CHAPTER Y 



IX THK SVXXY SOUTH. 



JOTTING down my younger wandering trips and travels, one of my first 

 winters was in 1860, after my return from Labrador, to report the Democratic 

 convention for nominating the next President at Charleston, S. C. It was an 

 unfortunate division of delegates, and when the Douglas section was moved to 

 Baltimore, old Dan Mixer, proprietor of the Charleston Hotel, wrote me a free 

 railway pass thither via Richmond, Va. As the South stood for Breckinridge, of 

 Kentucky, I sent a substitute to Maryland while I remained a while down South 

 to visit some resident Amherst college graduates who were D. K. E. fellow- 

 members with me in 1852-3. On said occasion it was my good fortune to con- 

 template the negro in his highest estate "befoh de wah." His condition of servi- 

 tude was really enviable. He had all that he wanted and small care. His social 

 status kept pace with the families to which he was attached. His African ancestry 

 cut small figure. 



In Savannah I met up with Hon. William H. Stiles, who was minister to 

 Austria under President Pierce. His son, George Stiles, was captain of the 

 Savannah Volunteer Guards. (Now, this is not a hunting story, but it has to do 

 with guns, so it is apropos.) The Stiles family occupied one of the sea islands 

 in Warsaw Sound, near White Bluff, where they raised long staple cotton at 37 

 cents a pound, and kept blooded stock horses and cattle which ran wild during 

 the war, as the plantation was abandoned at the time. They had also a large 

 contingent of farm hands and house servants. The musicians of the Volunteer 

 Guards was made up from the males of this (Green) island contingent. 



On one occasion Colonel Stiles invited me down to the plantation, where he 

 said he thought I would like to hear "a couple of his fifers" play. The band com- 

 prised some twenty musicians in all, enough for a good-sized drum corps. We 

 found a neatly white-washed cabin, where the Colonel, while he went in quest of 

 the fifers, left me with a matronly old colored woman, and a small pickaninny 

 crawling about the open fireplace, with its mud and stick chimney. 



"Now, if you will hold the baby," said the Colonel, when he returned, "Auntie 

 will make us an ashcake while the music goes on." 



The men put the instruments to their lips, but I did not hear any fife 

 music, only what seemed at first to be the soft twitter of a singing mouse, appar- 

 ently coming from behind a dresser. Then there was a mingled sound like the 

 low warble of canaries ; first and second parts began to be audible, with more 

 rythm and cadence to the notes ; finally swelling into fullest volume. Such 

 harmony, I dare say, has never been produced on instruments of this class. Could 

 these performers have been shipped to Koster & Bial, in New York, they would 

 have commanded unprecedented prices and crowded the houses to repletion. 



Not long afterwards I began to visit Florida. Some phases of my acquain- 

 tance with that part of the country appeared in my book, "Camp Life in Florida, 1 ' 

 which was published in 1876. In fact, I have spent one-half of my life-long 

 winters in the South, taking in all the states from first to last, and I may as well 

 tell your readers what they will never hear from present generations what kind 



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