From door to chimney-place, seemed to be
growing blacker and blacker, and I felt as black as
my surroundings. The scant clothing of the
men only half covered their shiny, ebony skins.
The whole company preserved a dignified
silence, which was occasionally broken by deep
sighs coming from the women in reply to a
half-whispered "All de way from de norf in a paper
canno - bless de Lord! bless de Lord!"
This dull monotony was broken by the
entrance of a young negro who, having made a
passage in a sloop to Charleston through Bull's
Bay, was looked upon as a great traveller, and
to him were referred disputes upon nautical
matters. He had not yet seen the boat, but he
proceeded to tell the negroes present all about it.
He first bowed to me with a "How'dy, how'dy,
cap'n," and then struck an attitude in the middle
of the floor. Upon this natural orator Seba
Gillings' dignity had no effect - was he not a
travelled man?
His exordium was: "How fur you cum, sar?"
I replied, about fourteen hundred miles. "
Fourteen hundred miles!" he roared; "duz you
knows how much dat is, honnies? it's jes one
thousand four hundred miles." All the women
groaned out, "Bless de Lord! bless de Lord!"
and clapped their shrivelled hands in ecstasy.
The little black tried to run his fingers through
his short, woolly hair as he continued: "What is
dis yere world a-coming to? Now, yous ere
folks, did ye's eber hear de likes o' dis - a
paper boat?" To which the crones replied,
clapping their hands, "Bless de Lord! bless de
Lord! Only the Yankee-mens up norf can
make de paper boats. Bless de Lord!"
"And what," continued the orator, "and what
will the Yankee-mens do next? Dey duz ebery
ting. Can dey bring a man back agen? Can
dey bring a man back to bref?" "No! no!"
howled the women; "only de Lord can bring a
man back agen - no Yankee-mens can do dat.
Bless de Lord! bless de Lord!" "And what sent
dis Yankee-man one tousand four hundred miles
in his paper boat?" "De Lord! de Lord!
bless de Lord!" shouted the now highly excited
women, violently striking the palms of their
hands together.
"And why," went on this categorical negro,
"did de Lord send him down souf in de paper
boat?" "Kase he couldn't hab cum in de paper
boat ef de Lord hadn't a-sent him. O, bless de
Lord! bless de Lord!" "And what duz he call
his paper boat?" "Maria Theresa," I replied.
"Maria Truss Her," cried the orator. "He calls
her Maria Truss Her. Berry good, berry good
name; kase he truss his life in her ebry day, and
dat's why he calls his little boat Truss Her.
Yes, de Yankee-mans makes de gunboats and
de paper boats. Has de gemmin from de norf
any bacca for dis yere chile?"
As the women had become very piously
inclined, and were in just the state of nervous
excitement to commence "de shoutings," old
Uncle Seba rudely informed them that "de
Yankee-mans wants sleep," and cleared the room of
the crowd, to my great relief, for the state of the
atmosphere was beyond description. Seba had
a closet where he kept onions, muskrat skins,
and other pieces of personal property. He now
set his wife to sweeping it out, and I spread my
clean blankets with a sigh upon the black floor,
knowing I should carry away in the morning more
than I had brought into Seba's dwelling.
I will not now expatiate upon the small
annoyances of travel; but to the canoeist who may
follow the southern watercourses traversed by
the paper canoe, I would quietly say, "Keep
away from cabins of all kinds, and you will by
so doing travel with a light heart and even
temper."
When I cast up my account with old Seba
the next morning, he said that by trading the
rice he raised he could obtain "bout ebbry ting
he wanted, 'cept rum." Rum was his medicine.
So long as he kept a little stowed away, he
admitted he was often sick. Having been
destitute of cash, and consequently of rum for some
time, he acknowledged his state of health
remarkable; and he was a model of strength and
manly development. All the other negroes were
dwarfish-looking specimens, while their hair was
so very short that it gave them the appearance
of being bald.
When the canoe was taken out of the
storehouse to be put into the canal, these half-naked,
ebony-skinned creatures swarmed about it like
bees. Not a trace of white blood could be
detected in them. Each tried to put a finger upon
the boat. They seemed to regard it as a Fetich;
and, I believe, had it been placed upon an end
they would have bowed down and paid their
African devotions to it. Only the oldest ones
could speak English well enough to be
understood. The youths chattered in African tongue,
and wore talismans about their necks. They
were, to say the least, verging on barbarism.
The experience gathered among the blacks of
other lands impressed me with the well-founded
belief, that in more than one place in the south
would the African Fetich be set up and
worshipped before 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.
