There now remain unmentioned only the three States of South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi. As far as I could judge, South Carolina was utterly and hopelessly crushed. Its best estates were in the Sea Islands, which, as they were very fertile, and their produce fetched exceptionally high prices, were densely inhabited with blacks; in many of them, however, no white man could live, or even pass a night with impunity. Under these circumstances it might have been expected that as soon as the negroes were emancipated they would take possession of the land in these islands. And so it happened in most of the unhealthy ones; while in those that were healthy the original proprietors equally lost their property by confiscation or forfeiture, or by being ousted in some way or other. The result of this, and of the other losses that arose out of the war, and the utter overthrow of the Confederacy, is that throughout South Carolina the most abject and irrecoverable poverty reigns precisely where formerly there was most abundant wealth. I heard of one gentleman, who before the war had been unable to spend the whole of his large income, being now a porter in a dry goods store; and of another, who formerly had possessed everything which riches could supply, dying in such penury that his family had to beg of their friends contributions for his funeral. For this State there appears to be no resurrection, except in some new order of things, under which a new set of proprietors will occupy the land, and cultivate it with Northern capital, and somewhat in the Northern fashion. In Louisiana also things were so bad that it was hardly possible to see how they could be worse. In New Orleans I found families who formerly had lived in noble mansions, and exercised a grand hospitality, now occupying quiet lodgings. In some instances I knew of several families clubbing together, and living as it were in common. But here there was a great difference—hope was not dead. They talked confidently of the re-establishment, at all events, of their sugar industry, and of the trade of the city. I saw several sugar estates not far from New Orleans, the very costly machinery upon which had been destroyed during the war. I was told—though, of course, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the figures—that the machinery had been broken up and burnt on twelve hundred out of the seventeen hundred sugar estates of this State.