A lady.
True: any one may tell that who has the good fortune of looking at her. It was her name I asked for.
It does not concern you to know it.
Not if it be of so much importance to keep it a secret!
Sacr-r-ré !
This exclamation, muttered, rather than spoken aloud, ended the dialogue; and the old fellow turned away on giving expression to it no doubt cursing me in his heart as a meddling Yankee.
I applied myself to the sable Jehu of the barouche, but with no better success. He was getting his horses aboard, and not liking to give direct answers to my questions, he dodged them by dodging around his horses, and appearing to be very busy on the offside. Even the name I was unable to get out of him, and I also gave him up in despair.
The name, however, was furnished me shortly after from an unexpected source. I had returned to the boat, and had seated myself once more under the awning, watching the boatmen, with rolled-up red shirts, use their brawny arms in getting their freight aboard. I saw it was the same which had been delivered from the drays the property of the lady. It consisted, for the most part, of barrels of pork and flour, with a quantity of dried hams, and some bags of coffee.
Provisions for her large establishment, soliloquised I.
Just then some packages of a different character were pushed upon the staging. These were leathern trunks, travelling bags, rosewood cases, bonnet-boxes, and the like.
Ha! her personal luggage, I again reflected, and continued to puff my cigar. Regarding the transfer of the trunks, my eye was suddenly attracted to some lettering that appeared upon one of the packages a leathern portmanteau. I sprang from my seat, and as the article was carried up the gangway stair I met it halfway. I glanced my eye over the lettering, and read
Mademoiselle Eugénie Besançon .
Chapter Seven The Starting
She heads up-stream; a few strokes of the revolving paddles and the current is mastered; and the noble boat yielding to the mighty propulsion, cleaves her liquid way, walking the water like a thing of life!
Perchance the boom of a cannon announces her departure; perchance it is animated by the harmonious swell of brazen instruments; or still more appropriate, some old boatmans song, with its lively chorus, is heard issuing from the rude, though not unmusical throats of the hands below.
Lafayette and Carrolton are soon passed; the humbler roofs of stores and dwellings sink out of sight; and the noble dome of Saint Charles, the spires of
churches, and the towers of the great cathedral, are all of the Crescent City that remain above the horizon. These, at length, go down; and the floating palace moves on in stately grandeur between the picturesque shores of the Mississippi.
I have said picturesque. This word does not satisfy me, nor can I think of one that will delineate my idea. I must make use of a phrase, picturesquely beautiful, to express my admiration of the scenery of those shores. I have no hesitation in pronouncing it the finest in the world.
I am not gazing upon it with a mere cold eye-glance. I cannot separate scenery from its associations not its associations of the past, but with the present. I look upon the ruined castles of the Rhine, and their story impresses me with a feeling of disgust for what has been . I look upon its modern homes and their dwellers; I am equally filled with disgust for what is . In the Bay of Naples I experience a similar feeling, and roaming around the lordly parks of England, I see them through an enclosure of wretchedness and rags, till their loveliness seems an illusion!
Here alone, upon the banks of this majestic river, do I behold wealth widely diffused, intelligence broadcast, and comfort for all. Here, in almost every house, do I meet the refined taste of high civilisation the hospitality of generous hearts combined with the power to dispense it. Here can I converse with men by thousands, whose souls are free not politically alone, but free from vulgar error and fanatic superstition; here, in short, have I witnessed, not the perfectedness for that belongs to a far future time but the most advanced stage of civilisation yet reached upon the globe.
A dark shadow crosses my eye-glance, and my heart is stung with sudden pain. It is the shadow of a human being with a black skin. He is a slave !
For a moment or two the scene looks black! What is there to admire here in these fields of golden sugar-cane, of waving maize, of snow-white cotton? What to admire in those grand mansions, with their orangeries, their flowery gardens, their drooping shade-trees, and their soft arbours? All this is but the sweat of the slave!
For a while I behold without admiring. The scene has lost its couleur de rose ; and a gloomy wilderness is before me! I reflect. Slowly and gradually the cloud passes away, and the brightness returns. I reflect and compare.
True, he with the black skin is a slave but not a voluntary slave. That is a difference in his favour at least.