and find the grasshopper a burthen, and rear and otherwise demonstrate his disgust.  I have not ridden for a long time now, but Montreal’s opposition very presently aroused the Amazon which is both natural and acquired in me, and I made him comprehend that, though I object to slaves, I expect obedient servants; which views of mine being imparted by a due administration of both spur and whip, attended with a judicious combination of coaxing pats on his great crested neck, and endearing commendations of his beauty, produced the desired effect.  Montreal accepted me 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