"From the city of Savannah, I paid my first visit to our old heathen dad, Neptune, and if first impressions of the sea were not as common and as numerous as doggerel verses in a modern lady's album, I might be tempted to become sublime for your edification. I was rowed down from the city, in a beautiful boat made of a single cypress, by the hands of the gentleman who was so polite as to give me this gentle passage. By this you may know that they take as much pride in their boats as the Venetians themselves. It was beautifully painted, and rowed by eight well-formed negroes. Inside of the seat at one end was a marooning chest, as they called it, full of all kinds of liquors and cold meat, with the necessary utensils for their use. The gentleman was an islander; and during the few hours in which we were gliding over the seventeen miles between the city and the ocean, he entertained me with an account of his marooning expeditions. These are their excursions upon the Sea Islands, for purposes of fishing and hunting. These islanders are a peculiar, but delightful people; however, I must not keep you too long in the sea-breeze; at some other time, perhaps, I may indite you a history of these hospitable and isolated gentlemen. "When I left Savannah, I determined to pursue a different route from the one by which I came. I therefore crossed the Savannah river fifteen or sixteen miles above the city; I then crossed the country in as straight a line as I could draw upon the map, between the ferry and the high hills of Santee; and in a short time found myself in as complete solitude as ever Crusoe experienced upon his desolate island. Nothing was to be seen but the tall and gloomy-looking pines, stretching away into the bosom of the atmosphere, and the interminable sands which lay before me as far as the eye could reach. Twilight presently came on, and those horrible musicians, the tree-frogs, began to chirp and sing. The dolorous note of the whippoorwill was heard, with a horn accompaniment from the throat of a screech-owl. Here was a pretty serenade for a man with his heart attuned for melody, and his stomach attuned for a slash at a cold ham, for I had had no dinner. I struck up an accompaniment from my own pipes, but I soon found that the vacuum was too profound for a due modulation in concert pitch with this sylvan band. I wished them all at the d----l, with their shrill pipes and full crops, and set my horse, or rather _your_ horse, at full gallop, in a vain effort to escape from the intended honour; but the harder I rode, the more enthusiastic they became. I soon made another comfortable discovery; I found that I had been riding for the last two hours in a perfect wilderness, in utter contempt of what two pioneer