utmost interest and admiration,
J---- C----'s narrative of his escape from the wreck of the Poolaski: what
a brave, and gallant, and unselfish soul he must be! You never read
anything more thrilling, in spite of the perfect modesty of this account
of his. If I can obtain his permission, and squeeze out the time, I will
surely copy it for you. The quiet unassuming character of his usual
manners and deportment adds greatly to his prestige as a hero. What a fine
thing it must be to be such a man!

* * * * *

Dear E----. We shall leave this place next Thursday or Friday, and there
will be an end to this record; meantime I am fulfilling all sorts of last
duties, and especially those of taking leave of my neighbours, by whom the
neglect of a farewell visit would be taken much amiss.

On Sunday, I rode to a place called Frederica to call on a Mrs. A----, who
came to see me some time ago. I rode straight through the island by the
main road that leads to the little church.

How can I describe to you the exquisite spring beauty that is now adorning
these woods, the variety of the fresh new-born foliage, the fragrance of
the sweet wild perfumes that fill the air? Honeysuckles twine round every
tree; the ground is covered with a low white-blossomed shrub more fragrant
than lilies of the valley. The accacuas are swinging their silver censers
under the green roof of these wood temples; every stump is like a
classical altar to the sylvan gods, garlanded with flowers; every post, or
stick, or slight stem, like a Bacchante's thyrsus, twined with wreaths of
ivy and wild vine, waving in the tepid wind. Beautiful butterflies flicker
like flying flowers among the bushes, and gorgeous birds, like winged
jewels, dart from the boughs,--and--and--a huge ground snake slid like a
dark ribbon, across the path while I was stopping to enjoy all this
deliciousness, and so I became less enthusiastic, and cantered on past
the little deserted churchyard, with the new-made grave beneath its grove
of noble oaks, and a little farther on reached Mrs. A----'s cottage, half
hidden in the midst of ruins and roses.

This Frederica is a very strange place; it was once a town, _the_ town,
the metropolis of the island. The English, when they landed on the coast
of Georgia in the war, destroyed this tiny place, and it has never been
built up again. Mrs. A----'s, and one other house, are the only dwellings
that remain in this cur