The early history of the Carolinas has few cheerful phases. The first settlers were Puritans, who, finding the business unprofitable, sold out and went to speculating in real estate. Preyed upon by speculators and Indians, as Carolina was, few inducements were held out to emigrants of good moral character. Happily, however, about the beginning of the eighteenth century a distinguished colored gentleman poetically but forcibly announced his intention of emigrating to North Carolina “Wid de banjo on his knee,”—or was it Alabama? perhaps it was, but no matter. We are positive as to the banjo at any rate. It is a matter of regret that he selected so unagricultural an instrument to begin life with in a new colony. [Illustration: _A suppositious Early Settler of SOUTH CAROLINA._ ] On page 81 we give a reliable portrait of this individual of color. [Illustration: _GEORGIAN EMIGRANTS_ ] _CHAPTER XIV._ GEORGIA—SLAVERY—A DARK SUBJECT. Georgia was first settled in 1732 by one hundred and twenty emigrants (not to mention a surreptitious yellow dog that followed them over) led by James Oglethorpe. Civilization advanced but slowly at first owing to the prohibition of rum and slavery. Twenty years later, however, Georgia was annexed to the Crown, and these two civilizing influences were brought to bear upon society. Georgia made rapid strides after that. _CHAPTER XV._ ENGLISH VS. FRENCH—PURSUIT OF BULL-FROGS UNDER DIFFICULTIES—TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION. Although the English were the oldest inhabitants, it would seem they were not to hold their new possessions undisputed. The fame of the fledgeling continent spread abroad, and people all over the world packed up their loins and girdled their traveling bags for a journey hither. Even France was suddenly seized with the emigrating fever, and soon became England’s principal rival in the new country. She had heard of the American bull-frog as being the largest in the world, and ere long the banks of the Mississippi from its source to the Gulf were studded with huts whose owners had left their homes in sunny France in quest of frogs and freedom in a foreign clime. Perched on yonder oscillating snag in midstream, or wading waist deep in the dismal bayou, armed with fishing tackle, his bronzed forehead furrowed with care and his hook baited with red flannel, the sanguine Gaul sought to tempt the sonorous bull-frog from his native lair. Too often, alas! he surprised the aggressive alligator in _his_ native lair, fatally mistaking him for a first-class bull-frog of some rare species. Many an unwary Frenchman was taken in thus, but frogs were hunted with unabated vigor, and every day brought ship-loads of enthusiastic adventurers from the sunny land of France.