has even a stable, for he
made out some title to a horse, which was allowed; and then he begged
a pair of wheels and makes a cart for his work; and not to leave the
luxuries behind, he next rigs up a kind of sulky and bows to the white
men from his carriage. As he keeps his table in corresponding
style,--for he buys more sugar ... than any other two families,--of
course the establishment is rather expensive. So, to provide the
means, he has three permanent irons in the fire--his cotton, his
Hilton Head express, and his seine. Before the fishing season
commenced, a pack of dogs for deer-hunting took the place of the net.
While other families 'carry' from three to six or seven acres of
cotton, Limus says he must have _fourteen_. To help his wife and
daughters keep this in good order, he went over to the rendezvous for
refugees, and imported a family to the plantation, the men of which he
hired at $8 a month.... With a large boat which he owns, he usually
makes weekly trips to Hilton Head, twenty miles distant, carrying
passengers, produce and fish. These last he takes in an immense
seine,--an abandoned chattel,--for the use of which he pays Government
by furnishing General Hunter and staff with the finer specimens, and
then has ten to twenty bushels for sale. Apparently he is either
dissatisfied with this arrangement or means to extend his operations,
for he asks me to bring him another seine for which I am to pay $70. I
presume his savings since 'the guns fired at Bay Point'--which is the
native record of the capture of the island--amount to four or five
hundred dollars. He is all ready to buy land, and I expect to see him
in ten years a tolerably rich man. Limus has, it is true, but few
equals on the islands, and yet there are many who follow not far
behind him."]

[Footnote 32: Major-General David Hunter, who on March 31 had taken
command of the newly created Department of the South, consisting of
the states of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.]

[Footnote 33: Dr. Wakefield was physician for that end of St. Helena
Island.]

[Footnote 34: On Cockspur Island, Georgia.]

[Footnote 35: As the quarter-acre "task," which was all that the
planters had required of their slaves each day, had occupied about
four or five hours only, it will be seen that the slaves on the Sea
Islands had not been overworked, though they had been underfed. Like
the "task," the "private patches" were also an institution retained,
at E. L.