University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

I was at New York in the opening of July. My trunks were
packed, and I was drawing on my boots, making ready for
departure. Everybody was leaving town, flying from the approaching
dog-days in the city. I had every reason to depart
also. I had certainly no motive to remain. New York was
growing inconceivably dull with all her follies. Art wore only
its stalest aspects, and lacked all attractions to one who had survived
his own verdancy. Why should I linger?

But, in leaving the city, I was about to pursue no ordinary
route of travel. While my friends were all flying to the interior,
seeking cool and shady glades along the Hudson, deep caves of
the Catskills, wild ridges and glens of the Adirondack, or quiet
haunts in Berkshire, I had resolved on returning south — going
back to Carolina in midsummer. A friend who had heard of
my intentions suddenly burst into my chamber with all the fervency
of a northeaster.

“What does all this mean?” was his question. “Back to
the south? In the name of Capricorn and Cancer, why this
most perverse of all determinations? What can you mean by
it? Is it suicide you purpose? Is death in the swamps, of
malaria, musquito, and coup de soleil, preferable to knife or pistol?
Can you really prefer black vomit, to an easy and agreeable
death from charcoal? Prussic acid will be more easy and

more grateful, and you will make a far more agreeable corpse
in the eyes of the spectator. Yellow fever spoils the complexion;
and the very delay which you make in dying, by such a
process — though sufficiently rapid for all mortal purposes — will
yet be such a loss of flesh as to lessen your proportions grievously
when laid out. Choose some other form of exit. Let it
be short, agreeable, and in no ways hurtful to your physique or
complexion. Next to the loss of one's friend, is the pain one
feels in seeing the ugly changes which a vicious disease, acting
through the liver, makes in his personal appearance. Be counselled.
If you will die, go with me to the chemist. We will
get you something which shall serve your purpose, without producing
tedious discomfort and spoiling your visage.”

My friend was a genuine Manhattan — a lively rattlepate of
good taste and good manners, who had the most unbounded
faith in New York; who venerated the ancient Dutch régime
of Peter Stuyvesant, hated the Yankees quite as much as the
southrons are said to do; but, as usual in Gotham, believed
the south to be a realm of swamp only, miasma, malaria, musquito,
and other unmentionable annoyances — totally uninhabitable
in midsummer — from which all persons commonly fled as
from the wrath of Heaven.

“Nay, nay,” was my answer. “I am not for suicide. I
sha'n't die in Carolina. You forget, I am a native. Our diseases
of the south are so many defences. They are of a patriotic
influence and character. They never afflict the natives.
They only seize upon the spoiler — those greedy birds of passage,
who come like wild geese and wild ducks, to feed upon
our rice-fields, and carry off our possessions in their crops, when
the harvest is ready for the gathering. We are as healthy in
Carolina in midsummer, nay much more so, than you are in New
York. Charleston, for example, is one of the healthiest seaports
in the Union.”

“Oh! get out. Tell that to the marines. But, supposing
that I allow all that. Supposing you don't die there, or even
get your liver out of order — there are the discomforts — the hot,
furnace-like atmosphere, the musquitoes — the — the —”

“You multiply our miseries in vain. I grant you the musquitoes,
but only along the seaboard. Twenty miles from the coast, I can

