A lead-colored little steamer lay at the wharf to take us down to Hilton Head; a short, heavy-set, modest-speaking, substantial negro, a little past middle-age, came to say that the vessel was ready, and awaited our orders. It was the “Planter,” and the negro was her Captain, Robert Small—lionized over much, but not spoilt yet. The breeze over the island was delicious; not a film of mist flecked the sky; and down to the very meeting of sky and water, we caught the sparkle of the stars, brilliant with all the effulgence of tropic night. ----- Footnote 18: I subsequently, however, saw several badly-neglected cotton fields. The very intelligent correspondent of the Boston _Advertiser_ (Mr. Sidney Andrews,) writing from Beaufort, in July, likewise found ill-tilled plantations. He says: “Some of the cotton and corn fields, through which we passed, were in a decidedly bad state of cultivation, others better, but hardly any quite satisfactory, until we reached the plantation to which our journey was directed. Then the appearance of the crops suddenly changed; the fields were free from weeds, the cotton plants healthy, and the corn fields promising a heavy yield. Everything bespoke thrift and industry. We passed through a most beautiful grove of live-oaks, with its graceful festoons of gray moss—under the shadow of the trees a roomy log cabin, in which a colored preacher was addressing an audience of devout negroes, for it was Sunday—until, at last, we found the ‘mansion,’ surrounded with live-oaks and magnolia trees. The estate had, before the war, belonged to one of the wealthiest planters of that region, who had gone to parts unknown as soon as the blue jackets threatened their descent upon Beaufort. It struck me as singular that a man of such wealth, as he was reputed to possess, should have lived in a house so small and unpretending, as in the North would be considered as belonging to a forty-acre farm; but such was the case.” Footnote 19: The correspondent of the Boston _Advertiser_ gives the following Sea Island incident, which occurred in July: