Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/294

 Charleston. The morning was grey and cheerless and not agreeable. But the shores around the bay covered with dark cedar-woods, and pale green broad-leaved trees had a singular but attractive appearance. Everything was novel to my eyes, even the exterior of the city, which rather resembled a city of the European continent, at least in the style of its houses, than either Boston or New York. A young gentleman with whom I had had some excellent conversation on board, and whom I liked—excepting that he would make a show with his French, which, after all, was nothing to make any show with—now stood with me on deck observing the country, where he was at home, and crying up the happiness of the negro-slaves, which did not much enhance his own worth; for remarks of this kind only show want of judgment or of politeness. A young lady who had shared my cabin, and been silent and sea-sick the whole time, now lifted up her head and instantly asked me “how I liked America?” Mrs. W. H. sent her brother, a handsome, middle-aged gentleman, to take me in a carriage to her house, but I preferred my own freedom, and to accompany the Friends to the hotel which they had decided upon for themselves. And there am I now, in a little room with four bare, white-washed walls.

I have been out wandering about the town for two good hours, pleased with my solitude and by the great number of new objects which meet my eye everywhere; by the appearance of the town with its numerous gardens (for it is like a great assemblage of country houses, each one with its verandah or piazza ornamented with foliage and flowers); by the many kinds of trees, all strange to me, and which are now in flower or in leaf (I only saw one without leaves, but with its stem and tops covered with pink blossoms); by the dark-green orange groves in the gardens, and which whisper and diffuse their fragrance on the breeze. Negroes swarm in the streets. Two thirds of the