carry you to the most delicious pineland settlements and climate,
where you need to sleep with a blanket, where no epidemic prevails,
no sickness in fact, and where a musquito is such a rarity,
that people gather to survey him, and wonder in what regions
he can harbor; and examine him with a strange curiosity, which
they would never exhibit, if he could, then and there, make
them sensible of his peculiar powers. When one happens there,
driven by stress of weather, he pines away in a settled melancholy,
from the sense of solitude, and loses his voice entirely
before he dies. He has neither the heart to sing, nor the
strength to sting, and finally perishes of a broken heart. His
hope of safety, it is said, is only found in his being able to fasten
upon a foreigner, when he is reported to fatten up amazingly.
The case, I admit, is rather different in Charleston. There he
is at home, and rears a numerous family. His name is Legion.
He is a dragon in little, and a fierce bloodsucker. There he
sings, as well as stings, with a perfect excellence of attribute.
By the way, I am reminded that I should use the feminine in
speaking of the stinging musquito. A lady naturalist has somewhere
written that it is the male musquito which does the singing,
while the female alone possesses the stinging faculty. How
the discovery was made, she has not told us. But the fact need
not be questioned. We know that, among birds, the male is
usually the singer. Let it pass. The musquitoes, truly, are
the most formidable of all the annoyances of a summer residence
in Charleston; but, even there, they are confined mostly to certain
precincts. In a fine, elevated, airy dwelling, open to south
and west, with double piazzas along the house in these quarters,
and with leisure and money in sufficient quantity, I should just
as soon, for the comfort of the thing, take up my abode for the
summer in the venerable city watered by the Ashley and the
Cooper, as in any other region of the world.”

“Pooh! pooh! You Charlestonians are such braggers.”

“Good! This said by a Manhattan, whose domestic geese
are all Cygnets — rare birds, verily!”

“But the horrid heat of Charleston.”

“The heat! Why Charleston is a deal cooler than either
New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, in summer.”

“Psha! How you talk.”

“I talk truly. I have tried all these cities. The fact is as
I tell you; and when you consider all things, you will not venture
to doubt. Charleston is directly on the sea. Her doors
open at once upon the gulf and the Atlantic. The sea rolls
its great billows up to her portals twice in twenty-four hours,
and brings with them the pleasantest play of breezes that ever
fanned the courts of Neptune, or made music for the shells of
Triton. There are no rocky heights on any side to intercept
the winds. All is plain sailing to and from the sea. Besides,
we build our houses for the summer climate. While you, shuddering
always with the dread of ice and winter, wall yourselves
in on every hand, scarcely suffering the sun to look into your
chambers, and shutting out the very zephyr, we throw our doors
wide to the entrance of the winds, and multiply all the physical
adjuncts which can give us shade and coolness. A chamber in
a large dwelling will have its half dozen windows — these will
be surrounded with verandahs — great trees will wave their
green umbrellas over these in turn; and, with a shrewd whistle
— a magic peculiarly our own — we persuade the breeze to take
up its perpetual lodgings in our branches. Remember, I speak
for our dwelling-houses — these chiefly which stand in the southern
and western portions of the city. In the business parts,
where trade economizes space at the expense of health and
comfort, we follow your Yankee notions — we jam the houses
one against the other in a sort of solid fortress, shutting our
faces against the breezes and the light, the only true resources
against lassitude, dyspepsia, and a countless host of other disorders.”

`I don't believe a word of it.”

“Believe as you please, but the case is as I tell you.”

“And you persist in going south?”

“I do; but my purpose is only to pass through Charleston,
after a brief delay. I am going to spend the summer among
our mountains.”

“Mountains! Why, what sort of mountains have you in Carolina?”

“Not many, I grant you, but some very noble, very lofty,
very picturesque: some, to which your famous Catskill is only
a wart of respectable dimensions! Our Table Rock, for example,

is a giant who could take his breakfast, with the greatest
ease, from your most insolent and conceited summits.”

“Why have we never heard of them before?”

“Because you are talking all the while of your own. You
hear nothing. Were you to stop your own boasting for a season,
and listen to your neighbors, you would scarcely continue to assume,
as you do, that the world's oyster, everywhere, was to be
opened only by the New York knife. In the matter of mountains,
North Carolina, where she borders on South, is in possession
of the most noble elevations in the United States proper.
Black Mountain is understood to be the loftiest of our summits.
But there are many that stretch themselves up, in the same region,
as if eager for its great distinctions. Here you find a
grand sea of mountains; billow upon billow, stretching away
into remoter states, on all hands, till the ranging eye loses itself
with their blue peaks, among the down-tending slopes of heaven.
It is here that I propose to refresh myself this summer. I
shall explore its gorges, ascend its heights, join the chase with
the mountain hunters, and forget all your city conventionalities,
in a free intercourse with a wild and noble nature. Take my
counsel and do the same. Go with me. Give up your Newport
and Saratoga tendencies, and wend south with me in search of
cool breezes and a balmy atmosphere.”

