The most degraded slaves in the South, it has been commonly testified by Southerners themselves, were to be found in South Carolina and on the sugar plantations of the South-west. Of the South Carolina slaves, the most ignorant and debased, beyond all question, were those on the sea islands about Port Royal. Engaged in unhealthy work, to which none but the coarsest of fiber were likely to be subjected, and steeped in the normal ignorance of the rice swamp and the cotton field, they were likewise isolated on their islands, and shut out from that mysterious transmission of intelligence, concerning their own interests, which seemed to permeate, like a magnetic current, all large communities of negroes.

They were mostly of the pure Congo type; there was no mixture of white blood; intelligent mechanics and “smart niggers” generally were too valuable to be sent here; their masters were absent a great part of the year, and they were left to the humanizing control of the overseers; their provisions were, in many instances, grown elsewhere and sent to them, so that there was not even this diversion of a different culture from the never-ending monotony of the cotton and rice fields. They received, once a week, a peck of corn, and, once a month, a quart of salt, and on this they lived. When the hardest work was required, they received a little molasses and salt meat in addition; and, for a part of each year, a bushel of sweet-potatoes was allowed each week, in place of the corn. Whatever more than this they received, they owed to the generosity of unusually kind masters. They herded together in cabins, twelve by eighteen or twenty feet, sometimes floored, but oftener floorless; they got enough of the coarse negro cloth to make, by close cutting, two suits a year, and at Christmas they had three days to themselves. The other three hundred and sixty-two were given to cotton and rice. Marriage was unknown among them; breeding was enjoined as the first of duties; purity, delicacy and education were alike impossible. If any system of compulsory labor could make brutes out of intelligent men, would not this do it? If any system could fail to make brutish men more brutish, surely it would not be this one!

When the “great confusion” (as they call the sudden flight of their masters on Dupont’s arrival at Hilton Head) came, the house servants, who, by contact with the whites, had necessarily gained some intelligence, were all taken off to the interior. This utterly debased cotton and rice-planting community of Congoes was left; and it is this community, almost unmixed, which now cultivates the sea islands under the supervision of General Saxton. There were some five thousand of them here before the war. I am told that not five hundred of the old stock are now missing from their accustomed places.

The moral of what I have written is plain. If the “negro-elevation” effort of the Abolitionists is to fail anywhere, it would be likely to fail here. If it succeed among these degraded people, it would be likely to succeed anywhere. The experiment has been tried, amid constant uncertainties and discouragements, for three years. The results, whatever they may be, are of the first importance.

When Generals Gillmore and Saxton, therefore, proposed to take our party through Lady’s and St. Helena Islands, without any previous notice to the blacks; to show us the crops, the villages, the negroes at church and on their plantations, I prepared myself for any disappointment. The morning was a beautiful one; and, although the rays of the unclouded sun were intense, a fresh breeze from the ocean made the trip by no means uncomfortable. On steaming up to Beaufort we found carriages, in waiting, on the opposite side, at the upper end of Lady’s Island. Some little cabins, surrounded by unfenced fields of cotton, remarkably free from weeds, stood near the landing; and a few picaninnies watched our debarkation, while their fathers, cleanly clad and respectful, stood by the carriages.

The sandy road led off among the cotton fields down the island. On either side were old wire fences, constructed by the former proprietors, sometimes running along fine avenues of trees, in the stems of which the wires are deeply imbedded, and sometimes propped up on crazy posts. Here and there could be seen frame houses, containing three or four rooms, the old residences of the overseers, or, indeed, sometimes of the planters themselves; for Southern “mansions” were generally inferior, in every particular, save high-sounding titles, to Northern “cottages.” Rude pine-log cabins, sometimes with the bark removed in a rough attempt at hewing, dotted the fields. They were, occasionally, large enough for two rooms, and were nearly always surrounded by a few growing garden vegetables, separated in no way however, from the rows of cotton that extended up to them.

Sometimes, for half a mile, the road passed through a splendid avenue of live-oaks, the pendulous Spanish moss, from the limbs, sweeping across our carriage tops, while the whistle from the mocking-bird came from the upper branches. Then the avenue faded away into a thicket of dwarf live-oaks, trespassing for several yards, each side of the road, upon the cotton fields, and mingling presently with cotton-woods, bayonet plants and other like species of the palmetto, yellow pines and a clambering growth of grape-vines and honeysuckles. Through this undergrowth could still be seen the long rows of cotton stretching along on either hand out of sight.

