To some extent this prosperity is delusive; as for the matter of that, the prosperity of the whole country, during the same period, has been delusive. The soldiers paid them three or four prices for their vegetables, eggs and poultry; and when their cotton was ready for market it brought, in some cases, nearly ten times the old price. Naturally they are prosperous. It is more important to observe that they exhibit the industry which deserves prosperity, and, in most cases, the thrift which insures its continuance. Their money has been spent for articles they needed for stocking their farms, clothing their families, or, in some way, bettering their condition. It has not always been spent economically, but they may learn to make better bargains with the Yankee traders, by-and-by; and, for the present, it is sufficient to know that they have enough left to establish a National Bank with their savings, and that in this Bank _one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of United States bonds have been bought by the freedmen_! This last statement seemed to me utterly incredible; but General Saxton vouches for it, and explains that when the young negroes from the islands volunteered to enter the military service, they each received (precisely like other volunteers) three hundred dollars bounty, of which, in nearly all cases, at least two hundred were, of their own motion, given to their families, used in stocking the farms, or invested in Government bonds. Withal, they work less, and have more time for self-improvement, or for society, than when slaves. It is the common testimony, on those islands where white men have bought the plantations, and employed the negroes as laborers, that the old task, which the slave worked at from sunrise to sunset, is now readily performed by the freedman in six or seven hours. Still, the exports from the sea islands will not be as great as during the existence of slavery. Then, they were mere machines, run with as little consumption as possible, to the single end of making money for their masters. Now, as it was in the West Indies, emancipation has enlarged the negro’s wants, and, instead of producing solely to export, he now produces also to consume. Then he ate with his fingers from the hominy pot, in the fire-place; now he must have plates, knives and forks, with a table on which to spread them. Then he wore the scant summer and winter suits of negro cloth; now he must have working suits and Sunday suits, and each must be cut with some vague reference to prevailing fashions, and made up by hands that, under the old _regime_, would have been busy beside his own in the cotton field.