A Virginian Atlantis
A tourist, possessing neither sentiment, imagination nor romance, would find the east shore of Virginia a very uninteresting study; but give him some sentiment, a tinge of color, a knowledge of history, and he idealizes the sandy fields, the cedar swamps, low hung with gray moss swinging to and fro in the wind, the glistening white cabins and equally white oyster shell roads, and they all hold for him an undefined fascination.
The traveler can choose his own route and explore the coast of this enchanted region by means of some fine steamers, or he can traverse the peninsula by the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad and its connections. This road has an alliance with the Pennsylvania Central by which it makes use of the terminal facilities of that road in New York and Philadelphia, and its trains run over that track to Delmar on the Delaware-Maryland line of the peninsula.
The new line commences at Delmar and traverses the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, continuing down the peninsula to Cape Charles [City]. The country covered by this route is remarkable for the variety of its productions. The vast peach orchards, the rich vegetable and fruit lands, the great oyster beds and numerous fisheries, the sounds and bays teeming with crabs, turtle and terrapin, and the coast resorts of myriads of game in season, make this region the delight of the epicure and paradise of the sportsman.
Arriving at Cape Charles, the rail terminus of the line, passengers are transferred to steamers for transportation to Old Point Comfort, Norfolk and Portsmouth. The commanding veiw afforded of Fortress Monroe contributes to the enjoyment of the ride across the Chesapeake Bay and the historic Hampton Roads.
As I, for the first time, was borne up one of the sinuous creeks of the peninsula, passing old Southern plantations, negro cabins and straggling towns, Canaan, Atlantis, Arcadia and Goldsmith's Deserted Village were all brought to mind. Peninsular Virginia might well suggest any one of them.
It is separated, in a measure, from the rest of the world, and well nigh forgotten even by its near neighbors. It is bounded on the north and east by Delaware Bay, on the south and east by the Atlantic, and on the west by the Chesapeake, containing parts of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
My journey was made on the steamer "Tangier" of the East Shore line, which runs from Baltimore down the Chesapeake Bay. I found Captain Wilson and his fellow officers gentlemen who are always delighted to impart information to the traveler and ready with any service for his comfort.
Like all other ocean ports, Baltimore is at times smoky and foggy, full of tugs, barques, brigs, ships, steamers and men of war from all climes, bound for all ports, and laden with every conceivable product of human ingenuity.
But soon they are all passed; Fort Henry left to the right, and the half finished Fort Carroll stands directly in the way, a vast pile of granite, of no use yet representing the expenditure of a million and a half of dollars.
It is late in the afternoon, a fog has crept down hardly noticed and from our position in the pilot house we see the great inbound ships glide past, the silence broken every few moments by our whistle, answered from all directions by invisible craft -- the fog horn of the ship, the shrill screech of the tug, and the deep resonant bass of the ocean steamer.
The fog becomes so thick that we can see but a few feet in advance, two lookouts pace back and forth on the bow, and the lights are placed over each wheel and in front.
To one who has never experienced a fog at sea there is something weirdly strange in it. You are lost in an ocean of sounds, and you wonder how the quartermaster steers ahead so confidently, without fear or dread, seeing nothing and hearing only the reiterative shrieks from a score of whistles.
During the night we have stopped at Crisfield, passed Tangier Bay, and are now, at six o'clock, just entering Pocomoke Sound.
Gradually the sound narrows, the shores are plainly visible, low marshes bound the land. As we enter the creek the water changes from a deep green, to a muddy brown, and then, receiving color from the sycamore and cedar, becomes a beautiful -- transparent amber.
On a log a turtle suns himself. At intervals a negro in his rough board scow is setting or taking in his nets, while at a little distance other persons are fishing with hook and line. Close down to the shore are the picturesque whitewashed cabins of poor whites or negroes. Farther back is the old Southern plantation home. A typical one indeed!
I wish I could describe the impression Pocomoke creek made on me on this first trip; now flowing with many loops and fantastic serpentine turns through the dim vistas of a tropical swamp, filled with its great gnarled sycamores, whose tortuous roots pierced its stagnant water, and whose great limbs are draped in funeral moss like some gray monk transplanted from feudal times; now dashing out into the brilliant morning sun and past some grand plantation, flanked with its score of negro quarters, where the mate says such and such a governor of the Old Dominion lived, or such and such a senator died, Pocomoke creek affords a constant chain of surprises; anon turning so sharp a bend that it takes three men at the wheel, then coming suddenly upon a lone old tree, in the centre of its course, bearing an immense fish hawk's nest, whose owner makes a series of gradually lessening circles, until with a downward plunge he darts into the water and bears a struggling victim to his eyrie in the tree just passed. Overhead sea gulls and forked tail tern wheel clamorously, white flocks of snipe and curlew sweep in rapid flight along the more distant marshes.
Along the banks numberless absurd fiddler crabs wave their one preposterously large claw at an intruder or go popping into the holes that riddle the marsh in all directions.
The marshes, which look to us cold and sterile, furnish the natives with an abundant oyster harvest.