The fences by the roadside soon faded out, and for miles scarcely any were to be seen. Little stakes, here and there, would mark the boundaries of individual possessions; but besides these, there would be no divisions in fields of two or three hundred acres of cotton. Then would come a tract, equally as large, lying fallow, and covered with a luxurious growth of dewberries that tempted more than one of our party to delay the progress to church while we went “berrying.” In other places great tracts were observed in which the furrows of cotton, cultivated years ago, could still be plainly traced, although the ground was now covered with a dense growth of pines. Since the flight of the slaveholders, however, some of this has been reclaimed; and more land is now under cultivation, both on Lady’s Island and on St. Helena, than when they fell into our hands.

The cotton was still small, but the rich sandy loam seemed to suit it well, and gentlemen familiar with the cotton culture, who accompanied us, said it could not look better. The fields were beautifully clean—it is rare that a Western corn field shows as careful culture—and the women and old men, who now do most of the work on these islands, had carefully hilled it up with the hoe, till, in places, it could hardly be distinguished from the ridges heaped for the sweet-potato plants about the cabins. We did not pass a field, in our twelve miles drive out and as many back (partly by a different road), that would not bear a favorable comparison with the average of Northern farming.^[18] Since the Government has been offering large bounties for volunteers, most of the young men from these islands have gone into the army, filling up such regiments as that of Colonel Howard, which we saw at Beaufort, and all this work has, therefore, been done by the weaker and more infirm classes of the population. General Saxton has not encouraged it, but the negro women still work freely in the fields. The withdrawal of the young men from the islands has been, in some respects, an advantage. They tell of such sights as the uncles and aunts, gathered in to tie and whip some young scapegrace who persisted in neglecting his crop, and whom they feared, they would, therefore, have to support next winter. No whipping is needed now; the crops are cultivated better than before, and when young scapegrace comes back from the army, he will be found to possess a manliness that will scarcely require the further stimulus of the lash.

A long, wooden bridge, spanning one of the little estuaries that cut up these islands, led us across into St. Helena. By this time the roads were alive with a gaily-dressed throng of blacks, of both sexes and all ages, wending their way, on foot, on horseback, in carts and wagons, and even, in a few cases, in Northern trotting buggies, to the Central Church. Noticing their cheerful, contented air, their gay chat, their cleanly appearance and repartie among themselves, their respectful and cordial greetings to the passing Generals, and the manifest tokens of prosperity evinced in modes of locomotion, personal adornment and the like, one could clearly believe General Saxton’s renewed declaration, that, in all substantial respects, considering their peculiar difficulties, they would contrast not discreditably with any peasantry in the world.

As we turned off from the main road, which runs the whole length of the island, and began to pass through the gates, which made a sort of private way among the cotton fields to the church, the throng increased, till the roads were alive with the church-going freedmen. Every little group stopped as we came up; every old negress gave us a droll bob of the head; the men touched their hats, soldier fashion, or lifted them altogether from their heads, and the young women made, in many cases, not ungraceful courtesies. “Dere’s General Saxby,” we could often hear energetically whispered among the groups, and there was no mistaking the pleased expression which the name summoned to every countenance. “Are not negroes likely hereafter, as heretofore, to be controlled by their old masters?” some one asks. “We’s know our frens, massa,” was the emphatic answer of a coal-black plantation hand, the other day, when I put some such question to him. Clearly, these people, on St. Helena, “know their friends.”

Presently a group of negroes, with many a respectful scrape of the foot and tug at the hat, threw open the last gate, and, under a refreshing canopy of trees, we drove to the old country church, which, time out of mind, has been the central worshipping place for both whites and blacks of St. Helena. Overflowing all the church-yard, flooding the road, through which our carriages could hardly be driven, and backing up against the grave-yard, were the negroes, gay with holiday attire, many-colored kerchiefs, and the best their earnings (and the sutler’s extortions) would permit them to buy. The woods, back of the church, were filled with carts and wagons; the horses were unharnessed, tied to the trees and fed; their owners were gathered in groups about the carts, discussing the condition of the cotton crop, or the price Sam had paid for “dat new mar;” and how much “Aunt Sukie was gittin’ down to Bufor’ for dem dis year’s pullets.”

The interior of the plain, low brick church was deserted, the deacons having decided that there was not room for the throng in attendance—an event, as we afterward learned, of almost weekly occurrence. Three times in the week these people had filled the “praise meetings” on their respective plantations, and already there had been another such meeting on Sunday before they started to church; yet, here was a great throng, which the church could not contain, and still the roads, for miles in each direction, swarmed with those yet coming. We have been told that emancipated slaves would be disorderly vagrants, and, doubtless, there is ground for some apprehension, but this Sabbath scene does not tend to increase it.

