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If the wind continued to blow from the same quarter, the canoe could not cross Buttermilk Sound that night; so I went ashore to inquire if there were any hammocks in the marshes by the river-banks between the plantation and the sound.

The bachelor proprietor of Broughton Island, Captain Richard A. Akin, posted me as to the route to St. Simon's Island, but insisted that the canoe traveller should share his comfortable quarters until the next day; and when the next day came round, and the warm sun and smooth current of the wide Altamaha invited me to continue the voyage, the hospitable rice-planter thought the weather not settled enough for me to venture down to the sound. In fact, he held me a rather willing captive for several days, and then let me off on the condition that I should return at some future time, and spend a month with him in examining the sea islands and game resources of the vicinity.

Captain Akin was a successful rice-planter on the new system of employing freedmen on wages, but while he protected the ignorant blacks in all their newly-found rights, he was a thorough disciplinarian. The negroes seemed to like their employer, and stuck to him with greater tenacity than they did to those planters who allowed them to do as they pleased. The result of lax treatment with these people is always a failure of crops. The rivers and swamps near Broughton Island abound in fine fishes and terrapin, while the marshes and flats of the sea islands afford excellent opportunities for the sportsman to try his skill upon the feathered tribe.

On Monday, March 9th, the Maria Theresa left Broughton Island well provisioned with the stores the generous captain had pressed upon my acceptance. The atmosphere was softened by balmy breezes, and the bright sunlight played with the shadows of the clouds upon the wide marshes, which were now growing green with the warmth of returning spring. The fish sprang from the water as I touched it with my light oars.

St. Simon's Island, -- where Mr. Pierce Butler once cultivated sea-island cotton, and to which he took his English bride, Miss Kemble, -- with its almost abandoned plantation, was reached before ten o'clock. Frederica River carried me along the whole length of the island to St. Simon's Sound. When midway the island, I paused to survey what remains of the old town of Frederica, of which but few vestiges can be discovered. History informs us that Frederica was the first town built by the English in Georgia, and was founded by General Oglethorpe, who began and established the colony.

The fortress was regular and beautiful, and was the largest, most regular, and perhaps most costly of any in North America of British construction. Pursuing my journey southward, the canoe entered the exposed area of St. Simon's Sound, which, with its ocean inlet, was easily crossed to the wild and picturesque Jekyl Island, upon which the two bachelor brothers Dubignon live and hunt the deer, enjoying the free life of lords of the forest. Their old family mansion, once a haven of hospitality, where the northern tourist and shipwrecked sailor shared alike the good things of this life with the kind host, was used for a target by a gunboat during the late war, and is now in ruins.

Here, twenty years ago, at midnight, the slave-yacht "Wanderer" landed her cargo of African negroes, the capital for the enterprise being supplied by three southern gentlemen, and the execution of the work being intrusted, under carefully drawn contracts, to Boston parties.

The calm weather greatly facilitated my progress, and had I not missed Jekyl Creek, which is the steamboat thoroughfare through the marshes to Jekyl and St. Andrew's Sound, that whole day's experience would have been a most happy one. The mouth of Jekyl Creek was a narrow entrance, and being off in the sound, I passed it as I approached the lowlands, which were skirted until a passage at Cedar Hammock through the marsh was found, some distance from the one I was seeking. Into this I entered, and winding about for some time over its tortuous course, at a late hour in the afternoon the canoe emerged into a broad watercourse, down which I could look across Jekyl Sound to the sea.

This broad stream was Jointer Creek, and I ascended it to find a spot of high ground upon which to camp. It was now low water, and the surface of the marshes was three or four feet above my head. After much anxious searching, and a great deal of rowing against the last of the ebb, a forest of pines and palmetto-trees was reached on Colonel's Island, at a point about four miles -- across the marshes and Brunswick River -- from the interesting old town of Brunswick, Georgia.

Home of the Alligator (101K)

The soft, muddy shores of the hammock were in one place enveloped in a thicket of reeds, and here I rested upon my oars to select a convenient landing-place. The rustling of the reeds suddenly attracted my attention. Some animal was crawling through the thicket in the direction of the boat. My eyes became fixed upon the mysterious shaking and waving of the tops of the reeds, and my hearing was strained to detect the cause of the crackling of the dry rushes over which this unseen creature was moving. A moment later my curiosity was satisfied, for there emerged slowly from the covert an alligator nearly as large as my canoe. The brute's head was as long as a barrel; his rough coat of mail was besmeared with mud, and his dull eyes were fixed steadily upon me. I was so surprised and fascinated by the appearance of this huge reptile that I remained immovable in my boat, while he in a deliberate manner entered the water within a few feet of me. The hammock suddenly lost all its inviting aspect, and I pulled away from it faster than I had approached. In the gloom I observed two little hammocks, between Colonel's Island and the Brunswick River, which seemed to be near Jointer's Creek, so I followed the tortuous thoroughfares until I was within a quarter of a mile of one of them.