The fishermen, during the season, also gather innumerable eggs of all sizes and descriptions. From a warm nest in a clump of sage he takes the delicate egg of the marsh hen; from a little burrow in the ground the sharp pointed egg of the willet, and lying on a few sticks, exposed to all weather, the savory gull's egg is found.
The waters are plentifully stocked with fish; and terrapin, the most sought of all delicacies, are found in quantities.
Onancock -- be sure and get the accent on the "nan" or the natives will not know of what you are speaking, accent being everything on the peninsula -- Onancock is a delightful old place.
As we enter the little bay we are first attracted by another old Southern home, near which stands a house of recent construction. Some energetic native of the "New South" has made money out of guano and built a residence that is the pride of the country. The roof is a sharp-pointed pyramid of eight sides, and each side is painted a different color, giving it a kaleidoscopic appearance. All roofs in this section are painted, that is with the exception of the thatched huts.
We draw up to the dock, and the moment we are fast a scene of bewildering confusion begins. Everyone of our thirty eight black deck-hands seizes a truck and rushes from steamer to landing and back again, exchanging merchandise, molding and store goods for sweet potatoes, fish, eggs and garden "truck."
All along the shore are dozens of little dump carts, with donkeys attached that hardly equal them in size, some so very small that one swarthy fellow in his hurry stepped over the one belonging to him.
This fellow, however is of unusual size, being nearly seven feet high. He places potato barrels one above another three tiers high, and carries the burden with ease.
When he got astride of his diminutive gray donkey, his feet dragged on the ground, and more amusing picture you could not wish to see.
The town stands back some distance from the landing. The main street of hard packed and glistening white oyster shells runs, if I am allowed to say runs, for in fact nothing runs in Virginia, rather lounges, past a dozen low thatched huts and a hotel with doors and windows gaping wide open, in which are seated a number of long, lank Southerners. They are grouped around a green deal table, or braced up on the porch, discussing the local option law soon to be put to vote.
One burly fellow in a new plaid ready-made suit, from Norfolk, in drawling tones is setting forth the evils of no license.
"I reckon you'uns will feel mighty cheap when you get this yer bill passed an' so be the means of sending a right smart heap o' money over from Accomac fur whiskey. I reckon people buy goods where they buy liquor, and Onancock won't have cash enough left ter keep us in quinine."
A number of heterogenous stores, of unclassified shape, are opposite the hotel, and around a corner is the post office. A number of streets or lanes run from the main one, and end in a forest of scrub pine in which are numerous negro huts fairly alive with noisy pickaninnies.
On the front of one rickety old building I see in large faded letters the sign of a Virginia paper. Being curious, I ascend a rheumatic flight of steps and open the door into what I suppose is the sanctum.
The editor, a young fellow with a big quid of Virginia's virgin product inflating his cheek, descends from his type case and inveigles his victim into writing a personal, and had the invader been egotistic he might have had his family history inserted, so kind was the editor. Not caring for more than three lines, the paper was compelled to go to press with two columns devoted to "Subscribe for the Virginian; only one dollar a year."
Virginia papers have influence in one way at least, and that is in keeping an itemized account of the State debt, and trumpeting the assertions of some man who has a new idea of the way to pay it.
A State debt of thirty millions of dollars has controlled the politics of Virginia since the war. Though less than the debt of many of our Northern cities, administrations have gone in and out of power on this issue. One year the plan is to repudiate, another is to pay it intact, another only four per cent, and so on.
Mahone and Riddleberger won the confidence of he people and lost it, and Lee defeated Wise for governor on this issue. In fact, thirty millions of debt lies like a great nightmare on the body politic of Virginia.
Politics are in a state of chaos. No good men can be found to fill the State offices. The salaries are too small and the election expenses too large. The national offices are the only ones fought over.
"Come South, live three years, marry one of our girls, behave yourself, and you can have all the state offices you want," was the frequent invitation of the friends I made.
Four hundred and fifty a year for assembly, senate, and judgeship is not enticing.
"But why," I ask the first officer, "does not the State raise its debt by taxation?"
"Taxation," laughs he, "simply because people will not pay their taxes."
"Won't pay their taxes!" To me, as a Northern man, this is simply inexplicable. "Then why don't the State sell out those who will not pay?"
"Well, I reckon it does. Half the small farms in Northampton and Accomac are for sale, but no one has money to buy, and it would not be healthy for one if he did."
I see the point, and ask no more question.
Virginia once refused to pay allegiance to the general government; now her people refuse allegiance to her.
"Like father, like child," I think as I see that my companion wishes to change the topic.
In my Virginia travels I experienced one particularly delightful manifestation of Southern hospitality, being invited to spend a week at the home of Captain Brown, one of my chance traveling companions. We left the cars at a little station called Tasley. There, standing at the door, was a team of thoroughbreds hitched to a rickety old carriage and held by a little negro whose bare black feet did not reach its floor, but swung pendulum like between that and the faded seat cushion. As we approached the wagon two rows of shining ivory were exposed to view, and a smile of really startling proportions spread over his features.
