Part 10

It was the first part of May; and the forests were in that fulness of leafy perfection which they attain in the month of June at the North. But there is a peculiar, vivid brilliancy about the green of the new spring-leaves here, which we never saw elsewhere. It is a brilliancy like some of the new French greens, now so much in vogue, and reminding one of the metallic brightness of birds and insects. In the woods, the cypress is a singular and beautiful feature. It attains to a great age and immense size. The trunk and branches of an old cypress are smooth and white as ivory, while its light, feathery foliage is of the most dazzling golden-green; and rising, as it often does, amid clumps of dark varnished evergreens,--bay and magnolia and myrtle,--it has a singular and beautiful effect. The long swaying draperies of the gray moss interpose everywhere their wavering outlines and pearl tints amid the brightness and bloom of the forest, giving to its deep recesses the mystery of grottoes hung with fanciful vegetable stalactites.

The palmetto-tree appears in all stages,--from its earliest growth, when it looks like a fountain of great, green fan-leaves bursting from the earth, to its perfect shape, when, sixty or seventy feet in height, it rears its fan crown high in air. The oldest trees may be known by a perfectly smooth trunk; all traces of the scaly formation by which it has built itself up in ring after ring of leaves being obliterated. But younger trees, thirty or forty feet in height, often show a trunk which seems to present a regular criss-cross of basket-work,--the remaining scales from whence the old leaves have decayed and dropped away. These scaly trunks are often full of ferns, wild flowers, and vines, which hang in fantastic draperies down their sides, and form leafy and flowery pillars. The palmetto-hammocks, as they are called, are often miles in extent along the banks of the rivers. The tops of the palms rise up round in the distance as so many hay-cocks, and seeming to rise one above another far as the eye can reach.

We have never been so fortunate as to be able to explore one of these palmetto-groves. The boat sails with a provoking quickness by many a scene that one longs to dwell upon, study, and investigate. We have been told, however, by hunters, that they afford admirable camping-ground, being generally high and dry, with a flooring of clean white sand. Their broad leaves are a perfect protection from rain and dew; and the effect of the glare of the campfires and torch-lights on the tall pillars, and waving, fan-like canopy overhead, is said to be perfectly magical. The most unromantic and least impressible speak of it with enthusiasm.

In going up the river, darkness overtook us shortly after leaving Pilatka. We sat in a golden twilight, and saw the shores every moment becoming more beautiful; but when the twilight faded, and there was no moon, we sought the repose of our cabin. It was sultry as August, although only the first part of May; and our younger and sprightlier members, who were on the less breezy side of the boat, after fruitlessly trying to sleep, arose and dressed themselves, and sat all night on deck.

By this means they saw a sight worth seeing, and one which we should have watched all night to see. The boat's course at night is through narrows of the river, where we could hear the crashing and crackling of bushes and trees, and sometimes a violent thud, as the boat, in turning a winding, struck against the bank. On the forward part two great braziers were kept filled with blazing, resinous light-wood, to guide the pilot in the path of the boat. The effect of this glare of red light as the steamer passed through the palmetto hummocks and moss-hung grottoes of the forest was something that must have been indescribably weird and beautiful; and our young friends made us suitably regret that our more airy sleeping-accommodations had lost us this experience.

In the morning we woke at Enterprise, having come through all the most beautiful and characteristic part of the way by night. Enterprise is some hundred and thirty miles south of our dwelling-place in Mandarin; and, of course, that much nearer the tropical regions. We had planned excursions, explorations, picnics in the woods, and a visit to the beautiful spring in the neighborhood; but learned with chagrin that the boat made so short a stay, that none of these things were possible. The only thing that appears to the naked eye of a steamboat traveller in Enterprise is a large hotel down upon the landing, said by those who have tested it to be one of the best kept hotels in Florida. The aspect of the shore just there is no way picturesque or inviting, but has more that forlorn, ragged, desolate air that new settlements on the river are apt to have. The wild, untouched banks are beautiful; but the new settlements generally succeed in destroying all Nature's beauty, and give you only leafless, girdled trees, blackened stumps, and naked white sand, in return.

