Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/320



APPENING on Hilton Head in the Spring of 1862, I made use of a free permit, which was courteously extended to me from headquarters, to wander as far as was consistent with safety, and, indeed, often much farther, over the adjacent islands, the homes of the wealthy planters of the coast of Carolina. There was nothing peculiarly attractive to a visitor in the style of these settlements, for, as a general thing, they seemed to me much plainer than the means of the inhabitants would have warranted. Indeed, these people seemed to have lived in that fashion of plain bounty and substantial comfort which is peculiar to sections entirely rural, that is, removed from those tastes and influences which the near vicinity of great cities always imparts. Nor was the rather monotonous beauty of the exceedingly level country calculated to detain a traveller, notwithstanding the semi-tropical luxuriance of its ancient forests, and the noble spread of its majestic rivers. I cannot say that I did not enjoy with intense relish the freshness of the early season, more delicious in this soft climate than in any other portion of this continent, brighter and more balmy than in the chillier regions of the North, and appealing to the senses with a more grateful contrast than in more tropical sections, where the smaller degree of the change from Winter to Summer renders less perceptible the glories of the lovelier period. Some of the April mornings, when the elements were especially favorable, quite surpassed description; and it was with an almost magical impression of subdued delight that I loitered under the rosy skies through the far arcades of the grand oak forests, greeted by the songs of innumerable birds, whose notes rang clearly with a dewy illusion of sound peculiar to the season and clime.

But the charm which especially bound me, was the utterly deserted condition of the country. Other lands may have displayed in a greater degree the ravages of war, but in the history of modern times no section, of equal extent and equal population, ever underwent so complete a desolation as that produced by the voluntary exile of these zealous Carolinians in their devotion to the cause which they had chosen. Not a single loiterer, seduced by the comforts of home, or held by the chords of that affection which bind men so powerfully to their firesides, violated what they considered the national honor by remaining. So sudden had been this flight, that in a great majority of cases none, or at most very few, of the articles of household use had been removed. Houses with-