carriages as exercise, showing how
very little they know the meaning of the word, and how completely they
identify it with the idea of mere painful fatigue, instead of pleasurable
exertion.

Returning home, my reflections ran much on the possible future destiny of
these vast tracts of sandy soil. It seems to me that the ground capable of
supporting the evergreen growth, the luxuriant gardenia bushes, the bay
myrtle, the beautiful magnolia grandiflora, and the powerful and gnarled
live oaks, that find their sustenance in this earth and under this same
sky as the fir trees, must be convertible into a prosperous habitation for
other valuable vegetable growth that would add immensely to the wealth of
the Southern States. The orange thrives and bears profusely along this
part of the sea-board of Georgia; and I cannot conceive that the olive,
the mulberry, and the vine might not be acclimated and successfully and
profitably cultivated throughout the whole of this region, the swampy
lower lands alone remaining as rice plantations. The produce of these
already exceeds in value that of the once gold-growing cotton-fields, and
I cannot help believing that silk and wine and oil may, and will,
hereafter, become, with the present solitary cotton crop, joint possessors
of all this now but half-reclaimed wilderness. The soil all round Sorrento
is very nearly as light and dry and sandy as this, and vineyards and olive
orchards and cocooneries are part of the agricultural wealth there. Our
neighbour Mr. C---- has successfully cultivated the date-palm in his
garden on the edge of the sea, at St. Simon's, and certainly the ilex,
orange, and myrtle abounding here suggest natural affinities between the
Italian soil and climate and this.

I must tell you something funny which occurred yesterday at dinner, which
will give you some idea of the strange mode in which we live. We have now
not unfrequently had mutton at table, the flavour of which is quite
excellent, as indeed it well may be, for it is raised under all the
conditions of the famous _Pre sale_ that the French gourmands especially
prize, and which are reproduced on our side of the channel in the peculiar
qualities of our best South Down. The mutton we have here grazes on the
short sweet grass at St. Simon's within sea-salt influence, and is some of
the very best I have ever tasted, but it is invariably brought to table in
lumps or chunks of no particular shape or size, and in which