Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/372

 which I described in my former letter. His kind, little wife, two younger sons, and the young wife of the eldest son, constitute the family; a quiet, kind, hospitable family, over which death however has lately cast its shadow. Here too the mothers have sorrowed most; and here sorrow two mothers—the elder, her eldest, grown-up son; the younger, her little boy, both lately deceased!

Savannah is the most charming of cities, and reminds me of “the maiden in the greenwood.” It is, even more than Charleston, an assemblage of villas which have come together for company. In each quarter is a green market place surrounded with magnificent, lofty trees; and in the centre of each verdant market-place leaps up a living fountain, a spring of fresh water gushing forth, shining in the sun and keeping the green sward moist and cool. Savannah might be called the city of the gushing springs; there cannot be, in the whole world, a more beautiful city than Savannah! Now, however, it is too warm; there is too much sand and too little water. But I like Savannah. I find here a more vigorous spiritual life, a more free and unprejudiced looking at things and circumstances, in particular at the great question of slavery, than in Charleston, and I have here become acquainted with some excellent, true people—people who will look the question directly and fairly in the face; who, themselves slave holders from the more remote times, are yet labouring for the instruction of the slave, for emancipation and free colonisation. Ah, Agatha! I have felt on this occasion like a weary and thirsty wanderer of the desert, who has arrived, all at once, at a verdant oasis where palms wave and fresh waters spring forth, and I have watered with tears of joy the flowers of freedom on the soil of slavery. For I suffered greatly at first in society, from the endeavours of many people to thrust upon me their contracted views, and from a want of honesty, if not in the intention, yet in the point of view from which they