time of the Shaws and the
Nightingales. The room immediately back of the drawing-room, in the
north-east corner, was the dining-room: a wide hall ran through the
centre, upon the opposite side of which were two rooms, used
respectively as school- and sewing-room. Above these apartments, in the
third story, were the chambers. That directly above the drawing-room is
the most interesting of all, for it was occupied by General Harry Lee,
who was confined there by sickness, and there died. The interior of the
house corresponded with its exterior in beauty of finish and
magnificence of decoration and appointments.

Enclosed by a high wall of masonry (the "tabby" just described) was a
tract of twelve acres devoted to the cultivation of flowers and tropical
fruits. This wall, now broken down in places and overgrown with ivy-and
trumpet-vines, yet divides the garden from the larger fields once
devoted to cotton and cane. The gardener's house was next the mansion,
and joined to it by this high wall. The garden lay to the south,
reaching the marsh in successive terraces. On and about the semicircular
terrace immediately around the house were planted crape-myrtle, clove
trees and sago-palms: some yet remain to indicate what an Eden-like
retreat was this garden of spices and bloom half a century ago. The
first broad terrace, which ran the entire length of the garden-wall east
and west, was divided by an avenue of olives, which separated in front
of the house, leaving a space in which were two noble magnolias. A broad
walk ran from the house to the lower garden, which was divided from the
other by a thick-set hedge of mock-orange: in this garden was another
walk bordered by olives. This space was entirely devoted to flowers: on
each side was a grove of orange trees, and in the lower garden were the
fig, India-rubber and date-palm, the golden date of Africa. Of trees
there were the camphor tree, coffee, Portuguese laurel, "tree of
Paradise," crape-myrtle, guava, lime, orange, citron, pomegranate,
sago-palm and many others whose home is in the tropics. The delicious
climate of this island, several degrees warmer than that of the main
land in the same latitude, enabled the proprietors of this insular
Paradise to grow nearly all the fruits of the torrid zone.

A little tongue of land runs from the garden into the marsh, an
elevation of the original shell-mound, covered with oaks hung with long
gray moss. This was called "The Park," and