Pulling my canoe up a narrow creek towards the largest hammock, until the creek ended in the lowland, I was cheered by the sight of a small house in a grove of live-oaks, to reach which I was obliged to abandon my canoe and attempt to cross the soft marsh. The tide was now rising rapidly, and it might be necessary for me to swim some inland creek before I could arrive at the upland.

An oar was driven into the soft mud of the marsh and the canoe tied to it, for I knew that the whole country, with the exception of the hammock near by, would be under water at flood-tide. Floundering through mud and pressing aside the tall, wire-like grass of the lowland, which entangled my feet, frequently leaping natural ditches, and going down with a thud in the mud on the other side, I finally struck the firm ground of the largest Jointer Hammock, when the voice of its owner, Mr. R. F. Williams, sounded most cheerfully in my ears as he exclaimed: "Where did you come from? How did you get across the marsh?"

The unfortunate position of my boat was explained while the family gathered round me, after which we sat down to supper. Mr. Wilhams felt anxious about the cargo of my boat. The coons, he said, "will scent your provisions, and tear everything to pieces in the boat. We must go look after it immediately." To go to the canoe we were obliged to follow a creek which swept past the side of the hammock, opposite to my landing-place, and row two or three miles on Jointer Creek. At nine o'clock we reached the locality where I had abandoned the paper canoe. Everything had changed in appearance; the land was under water; not a landmark remained except the top of the oar, which rose out of the lake-like expanse of water, while near it gracefully floated my little companion. We towed her to the hammock; and after the tedious labor of divesting myself of the marsh mud, which clung to my clothes, had been crowned with success, the comfortable bed furnished by my host gave rest to limbs and nerves which had been severely overtaxed since sun set.

The following day opened cloudy and windy. The ocean inlet of Jekyl and St. Andrew's sounds is three miles wide. From the mouth of Jointer Creek, across these unprotected sounds, to High Point of Cumberland Island, is eight miles. The route from the creek to Cumberland Island was a risky one for so small a boat as the paper canoe while the weather continued unpropitious. After entering the sounds there was but one spot of upland, near the mouth of the Satilla River, that could be used for camping purposes on the vast area of marshes.

During the month of March rainy and windy weather prevail on this coast. I could ill afford to lose any time shut up in Jointer's Hammock by bad weather, as the low regions of Okefenokee Swamp were to be penetrated before the warm season could make the task a disagreeable one. After holding a consultation with Mr. Williams, he contracted to take the canoe and its captain across St. Andrew's Sound to High Point of Cumberland Island that day. His little sloop was soon under way, and though the short, breaking waves of the sound, and the furious blasts of wind, made the navigation of the shoals disagreeable, we landed quietly at Mr. Chubbs' Oriental Hotel, at High Point, soon after noon.

Mr. Martin, the surveyor of the island, welcomed me to Cumberland, and gave me much information pertaining to local matters. The next morning the canoe left the high bluffs of this beautiful sea island so filled with historic associations, and threaded the marshy thoroughfare of Cumberland and Brickhill River to Cumberland Sound. As I approached the mouth of the St. Mary's River, the picturesque ruins of Dungeness towered above the live-oak forest of the southern end of Cumberland Island. It was with regret I turned my back upon that sea, the sounds of which had so long struck upon my ear with their sweet melody. It seemed almost a moan that was borne to me now as the soft waves laved the sides of my graceful craft, as though to give her a last, loving farewell.

CHAPTER XIV. ST, MARY'S RIVER AND THE SUWANEE WILDERNESS.

A PORTAGE TO DUTTON. -- DESCENT OF THE ST. MARY'S RIVER. -- FETE GIVEN BY THE CITIZENS TO THE PAPER CANOE. -- THE PROPOSED CANAL ROUTE ACROSS FLORIDA. -- A PORTAGE TO THE SUWANEE RIVER. -- A NEGRO SPEAKS ON ELECTRICITY AND THE TELEGRAPH. -- A FREEDMAN'S SERMON.

