! me too glad
to see you!" accompanied with certain interjectional shrieks, whoops,
whistles, and grunts, that could only be written down in negro language,
made me aware of our vicinity to our journey's end. The strangeness of
the whole scene, its wildness (for now beyond the broad river and the
low swamp lands the savage-looking woods arose to meet the horizon), the
rapid retrospect which my mind hurried through of the few past years of
my life; the singular contrasts which they presented to my memory; the
affectionate shouts of welcome of the poor people, who seemed to hail us
as descending divinities, affected me so much that I burst into tears,
and could hardly answer their demonstrations of delight. We were
presently transferred into the larger boat, and the smaller one being
freighted with our luggage, we pulled off from Darien, not, however,
without a sage remark from Margery, that, though we seemed to have
traveled to the very end of the world, here yet were people and houses,
ships, and even steamboats; in which evidences that we were not to be
plunged into the deepest abysses of savageness she seemed to take no
small comfort.

We crossed the river, and entered a small arm of it, which presently
became still narrower and more straight, assuming the appearance of an
artificial cut or canal, which indeed it is, having been dug by General
Oglethorpe's men (tradition says, in one night), and afforded him the
only means of escape from the Spaniards and Indians, who had surrounded
him on all sides, and felt secure against all possibility of his eluding
them. The cut is neither very deep nor very long, and yet both
sufficiently to render the general's exploit rather marvelous. General
Oglethorpe was the first British governor of Georgia; Wesley's friend
and disciple. The banks of this little canal were mere dykes, guarding
rice-swamps, and presented no species of beauty; but in the little
creek, or inlet, from which we entered it, I was charmed with the beauty
and variety of the evergreens growing in thick and luxuriant underwood,
beneath giant, straggling cypress trees, whose branches were almost
covered with the pendant wreaths of gray moss peculiar to these southern
woods. Of all parasitical plants (if, indeed, it properly belongs to
that class) it assuredly is the most melancholy and dismal. All
creepers, from the polished, dark-leaved ivy, to the delicate clematis,
destroy some portion of the strength of the tre