Voyage of The Paper Canoe [111]
Sweet heav-en am-a-my-am, Sweet heav-en am-a-my-am, Sweet heav-en am-a-my-am, I'll git home to heav-en when I die,"
While visiting a town in Georgia, where the negroes had made some effort to improve their condition, I made a few notes relating to the freedman's debating society of the place. Affecting high-sounding words, they called their organization, "De Lycenum," and its doings were directed by a committee of two persons, called respectively, "de disputaceous visitor," and "de lachrymal visitor." What particular duties devolved upon the "lachrymal visitor," I could never clearly ascertain. One evening these negroes debated upon the following theme, "Which is de best -- when ye are out ob a ting, or when ye hab got it?" which was another form of expressing the old question, "Is there more pleasure in possession than in anticipation?" Another night the colored orators became intensely excited over the query, "Which is de best, Spring Water or Matches?"
The freedmen, for so unfortunate a class, seem to be remarkably well behaved. During several journeys through the southern states I found them usually temperate, and very civil in their intercourse with the whites, though it must be confessed that but few of them can apply themselves steadily and persistently to manual labor, either for themselves or their employers.
CHAPTER XV. DOWN UPON THE SUWANEE RIVER.
THE RICH FOLIAGE OF THE RIVER. -- COLUMBUS. -- ROLINS' BLUFF. OLD TOWN HAMMOCK. -- A HUNTER KILLED BY A PANTHER, DANGEROUS SERPENTS. -- CLAY LANDING. THE MARSHES OP THE COAST, -- BRADFORD'S ISLAND. -- MY LAST CAMP. -- THE VOYAGE ENDED.
Some friends, among whom were Colonel George W. Nason, Jr., of Massachusetts, and Major John Purviance, Commissioner of Suwanee County, offered to escort the paper canoe down "the river of song" to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance, according to local authority, of two hundred and thirty-five miles. While the members of the party were preparing for the journey, Colonel Nason accompanied me to the river, which was less than three miles from Rixford, the proprietors of which sent the canoe after us on a wagon drawn by mules. The point of embarkation was the Lower Mineral Springs, the property of Judge Bryson.
The Suwanee, which was swollen by some recent rains in Okefenokee Swamp, was a wild, dark, turbulent current, which went coursing through the woods on its tortuous route with great rapidity. The luxurious foliage of the river-banks was remarkable. Maples were in blossom, beech-trees in bloom, while the buckeye was covered with its heavy festoons of red flowers. Pines, willows, cotton-wood, two kinds of hickory, water-oak, live-oak, sweet-gum, magnolia, the red and white bay-tree, a few red cedars, and haw-bushes, with many species not known to me, made up a rich wall of verdure on either side, as I sped along with a light heart to Columbus, where my compagnons de voyage were to meet me. Wood-ducks and egrets, in small flocks, inhabited the forest. The limestone banks of the river were not visible, as the water was eighteen feet above its low summer level.
I now passed under the railroad bridge which connects Live Oak with Savannah. After a steady row of some hours, my progress was checked by a great boom, stretched across the river to catch the logs which floated down from the upper country. I was obliged to disembark and haul the canoe around this obstacle, when, after passing a few clearings, the long bridge of the J. P. & M. Railroad came into view, stretching across the now wide river from one wilderness to the other. On the left bank was all that remained of the once flourishing town of Columbus, consisting now of a store, kept by Mr. Allen, and a few buildings. Before the railroad was built, Columbus possessed a population of five hundred souls, and it was reached, during favorable stages of water, by light-draught steamboats from Cedar Keys, on the Gulf of Mexico. The building of railroads in the south has diverted trade
While visiting a town in Georgia, where the negroes had made some effort to improve their condition, I made a few notes relating to the freedman's debating society of the place. Affecting high-sounding words, they called their organization, "De Lycenum," and its doings were directed by a committee of two persons, called respectively, "de disputaceous visitor," and "de lachrymal visitor." What particular duties devolved upon the "lachrymal visitor," I could never clearly ascertain. One evening these negroes debated upon the following theme, "Which is de best -- when ye are out ob a ting, or when ye hab got it?" which was another form of expressing the old question, "Is there more pleasure in possession than in anticipation?" Another night the colored orators became intensely excited over the query, "Which is de best, Spring Water or Matches?"
The freedmen, for so unfortunate a class, seem to be remarkably well behaved. During several journeys through the southern states I found them usually temperate, and very civil in their intercourse with the whites, though it must be confessed that but few of them can apply themselves steadily and persistently to manual labor, either for themselves or their employers.
CHAPTER XV. DOWN UPON THE SUWANEE RIVER.
THE RICH FOLIAGE OF THE RIVER. -- COLUMBUS. -- ROLINS' BLUFF. OLD TOWN HAMMOCK. -- A HUNTER KILLED BY A PANTHER, DANGEROUS SERPENTS. -- CLAY LANDING. THE MARSHES OP THE COAST, -- BRADFORD'S ISLAND. -- MY LAST CAMP. -- THE VOYAGE ENDED.
Some friends, among whom were Colonel George W. Nason, Jr., of Massachusetts, and Major John Purviance, Commissioner of Suwanee County, offered to escort the paper canoe down "the river of song" to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance, according to local authority, of two hundred and thirty-five miles. While the members of the party were preparing for the journey, Colonel Nason accompanied me to the river, which was less than three miles from Rixford, the proprietors of which sent the canoe after us on a wagon drawn by mules. The point of embarkation was the Lower Mineral Springs, the property of Judge Bryson.
The Suwanee, which was swollen by some recent rains in Okefenokee Swamp, was a wild, dark, turbulent current, which went coursing through the woods on its tortuous route with great rapidity. The luxurious foliage of the river-banks was remarkable. Maples were in blossom, beech-trees in bloom, while the buckeye was covered with its heavy festoons of red flowers. Pines, willows, cotton-wood, two kinds of hickory, water-oak, live-oak, sweet-gum, magnolia, the red and white bay-tree, a few red cedars, and haw-bushes, with many species not known to me, made up a rich wall of verdure on either side, as I sped along with a light heart to Columbus, where my compagnons de voyage were to meet me. Wood-ducks and egrets, in small flocks, inhabited the forest. The limestone banks of the river were not visible, as the water was eighteen feet above its low summer level.
I now passed under the railroad bridge which connects Live Oak with Savannah. After a steady row of some hours, my progress was checked by a great boom, stretched across the river to catch the logs which floated down from the upper country. I was obliged to disembark and haul the canoe around this obstacle, when, after passing a few clearings, the long bridge of the J. P. & M. Railroad came into view, stretching across the now wide river from one wilderness to the other. On the left bank was all that remained of the once flourishing town of Columbus, consisting now of a store, kept by Mr. Allen, and a few buildings. Before the railroad was built, Columbus possessed a population of five hundred souls, and it was reached, during favorable stages of water, by light-draught steamboats from Cedar Keys, on the Gulf of Mexico. The building of railroads in the south has diverted trade