Turning our boat homeward, we sailed in clear morning light back through the charming scenery which we had slept through the night before. It is the most wild, dream-like, enchanting sail conceivable. The river sometimes narrows so that the boat brushes under overhanging branches, and then widens into beautiful lakes dotted with wooded islands. Palmetto-hammocks, live-oak groves, cypress, pine, bay, and magnolia form an interchanging picture; vines hang festooned from tree to tree; wild flowers tempt the eye on the near banks; and one is constantly longing for the boat to delay here or there: but on goes her steady course, the pictured scene around constantly changing. Every now and then the woods break away for a little space, and one sees orange and banana orchards, and houses evidently newly built. At many points the boat landed, and put off kegs of nails, hoes, ploughs, provisions, groceries. Some few old plantations were passed, whose name and history seemed familiar to Madam Rose; but by far the greater number were new settlements, with orchards of quite young trees, which will require three or four more years to bring into bearing.

The greater number of fruit-orchards and settlements were on the eastern shore of the river, which, for the reasons we have spoken of, is better adapted to the culture of fruit.

One annoyance on board the boat was the constant and pertinacious firing kept up by that class of men who think that the chief end of man is to shoot something. Now, we can put up with good earnest hunting or fishing done for the purpose of procuring for man food, or even the fur and feathers that hit his fancy and taste.

But we detest indiscriminate and purposeless maiming and killing of happy animals, who have but one life to live, and for whom the agony of broken bones or torn flesh is a helpless, hopeless pain, unrelieved by any of the resources which enable us to endure. A parcel of hulking fellows sit on the deck of a boat, and pass through the sweetest paradise God ever made, without one idea of its loveliness, one gentle, sympathizing thought of the animal happiness with which the Creator has filled these recesses. All the way along is a constant fusillade upon every living thing that shows itself on the bank. Now a bird is hit, and hangs, head downward, with a broken wing; and a coarse laugh choruses the deed. Now an alligator is struck; and the applause is greater. We once saw a harmless young alligator, whose dying struggles, as he threw out his poor little black paws piteously like human hands, seemed to be vastly diverting to these cultivated individuals. They wanted nothing of him except to see how he would act when he was hit, dying agonies are so very amusing!

Now and then these sons of Nimrod in their zeal put in peril the nerves, if not lives, of passengers. One such actually fired at an alligator right across a crowd of ladies, many of them invalids; and persisted in so firing a second time, after having been requested to desist. If the object were merely to show the skill of the marksman, why not practise upon inanimate objects? An old log looks much like an alligator: why not practise on an old log? It requires as much skill to hit a branch, as the bird singing on it: why not practise on the branch? But no: it must be something that _enjoys_ and can suffer; something that loves life, and must lose it. Certainly this is an inherent savagery difficult to account for. Killing for killing's sake belongs not even to the tiger. The tiger kills for food; man, for amusement.

At evening we were again at Pilatka; when the great question was discussed, Would we, or would we not, take the tour up the Okalewaha to see the enchanted wonders of the Silver Spring! The Okalewaha boat lay at the landing; and we went to look at it. The Okalewaha is a deep, narrow stream, by the by, emptying into the St. John's, with a course as crooked as Apollo's ram's horn; and a boat has been constructed for the express purpose of this passage.

The aspect of this same boat on a hot night was not inspiriting. It was low, long, and narrow; its sides were rubbed glassy smooth, or torn and creased by the friction of the bushes and trees it had pushed through. It was without glass windows,--which would be of no use in such navigation,--and, in place thereof, furnished with strong shutters to close the air-holes. We looked at this same thing as it lay like a gigantic coffin in the twilight, and thought even the Silver Spring would not pay for being immured there, and turned away.

A more inviting project was to step into a sail-boat, and be taken in the golden twilight over to Col. Harte's orange-grove, which is said--with reason, we believe--to be the finest in Florida.

