her morning.
It is true we still occasionally drew up huge cat-fish, with their
detestable beards and spikes, but we also captivated some magnificent
perch, and the Altamaha perch are worth one's while both to catch and to
eat. On a visit I had to make on the mainland, the same day, I saw a tiny
strip of garden ground, rescued from the sandy road, called the street,
perfectly filled with hyacinths, double jonquils, and snowdrops, a
charming nosegay for February 11. After leaving the boat on my return
home, I encountered a curious creature walking all sideways, a small cross
between a lobster and a crab. One of the negroes to whom I applied for its
denomination informed me that it was a land crab, with which general
description of this very peculiar multipede you must be satisfied, for I
can tell you no more. I went a little further, as the nursery rhyme says,
and met with a snake, and not being able to determine, at ignorant first
sight, whether it was a malignant serpent or not, I ingloriously took to
my heels, and came home on the full run. It is the first of these
exceedingly displeasing animals I have encountered here; but Jack, for my
consolation, tells me that they abound on St. Simon's, whither we are
going--'rattlesnakes, and all kinds,' says he, with an affluence of
promise in his tone that is quite agreeable. Rattlesnakes will be quite
enough of a treat, without the vague horrors that may be comprised in the
additional 'all kinds.' Jack's account of the game on St. Simon's is
really quite tantalising to me, who cannot carry a gun any more than if I
were a slave. He says that partridges, woodcocks, snipe, and wild duck
abound, so that, at any rate, our table ought to be well supplied. His
account of the bears that are still to be found in the woods of the
mainland, is not so pleasant, though he says they do no harm to the
people, if they are not meddled with, but that they steal the corn from
the fields when it is ripe, and actually swim the river to commit their
depredations on the islands. It seems difficult to believe this, looking
at this wide and heavy stream--though, to be sure, I did once see a young
horse swim across the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and Quebec; a feat of
natation which much enlarged my belief in what quadrupeds may accomplish
when they have no choice between swimming and sinking.

You cannot imagine how great a triumph the virtue next to godliness is
making under my auspices and a judi