Simple-hearted man, a fair type of his fellow-citizens, he saw but his own side of the question, and might fairly claim in this matter to be justified by his faith.  His bald crown, sandy side-locks, reddish whiskers, sanguineous cheeks, and blue eyes were all luminous with confidence in the integrity of his State, and with scorn for the meanness and wickedness of her enemies.  No doubt had he that the fort ought to be surrendered to South Carolina; no suspicion that the Government could show a reason for holding it, aside from low self-interest and malice.  He was the honest mouthpiece of a most peculiar people, local in its opinions and sentiments beyond anything known at the North, even in self-poised Boston.  Changing his subject, he spoke with hostile, yet chivalrous, respect of the pluck of the Black Republicans in Congress.  They had never faltered; they had vouchsafed no hint of concession; while, on the other hand, Southerners had shamed him by their craven spirit.  It grieved, it mortified him, to see such a man as Crittenden on his knees to the North, begging, actually with tears, for what he ought to demand as a right, with head erect and hands clenched.  He departed with a mysterious allusion to some secret of his for taking Fort Sumter,—­some disagreeably odorous chemical preparation, I guessed, by the scientific terms in which he beclouded himself,—­something which he expected would soon be called for by the Governor.  May he never smell anything worse, even in the other world, than his own compounds!  Unionist, and perhaps Consolidationist, as I am, I could not look upon his honest, persuaded face, and judge him a traitor, at least not to any sentiment of right that was in his own soul.

Our hotel was full of legislators and volunteer officers, mostly planters or sons of planters, and almost without exception men of standing and property.  South Carolina is an oligarchy in spirit, and allows no plebeians in high places.  Two centuries of plenteous feeding and favorable climate showed their natural results in the physique of these people.  I do not think that I exaggerate, when I say that they averaged six feet or nearly in height, and one hundred and seventy pounds or thereabouts in weight.  One or two would have brought in money, if enterprisingly heralded as Swiss or Belgian giants.  The general physiognomy was good, mostly high-featured, often commanding, sometimes remarkable for massive beauty of the Jovian type, and almost invariably distinguished by a fearless, open-eyed frankness, in some instances running into arrogance and pugnacity.  I remember one or two elderly men, in particular, whose faces would help an artist to idealize a Lacedaemonian general, or a baron of the Middle Ages.  In dress somewhat careless, and wearing usually the last fashion but one, they struck me as less tidy than the same class when I saw it four years ago; and I made a similar remark concerning the citizens of Charleston,—­not