“Could I believe you, I should! I am sick of the ancient
routes. But I have no faith in your report. You think it patriotism
to paint your sepulchres. Their handsome outsides, under
your limning, shall not tempt me to approach them, lest they
yawn upon me. But, write me as you go. `Description is
your forte.' I shall find your pictures pleasant enough, when
not required to believe them truthful. Refresh me with your
fictions. Do you really believe you shall see a mountain where
you go — anything higher than a hill — anything approaching
our Highlands?”

“Go with me. See for yourself.”

“Could I persuade myself that I should not be drowned in
a morass, eaten up by musquitoes, have my liver tortured by
Yellow Jack, and my skin utterly cured for drumheads by your
horrid sun — I might be tempted. You would betray me to my
fate. I can't trust you.”

“Hear me prophesy! Fifteen years will not pass before the
mountain ranges of the Carolinas and Georgia will be the fashionable
midsummer resort of all people of taste north of the
Hudson. They will go thither in search of health, coolness,
pure air, and the picturesque.”

“You say it very solemnly, yet I should more readily believe
in a thousand other revolutions. At all events, if you will go
south in July, see that the captain of your steamer takes an iceberg
in tow as soon as she gets out to sea. There are several
said to be rolling lazily about off Sandy Hook. Write me if you
survive; and deal in as much pleasant fiction as you can. I
shall look for nothing else. Now that postage is nothing, I am
ambitious of a large correspondence.”

“You shall hear from me.”

“And, by the way, you may do some good in your scribblings,
by enlightening others. In truth, your country is very
much a terra incognita. Let us have a description of manners
and customs, scenery and people. A touch of statistics, here
and there, will possibly open the way to our capital and enterprise;
and, to one so fond of such things as myself, an occasional
legend or tradition — the glimpse of an obscure history of
the Revolution — or of the time beyond it — will greatly increase
the value of your correspondence.”

“A good hint! I may inspire that faith in others which you
withhold — very unwisely, I must say. Your world does, in
truth, need some honest information touching ours, by which to
keep it from such sad mistakes as augur much mischief for the
future.”

“Oh! no politics now, I beg! Leave them to the cats and
monkeys — the dogs and demagogues.”

“Don't fear! My epistles shall be penned in accordance
with my moods and humors — according to passing facts and
fancies — and I shall only occasionally take you — over the ditch
and gutter! This assurance should keep you in good humor.”

“Write of what you see, of course.”

“And of what I feel.”

“And of what you think.”

“And of what I hear.”

“And of what you know.”

“And of what I believe.”

“And—”

“What more! One would think these requisitions quite sufficient.
I shall try to comply with them — at my leisure.”

“Don't forget to give us a story now and then — a legend —
fact or fabrication — I don't care which. You may wind up a
chapter with a song, and a description with a story.”

“You are indulgent! Well, I will do what I can for you. I
shall report my daily experiences, and something more. My
memory shall have full play, and the events of former progresses
shall be made to illustrate the present. I shall exercise
perfect freedom in what I write — a liberty I hope always to
enjoy — and shall soothe the idle vein, by affording every privilege
to Fancy. Without some such privilege, your traveller's
narrative is apt to become a very monotonous one; and he who
drily reports only what he sees, without enlivening his details
by what he feels, or fancies, or remembers, will be very apt,
however much he may desire to correspond, to find few friends
willing to pay postage on his letters, even at present prices.”

“Good! You have the right notion of the thing. Well!
You go at three? I shall see you off. Adios!”

Sure enough, at the designated hour, my friend waited my
arrival on the quarter-deck of the good steamer Marion, Berry
master. Our hands grasped.

“I am here,” said he.

“I am grateful!”

“Stay! Hear me out! Your words have prevailed. I am
anxious to believe your fiction. I am tired of Newport and
Saratoga — long for novelty — have insured my life for ten
thousand — and now, ho! for the South! I go with you as I
am a living man!”

And we sang together the old chant of the Venetian, done
into English —