The seacoast of South Carolina and Georgia is composed largely of deeply indented bays, with many islands, tortuous bayous, and a labyrinth of water ways bordered by dense vegetation. Southward from Charleston harbor to the Savannah River many creeks provide a system of inland navigation and form fertile islands. There are two capacious Sounds, St. Helena and Port Royal, the latter being one of the finest harbors in the world, and the rendezvous of the American North Atlantic naval squadron when in these waters. This was the place of first landing of the original South Carolina colonists before they went to the Ashley River, and its chief town now is Beaufort, on St. Helena Island. These coast islands raise the famous "sea-island cotton," and the whole lowland region produces prolific crops of rice. The adjacent land is generally swampy, and its chief industry, outside of cultivating the fields, is the working of the extensive phosphate deposits, which are manufactured into fertilizers. The railway, largely constructed on piles, passes through much marsh and morass, crosses swift-running dirty streams, and over the swamps and among the pine timber, varied by the oak, bay tree and laurel, which the humid atmosphere has hung with garlands of sombre gray moss and clusters of ivy and other creeping plants. The festooned moss, overrunning and often destroying the foliage of the trees, gives the scene a weird and ghostly appearance. The railway route is bordered by an apparently almost impenetrable jungle, the few settlements are widely separated, and population is sparse, seeming to be chiefly negroes dressed in ancient-looking clothing ornamented with patches. The few whites who appear are bilious and yellowish, their complexions and garb being alike of the butternut hue, while both races seem to talk the same dialect. Thus moving farther southward, the Carolina "tar-heels" are replaced by the "crackers" and "butternuts," looking as if they had been rolled for a generation in the clayey soils drained by the Edisto, Coosawhatchie and Savannah Rivers and their neighboring streams, and who, farther inland, are the "clay-eaters" of Georgia. Then crossing the Savannah River, the route is upon the level lowlands down its Georgia bank, and into the city of Savannah, arriving amid a vast collection of rosin and pitch barrels, cotton bales and timber.