As in the smallest American towns, I here met with an excellent bathing establishment; and found a hot bath, after being mewed up three days on board the steamer, a most joyous luxury. The Planters' Hotel afforded an excellent dinner and a good bottle of sherry; and in the evening the mail-stage arrived, when to my great joy I was informed my place was safe, although there were many expectants necessarily left to abide the next stage. At this season of the year the current setting South is enormous: every stage from the North is laden; and, once thrown out, a man may have many days to wait before he gets a chance of proceeding. _19th._--At six P.M. quitted Augusta, with nine other victims, in a stage otherwise laden with mail-bags and luggage. About an hour before we started rain set in, and the weather-wise prognosticate that the fine season is now at an end for this year. I certainly have no right to complain, but could desire the rain might yet be postponed for a few days. The roads were from the start as bad as could be, and the heavy fall was not likely to improve that part of our route which was to come. We passed in the course of this night several camps of emigrants, on the move from the Carolinas and Georgia: they managed to keep their fires blazing in the forest, in spite of the falling shower; occasionally might be seen a huge pine crackling and burning throughout as it lay on the ground, whilst, ranged to windward, stood the waggons and huts of the campers. The rich alluvial lands of Alabama, recently belonging to the Indian reserves, and now on sale by government or through land-speculators, are attracting thousands of families from the washed-out and impoverished soil of the older Southern States; and, during this and the preceding season, the numbers moving along this and the other great lines towards the South-west are incredible, when viewed in reference to the amount of population given to the countries whence the emigrants are chiefly derived.