could just see the traces of the path from | have gone back to a rough sort of grass his cottage to the lambing-yard, now all that it will take months to eradicate; and broken down and used for hay, a scanty months more before anything can be crop of which had been gathered off the grown again there. arable land, and sold to a neighboring shopkeeper, waiting his convenience there until he chose to fetch it away: yonder, too, once lived well-known laborers; the ttle conveniences put up for them by our host falling bit by bit into decay: or taken by passers-by as the spirit moved them, for there were none left to prevent: the tidy garden, going back into a wilderness, and the place where the beehives stood, and where we helped Betsey Smith to tie crape on the hives when her mother died, as a polite intimation to them of the family bereavement, was thick with nettles, and defied our attempts to pass into the field in the old accustomed way.

Indeed, the whole place was full of heart-breaks: the cottages were all like this, all the men had gone "up country,' all the girls had gone away to service, and only old Cherritt was left to talk over old times and tell us how the place had fallen into decay; one after the other, farmers had tried but failed, owing to wet seasons and the squire's rent; how the squire had tried farining it himself, but had only cursed the times and the independence of men who would no longer slave themselves to death for him to have his rent and to die finally worsted in the struggle, their capital sunk in the land, and only a pittance left for the wife who had fought the battle side by side with her husband.

And she stood beside us there in the old house porch, and we thought over the past, and even smiled at all the pictures we remembered so well: the gate was gone in truth, but there was the sty left, where old Billy the pig lived, and eat every chicken that crept into his warm straw bed; and as long as the sty remained, we should recollect how he roused himself, and tried to get over the gate after some specially fat duckling, and only succeeded in hanging himself on the topmost bar, where he was suspended, squealing, while we all laughed too much to help him either backward or forward.

But the very sight of them reminds us of our host's cheery patience and his many difficulties, and how once, when he had thought he had beaten that yellow fiend, and he had come in rejoicing and rubbing his hands to think of his enemy's defeat, he arose next morning to find a soft rain had fallen, which had brought it all up again as thick as ever, and “ I do believe," he said, laughing then, even if ruefully, "that if I dug up a spade full of earth from the bottom of a well, and flung it abroad, the stuff would spring even out of that as strong as ever it did."

Every door is off in the stables, the corners of which are as if bitten off, and the house is desolate: it is impossible to believe it the same in which we had so many happy hours: but that it is is shown by the very hole in the wall, where one night we saw a rat's eyes regarding us, while we were playing whist; and by the crooked stairs, where once we found a governess who was a martyr to neuralgia and stupefied herself with laudanum until she fell about "all over the place" and frightened us dreadfully for fear she was having fits.

Desolate, dreary, and terrible as is the destruction of the farm, we find it too full of remembrances of good times to be really as disappointing as it was at first; there is no life about it, no trim neatness, no fine cultivation, yet the past has so much power, that the present has much ado to keep itself before us.

Still when we turn away, we realize the difference terribly, and know how bad all this is for the village and for the laborers who are fast being exterminated from these parts, and we pause again by old Cherritt who wants us and is waiting for us at his cottage door, to show us how nice the cottages could be made if only the farm were once more let.

We go to him up three stone steps, worn pathetically thin by the feet of many generations of laborers, silent martyrs, The long row of sycamore-trees was who have never realized their martyrdom, still standing, but no bees came there happily enough, and who only dread two now, as they used to when the flowers things, change and the workhouse; and were out below the leaves, and made such we go into the cottages once more, while a noise the while that the whole place the old fellow discourses on his rheumawas in a regular "charm," as they say in tism which is aggravated by heat, and for those parts: and the slope after slope of which he has a humble prescription to lovely fields, where once corn waved in give us, consisting of half an eggcup full the soft wind, and where our host waged of benzoline oil, poured slowly, as he perpetual war with the yellow" charlock," | expresses it, into his hips, and when we

