assing the day in Columbus; some were on foot, others riding, but all
more or less elevated; a few of the women were good-looking, and, to
their credit, all of them sober.

As we repassed Sodom, the sound of revelry proclaimed the orgies
resumed. The rain, which had hitherto held up, once more began to
descend with a determination of purpose that boded us no good: we
spurred over the covered bridge, and were soon after housed again in
Georgia.

At our hotel I encountered a gentleman who, a few weeks before, had been
a fellow-passenger with me from New York to Charleston; but his advance
had been less prosperous than mine: indeed, a brief relation of what he
had endured sufficed to reconcile me to any little fatigue that fell to
my lot. It appeared that, three weeks previous to this meeting of ours,
he had quitted Columbus in a steamer going down to Appalachicola: they
had proceeded some three hundred miles on their way, when, in the night,
the passengers were roused from sleep by the alarm of "fire!" The boat
was, in fact, a mass of flame by the time the first persons reached the
deck. My informant, with many others, immediately jumped overboard: the
steamer was run on the bank; and, with the exception of two persons
drowned, the rest of her passengers and crew were landed in the forest;
most of them with nothing in the shape of covering excepting their
night-clothes. Luckily, there were only two ladies of the party; and
their condition may be imagined, living for four days in the forest
swamp without other than temporary huts for shelter, and in all other
respects most scantily provided for, as the suddenness of the fire
prevented any saving of stores or provisions.

At the end of four days the up-river steamer was hailed on its passing,
and, getting on board of this, they were in a few days after landed
where I found my informant waiting for the next boat. It appeared that
the fire was attributed to a slave who had been the day before flogged
for mutiny, and who, according to the evidence of his fellows, had
threatened some such revenge.

During the afternoon I walked about this thriving frontier town, despite
a smart shower: the stores were well supplied, the warehouses filled
with cotton, and in all quarters were groups of the neighbouring
planters busied in looking after the sale of their produce, and making
such purchases as their families required.

Numerous parties of Indians,--Creeks and Choctaws,--roamed