I chanced to be familiar with the geography and topography of that group of islands, having lived on them in the capacity of war relief many months during the siege of Charleston in 1863-64. Knowing that they scarcely averaged four feet rise above the sea level, with no mountains, not even hills that could be called such, that the soft, sandy soil could not be trusted to hold its tree roots firm, that the habitations were only huts, to be washed away like little piles of boards--I thought I saw no escape for the inhabitants and that _all_ must have perished; and so replied to all inquiries at first made as to whether this were not a disaster for the Red Cross to relieve, “No, there was nothing left to relieve.” Later and more reliable news brought the astonishing fact that it was estimated that from thirty to forty thousand had survived and were in the direst need. Was not this a call for the Red Cross? Still more emphatically, “No; if that is the case, it is beyond the Red Cross. Only the State of South Carolina or the general Government can cope with that”; and again we closed our ears and proceeded with our work. But the first week of September brought pitiful paragraphs from various Southern sources--one I recall from the governor of the State, in which he proclaimed his perplexity and great distress at the condition of these poor people, needing everything, and who, at that season of the year, with crops all destroyed, would continue to need; and closed by wondering “if the Red Cross could perhaps do anything for them.” It would not do to close our ears or eyes against this suggestion, and I at once sought our congressional neighbor, General M. C. Butler, of South Carolina, then in the Senate, asking his views. The response was such as would not have been looked for in that busy, hard-worked Senator, surrounded by a network of political wires, some of them only too likely to be “live”; he dropped all business, telegraphed at once to Governor Tillman at Columbia to learn the conditions, and urgently requested us to go, and he would even leave his seat and go with us as soon as we could be ready. Time is never a question with the Red Cross, and the next night, in a dark, cheerless September mist, with only two assistants, I closed a door behind me for ten months, went to the station to meet General Butler, prompt and kind, and proceeded on our way. At Columbia we were joyfully surprised at meeting Governor Tillman, prepared to accompany us with a member of his staff, and thus powerfully reënforced we made our entrance into Beaufort.