Within the church were traces of the slaveholding era, as one finds in the Silurian stratification fossils that tell the story of a past age. The doors were on each side, near the middle of the building, and connected by a broad aisle. Above this, toward the pulpit, were the square, high-backed pews for the planters of the island—when they chose to occupy them. Back of the aisle were rude benches, which the poor whites, or, in their absence, the negroes, were privileged to take; and in the long galleries on either side (approached by stairs that were built for the steps of giants), were benches exclusively devoted to the negro population. The pews still stand with open doors, nearest the pulpit; but the men that filled them come no more. Some are North, many fill unknown graves, or trenches on battle-fields, the rest are in that unexplored region, whence come no sounds but those of sorrow, “the interior.” And to the right of the pulpit, in a shady little inclosure, still carefully preserved, are the moss-grown marble monuments, which no filial hands come now to garnish or adorn. The graves of their fathers have passed under the guardianship of the alien race.

While our party stood looking about this scene of the past, a white-wooled deacon came, with the politeness, if not the grace, of an old-world master of ceremonies, to summon us to one of the present. “De people is gathered, sah, and was ready for de suvvices to begin.” There was a not unnatural sensation as the Major-Generals, the Chief Justice and the ladies of the party, were led through the crowd to a little platform under the live-oaks; but it was when Rev. Dr. Fuller—“ole massa Richard”—made his appearance, that the wondering stare brightened and eyes grew moist, and ancient negresses could be heard vehemently whispering “Bress de Lod, bress de Lod!” “Hebenly Marster!” “Gra-a-ate King!” No word had been sent of our coming, and it was but within the last half hour that the old slaves of Dr. Fuller had heard that he was to address them. There was no way of estimating the number of these “Fuller slaves” in attendance—he had owned between two and three hundred, but probably half of them were now at Beaufort. Every adult negro in the assemblage, however, seemed to know him.

The scene was a striking one. In front of us was the old church; behind, the new school-house. Half a dozen superb live-oaks spread their gnarled branches over us, the silvery, pendulous streamers of Spanish moss floating down and flecking with the sunlight the upturned faces of the great congregation of negroes, while the breezes made mournful music among the leaves, and the mocking-birds sent back a livelier refrain. The little valley between the platform and the church was densely packed with negroes, all standing, and, as the Deacon told us, “eagah fur de Wud.” They clustered, too, about the platform, leaned over the railing, behind, and at the sides, and spread away in all directions, among the carts and wagons, that formed a sort of outer line of works, shutting in the scene. The coats were of every color, and cut, and age. There were a few straw hats on the heads of the younger females, and cotton gloves, gaudy calico dresses and crinolines were abundant; but the older ones clung to the many-colored handkerchiefs, wound turban-wise about the head, and affected gowns that clung closely to their not graceful figures. Altogether they were dressed as well as the average of day-laborers’ families at the North would be, but in a taste that even such Northern families would pronounce barbarous.

A quaint old African, clad in cotton checks, and bowed with many years of cotton hoeing, stepped out on the platform, when all the party had been seated. Leaning, like a patriarch, on his cane, and gently swaying his body to and fro over it, as if to keep time, he struck up, in a shrill, cracked voice, a curiously monotonous melody, in which, in a moment, the whole congregation were energetically joining. For the first time I observed, what had often been told me (though I had never before realized it), that the language of these sea islanders (and I am told that, to some extent, the same is true of the majority of plantation hands in South Carolina), is an almost unintelligible patois. Listening carefully to the swaying old leader, I found it impossible, for a time, to make out his meaning; and the vocal contortions to which the simplest words seemed to subject him, was a study that would have amazed a phonetic lecturer. The words were those of an old song, which our soldiers found them singing shortly after the fall of Bay Point:

And so on, with repetitions that promised to be endless. The grateful negroes had cherished the memory of Dr. Fuller, who had abandoned his lucrative legal practice to preach to them; and, long after his departure to the North, had still kept his name green among them, by thus associating it with their ideas of heaven. But, as freedom came, and no Dr. Fuller with it, they gradually forgot the old benefactor, and substituted the name of the new one. To them, General Saxton was law, and order, and right; he secured their plantations; he got them rations till they were able to support themselves; he decided disputes, defended privileges, maintained quiet, and was the embodiment of justice; and so it gradually came to pass that “General Saxby,” as, with a ludicrous persistence, they still call him, took the place of “Ma-a-a-assa Fullah” in the song. The presence of the good Doctor recalled their old love, and they gave him the first place; but they could not depose their later favorite and greater benefactor; and so, after interminable repetitions, we came to the second stanza:

