered by handsome
villas, most of its length.

A little brown Roman Catholic chapel lifts its cross
amid these mansions, its front adorned with two statues,
one of the Virgin, and another of St. Paul, in a niche
high above the entrance. There is appended to the latter,
this inscription:—

So, to the Teacher of the Nations, this chapel is dedicated,
while “Mary,” like the goddess Diana, (for the
blessed Virgin is now made a goddess by the Pope,)
stands upon a pedestal above, to receive the homage and
worship of her votaries. Jesus, being always represented
only as a little child, is quite cast into the shade
by His mother. The Romans, in their adorations, never
seem to contemplate Christ as a man, but only as the
“child Jesus” in the mother's arms, and hence transfer
all their worship to the mother, whom, it would seem,
they believe more capable of appreciating it than a babe.
I think this, as I have before remarked, is the secret of
their Mariolatry.

Nevertheless, it is a pretty little chapel, and in keeping
with the place; but its worshipers are chiefly of the
humble class of Creole fishermen, and descendants of
the old French families; for the Pass was once wholly
French. Here the Marquis of Ponchartrain once sojourned,
and buried his only daughter, who, report says,
died of love for an Indian Prince. Her grave is beneath
three live oaks that stand on the verge of the beach, not
far from the chapel; but the head-stone has long since
disappeared. It was this nobleman who gave name to
the lake. The residence of the Marquis, who was one
of the most accomplished courtiers of the French court,
and sent by Louis to govern this Province, is now marked
only by the site of the light house, which stands in a
garden; a lovely object, peering above the trees, and
singularly contrasting with the usual desolate look of
such edifices, standing alone and treeless upon some

storm-beaten headland. In the same garden with this
snow-white tower, which, after sunset sends its brilliant
light far out upon the waters, guiding the mariner home,
is the village post-office; a snug little cottage nestling
under its walls. The post-master is a “lady,” and the
daughter, if I mistake not, of the famous Captain Hearn,
who, in the last war, beat off a British vessel that was
coming in to fire the town; or he did some equally brave
act, for which, government at this day rewards the
daughter by an office, as it did the father. A son of
this sea-fighter commanded the superb steamer, Cuba, in
which we came over from New Orleans; and, though a
large, rough looking man, he has a great and generous
heart, and is as true a gentleman as ever took off his hat
to a lady; and looks as, if there were any more fighting
to do for his country, he would not be found wanting.
When I was quite a young girl, I used to think no man
could be a gentleman who did not dress in the “fashion,”
wear kid gloves, a nicely brushed hat, and polished boots,
with one ring at least, and a gold watch. But that was
the folly and ignorance of girlhood, which thinks all lovers
should be knights in helmet and buckler, and that no
young knight was fit for a lady's love who had not killed
his rival and her other lover in a “wager of battle.”

Dear me! I have had time to reverse my decision
since then; and much dressed men I always suspect! I
have found in the world that the truest merit is without
affectation; and that a right down gentleman thinks but
little of fashion; and so I have met with as noble and
true gentlemen in rough linsey-woolsey garb, as in
broadcloth. In a word, I do not now form a preconceived
opinion of a man from his dress or appearance.

The most eminent men that one falls in with in traveling,
are the plainest and simplest in dress and
manner.

The Pass, as I have said, consists in one long street,
that winds and bends with the graceful curve of the lake
shore. About the centre of this is the landing place,
where passengers embark and disembark for Mobile or
New Orleans; these cities being about equi-distant (or
seven hours' sail) on each side of the Pass.

About half a mile from the pier, westward, is the
Lake Institute, at the head of which is the Rector of the
church here, Rev. Dr. Savage, the gentleman who was
pioneer in the Cape Palmas mission, and who remained
nine years in Africa, which owes more to him than to any
other man living, for her religious prosperity. The
doctor is a scientific man, and is a member of several
foreign and cis-Atlantic Academies of Science; and, as
a naturalist, he stands in the front rank. I was charmed
with a visit made yesterday to his school, which is a
large southern-built mansion house, facing the lake, from
which it is separated by a spacious lawn, tastefully ornamented.
The trees of a pine grove form a dark, rich
background to the house and its dormitories and study
hall. This school is the best in the South, and deservedly
has a high reputation. It numbers about sixty pupils,
which, I believe, is its full limit. It is patronized chiefly
by Mobile and New Orleans; and of the former city I
saw at least a dozen fair girls, whose beauty gives one a
favorable idea of female loveliness in that city, which we
are soon to visit.

So great is the hostility of the northern abolitionists
against the South, that southern parents are becoming

more and more reluctant to send their sons and daughters
there to return with hostile opinions to create discord
and confusion at home. For self-protection they
are rallying around their own Colleges and Female Institutes;
and all that has been wanting was this union
of purpose, to raise schools of learning to the highest
scholastic rank. Northern teachers are regarded with
suspicion, though employed. Lately Professor Silliman
has struck a death-blow to the sending southern young
men north, by asserting in a public lecture: “We do
not want your southern youth! We can get along without
them!” It will be a bold Southerner that sends his
son to a northern college after this.

Even the school-books published in the North are to
be expurgated, ere they will be introduced into Southern
schools, for instance, in a geography now before me,
printed in New York, occurs a sentence which says “that
the negroes will yet one day rise against the Southern
planters and destroy them;” and fifty other such things
are in Northern school books. The result will be, that
unless Abolitionism cease its hostility, the South will
separate itself from the North virtually, by having its
own teachers, schools, clergy, mechanics, literature, and
books of education.

