* * * * *

The camp-ground was about a mile from the station, and pleasantly situated in a grove, near a stream of water.  It was in frequent use by the camp-meetings of the Methodist denomination, which sect, at the South, is partial to these rural religious gatherings.  Scattered over it, with an effort at regularity, were about forty small but neat log cottages, thatched with the long leaves of the turpentine-pine, and chinked with branches of the same tree.  Each of these houses was floored with leaves or straw, and large enough to afford sleeping accommodations for about ten person, provided they spread their bedding on the ground, and lay tolerably close together.  Interspersed among the cabins were about a dozen canvas tents, which evidently had been erected for this especial occasion.

Nearly in the centre of the group of huts, a rude sort of scaffold, four or five feet high, and surrounded by a rustic railing, served for the speaker’s stand.  It would seat about a dozen persons, and was protected by a roof of pine-boughs, interlaced together so as to keep off the sun, without affording protection from the rain.  In the rear of this stand were two long tables, made of rough boards, and supported on stout joists, crossed on each other in the form of the letter X. A canopy of green boughs shaded the grounds, and the whole grove, which was perfectly free from underbrush, was carpeted with the soft, brown leaves of the pine.

Being fatigued with the ride of the previous day, I did not awake till the morning was well advanced, and it was nearly ten o’clock when Andy and I took our way to the camp-ground.  Avoiding the usual route, we walked on through the forest.  It was mid-winter, and vegetation lay dead all around us, awaiting the time when spring should breathe into it the breath of life and make it a living thing.  There was silence and rest in the deep wood.  The birds were away on their winter wanderings; the leaves hung motionless on the tall trees, and nature seemed resting from her ceaseless labor, and listening to the soft music of the little stream which sung a cheerful song as it rambled on over the roots and fallen branches that blocked its way.  But soon a distant murmur arose, and we had not proceeded far before as many sounds as were heard at Babel made a strange concert about our ears.  The lowing of the ox, the neighing of the horse, and the deep braying of another animal, mingled with a thousand human voices, came through the woods.  But above and over all rose the stentorian tones of the stump speaker,

    ’As he trod the shaky platform,
    With the sweat upon his brow.’