The patriarchal old African, swaying on his cane before the congregation, threw the whole power of his lungs into the harsh tones with which the concluding “ro-o-o-oll” was given, and then followed the great feat of the African reception to the visitors. Wherever we had been, the negroes seemed to know something of Mr. Chase. Their ideas were very vague, but they thought that, in some way, he was a great, large friend of theirs, who had done something or another for them, what, they scarcely knew, and was to be held beside “Linkum” in their esteem. So now, with a droll look of intelligence toward the crowd, and particularly toward a group of open-faced, enthusiastic young fellows, who seemed to be the main dependence for promptly supplying the volume of sound, the antique leader struck out in harsher tones, and more indescribably bewildering difficulties of pronunciation than ever:

The chorus was sung with a vehemence that pierced the ears, and swayed the leaflets of the live-oaks above our heads; while picaninnies crowed, and their mothers smiled, and there was a general bustle in the crowd, and all fixed beaming eyes—who has not admired the deep, liquid ox-eye of the Southern negro?—upon the embarrassed Chief Justice, whom they were establishing, in all his avoirdupois, on the identical limb where Doctor Fuller and General “Saxby” were already perched. And then a plain, bald-headed, middle-aged, black preacher, who had, doubtless, a few years back, been at least “a twelve-hundred-dollar nigger,” came reverently forward and commenced a prayer. The congregation devoutly bowed their heads, a few interrupted with an occasional “Amen,” or “Glory,” but the most kept respectful silence. The prayer was simple, full of repetitions, abounding in Scripture language, not always appropriately used; and, on the whole, I was in doubt whether either speaker or congregation understood all of it. There was no mistaking the sincerity of the devotion; but it seemed to be mainly emotional, rather than intellectual, and might, therefore, well give rise to inquiries as to what effect this abounding religion had on the matter of stealing sweet-potatoes, or taking care of their wives and children, during the week.^[19]

When Doctor Fuller came to speak to them, there was less cause for doubt on this subject. They evidently understood him, and undoubtedly meant to obey his instructions. When, for example, he told them that at the North their enemies were declaring that they would be idle and dissolute, and asked if they were going thus to bring shame upon those who had befriended them, there was an emphasis of response, and an earnestness in the looks men and women gave each other, that spoke both for their understanding and their intentions. “I know that new machinery will work a little roughly,” said the Doctor, “I am not surprised that, at first, there were some blunders and faults; but it is time you had got over that. If a man who has been shut up for a long time, in a dark room, is suddenly brought into the light, it dazzles his eyes, and he is apt to stumble. Well, then, what will you do? Put him back in the dark again?” “No, no,” energetically exclaimed the crowd, with many an earnest shake of the head. “What then?” “Tell him what to do,” suggested some. “Lead him a little while,” whispered others. “Give him more light!” at last exclaimed the Doctor; and it was curious to watch the pleased noddings of the woolly heads, the shaking of the turbans, the sensation, exchange of smiles, and other indications that the Doctor’s solution of the difficulty was thoroughly understood, in its application to their own condition.

Mr. Chase followed, in a few words of calm advice, as to the necessity of industry, economy, study and the like. When he added that, for his own part, he believed, too, that the best way to teach them to swim in the ocean of suffrage, was to throw them in and let them take care of themselves, the emphatic nods and smiles, and cries of “yes,” “yees,” showed that the figure was not thrown away upon them.

More singing followed, in which they were led by a white teacher, from one of the schools, and the ordinary hymns of the church were used. The great volumes of sound rang like organ peals through the arches of the oaks. Once the teacher asked to have the children gathered in front of the platform, that they might sing “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,” etc. Mothers passed up their little four-year olds, decked in all the cheap finery they could command; fathers pressed forward and made room for sons and daughters, whom they followed with eyes of paternal pride; and there was a general smiling, and bustling, and eagerness to show off the shiny-faced, large-eyed little creatures. When they were once collected, it was just about as difficult to keep them still as it would be to silence so many parrots.

Presently one of the Northern ministers, who have devoted themselves to working among these freedmen, made them such a sermonizing talk as seems to be the common mode of instruction. There was something too much, perhaps, of glorification over the fact that at last the slaves were free from the clutches of the wicked and tyrannical slaveholders; but, in the main, the address was judicious, and seemed to be in a vein to which the negroes were accustomed. At the request of different members of the party, he asked several questions, such as:

“You all seem to be better dressed than when your masters ran away. Now tell us if you are able to afford these clothes, and how you get them?”

