Voyage of The Paper Canoe [85]
long, unless the church bestirs herself to look well to her home missions.
In all my travels, outside of the cities, in the south it has not been my good fortune to find an educated white man preaching to negroes, yet everywhere the poor blacks gather in the log-cabin, or rudely constructed church, to listen to ignorant preachers of their own color. The blind leading the blind.
A few men of negro extraction, with white blood in their veins, not any more negro than white man, consequently not negroes in the true sense of the word, are sent from the negro colleges of the south to lecture northern congregations upon the needs of their race; and these one-quarter, or perhaps three-quarters, white men are, with their intelligence, and sometimes brilliant oratory, held up as true types of the negro race by northerners; while there is, in fact, as much difference between the pureblooded negro of the rice-field and this false representative of "his needs," as can well be imagined.
An Irishman, just from the old country, listened one evening to the fascinating eloquence of a mulatto freedman. The good Irishman had never seen a pure-blooded black man. The orator said, "I am only half a black man. My mother was a slave, my father a white planter." "Be jabbers," shouted the excited Irishman, who was charmed with the lecturer, "if you are only half a nigger, what must a whole one be like!"
The blacks were kind and civil, as they usually are when fairly treated. They stood upon the dike and shouted unintelligible farewells as I descended the canal to Alligator Creek. This thoroughfare soon carried me on its salt-water current to the sea; for I missed a narrow entrance to the marshes, called the Eye of the Needle (a steamboat thoroughfare), and found myself upon the calm sea, which pulsated in long swells. To the south was the low island of Cape Roman, which, like a protecting arm, guarded the quiet bay behind it. The marshes extended from the main almost to the cape, while upon the edge of the rushy meadows, upon an island just inside of the cape, rose the tower of Roman Light.
This was the first time my tiny shell had floated upon the ocean. I coasted the sandy beach of the muddy lowlands, towards the lighthouse, until I found a creek debouching from the marsh, which I entered, and from one watercourse to another, without a chart, found my way at dusk into Bull's Bay. The see was rolling in and breaking upon the ashore, which I was forced to hug closely, as the old disturbers of my peace, the porpoises were visible; fishing in numbers. To escape the dangerous raccoon oyster reefs of the shoal water the canoe was forced into a deeper channel, when the lively porpoises chased the boat and drove me back again on to the sharp-lipped shells. It was fast growing dark, and no place of refuge nearer than the upland, a long distance across the soft marsh, which was even now wet with them.
The rough water of the sound, the oyster reefs which threatened to pierce my boat, and a coast which would be submerged by the next floodtide, all seemed to conspire against me. Suddenly my anxiety was relieved, and gratitude filled my heart, as the tall masts of a schooner rose out of the marshes not far from the upland, telling me that a friendly creek was near at hand. Its wide mouth soon opened invitingly before me, and I rowed towards the beautiful craft anchored in its current, the trim rig of which plainly said -- the property of the United States. An officer stood on the quarterdeck watching my approach through his glass; and, as I was passing the vessel, a sailor remarked to his mates, "That is the paper canoe. I was in Norfolk, last December, when it reached the Elizabeth River."
The officer kindly hailed me, and offered me the hospitality of the Coast-Survey schooner "Caswell." In the cosiest of cabins, Mr. W. H. Dennis, with his co-laborers Messrs. Ogden and Bond, with their interesting conversation soon made me forget the discomforts of the last three days spent in the muddy flats among the lowland negroes.
In all my travels, outside of the cities, in the south it has not been my good fortune to find an educated white man preaching to negroes, yet everywhere the poor blacks gather in the log-cabin, or rudely constructed church, to listen to ignorant preachers of their own color. The blind leading the blind.
A few men of negro extraction, with white blood in their veins, not any more negro than white man, consequently not negroes in the true sense of the word, are sent from the negro colleges of the south to lecture northern congregations upon the needs of their race; and these one-quarter, or perhaps three-quarters, white men are, with their intelligence, and sometimes brilliant oratory, held up as true types of the negro race by northerners; while there is, in fact, as much difference between the pureblooded negro of the rice-field and this false representative of "his needs," as can well be imagined.
An Irishman, just from the old country, listened one evening to the fascinating eloquence of a mulatto freedman. The good Irishman had never seen a pure-blooded black man. The orator said, "I am only half a black man. My mother was a slave, my father a white planter." "Be jabbers," shouted the excited Irishman, who was charmed with the lecturer, "if you are only half a nigger, what must a whole one be like!"
The blacks were kind and civil, as they usually are when fairly treated. They stood upon the dike and shouted unintelligible farewells as I descended the canal to Alligator Creek. This thoroughfare soon carried me on its salt-water current to the sea; for I missed a narrow entrance to the marshes, called the Eye of the Needle (a steamboat thoroughfare), and found myself upon the calm sea, which pulsated in long swells. To the south was the low island of Cape Roman, which, like a protecting arm, guarded the quiet bay behind it. The marshes extended from the main almost to the cape, while upon the edge of the rushy meadows, upon an island just inside of the cape, rose the tower of Roman Light.
This was the first time my tiny shell had floated upon the ocean. I coasted the sandy beach of the muddy lowlands, towards the lighthouse, until I found a creek debouching from the marsh, which I entered, and from one watercourse to another, without a chart, found my way at dusk into Bull's Bay. The see was rolling in and breaking upon the ashore, which I was forced to hug closely, as the old disturbers of my peace, the porpoises were visible; fishing in numbers. To escape the dangerous raccoon oyster reefs of the shoal water the canoe was forced into a deeper channel, when the lively porpoises chased the boat and drove me back again on to the sharp-lipped shells. It was fast growing dark, and no place of refuge nearer than the upland, a long distance across the soft marsh, which was even now wet with them.
The rough water of the sound, the oyster reefs which threatened to pierce my boat, and a coast which would be submerged by the next floodtide, all seemed to conspire against me. Suddenly my anxiety was relieved, and gratitude filled my heart, as the tall masts of a schooner rose out of the marshes not far from the upland, telling me that a friendly creek was near at hand. Its wide mouth soon opened invitingly before me, and I rowed towards the beautiful craft anchored in its current, the trim rig of which plainly said -- the property of the United States. An officer stood on the quarterdeck watching my approach through his glass; and, as I was passing the vessel, a sailor remarked to his mates, "That is the paper canoe. I was in Norfolk, last December, when it reached the Elizabeth River."
The officer kindly hailed me, and offered me the hospitality of the Coast-Survey schooner "Caswell." In the cosiest of cabins, Mr. W. H. Dennis, with his co-laborers Messrs. Ogden and Bond, with their interesting conversation soon made me forget the discomforts of the last three days spent in the muddy flats among the lowland negroes.