We landed in the twilight in this grove of six hundred beautiful orange-trees in as high condition as the best culture could make them. The well-fed orange-tree is known by the glossy, deep green of its foliage, as a declining tree is by the yellow tinge of its leaves. These trees looked as if each leaf, if broken, would spurt with juice. Piles of fish-guano and shell banks, prepared as top-dress for the orchard, were lying everywhere about, mingling not agreeably with the odor of orange-blossoms. We thought to ourselves, that, if the orange-orchard must be fed upon putrefying fish, we should prefer not to have a house in it. The employee who has charge of the orchard lives in a densely-shaded cottage in the edge of it. A large fruit-house has recently been built there; and the experiments of Col. Harte seem to demonstrate, that, even if there occur severe frosts in the early winter, there is no sort of need, therefore, of losing the orange-crop. His agent showed us oranges round and fair that had been kept three months in moss in this fruit-house, and looking as fresh and glossy as those upon the trees. This, if proved by experience, always possible, does away with the only uncertainty relating to the orange-crop. Undoubtedly the fruit is far better to continue all winter on the trees, and be gathered from time to time as wanted, as has always been the practice in Florida. But, with fruit-houses and moss, it will be possible, in case of a threatened fall of temperature, to secure the crop. The oranges that come to us from Malaga and Sicily are green as grass when gathered and packed, and ripen, as much as they do ripen, on the voyage over. We should suppose the oranges of Florida might be gathered much nearer ripe in the fall, ripen in the house or on the way, and still be far better than any from the foreign market. On this point fruit-growers are now instituting experiments, which, we trust, will make this delicious crop certain as it is abundant.

Sailing back across the water, we landed, and were conveyed to the winter country-seat of a Brooklyn gentleman, who is with great enthusiasm cultivating a place there. It was almost dark; and we could only hear of his gardens and grounds and improvements, not see them. In the morning, before the boat left the landing, he took us a hasty drive around the streets of the little village. It is an unusually pretty, attractive-looking place for a Florida settlement. One reason for this is, that the streets and vacant lots are covered with a fine green turf, which, at a distance, looks like our New-England grass. It is a mixture of Bermuda grass with a variety of herbage, and has just as good general effect as if it were the best red-top.

There are several fine residences in and around Pilatka,--mostly winter-seats of Northern settlers. The town has eight stores, which do a business for all the surrounding country for miles. It has two large hotels, several boarding-houses, two churches, two steam saw-mills, and is the headquarters for the steamboats of the Upper St. John's and its tributaries. Four or five steamers from different quarters are often stopping at its wharf at a time. "The Dictator" and "City Point," from Charleston, run to this place outside by the ocean passage, and, entering the mouth of the St. John's, stop at Jacksonville by the way. The "Nick King" and "Lizzie Baker," in like manner, make what is called the inside trip, skimming through the network of islands that line the coast, and bringing up at the same points. Then there are the river-lines continually plying between Jacksonville and this place, and the small boats that run weekly to the Ocklawaha: all these make Pilatka a busy, lively, and important place.

With Pilatka the interest of our return-voyage finished. With Green-Cove Springs, Magnolia, Hibernia, at all of which we touched on our way back, we were already familiar; and the best sight of all was the cottage under the oaks, to which we gladly returned.

OLD CUDJO AND THE ANGEL.

The little wharf at Mandarin is a tiny abutment into the great blue sea of the St. John's waters, five miles in width. The opposite shores gleam out blue in the vanishing distance; and the small wharf is built so far out, that one feels there as in a boat at sea. Here, trundled down on the truck along a descending tram-way, come the goods which at this point await shipment on some of the many steamboats which ply back and forth upon the river; and here are landed by almost every steamer goods and chattels for the many families which are hidden in the shadows of the forests that clothe the river's shore. In sight are scarce a dozen houses, all told; but far back, for a radius of ten or fifteen miles, are scattered farmhouses whence come tributes of produce to this point. Hundreds of barrels of oranges, boxes of tomatoes and early vegetables, grapes, peaches, and pomegranates, here pause on their way to the Jacksonville market.