“Yes,” “Bought ’em wid our own money,” “Bought ’em down to Hilton Head,” “Got ’em at Bufor,” and a further medley of confused answers came back from the open-eyed, open-mouthed crowd.

“You bought them? Well now, you know at the North people think you are starving beggars, dependent on the Government? Is it true? How many of you support yourselves without any help from the Government? All that do, hold up their right hands.”

In an instant every adult in the crowd held up a hand, and not a few of the boys and girls, supposing it to be some new play, held up their hands, too!

“Now, before your masters ran away, you all say that your wives were not as attentive as they should be to the wants of the household; that they required a great deal of beating to make them do their work; that they didn’t mend your clothes and cook your meals. Perhaps freedom has made them worse. All who say it has, hold up your right hands.”

There was a deal of sly chuckling among the men; the women too, affected to make light of it, though some bridled up their turbaned heads and stared defiance across at the men. Not a hand, however, was raised; and as the preacher announced the result, the women laughed their oily gobble of a laugh.

“Well, now, I’d like to have the women tell me about the men. Are they as good husbands as when they were slaves? Do you live as well in your houses? Do they work as well, and make you as comfortable?”

There was a great giggling now; the ivories that were displayed would have driven a dentist to distraction, and many a stalwart black fellow, who had no notion of being a dentist, did seem to be distracted. But every woman’s hand was raised, and the good preacher proceeded to announce the result and moralize thereon.

“Then,” he said, “I am asked, by our distinguished guest, to put a question that I’m afraid you’ll laugh at. You know your old masters always said you were much happier in a state of slavery than you would be in freedom, and a good many people at the North don’t know but it may be true. You’ve tried supporting yourselves now for some time, and a good many of you have found it pretty hard work sometimes. Now, I want as many of you as are tired of it, and would rather go back and have your old masters take care of you, to hold up your right hands.”

It was fine to notice the start and frightened look, and then the sudden change that came over their faces. The preacher had warned them not to laugh, but they did not look as if they wanted to laugh. They were more disposed to get angry; and the “no, noes” were sufficiently emphatic to satisfy the most devoted adherents of the old system, who used to be constantly declaring that “the slaves were the happiest people on the face of the earth.”

But there remained a scene that showed how, if not anxious to return to their old masters, they were still sometimes glad to have their old masters return to them. Dr. Fuller rose to pronounce the benediction, and all reverently bowed their heads—the proud mothers and their hopeful children, likely plantation hands, gray-headed and gray-bearded patriarchs, like one who stood at my elbow, and, black though he was, looked so like the busts we have of Homer, that I could hardly realize him to be merely a “worn-out nigger”—bowed all together before God, the freedmen and the Major-Generals, the turbaned young women from the plantations, and the flower of Northern schools and society, the woolly-headed urchins, who could just remember that they once “b’longed to” somebody, and the Chief Justice of the United States.

The few words of blessing were soon said; and then came a rush to the stand, “to speak to Massa Richard.” Men and women pressed forward indiscriminately; the good Doctor, in a moment, found both his hands busy, and stood, like a patriarchal shepherd, amid his flock. They pushed up against him, kissed his hands, passed their fingers over his hair, crowded about, eager to get a word of recognition. “Sure, you ’member me, Massa Rich’d; I’m Tom.” “Laws, Massa Rich’d, I mind ye when ye’s a little ’un.” “Don’t ye mind, Massa Rich’d, when I used to gwine out gunnin’ wid ye?” “How’s ye been dis long time?” “’Pears like we’s never gwine to see ’ou any more; but, bress de Lord, you’m cum.” “Oh, we’s gittin’ on cumf’able like; but ain’t ’ou gwine to cum back and preach to us sometimes?” So the string of interrogatories and salutations stretched out. “I haven’t liked him much,” said an officer of our cutter, standing near, whose rough-and-ready oaths had sometimes provoked the rebuke of the Dominie, “but I take back every harsh thought. I’d give all I’m worth, or ever hope to be worth, in the world, to be loved by as many people as love him.”

Leaving the crowd still thronging about the Doctor, we drove out beyond the church half a mile, to a village of cabins, which the negroes have christened “Saxtonville.” It contains a single street, but that is a mile and a-half long. Each house is surrounded by its little plat of potatoes and corn. Back of the house, stretching off to the timber in the distance, is the narrow little parallelogram of land, called the plantation, averaging from thirty to forty acres, planted in cotton, and, in nearly every case, in the highest possible state of cultivation. Poultry swarmed about the cabins, but no swine were to be seen, and no fences were needed to divide one plantation from another.

