While on the subject of the Charleston negro I must not neglect two of his superstitions. One is his belief that a two-dollar bill is unlucky. The curse may be removed only by tearing off a corner of the bill. The other is that it is unlucky to hand any one a pin. A Charleston lady told me that when she was motoring and wished to pin her hat or her veil, she could never get her negro chauffeur to hand her pins. Instead he would stick them in the laprobe, or in the sleeve of his coat, whence she could pick them out herself. Another lady told me of the case of an old black slave who lived years ago on a plantation on the Santee River, owned by her family. This slave, who was a very powerful, taciturn and high-tempered man, had a curious habit of disappearing for about half an hour each day. He would go into the swamp, and for many years no one ever followed him, the other negroes being afraid to do so because of his temper and his strength. At last, however, they did spy upon him and discovered that in the swamp there stood a cypress tree on which were strange rude carvings, before which he prostrated himself. No one ever learned the exact significance of this, but it was assumed that the man practised some barbaric form of worship, brought from Africa. * * * * * The country back of Charleston is very lovely and is rich in interest, even though most of the houses on the old estates have been destroyed. Drayton Hall, however, stands, and the old Drayton estate, Magnolia, not far distant from the Hall (which was on another estate), has one of the most famous gardens in the world. Seven persons touching fingertips can barely encircle the trunks of some of the live-oaks at Magnolia; there are camellias more than twenty feet high, and a rose tree nearly as large, but the great glory of the garden is its huge azaleas--ninety-two varieties, it is said--which, when they blossom in the spring, are so wonderful that people make long journeys for no other purpose than to see them. In "Harper's Magazine" for December, 1875, I find an account of the gardens which were, at that time, far from new. The azaleas were then twelve and thirteen feet tall; now, I am told, they reach to a height of more than twenty feet, with a corresponding spread.