suggest that a cottage where the windows | playing on a triangle, walks up to a mirror are glazed, and where the water doesn't and fades away. At another, a handsome climb up the steps into the floor would soldier dashes furiously up the avenue on be a better prescription for it after all; a powerful horse and suddenly disappears; he declares the water is beautiful water, while at the old Headquarters' Plantaand it would kill him to leave the cottage tion, some spiritual visitor knocks every where he was born; a tiny atom of a day precisely at noon at the front door. baby, for which it would seem the world A remarkable thing about the latter ghost had small use; and that the world has is, that for some time past it has gone treated very hardly ever since. round to the back door, the quaint old The soft spring twilight begins to fall brass knocker having been removed there, on the downs, and the thrush sings loudly to make room for a modern electric bell. in the tree over the grave, a sad wind Evidently, it could not make up its mind moans across the river, and silence glides to use the bell, and so followed the knocker over the landscape with her hand on her to the other side of the mansion. Strange lips. An inexpressibly sad feeling seizes love-stories are also told about these old us; we realize that the Italian poet was homes; and Lord Fenwick's lovely daughright when he told us that "Spring re-ter, who ran away with her father's coachstored all things save our dead, and man, and lived very happily with him, has our youth," yet we cannot help thinking a perpetual youth in the songs and tales that we find both, ay, even if only a pale of the negro population. In fact, all trareflex of either, in the desolate, lonely ditions indicate that, in colonial times, place that is the North Farm now. John's Island was a gay and wealthy settlement, and that the English gentry who owned it kept up in lavish splendor the sports and the domestic traditions of the mother country.

From Chambers' Journal.
SEA ISLAND COTTON.
ITS HOME AND ITS CULTIVATORS.

To-day, however, life on John's Island - and it may stand for all the Sea Islands - is a very different affair, a hard, unTHE Sea Islands are a group lying off lovely struggle with poverty. The ladies the coast of South Carolina, and are at no make dresses for the negro women at fifty great distance from the mainland. The cents a dress, or teach government negro cotton produced on them is of superlative schools at thirty dollars a month. Yet I excellence and length of staple; and never met any family who did not claim to John's Island one of the largest is a have been very rich before the war. name familiar to the cotton exchanges of There are, however, no remains of this the world. A more primitive place it is wealth, or of the refinement that generhardly possible to imagine. At an early ally accompanies wealth. Poverty and period, Lord Fenwick built there a grand ignorance are evidently at home there. manorial residence, which is still in excel- The people have forgotten the hunts and lent preservation; as are also the roomy races and hospitality of colonial times; stables, kennels, etc., and the fine race- and the forty white families which consticourse which he constructed for his pleas- tute the John's Island proprietors rarely ure. The house is now known as the meet, except at church. The church is a Headquarters' Plantation," a name it re- small frame-building erected on the brick ceived from the British officers who made foundation of Lord Fenwick's church. it their home during the revolutionary Some of the tombstones in the graveyard struggle in the Carolinas; and its large are far back in the eighteenth century, and comfort and solidity, its fine avenue of ap-reveal, quite unconsciously, the peculiar proach, and its splendid and ghostly tra ditions, make it a grand landmark of the days of English colonization.

At that period the island was divided among a few families, and some of the large brick mansions which they erected, and their stately family burying-places, still remain, although the houses are now generally deserted and the vaults empty. But around them time and misfortune have thrown a glamor of ghostly romance. At one, a lovely girl in bridal costume,

vanities of the early settlers- thus, Dame Elizabeth Carson is described not only as the "loving and beloved wife of James Carson," but also as the "daughter of John Gibbes, Esq." Pedigree was something, even on a tombstone, at that date.

The negroes are the most interesting part of the population, and in some respects they are unique among their own race. They belong to these islands. Freedom has not tempted them away. They came with the early English settlers, and

they at least preserve many of their manners and superstitions; traces of old English songs and tales, and peculiar words, not heard elsewhere in America, are part and parcel of the negro life in John's Island.

I went to John's Island just as the spring opened. The glad event was announced by the peculiar cry of " Chip, Widow Will, Chip! Widow Will, Chip! Widow Will ! " "Don't you hear him in de sycamore-tree, Maudy gall?" cried old Uncle Major joyfully. "Bress God, him

call for de winter dead!"