Returning, we found the roads alive again with the gaily-dressed groups of freedmen, going home from the “meetin’,” and full of animated talk about the great things they had seen and heard. There was constantly the most deferential courtesy. The old women seemed delighted if they could secure a recognition, and not a man of the hundreds on the road passed without lifting, or, at least, touching, his hat. Whenever we approached a gate some negro near us would run ahead to open it; but there was no servility in the air with which he did it. He seemed rather, in bearing and attitude, to say, “I’m a man, and just as good before the law as you are; but I respect you, because you are all friends of ours, and because you know more than I do.” These people can never be made slaves again. They have tasted too long of freedom to submit to be driven. But, perhaps, their danger is in a not very dissimilar direction. They are grateful and confiding; and they may prove easily led.

An old negress, whom we passed after we had crossed back to Lady’s Island, followed us wearily, on foot, through the broiling sun, many miles, down to the landing. “I want to see Massa Richard—I used to b’long to him,” was her only explanation. The dumb expression of grief on her rude features, when she found him gone, and realized that she had probably missed her last chance of seeing him, haunts me yet.

Returning from St. Helena, Doctor Fuller was asked what he thought of the experiment of free labor, as exhibited among his former slaves, and how it contrasted with the old order of things. “I never saw St. Helena look so well,” was his instant reply. “I never saw as much land there under cultivation—never saw the same general evidences of prosperity, and never saw the negroes themselves appearing so well or so contented.” What has been said, from time, about the improved condition of the emancipated Sea Islanders, has been said by Northern men, with limited opportunities for previous observation; but this, it must be noted, is the testimony of an old planter, re-visiting the slaves emancipation has taken from him, whose interests and prejudices would alike make him a critic hard to please.

But, it should be added, that the islands about Beaufort are in a better condition than those nearer the encampments of our soldiers. Wherever poultry could be profitably peddled in the camps, cotton has not been grown, nor have the negroes crystalized, so readily, into industrious and orderly communities. What has been done on the more secluded of these sea islands, may be taken as a fair evidence of what may be expected (when not more than the average discouragements are encountered) of the most ignorant and degraded of the Southern slaves. With such negroes as we saw at Charleston, the progress would be incomparably more rapid.

The question about the slaves being self-supporting, is a question no longer. On St. Helena, and wherever else they have had the opportunity, the negroes have bought the titles to their little farms—or “plantations,” as they still ambitiously style them. They have erected their own cabins, secured whatever cheap furniture they contain, and clothed, themselves far better than their masters ever clothed them. All who have been established more than a year, have paid back to the Government the rations drawn in their first destitution. They have stocked their plantations, paying the highest prices, and often bidding against white men, at the auction sales of condemned Government property. I saw one man who had paid three hundred dollars in cash for a condemned Government horse, and plenty who had paid prices ranging from a hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars. A single horse only, is needed to cultivate one of their little places; and the instances have been rare in which, after a year or two of work, the negro was not able to command enough money to secure it. Their purchases at the trade stores have been so liberal that the military authorities have occasionally been compelled to interfere, to prevent what they thought extravagance. Cloth they sometimes buy, in their new-born thrift, by the piece, to secure a lower price; flour they are able to get by the barrel, as an industrious Northern mechanic does. In the houses, chairs have made their appearance; dishes and knives and forks are no longer the rarities they were when our troops arrived. And, for whatever they have thus bought, be sure they have paid twice or thrice the New York price.

To some extent this prosperity is delusive; as for the matter of that, the prosperity of the whole country, during the same period, has been delusive. The soldiers paid them three or four prices for their vegetables, eggs and poultry; and when their cotton was ready for market it brought, in some cases, nearly ten times the old price. Naturally they are prosperous. It is more important to observe that they exhibit the industry which deserves prosperity, and, in most cases, the thrift which insures its continuance. Their money has been spent for articles they needed for stocking their farms, clothing their families, or, in some way, bettering their condition. It has not always been spent economically, but they may learn to make better bargains with the Yankee traders, by-and-by; and, for the present, it is sufficient to know that they have enough left to establish a National Bank with their savings, and that in this Bank one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of United States bonds have been bought by the freedmen! This last statement seemed to me utterly incredible; but General Saxton vouches for it, and explains that when the young negroes from the islands volunteered to enter the military service, they each received (precisely like other volunteers) three hundred dollars bounty, of which, in nearly all cases, at least two hundred were, of their own motion, given to their families, used in stocking the farms, or invested in Government bonds.

