After the war the large plantations were subdivided into five, ten and twenty-acre farms, which were by the government distributed among the "heads of families," generally of the slaves who were left on them, and these negroes, with their descendants, still occupy these farms, living in comfortable cabins, each plantation having its own hamlet or colony. After the first shock of change was over, these negroes developed into orderly, industrious, thriving Christian communities. Each farm was thoroughly cultivated, and there was produced every year good crops of potatoes, sweet and Irish, peas, corn, melons and one or two bales of cotton, which, mortgaged to the local storekeeper, generally a white man, furnished them with groceries. All raised and owned horses, mules, hogs, cattle, turkeys, domestic fowls and ducks. All were owners of one or more buggies, carts, plows and other agricultural implements, and those who lived near the sea owned one or more boats, with outfit of nets and fishing gear, and from spring until winter the sea yielded abundant harvest of good fish, turtles, crabs, shrimps, prawns, clams and oysters, and the marshes furnished terrapin, which sold at very remunerative figures, as I well know, for the storm took from me nearly three hundred of them. Every cabin was comfortable, from their point of view, furnished, and in many were sewing machines, house organs and melodeons, and for every member of the family, however slightly attired on week days, a fine, often gorgeous, suit of Sunday clothes--and they are all church-goers. The great barn-like structures that they build for churches are presided over by preachers of their own race--"reverence doctor" is the title--and are crowded. They have also smaller places of worship, called "praise houses," where they assemble once or twice a week in the evening to indulge in "shouting" a mingled prayer, responding, singing, and when "spirit dun come pow'ful," a wild, waltzing sort of a dance, such as I have seen in Africa. They have schools which troops of well-dressed children attend daily. There are lots of children, and but a very small portion of those under twenty have not quite a fair common school education. Said an old aunty to a lady friend of mine: "Has yer children, honey?" "Yes, aunty, I have three boys and one girl." "Is dat all?" "Yes, isn't it enough?" "Dat's as the Lord wills, honey; to some He sends little litters and to some big ones. I'se got thirteen head and I'se dun loss four head." THE DISASTROUS STORM.