were soon visible among the officers in
the cabin, but I rarely saw such among the men.

Pleasant still seemed our enterprise, as we anchored at early morning in
the quiet waters of St. Simon's Sound, and saw the light fall softly on
the beach and the low bluffs, on the picturesque plantation-houses which
nestled there, and the graceful naval vessels that lay at anchor before
us. When we afterwards landed, the air had that peculiar Mediterranean
translucency which Southern islands wear; and the plantation we visited
had the loveliest tropical garden, though tangled and desolate, which I
have ever seen in the South. The deserted house was embowered in great
blossoming shrubs, and filled with hyacinthine odors, among which
predominated that of the little Chickasaw roses which everywhere bloomed
and trailed around. There were fig-trees and date-palms, crape-myrtles
and wax-myrtles, Mexican agaves and English ivies, japonicas, bananas,
oranges, lemons, oleanders, jonquils, great cactuses, and wild Florida
lilies. This was not the plantation which Mrs. Kemble has since made
historic, although that was on the same island; and I could not waste
much sentiment over it, for it had belonged to a Northern renegade,
Thomas Butler King. Yet I felt then, as I have felt a hundred times
since, an emotion of heart-sickness at this desecration of a
homestead,--and especially when, looking from a bare upper window of the
empty house upon a range of broad, flat, sunny roofs, such as children
love to play on, I thought how that place might have been loved by yet
innocent hearts, and I mourned anew the sacrilege of war.

I had visited the flag-ship Wabash ere we left Port-Royal Harbor, and
had obtained a very kind letter of introduction from Admiral Dupont,
that stately and courtly potentate, elegant as one's ideal French
marquis; and under these credentials I received polite attention from the
naval officers at St. Simon's,--Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Budd, U. S. N.,
of the gunboat Potomska, and Acting Master Moses, U. S. N., of
the barque Fernandina. They made valuable suggestions in regard to the
different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the
last previous trip up the St. Mary's, undertaken by Captain Stevens,
U. S. N., in the gunboat Ottawa, when he had to fight his way past
batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream. I
was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only