king land on their own account. This is the third year of the
trial, and every year has been a success more and more complete. The
profits of some of the laborers amount to five hundred, and in some
cases five thousand dollars a year. The amount of money deposited in
bank by the negroes of these islands is a hundred and forty thousand
dollars. One joint, subscription to the seven-thirty loan amounted
to eighty thousand dollars. Notwithstanding the fact that the troops
which landed on the islands robbed, indiscriminately, the negroes of
their money, mules, and supplies, the negroes went back to work again.
General Saxton, who has chief charge of this enterprise, has his
head-quarters at Beaufort. If these facts, and the actual prosperity
of these islands could be generally known throughout the South, it
would do more to induce the whites to take hold of the freed-labor
system than all the general orders and arbitrary commands that General
Hatch has issued.

The resources of Georgia are similar to those of South Carolina, and
the climate differs but little from that of the latter State. The
rice-swamps are unhealthy, and the malaria which arises from them is
said to be fatal to whites. Many of the planters express a fear that
the abolition of slavery has ended the culture of rice. They argue
that the labor is so difficult and exhaustive, that the negroes will
never perform it excepting under the lash. Cruel modes of punishment
being forbidden, the planters look upon the rice-lands as valueless.
Time will show whether these fears are to be realized or not. If it
should really happen that the negroes refuse to labor where their
lives are of comparatively short duration, the country must consent to
restore slavery to its former status, or purchase its rice in foreign
countries. As rice is produced in India without slave labor, it is
possible that some plan may be invented for its cultivation here.

Georgia has a better system of railways than any other Southern State,
and she is fortunate in possessing several navigable rivers. The
people are not as hostile to Northerners as the inhabitants of South
Carolina, but they do not display the desire to encourage immigration
that is manifested in North Carolina. In the interior of Georgia,
at the time I am writing, there is much suffering on account of a
scarcity of food. Many cases of actual starvation are reported.

Florida has few attractions to settlers. It is said there is