connoisseurs, too. "Jimmy great shouter," I was told; and Jimmy himself remarked to me, as he looked patronizingly on a ring of young people, "Dese yein worry deyseff-we don't worry weseff." And indeed, although the perspiration streamed copiously down his shiny face, he shuffled round the circle with great ease

and grace.

The shouting may be to any tune, and perhaps all the Port Royal hymns here given are occasionally used for this purpose; so that our cook's classification into "sperichils" and "runnin' sperichils" (shouts), or the designation of certain ones as sung "just sittin' round, you know," will hardly hold in strictness. In practice, however, a distinction is generally observed. The first seven, for instance, favorite hymns in the St. Helena church, would rarely, if ever, be used for shouting; while probably on each plantation there is a special set in common use. On my plantation I oftenest heard "Pray all de member" (No. 47), "Bell da ring" (No. 46), "Shall I die?" (No. 52), and "I can't stay behind, my Lord" (No. 8). The shouting step varied with the tune; one could hardly dance with the same spirit to "Turn, sinner," or "My body rock 'long fever," as to "Rock o' Jubilee," or "O Jerusalem, early in de morning." So far as I can learn, the shouting is confined to the Baptists; and it is, no doubt, to the overwhelming preponderance of this denomination on the Sea Islands that we owe the peculiar richness and originality of the music there

"Mi

'The same songs are used for rowing as for snouting. I know only one pure boat-song, the fine lyric, chael row the boat ashore" (No. 31); and this I have no doubt is a real spiritual-it being the archangel Michael that is addressed. Among the most common rowing tunes were Nos. 5, 14, 17, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 46. "As I have written these tunes," says Mr. Ware, "two measures are to be sung to each stroke, the first measure being accented by the beginning of the stroke, the second by the rattle of the oars in the rowlocks. On the passenger boat at the [Beaufort] ferry, they rowed from sixteen to thirty strokes a minute; twenty-four was the average. Of the tunes I have heard, I should say that the most lively were 'Heaven bell aring' (No. 27), 'Jine 'em' (No. 28), 'Rain fall' (No. 29), 'No man' (No. 14), 'Bell da ring' (No. 46), and 'Can't stay behind;' and that 'Lay this body down' (No. 26), 'Religion so sweet' (No. 17), and 'Michael row' (No. 31), were used 'when the load was heavy or the tide was against us. I think that the long hold on 'Oh,'in ‘Rain fall,' was only used in rowing. When used as a 'shout' I am quite sure that it occupied only one measure, as in the last part of the verse. One noticeable thing about their boat-songs was that they seemed often to be sung just a trifle behind time; in 'Rain fall,' for instance, 'Believer cry holy' would seem to occupy more than its share of the stroke, the 'holy' being prolonged till the very beginning of the next stroke; indeed, I think Jerry

often hung on his oar a little just there before dipping it again."*

As to the composition of these songs, "I always won. dered," says Col. Higginson, "whether they had always a conscious and definite origin in some leading mind, or whether they grew by gradual accretion, in an almost unconscious way. On this point I could get no infor mation, though I asked many questions, until at last, one day when I was being rowed across from Beaufort to Ladies' Island, I found myself, with delight, on the actual trail of a song. One of the oarsmen, a brisk young fellow, not a soldier, on being asked for his theory of the matter, dropped out a coy confession. 'Some good sperituals,' he said, 'are start jess out o' curiosity. been a-raise a sing, myself, once.'

I

"My dream was fulfilled, and I had traced out, not the poem alone, but the poet. I implored him to proceed.

"Once we boys,' he said, 'went for tote some rice, and de nigger-driver, he keep a-callin' on us; and I say, 'O, de ole nigger-driver!' Den anudder said, 'Fust ting my mammy told me was, notin' so bad as niggerdrivers.' Den I made a sing, just puttin' a word, and den anudder word.'

"Then he began singing, and the men, after listening a moment, joined in the chorus as if it were an old ac

For another curious circumstance in rowing, see note to "Rain fall," No. 29.

quaintance, though they evidently had never heard it before. I saw how easily a new 'sing' took root among them.'

A not inconsistent explanation is that given on page 12 of an "Address delivered by J. Miller McKim, in Sansom Hall, Philadelphia, July 9, 1862.”

"I asked one of these blacks-one of the most intelligent of them [Prince Rivers, Sergeant 1st Reg. S. C. V.] -where they got these songs. 'Dey make 'em, sah.' 'How do they make them?' After a pause, evidently casting about for an explanation, he said: 'I'll tell you, it's dis way. My master call me up, and order me a short peck of corn and a hundred lash. My friends see it, and is sorry for me. When dey come to de praisemeeting dat night dey sing about it. Some's very good singers and know how; and dey work it in-work it in, you know, till they get it right; and dat's de way.' A very satisfactory explanation; at least so it seemed to me.' We were not so fortunate as Col. Higginson in our search for a poet. Cuffee at Pine Grove did, to be sure, confess himself the author of " Climb Jacob's Ladder;"— unfortunately, we afterwards found it in a Northern hymn book. And if you try to trace out a new song, and ask, “Where did you hear that?" the answer will be, "One strange man come from Eding's las' praisenight and sing 'em in praise-house, and de people catch 'em;" or "Titty 'Mitta [sister Amaritta] fetch 'em from Polawana, where she tuk her walk gone spend Sunday. Some of her fahmly sing 'em yonder." "But what does

'Ringy rosy land' [Ring Jerusalem, No. 21] mean?" "Me dunno."

Our title, "Slave Songs," was selected because it best described the contents of the book. A few of those here given (Nos. 64, 59) were, to be sure, composed since the proclamation of emancipation, but even these were inspired by slavery. "All, indeed, are valuable as an expression of the character and life of the race which is playing such a conspicuous part in our history. The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves could, of crushed hopes, keen sorrow, and a dull, daily misery, which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice swamps. On the other hand, the words breathe a trusting faith in rest for the future-in Canaan's air and happy land,' to which their eyes seem constantly turned."

Our original plan hardly contemplated more than the publication of the Port Royal spirituals, some sixty in all, which we had supposed we could obtain, with per haps a few others in an appendix. As new materials came into our hands, we enlarged our plan to the present dimensions. Next to South Carolina, we have the largest number from Virginia; from the other States comparatively few. Few as they are, however, they ap pear to indicate a very distinct character in different States. Contrary to what might be expected, the songs from Virginia are the most wild and strange. "O'er the Crossing" (No. 93) is peculiarly so; but "Sabbath has no end" (No. 89), "Hypocrite and Concubine" (No. 91),