The cotton is ready to pick about the middle of August. At this time may be seen on one plant the flower, the green, the half-ripe, and the wholly ripened pod. Sea Island cotton grows to a great height; on John's Island, eight feet and over is usual in a good season. Unless there is a short crop, the picking lasts till after Christmas. It is a season of universal suspicion; husbands watch their wives, and wives their husbands. No one trusts anybody else. The planter has his special watchmen; and even then, he loses many pounds by what the negroes call "dem tricky members; " for they never call each other "thieves." The small stores on the island buy this stolen cotton, and very young children are experts in keeping them in stock.

For this welcome bird, like the swallow of more northern climes, "carries the spring on his back." It is of the same family as the Whip-o'-Will of Texas and North Carolina; and South Carolinians declare they can tell at night the moment The negroes work on what is called they cross the boundary line by its call."the contract system." They make bitThe cry of this bird inspires the John's ter complaints of it I think without any Island negro with a marvellous energy. just cause. For working an acre and a As soon as it is heard, hoes are sharp-half of ground for the planter they get ened, and every one is impatient to get his cotton in the ground. "De cotton, de corn, and de rice, drive him close now," is the common saying. The cabins are shut up; for even the children are off to the fields to help in clearing away last year's stalks and trash. This is always

about the 10th of March.

seven acres of land for their own use; also a house and the right to cut as much wood as they require. Few, if any, plant half of the land they are allowed; they rely on making enough to clear them one year. But to look even two years ahead is a tremendous piece of forethought in a negro; very few are inclined to do it. If they buy a horse or cow, they generally starve or work it to death in less than a year, though very likely it is only part paid for. A negro's horse, while I was on John's Island, died of starvation and ill-usage; and when spoken to, he laughed and said: "I'se a man as is used to loss; dat ain't boder me none." Tkey are poor because they have a bird-like indifference regard

The first process for the cotton is called listing. If new ground is broken, of course the plough is used; but if an old field is to be replanted, the stalks are removed from the last year's beds; and in the alleys between them, the negroes go tramping up and down, shaking from the all-serviceable fanna-baskets the pinetrash or other manure intended as a fertilizer. Upon this manure they drawing to-morrow and its wants. down with the hoe the last-year's beds, and then leave the ground a short time to suck in the heavy dews of the night and the glorious sunshine of the day.

The next step is to "bank" the ground; that is, to make a new bed on the top of the listing. These beds are about two feet high, and raised at regular intervals. Into them are dropped the small black cotton seed; and "soon it pop up, one here and dare, den it all come to see what dis worl' is like," says Old Major. The morning-glories follow the cotton, as the poppies follow the wheat; these are removed with the hoe; and some time later the earth has to be drawn up around the roots. The latter process is called "hauling" or "kicking back," because the women when at work brace one foot against the bed behind them.

While in the fields they laugh and jest and sing continually. Their songs are generally impromptu, and refer to passing events or needs. Thus, I heard a splendid young darkie, with the proportions of a Hercules, bare-armed and bare-chested, singing in a voice that Campanini might envy, as his hoe scattered the morning. glories: —

Dry land, dry land, Lord!
Dry land, I say.

'Tain't good fur de cotton;
'Tain't good fur de corn;
'Tain't good fur de tater, no❤
De big water-melon.

From March until June, the negroes are busy in the fields; then the crop is "laid by;" that is, it is worked no more until the pods begin to burst and cover the

