In the brush : $b or, Old-time social, political, and religious life in the southwestPierson, Hamilton W. (Hamilton Wilcox)
History
In the brush : $b or, Old-time social, political, and religious life in the southwest
Pierson, Hamilton W. (Hamilton Wilcox)
Missions -- Southwest, Old; Southwest, Old -- Social life and customs
A few days after this, as I was taking a lonely horseback-ride to an
adjoining parish, I heard the negroes singing in a field that I could
not see, lying behind a wood that skirted the road. I stopped my horse
for a moment to listen to their music. I could hear no words, but at
once distinguished "Ortonville." Soon after I inquired of my host
how long these people had been singing this tune, and where they had
learned it; and was told that the minister I had seen upon the Sabbath,
while on a visit to his relatives in the State of Georgia the fall
before, had heard it sung at the meeting of the Synod, and was so much
pleased with it that he procured a copy, and in that manner it had
been introduced to this place and the places adjacent. At one of those
places I was told that they were so much pleased with it that they had
sung it over and over one Sabbath-day during the entire intermission.
Time passed on, and in my invalid wanderings I was within the tropics,
sailing in the track of Columbus, along the north shore of Hayti.
Entering those waters, so often tinged with human blood, that divide
this island from the famed Tortugas, as if in harmony with the dark
memories that crowded upon the mind, black clouds began to darken the
heavens, the thunders rolled, the lightnings gleamed with terrific
fury, and amid the most sublime tumult of the elements we were carried
along until our little craft dropped anchor in the bay of Port de
Paix. The storm and darkness were such that I could not go ashore, and
I was that night rocked to sleep on waters where many a pirate-ship,
with bloody deck, had ridden securely at anchor, and prepared to set
forth again on new missions of pillage and death. This harbor was the
chief rendez-vous, the refuge from danger, and retreat from toil, of
the buccaneers that for years infested these seas, and whose piratical
plunderings for so long a time made their names a terror to all within
their reach. However, not being particularly superstitious, I slept
soundly for the night.
In the morning I left our little vessel and received--what is ever so
grateful to a wanderer on a foreign shore, and especially to one who
has any sympathy with the command, "Go teach all nations"--a welcome to
the residence of a countryman, to a missionary's humble home. Ay, noble
men and women are they, who, forgetful of themselves, and alone for the
honor of the Master that they serve, leaving the comforts and amenities
of a Christian civilization, toil on through life amid manifold
discouragements, endeavoring to instruct and elevate the degraded, and,
above all else, anxious to
"Allure to brighter worlds and lead the way."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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