Withal, they work less, and have more time for self-improvement, or for society, than when slaves. It is the common testimony, on those islands where white men have bought the plantations, and employed the negroes as laborers, that the old task, which the slave worked at from sunrise to sunset, is now readily performed by the freedman in six or seven hours. Still, the exports from the sea islands will not be as great as during the existence of slavery. Then, they were mere machines, run with as little consumption as possible, to the single end of making money for their masters. Now, as it was in the West Indies, emancipation has enlarged the negro’s wants, and, instead of producing solely to export, he now produces also to consume. Then he ate with his fingers from the hominy pot, in the fire-place; now he must have plates, knives and forks, with a table on which to spread them. Then he wore the scant summer and winter suits of negro cloth; now he must have working suits and Sunday suits, and each must be cut with some vague reference to prevailing fashions, and made up by hands that, under the old regime, would have been busy beside his own in the cotton field.

These are undeniable evidences of progress in physical well-being. When it comes to mental culture, less can be said. Of the crowd at the St. Helena church, not one in twenty of the adults can read, though they have had three years of partial and interrupted opportunities. But, on the other hand, not one in twenty of the boys and girls was unable to read. They do not seem so anxious themselves to get “white folks’ larnin” as at Charleston and other points to the northward; but every parent is painfully desirous that his children should learn; and many of them are known to take private lessons at home from their children. The latter learn rapidly; they tell the same story everywhere here, just as it has been told down the whole coast from Fortress Monroe. Experienced teachers say they can see no difference in the facility with which these and ordinary white children at the North learn to read. But this is comparatively valueless as a test of negro intellectual capacity. Reading, writing, memorizing, whatever is imitative, or may be learned by rote, will be rapidly acquired; and no schools have yet advanced far enough to show what the average negro mind will do when it grapples with higher branches that require original thought.

Nearly thirty thousand negroes have been settled by General Saxton, (as he informed us over his hospitable dinner table, on our return from St. Helena,) on these islands and adjacent plantations of the main land. Of these, seventeen thousand are now self-supporting. Between twelve and thirteen thousand of those who have come in latest from the interior still draw rations, but all do it with the distinct understanding that they and their farms will be held responsible for the re-payment; and the experience of the Government with the others shows that this debt may be reckoned a safe and short one. None have been forced to come, and the locations upon the plantations have all been made to the satisfaction of the negroes themselves.

General Saxton found a charming wife among the bright Yankee teachers sent down to these schools, and he has established himself in the house of a runaway slaveholder, condemned by the Government authorities, and legally sold to the highest bidder. Two thousand dollars thus gave the General a home among these people, and put him in possession of a fine, airy, large-windowed, many-porched Southern residence, stripped of furniture (which has been sold by the Treasury Agent as abandoned property), and, like the lands on which the negroes are located, with still a worrying doubt about the security of the title. Rebels, who have abandoned their houses, may, some of these days, return, get pardon, and propose to take possession. Barnwell Rhett’s house, for example, is next door; suppose he should profess repentance, for the sake of getting back his property, precisely what is there to prevent this fervently-loyal Major-General from having the prince of all fire eaters for a neighbor? In Beaufort, as at Hilton Head, there are wonderful efforts to create a flame of speculation; but capital is timid, and looks sharply to the guarantees of title deeds.

In the evening, there was another immense meeting of negroes in the outskirts of Beaufort. It was again found that no church would hold them, and so God’s first temples—it must have been live-oak groves Bryant thought of, when he wrote the well-known lines—were again sought. Crowding through the throng that obstructed all the approaches, and ascending the platform, one was struck with the impressiveness of a scene as peculiar as that in the morning on St. Helena, and yet widely differing from it. Great live-oaks again reared their stately pillars of gray, and spread their glorious canopy of green, beside and above the platform; negroes, old and young, again spread out in a sea of black humanity before us; but for the rows of carts, and the old meeting-house, and the moss-grown gravestones that shut in the view on St. Helena, we had here the serried ranks of two full regiments of negroes. Black urchins clambered up into the live-oak boughs, above our heads; black girls adjusted their scarfs, and fidgeted about the front of the platform; white-wooled, but black-faced, old men leaned against the railing; the mass of the congregation in front were women, and, as for the young men, they were clad in blue, and they stood in ranks outside the rest.