The church, of which the Rev. Dr. Savage is Rector,
is near the Institute, in a grove of oaks and pines. It
is a picturesque Gothic edifice, and the very beau ideal
of a rural church. In the rear is the cemetery, with a
handsome arch above the gate-way, and contains several
tasteful tombs. A Sabbath holiness and quiet reigned
over the spot when I visited it yesterday. I was shown
there the grave of a wealthy young South Carolinian,

who had been a dissipated man and a sceptic. Just before
he died he desired ten acres to be purchased of
government in the wild forest beyond the town, and a
grave to be dug in the centre, wherein he directed his
friends to place his body; and after filling the grave, to
smooth it level with the surrounding earth, and removing
all signs of sepulture, let the grass and the brush grow
up and conceal it from human search; and in order that
it might be forgotten, the land was never to be claimed
by his heritors, but to revert to the government again as
wild land.

This Will—the expression of a soul dark and desolate,
without the hopes and promises of the Gospel, which
make the grave a hallowed rest, above which Hope ever
hovers on golden wings, waiting the resurrection morn—
this Will was, of course, not carried out. His body was
conveyed to this secluded cemetery, and here interred,
with all the respect that the living owe the dead.

Upon leaving this solemn home of the dead of earth,
our steps took us in the direction of a mound near the
village blacksmith's dingy shop. Already I knew the
story of this green mound of earth; but an old negro,
“Uncle Tom,” at the shop, gravely and politely, with
his hat in his hand, informed my husband, “Dat it was
de fort General Jackson fout the Indjuns from.” General
Jackson however never “fout” at the Pass.

The mound is now much worn away; but trees grow
upon it showing its age. It is an interesting relic of the
past. By the French it was called the “Young King's
Tomb.” The tradition is, that when the Indian chief
heard that Eugenie, the daughter of Marquis Pontchartrain,
had wilted and died like a blighted flower, he

refused to eat, broke his spear in two, buried his arrows,
and sat day and night upon her grave singing his death
song. At length he was found cold and dead one sunrise,
his head laid upon her grave. The warriors bore
his body to the place where his father was buried, and
entombed him with his arms, beneath a mound which
their affection raised to his memory. Not far distant is
another mound, not so high, where repose the bones of
Tamala, his father. The sound of the forge and the
anvil alone break the stillness of the spot.

As we turned away to resume our loitering about the
Pass, a man walked slowly by, whom a lady, who was
with us, pointed out as the son of a celebrated buccaneer
who used to rendezvous here.

Afterwards I saw this man, now a peaceable citizen,
part farmer, part fisherman, who not only verified the
assertion, but from him I learned that his brother, who
dwelt upon the coast, had in his possession a package of
papers and a chart of an island in the Gulf, which directed
where exactly to find buried a great treasure. This
treasure consisted of the spoils, he said, of Spanish ships,
and had been buried on one of the Tortugas'; but no man
had yet been to search for it. He has promised to get
the papers, which he said are written in French, and a
copy of the chart. Hear that, Mr. —! The next I
shall hear of you, may be, that you are commanding a
schooner in search of this hidden treasure!

There is no doubt about this man having “the papers,”
I am told by a gentleman here; but as such researches
have so often proved failures, no attention has been paid
to the fact. You shall be duly informed, Mr.—, when
I discover the hidden gold.

This was once a famous haunt for buccaneers, and after
cruisers broke up their “dreadful trade,” they settled
down here in quiet occupations; and among the humble
French citizens, are found their descendants—inoffensive
people enough, who subsist by fishing and coasting.

There is a Military Academy here under the command
of Ashbel Green, once a lawyer in Philadelphia, and son
to a former President of Princeton College. It is, I
understand, a very efficient school, with about fifty
cadets.

There is an amusing peculiarity of water scenery
here at the Pass. Every house on the shore has its
private bath-house. The water being shoal, they are
erected at the end of a wharf projecting sometimes a
thousand feet out into the lake. Thus, when one looks
up or down the shore in front of the town, the eye is
filled with the spectacle of one or two hundred narrow
bridges and bathing-houses, built on the water. At evening
and other bathing-hours, these bridges “in the season”
are filled with ladies and children and servants, going to
and from the baths; the former grotesquely arrayed in
long waistless robes of calico or gingham, and their faces
concealed by horrid hoods or veils. At such hours,
gentlemen are tabooed the baths; but they have their
time too. Nothing is thought of, or spoken of in summer,
but bathing. “Have you bathed to-day?” takes the
place of “How do you do?” in other places. Not to
bathe daily is to be voted out of society.

The school-girls go to the bath in merry parties at
day-dawn, and frights they look in their awkward, loose
bathing gear. I am told these misses swim like ducks,
and have been out as far as a buoy in the channel, a

quarter of a mile beyond the bath house. But this is
now forbidden, as a young lady from Mobile, last summer,
being too venturesome, and not yet as skillful a swimmer
as her companions, in following them out became wearied
and sank. Two of her companions, both a year younger
than herself, but good swimmers, bravely dove down and
brought her to the surface, and sustained her until they
regained footing.

It must be laborious swimming in those heavy saturated
robes which the bathers wear. I never had courage to
go beyond the latticed fence of the bath house; and
then I am afraid that some ugly fish, crab, or “fiddler”
will bite my feet! Yet bathing is a luxury; and some
of the citizens bathe before every meal, all summer
long.

We remain here a week longer, and then proceed to
Mobile on our way north to pass the summer.