The ride, even in the rain, would have been charming but for the furious gait that the team took through the muddy roads. The captain's weight, out-balancing mine three to one, would cause the old carriage to rock like a ship at sea, and round corners on two wheels, forcing me to grab first the captain and then the carriage cover, greatly to his amusement, and his big hearty laugh would ring out and urge his long-limbed team on to new endeavors.
Past thick glades of pine timber, alternated by brilliantly green stretches of flat meadow land covered with rank grass, would we dash. The shrill caw of the crow fell discordantly on our ears, and up from the woods came floating balmily the resinous odor of the pines.
Now we would turn sharply upon a negro cabin, with its window full of black faces, and its owner would tip his apologetic hat in deep reverence.
Presently a small herd of lank calves would scatter from the centre of the road, and a nest of grunting swine would cause us to check our speed while they leisurely made room for us to pass. It was a scene at once quiet and busy, lonely yet inhabited.
Suddenly we turned from the highway into what to me seemed the unbroken forest, but we found an apology for a road. I learned afterward that none of the real plantation homes of the peninsula are situated on the thoroughfares but some distance back, either on the ocean or bay coast. A field planted to sweet potatoes is directly in front of the captain's house.
Imagine five separate structures, each a large house in itself, all connected and forming one grand homestead. To the right are half a dozen low negro houses and farther on the thatched stables, back an immense dove-cote, at the left an ice house deep sunk in the earth.
Under the soft shadows of the poplar and near the house are the gravestones of the family, moss covered, and blackened by time and weather. I go to them, scrape off some of the mold, and with the aid of the few shafts of light that find their way through the dense leaves, read that name of an honorable, a reverend, a major, and the dates 1710 and 1730.
A large lawn slopes gently down to the shore of a salt creek or inlet of the bay, along the bed of which quantities of delicious oysters and clams can be raked up fresh before every meal -- fat and delicate bivalves, not flaccid as those in a city restaurant, but plump, fine and sweet.
At the shore of this creek, under the shadow of the pine, its bough on the gravelly beach, lies a large fishing smack, its sail gone and its rudder broken. Its day is past.
We enter the house through a colonade and pass into the captain's sitting room.
A heavy mahogany table, mahogany and plate glass side-board, luxuriant chairs, heavy framed pictures of ancestors, and a massive fire place is a complete inventory of its furnishings, with one exception -- an oil painting by Murillo of the Assumption, tacked to the wall, the edges ragged, just as they were cut from a confederate general's frame during the war. The face is divine, not sentimentally sweet or insipid, but full of an inspired intelligence.
As I take the chair the captain offers me, my eyes seek its face again and again.
I have its history and I mean to write it some day.
The house is not furnished with electric bells, but instead the captain summons his old nurse and housekeeper from her domain -- the kitchen -- by a loud hello: "Hey Sabe, hey nig; where are you, gal?"
Soon Sabe's old wrinkled face, shining with smiles, peers into the door. "What is yo' honey; I'se real glad yo' home. How yo' do young marsa?"
Presently one of her many little black pages enter, bearing a great dish of ham and another of steaming turnip greens, and we take our places at the table. Boiled clams, waffles, warm corn bread, sweet potatoes and coffee make up our dinner, and a hearty one it is.
A picturesque sight is Aunt Sabe's kitchen, with a large open fire place in which she can stand upright. This contains a huge crane with a variety of pot hooks and hangers. The substantial mantel shelf is adorned with bottles and hung around with newspapers artistically scalloped at the edges, and standing in front of the blazing logs is an array of pots, pans, spiders and kettles, emitting odors of corn bread and the like which appeal touchingly to the inner man.
It is chilly after the rain and a number of pickaninnies are warming their bare feet, sharing the genial warmth with a box full of youthful goslings.
My host, armed with his after-supper pipe, tips back from the blazing wood fire and is ready to entertain me with accounts of his life on board the Shenandoah.
Bed time came. I was shown across the great uncarpeted room to a large chamber, in dimensions twenty by twenty, I am sure, with a fire place on one side of proportionate size. At the other a round hand-carved mahogany table, on which are a number of calf bound copies of Marshall's "Washington" and Fox's "Book of Martyrs," against the wall a dresser of rare old wood, and easy chair drawn up to the fire place, and a number of high black chairs standing around the room, with the bed, complete the very unique furnishing.
The room is filled with rich, mellow lights. The tall sentinel bed-posts cast long shadows across the oaken floor and upon the opposite wall, occasional flashes play around the glass in the dresser, giving a spectral appearance to the quaint appointments of the room. Vague fancies flit through my mind; unreasonable hypotheses claim my attention; the drowsy warmth is overpowering me. Presently the great bed posts nod at me, the coals gradually take on their silken coats, and darkness asserts its sway.
Beautiful peninsula! Sunny Atlantis! Sleepily floating in the indolent sea of the past, incapable of crossing the gulf which separates you from the outside world, requiescat in pace!