scanty supply of the beloved tobacco,--beside others, telling stories
and shouting with laughter over the broadest mimicry, in which they
excel, and in which the officers come in for a full share. The
everlasting "shout" is always within hearing, with its mixture of
piety and polka, and its castanet-like clapping of the hands. Then
there are quieter prayer-meetings, with pious invocations and slow
psalms, "deaconed out" from memory by the leader, two lines at a time,
in a sort of wailing chant. Elsewhere, there are _conversazioni_
around fires, with a woman for queen of the circle,--her Nubian face,
gay headdress, gilt necklace, and white teeth, all resplendent in the
glowing light. Sometimes the woman is spelling slow monosyllables out
of a primer, a feat which always commands all ears,--they rightly
recognizing a mighty spell, equal to the overthrowing of monarchs, in
the magic assonance of _cat, hat, pat, bat_, and the rest of it.
Elsewhere, it is some solitary old cook, some aged Uncle Tiff, with
enormous spectacles, who is perusing a hymn-book by the light of a
pine splinter, in his deserted cooking booth of palmetto leaves. By
another fire there is an actual dance, red-legged soldiers doing
right-and-left, and "now-lead-de-lady-ober," to the music of a violin
which is rather artistically played, and which may have guided the
steps, in other days, of Barnwells and Hugers. And yonder is a
stump-orator perched on his barrel, pouring out his exhortations to
fidelity in war and in religion. To-night for the first time I have
heard an harangue in a different strain, quite saucy, sceptical, and
defiant, appealing to them in a sort of French materialistic style,
and claiming some personal experience of warfare. "You don't know
notin' about it, boys. You tink you's brave enough; how you tink, if
you stan' clar in de open field,--here you, and dar de Secesh? You's
got to hab de right ting inside o' you. You must hab it 'served
[preserved] in you, like dese yer sour plums dey 'serve in de barr'l;