fields with the snow of southern summers. the Bible was general. In a special meet-
White and fleecy, the cotton drops from ing called on the subject, the preacher
the pod, and then the real work begins. said: "Brederen, I done call you up 'bout
Up and down the green alleys, men, dese men what have been a fooling wid
women, and little children walk, gathering de Bible. I done been informed dey has
the cotton into the bags that hang in front got up a new Bible; and I want you all
of them, or are drawn a little under the to toss up your money, and send some
left arm. As soon as enough cotton is good man to talk all dat nonsense down."
gathered, "ginning" commences; and in The money was freely "tossed up;" for
this, as in almost all other parts of plant- the preacher is an absolute power among
ing and working cotton, women take the them, and his commands both as regards
most prominent part. The packing and things temporal and spiritual more bind-
weighing are mostly done by men; but ing than the common law.
women gin and sort and whip better than
men. After the ginning, it goes into the
sorters' and whippers' hands; the bad is
divided from the good, the yellow from
the white; then the dust is whipped out,
and it is packed in round bales; the round
bale being the distinguishing form of Sea
Island cotton. When less than a bale is
packed, it is called a “pocket." The can
vas used in packing Sea Island cotton is
of very superior quality; and the price
the cotton brings per pound varies great-
ly. It has been sold at a dollar per
pound; but about forty cents (one shilling
and eightpence) is probably a fair aver-
age. An old John's Island planter told
me that twenty cents (ninepence) was the
lowest figure he ever heard of.

The little churches stand mostly in the pine woods; and it is a pretty and picturesque sight to watch the negroes on a Sabbath morning gather in crowds around them, laughing, smoking, singing, and chatting until service begins.

Once in church, they stay there for hours, and go home only to get a dish of hominy, and return again. Their services have a colloquial character which often impresses a white stranger as irreverent. But irreverence is a sin of which these negroes are incapable. Their interruptions of the preacher in his discourse would to a white stranger necessarily ap pear to indicate a want of proper decorum and respect; but the fact is that there is nothing in life about which the John's Island negro is so earnest as his religion. He brings it into all his occupations, and often uses it in a very beautiful and poetic way.

The negroes generally build their own cabins; they are of the rudest description, logs and mud being the materials used. Windows are not considered nec essary; the doors have no hinges; and Their use of English is in many rethe furniture usually consists of a couple spects very peculiar. They never use the of rude beds, a table, a chair or two, and pronoun "I;" man, woman, child, ox, or the hominy-pot. Yet, however humble, bird, is "he" or "him;" thus, instead of the house is always "christened:" that saying, "I can walk back easily," they is, the preacher carries the Bible through would say, "He can take he foot back the house with prayer and "shout "-sing- easy." The plural is rarely used. Ining. For if the John's Island negro is stead of saying, "I came to see you twice," not pious, he is nothing. From this side they say, "I come one and one time." of his nature he is most surely and safely Some of their forms of expression are moved. Every event of his life has its forcible and very original; thus, when a appropriate religious ceremony, some of man acknowledges his fault, "he makes them extremely beautiful, others gro- his low bow to de Lord, and says: I ain't tesque and silly enough, yet somehow a-gwine to done it no more, sir; no, Lord, raised above contempt by the sincerity of no more." Other sayings have a prover the devotees. Thus, on last Easter Sun-bial terseness; as: "You needn't cloud day I saw men and women join hands in a ring, and then, to their peculiar swaying religious dance, sing a hymn, which began thus:

Ob, Him died fur you, and Him died fur me,
And Him died fur de whole roun' worl', you

see;

up 'cause you kent rain; ""You needn't cross de fence 'fore you git to it; " "Don't kick before you're spurred; or are expressive of contempt: "Shoo! you go 'long, you little puff 'ob wind.”

Rice and the majority of the splendid vegetables to be found in Charleston market are grown on this group of islands; and they would appear to be, from their fine climate and proximity to the recently Intense indignation at the revision of discovered wealth of fertilizing phosphate,

And Him said he wouldn't die eny mo', chillen,
He said Him wouldn't die eny mo'.

a favorable place for a better class of | Texas prairies, and the Colorado plains, emigration, especially as there is yet are now an old story. I may deserve a much land in primeval wildness, great "thank you" for pointing out a new local. woods stocked with game, and inlets full ity full of a picturesque and peculiar life. of delicious oysters and fine fish of every Not only are there plenty of foxes and deer, but there is capital sport in an alli. gator hunt. The dogs though a favorite prey of the alligator are always ready for the attack, and drive him from cover with eager interest. Just as this spring opened, there was a great baying heard one evening around a little clump of gum and myrtle trees; and an old black man, gun in hand, hurried up all excitement to the house. "Come quick, Mass'r Tom! De dogs done turn up de ole alligator what eat my best dog last week.”