Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/321

Rh out an inhabitant were found in full condition for the occupation of the families which had fled; chambers with all the appliances of comfort; parlors decked with splendid furniture; libraries stocked with valuable books. It was with a novel sensation that I wandered for weeks through this cultivated wilderness, this solitude of vacant human habitations. This employment exercised a singular fascination over my mind, not devoid of that melancholy, a slight trace of which is always a component of the highest enjoyment. Generally entirely alone—for the presence of others repressed my imagination, and marred my pleasure—and, when it was absolutely necessary, with as few companions as possible, I was accustomed to wander for miles, from settlement to settlement, strolling up the great avenues, the finest in the world, and lingering about the lonely houses. The pleasurable emotions, which this utter absence of human beings amid all the signs and apparatus of human life excited, are almost inexplicable, and I yielded, day after day, to the dreamy charm of my self imposed solitude, following the threads of the quick-springing fancies which the peculiar circumstances of the deserted country around me awakened.

I happened one lovely evening on the line of the pickets upon the northeastern limit of Port Royal Island. Broad, open marshes spread for several miles between the stream, upon whose banks I was standing, and, I think, the Combahee river, whose course, gradually approaching that of the former, brought their waters together many miles nearer the ocean. The eye, gazing from this point over the dead level of the intervening marshes, caught an occasional glimpse of the surface of the Combahee in some of its bold sinuosities, and was enabled to trace with tolerable accuracy the flow of its current, until it passed out of this watery prairie, and disappeared afar amid the woods of the distant mainland. The sun, sinking low at this hour in the clearest of skies, lit with level rays the broad landscape, and touched into vividness the prevailing green, which garnished it far and wide with fresh and lovely tint.

My attention had become rivetted upon a little island, which lay several miles away upon the farther bank of the Combahee, and apparently at no great distance from the shores of the adjacent mainland. The peculiar rounding vegetation of the live oaks, which grew closely along its shore, stood out clear and bright against the opposite light of the setting sun; and, embowered amid what seemed, from its greater density, a grove at the nearer extremity of the island, the roof of a large mansion was visible. This roof was of old-fashioned construction, with four sides rising in shape of a pyramid almost to a point, and having a gable on the side nearest the river, reaching half way to its summit. In the centre of the upper portion of this gable, and just appearing above