Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/295

Rh people whom one sees out in the town, are negroes or mulattoes. They are ugly, but appear for the most part cheerful and well fed. In particular one sees fat negro and mulatto women, and their bright coloured handkerchiefs, often wound very tastefully round the head, produce a picturesque appearance, a thousand times preferable to the bonnets and caps which they wear in the free States, and which are unbecoming to them.

That which struck me most in the streets, after the great number of negroes, was the large flocks of turkey-buzzards, which stalk about here and there, picking up any offal which they can find to eat. They are so fearless, that they will scarcely move out of your way. I saw numbers of them also, sitting in rows on the roofs and chimneys, and a very strange appearance they made, stretching out their heavy wings in the air and the sunshine. They are regarded in Charleston as a species of city-scavengers, and are therefore welcome to the streets. It is forbidden to destroy them.

March 29th.—Cold, cold, still intolerably cold to-day.

At five o'clock this morning I heard the drum which calls the negro slaves to work.

Yesterday afternoon I was invited by my acquaintance from the Northern States, who are here in the hotel, to drive out with them, and we had a charming drive in the beautiful sunshine. The country is altogether flat, as far as one can see. Beautiful forest tracts, plantations of trees, and water, all contribute a charm to it. The town itself lies by the sea, upon a peninsula, between two rivers, the Ashley and Cooper, which discharge them selves into the sea.

My friends brought oranges and bananas for me, as we drove along, and I now for the first time tasted this tropical fruit, which people here are so fond of. It has a delicate, sweet, somewhat insipid, flavour; in form it