I have been impatiently waiting the approach of spring, since I came to this state, but the weather here is still what the inhabitants call winter. The season, I am told, is more than three weeks later than usual. Fields of Indian corn which were planted in the beginning of March, must be replanted, for the seed has perished in the ground, and the cotton planting is deferred for fine weather. The peach and plum trees have stood in blossom for weeks, and the forest trees, which at this time are usually in full foliage, are as bare as in December. Cattle are dying in the fields for want of pasture. I have thus had a sample of the winter climate of South Carolina. If never more severe or stormy than I have already experienced, it must be an agreeable one. The custom of sitting with open doors, however, I found a little difficult to like at first. A door in South Carolina, except perhaps the outer door of a house, is not made to shut. It is merely a sort of flapper, an ornamental appendage to the opening by which you enter a room, a kind of moveable screen made to swing to and fro, but never to be secured by a latch, unless for some purpose of strict privacy. A door is the ventilator to the room; the windows are not raised except in warm weather, but the door is kept open at all seasons. On cold days you have a bright fire of pine-wood blazing before you, and a draught of cold air at your back. The reason given for this practice is, that fresh air is wholesome, and that close rooms occasion colds and consumptions. Letter XII. Savannah. Picolata, East Florida, _April 7, 1843._ As I landed at this place, a few hours since, I stepped into the midst of summer. Yesterday morning when I left Savannah, people were complaining that the winter was not over. The temperature which, at this time of the year, is usually warm and genial, continued to be what they called chilly, though I found it agreeable enough, and the showy trees, called the _Pride of India_, which are planted all over the city, and are generally in bloom at this season, were still leafless. Here I find every thing green, fresh, and fragrant, trees and shrubs in full foliage, and wild roses in flower. The dark waters of the St. John's, one of the noblest streams of the country, in depth and width like the St. Lawrence, draining almost the whole extent of the peninsula, are flowing under my window. On the opposite shore are forests of tall trees, bright in the new verdure of the season. A hunter who has ranged them the whole day, has just arrived in a canoe, bringing with him a deer, which he has killed. I have this moment returned from a ramble with my host through a hammock, he looking for his cows, and I, unsuccessfully, for a thicket of orange-trees. He is something of a florist, and gathered for me, as we went, some of the forest plants, which were in bloom. "We have flowers here," said he, "every month in the year."