One morning, as the Professor and I were enjoying our morning stroll on the little wharf, an unusual sight met our eye,--a bale of cotton, long and large, pressed hard and solid as iron, and done up and sewed in a wholly workmanlike manner, that excited our surprise. It was the first time since we had been in Mandarin--a space of some four or five years--that we had ever seen a bale of cotton on that wharf. Yet the whole soil of East Florida is especially adapted not only to the raising of cotton, but of the peculiar, long staple cotton which commands the very highest market-price. But for two or three years past the annual ravages of the cotton-worm had been so discouraging, that the culture of cotton had been abandoned in despair.

Whence, then, had come that most artistic bale of cotton, so well pressed, so trim and tidy, and got up altogether in so superior a style?

Standing by it on the wharf was an aged negro, misshapen, and almost deformed. He was thin and bony, and his head and beard were grizzled with age. He was black as night itself; and but for a glittering, intellectual eye, he might have been taken for a big baboon,--the missing link of Darwin. To him spoke the Professor, giving a punch with his cane upon the well-packed, solid bale:--

"Why, this is splendid cotton! Where did it come from? Who raised it?"

"_We_ raise it, sah,--me 'n' dis yer boy," pointing to a middle-aged black man beside him: "we raise it."

"Where?"

"Oh! out he'yr a piece."

A lounging white man, never wanting on a wharf, here interposed:--

"Oh! this is old Cudjo. He lives up Julington. He's an honest old fellow."

Now, we had heard of this settlement up Julington some two or three years before. A party of negroes from South Carolina and Georgia had been induced to come into Florida, and take up a tract of government land. Some white man in whom they all put confidence had undertaken for them the task of getting their respective allotments surveyed and entered for them, so that they should have a solid basis of land to work upon. Here, then, they settled down; and finding, accidentally, that a small central lot was not enclosed in any of the allotments, they took it as an indication that _there_ was to be their church, and accordingly erected there a prayer-booth, where they could hold those weekly prayer-meetings which often seem with the negroes to take the place of all other recreations. The neighboring farmers were not particularly well disposed towards the little colony. The native Floridian farmer is a quiet, peaceable being, not at all disposed to infringe the rights of others, and mainly anxious for peace and quietness. But they supposed that a stampede of negroes from Georgia and Carolina meant trouble for them, meant depredations upon their cattle and poultry, and regarded it with no friendly eye; yet, nevertheless, they made no demonstration against it. Under these circumstances, the new colony had gone to work with untiring industry. They had built log-cabins and barns; they had split rails, and fenced in their land; they had planted orange-trees; they had cleared acres of the scrub-palmetto: and any one that ever has seen what it is to clear up an acre of scrub-palmetto will best appreciate the meaning of that toil. Only those black men, with sinews of steel and nerves of wire,--men who grow stronger and more vigorous under those burning suns that wither the white men,--are competent to the task.

But old Cudjo had at last brought his land from the wild embrace of the snaky scrub-palmetto to the point of bearing a bale of cotton like the one on the wharf. He had subdued the savage earth, brought her under, and made her tributary to his will, and demonstrated what the soil of East Florida might, could, and would do, the cotton-worm to the contrary notwithstanding.

And yet this morning he stood by his cotton, drooping and dispossessed. The white man that had engaged to take up land for these colonists had done his work in such a slovenly, imperfect manner, that another settler, a foreigner, had taken up a tract which passed right through old Cudjo's farm, and taken the land on which he had spent four years of hard work,--taken his log-cabin and barn and young trees, and the very piece that he had just brought to bearing that bale of cotton. And there he stood by it, mournful and patient. It was only a continuation of what he had always experienced,--always oppressed, always robbed and cheated. Old Cudjo was making the best of it in trying to ship his bale of cotton, which was all that was left of four years' toil.