The faces seemed somewhat more intelligent than those on St. Helena. There were more house-servants, and all had been brightened by the contact with business in the town. A keen-eyed lady on the platform called my attention to the owner of a particularly showy turban, and lo! beneath its dazzling colors looked forth, in befitting black, the very face of Mrs. Gummidge, the “lone, lorn creetur’” of David Copperfield’s early acquaintance. To the very whimper of the mouth, and watery expression of the eyes, and last particular of desolate and disconsolate appearance, it was Mrs. Gummidge’s self, as Dickens has made her immortal. But this was not a common expression. Chubby-faced, glittering-eyed youngsters, of the Topsy type, and comfortable, good-natured Aunties, at peace with themselves and the world, were the prevailing characters. Beaufort was more stylish than St. Helena, and many a ludicrous effort was made in willow crinoline, tawdry calico and cotton gloves, to ape the high-born mulattoes whom the traveled ones had seen in Charleston, and occasionally at Hilton Head.

The sermonizing, singing and speech-making, need hardly be described. Given the occasion and the circumstances, and what weary reader of the papers can not tell, to the very turn of the climax and the polish of the peroration, the nature of the speeches? But it was worthy of note that the orators found the audience to their liking; and, on the point of intelligence, your popular orator is exacting. “I have been in the habit of addressing all sorts of people,” said Doctor Fuller, “but never felt so intensely the inspiration of a deeply-sympathizing audience.” Two or three humorous little sallies were caught with a quickness and zest that showed how understandingly they were following the speaker; and, at times, the great audience—greater than Cooper Institute could hold—was swaying to and fro, now weeping, then laughing, in the agitation of a common passion the orator had evoked. They seemed to know all about the Chief Justice, and clamored for him, till, as he stood up for a moment, the thunder of the cheers swayed the Spanish moss that hung in pendent streamers above our heads, and made the leaves of the live-oaks quiver as if a gale were blowing through the branches. “If I had only known you were coming,” whispered a superintendent, “we might have had two or three marriages here, under the live-oaks, to conclude the exercises of the day!”

But it was when the “exercises” were over, that the real interest of the occasion was brought out. Not less than a hundred of Doctor Fuller’s former slaves were in the audience. The moment the benediction was pronounced, they made a rush for the platform, and the good Doctor found his path blocked up at the steps. “Lod bress ye, Massa Rich’d; was afeard ’ud never see ye agin.” “Don’t you know me, Massa Rich’d? I’m Aunt Chloe.” “’Pears like ye wa’n’t never comin’, no more!” And all the while a vigorous hand-shaking and hand-kissing went on, the former master standing on the steps, and looking benevolently down into upturned faces that fairly shone with joy and excitement.

Presently one of the Aunties, whose happiness was altogether too exuberant for words, struck up a wild chant, and in a moment half a hundred voices had joined her. She stood with clasped hands and beaming face, balancing from one foot to the other in a sort of measured dance, sometimes stopping a moment to shout “glory,” and then resuming with yet more enthusiasm; while the former slaves still kept crowding up, feeling the Doctor’s hair, passing their hands over his shoulders, clustering lingeringly about him, and joining with deep-throated emphasis in the chant. Soon other women had approached the swaying leader, two or three clasped hands, there was the same animal, half-hysteric excitement, the same intoxication of the affections, which we had witnessed in the morning on St. Helena; while, meantime, a few middle-aged negroes, who gave no other marks of excitement than a perfectly gratified expression of countenance, quietly engaged the Doctor in conversation, told him something of their life since they had become freemen, their hardships and their final prosperity. The women kept up the singing; more and more negroes were joining the circle about the former planter, as we pushed through and left them to themselves. Long lines of soldiers were marching away, their glistening bayonets setting the red rays of the sinking sun to flickering in grotesque lights and shades over the shouting and dancing slaves. Under the trees on the outskirts stood a group of interested spectators, officers, traders, agents of different departments of the Government; a few ladies wonderingly looked on; the breeze was fluttering the flags over the platform; and the late slaves were still singing and kissing their former master’s hand. It was our last sight of Beaufort.

A lead-colored little steamer lay at the wharf to take us down to Hilton Head; a short, heavy-set, modest-speaking, substantial negro, a little past middle-age, came to say that the vessel was ready, and awaited our orders. It was the “Planter,” and the negro was her Captain, Robert Small—lionized over much, but not spoilt yet. The breeze over the island was delicious; not a film of mist flecked the sky; and down to the very meeting of sky and water, we caught the sparkle of the stars, brilliant with all the effulgence of tropic night.