as inevitable, and
carried me very wisely and well up the island to another of the slave
settlements on the plantation, called Jones's Creek.

On my way I passed some magnificent evergreen oaks,[5] and some thickets
of exquisite evergreen shrubs, and one or two beautiful sites for a
residence, which made me gnash my teeth when I thought of the one we have
chosen. To be sure, these charming spots, instead of being conveniently in
the middle of the plantation, are at an out of the way end of it, and so
hardly eligible for the one quality desired for the overseer's abode, viz.
being central.

[Footnote 5: The only ilex trees which I have seen comparable in size and
beauty with those of the sea-board of Georgia are some to be found in the
Roman Campagna, at Passerano, Lunghegna, Castel Fusano, and other of its
great princely farms, but especially in the magnificent woody wilderness
of Valerano.]

All the slaves' huts on St. Simon's are far less solid, comfortable, and
habitable than those at the rice-island. I do not know whether the
labourer's habitation bespeaks the alteration in the present relative
importance of the crops, but certainly the cultivators of the once
far-famed long staple sea-island cotton of St. Simon's are far more
miserably housed than the rice-raisers of the other plantation. These
ruinous shielings, that hardly keep out wind or weather, are deplorable
homes for young or aged people, and poor shelters for the hardworking men
and women who cultivate the fields in which they stand. Riding home I
passed some beautiful woodland with charming pink and white blossoming
peach and plum-trees, which seemed to belong to some orchard that had been
attempted, and afterwards delivered over to wildness. On enquiry I found
that no fruit worth eating was ever gathered from them. What a pity it
seems! for in this warm delicious winter climate any and every species of
fruit might be cultivated with little pains and to great perfection. As I
was cantering along the side of one of the cotton fields I suddenly heard
some inarticulate vehement cries, and saw what seemed to be a heap of
black limbs tumbling and leaping towards me, renewing the screams at
intervals as it approached. I stopped my horse, and the black ball bounded
almost into the road before me, and suddenly straightening itself up into
a haggard hag of a half-naked negress, exclaimed, with panting eager
breathlessness, 'Oh missis, missis! you no hear me cry