"What!" said the Professor to him, "are you the old man that has been turned out by that foreigner?"

"Yes, sah!" he said, his little black eyes kindling, and quivering from head to foot with excitement. "He take ebry t'ing, ebry t'ing,--my house I built myself, my fences, and more'n t'ree t'ousand rails I split myself: he take 'em all!"

There is always some bitter spot in a great loss that is sorer than the rest. Those rails evidently cut Cudjo to the heart. The "t'ree t'ousand rails" kept coming in in his narrative as the utter and unbearable aggravation of injustice.

"I split 'em myself, sah; _ebry one_, t'ree t'ousand rails! and he take 'em all!"

"And won't he allow you any thing?"

"No, sah: he won't 'low me not'ing. He say, 'Get along wid you! don't know not'ing 'bout _you_! dis yer land mine.' I tell him, '_You_ don't know old Cudjo; but de Lord know him: and by'm by, when de angel Gabriel come and put one foot on de sea, and t'odder on de land, and blow de trumpet, he blow once for old Cudjo! You mind now!'"

This was not merely spoken, but acted. The old black kindled, and stepped off in pantomime. He put, as it were, one foot on the sea, and the other on the land; he raised his cane trumpetwise to his mouth. It was all as vivid as reality to him.

None of the images of the Bible are more frequent, favorite, and operative among the black race than this. You hear it over and over in every prayer-meeting. It is sung in wild chorus in many a "spiritual." The great angel Gabriel, the trumpet, the mighty pomp of a last judgment, has been the appeal of thousands of wronged, crushed, despairing hearts through ages of oppression. Faith in God's justice, faith in a final triumph of right over wrong,--a practical faith,--such had been the attainment of this poor, old, deformed black. That and his bale of cotton were all he had to show for a life's labor. He had learned two things in his world-lesson,--work and faith. He had learned the power of practical industry in things possible to man: he had learned the sublimer power of faith in God for things impossible.

* * * * *

Well, of course we were indignant enough about poor old Cudjo: but we feared that the distant appeal of the angel, and the last trump, was all that remained to him; and, to our lesser faith, that seemed a long way to look for justice.

But redress was nearer than we imagined. Old Cudjo's patient industry and honest work had wrought favor among his white neighbors. He had lived down the prejudice with which the settlement had first been regarded; for among quiet, honest people like the Floridians, it is quite possible to live down prejudice. A neighboring justice of the peace happened to have an acquaintance in Washington from this very district, acquainted with all the land and land-titles. He wrote to this man an account of the case; and he interested himself for old Cudjo. He went to the land-office to investigate the matter. He found, that, in both cases, certain formalities necessary to constitute a legal entrance had been omitted; and he fulfilled for old Cudjo these formalities, thus settling his title; and, moreover, he sent legal papers by which the sheriff of the county was enabled to do him justice: and so old Cudjo was re-instated in his rights.

The Professor met him, sparkling and jubilant, on the wharf once more.

"Well, Cudjo, 'de angel' blew for you quicker than you expected."

He laughed all over. "Ye', haw, haw! Yes, massa." Then, with his usual histrionic vigor, he acted over the scene. "De sheriff, he come down dere. He tell dat man, 'You go right off he'yr. Don't you touch none dem rails. Don't you take one chip,--not one chip. Don't you take'--Haw, haw, haw!" Then he added,--

"He come to me, sah: he say, 'Cudjo, what you take for your land?' He say he gib me two hunder dollars. I tell him, 'Dat too cheap; dat all too cheap.' He say, 'Cudjo, what will you take?' I say, 'I take ten t'ousand million dollars! dat's what I take.' Haw, haw, haw!"

THE LABORERS OF THE SOUTH.

Who shall do the work for us? is the inquiry in this new State, where there are marshes to be drained, forests to be cut down, palmetto-plains to be grubbed up, and all under the torrid heats of a tropical sun.

"Chinese," say some; "Swedes," say others; "Germans," others.

But let us look at the facts before our face and eyes.