I now ascended the beautiful St. Mary's River, which flows from the great Okefenokee Swamp. The state of Georgia was on my right hand, and Florida on my left. Pretty hammocks dotted the marshes, while the country presented peculiar and interesting characteristics. When four miles from Cumberland Sound, the little city of St. Mary's, situated on the Georgia side of the river, was before me; and I went ashore to make inquiries concerning the route to Okefenokee Swamp.

My object was to get information about the upper St. Mary's River, from which I proposed to make a portage of thirty-five or forty miles in a westerly direction to the Suwanee River, upon arriving at which I would descend to the Gulf of Mexico. My efforts, both at St. Mary's and Fernandina, on the Florida side of Cumberland Sound, to obtain any reliable information upon this matter, were unsuccessful. A settlement at Trader's Hill, about seventy-five miles up the St. Mary's River, was the geographical limit of local knowledge, while I wished to ascend the river at least one hundred miles beyond that point.

Believing that if I explored the uninhabited sources of the St. Mary's, I should be compelled to return without finding any settler upon its banks at the proper point of departure for a portage to the Suwanee, it became necessary to abandon all idea of ascending this river. I could not, however, give up the exploration of the route. In this dilemma, a kindly written letter seemed to solve the difficulties. Messrs. Dutton & Rixford, northern gentlemen, who possessed large facilities for the manufacture of resin and turpentine at their new settlements of Dutton, six miles from the St. Mary's River, and at Rixford, near the Suwanee, kindly proposed that I should take my canoe by railroad from Cumberland Sound to Dutton. From that station Mr. Dutton offered to transport the boat through the wilderness to the St. Mary's River, which could be from that point easily descended to the sea. The Suwanee River, at Rixford, could be reached by rail, and the voyage would end at its debouchure on the marshy coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Hon. David Yulee, president and one-third owner of the A. G. & W. I. T. C. Railroad, which connects the Atlantic coast at Fernandina with the Gulf coast at Cedar Keys, offered me the free use of his long railroad, for any purpose of exploration, &c., while his son, Mr. C. Wickliffe Yulee, exerted himself to remove all impediments to delay.

These gentlemen, being native Floridians, have done much towards encouraging all legitimate exploration of the peninsula, and have also done something towards putting a check on the outrageous impositions practised on northern agricultural emigrants to Florida, by encouraging the organization of a railroad land-company, which offers a forty-acre homestead for fifty dollars, to be selected out of nearly six hundred thousand acres of land along their highway across the state. A man of comparatively small means can now try the experiment of making a home in the mild climate of Florida, and if he afterwards abandons the enterprise there will have been but a small investment of capital, and consequently little loss.

The turpentine distillery of Dutton was situated in a heavy forest of lofty pines. Major C. K. Dutton furnished a team of mules to haul the Maria Theresa to the St. Mary's River, the morning after my arrival by rail at Dutton Station. The warm sunshine shot aslant the tall pines as the teamster followed a faintly developed trail towards the swamps. Before noon the flashing waters of the stream were discernible, and a little later, with paddle in hand, I was urging the canoe towards the Atlantic coast. A luxurious growth of trees and shrubs fringed the low, and in some places submerged, river shores. Back, on the higher, sandy soils, the yellow pine forests, in almost primeval grandeur, arose, shutting out all view of the horizon. Low bluffs, with white, sandy beaches of a few rods in extent, offered excellent camping-grounds.

When the Cracker of Okefenokee Swamp is asked why he lives in so desolate a region, with only a few Cattle and hogs for companions, with mosquitoes, fleas, and vermin about him, with alligators, catamounts, and owls on all sides, making night hideous, he usually replies, "Wal, stranger, wood and water is so powerful handy. Sich privileges ain't met with everywhar."

[ FROM ST. SIMON'S SOUND, GEORGIA, TO CEDAR KEYS, FLORIDA ]

As I glided swiftly down the dark current I peered into the dense woods, hoping to be cheered by the sight of a settler's cabin; but in all that day's search not a clearing could be found, nor could I discern rising from the treetops of the solitary forest a little cloud of smoke issuing from the chimney of civilized man. I was alone in the vast wilds through which the beautiful river flowed noiselessly but swiftly to the sea. Thoreau loved a swamp, and so do all lovers of nature, for nowhere else does she so bountifully show her vigorous powers of growth, her varied wealth of botanical wonders. Here the birds resort in flocks when weary of the hot, sandy uplands, for here they find pure water, cool shade, and many a curious glossy berry for their dainty appetites.