160 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



ticed eye fixes the value ; besides, the best sort must 

 float in water and quite dissolve, and in the fire be 

 consumed entirely ; the more it departs from these 

 peculiarities, the less good and genuine it is held to 

 be. After rice, indigo is the chief staple of Carolina, 

 and the yearly production and export reaches several 

 100,000 pounds' weight. Its cultivation may and will 

 increase, since there is no lack of suitable land, nor is 

 any great capital necessary for a first beginning. At 

 Charleston a pound at this time, according to its con- 

 dition, brings 3-5-7 shillings sterling; but neither in 

 quality nor in price is the South Carolina indigo equal 

 to that from the Mississippi, the West Indies, or 

 South America. Besides that mentioned as most 

 usually raised, the ' false Guatimala,' there is cultiva- 

 ted here and there in Carolina the French or His- 

 paniola Indigo, which however does not do so well, 

 because more susceptible to cold, and on account of its 

 deep roots demanding a fatter and richer soil. A 

 third sort is called wild Indigo (Amorpha fruticosa 

 L.) ; an indigenous growth, regarding the quality of 

 which opinion is not yet settled, but from its easier cul- 

 tivation and greater productivity this should be pref- 

 erable to both the others. 



At Mr. Vareen's house I saw the skin of a female 

 red tiger or cuguar (Felis concolor Linn), which had 

 been brought down in the neighborhood a few days 

 before. The length of the stripped, and now some- 

 what shrunken, skin was over five foot from the muz- 

 zle to the beginning of the tail, the tail itself some- 

 what more than three foot long. The back, the sides, 

 and the head were uniformly fallow, nearly fawn- 

 colored, but the flanks and the belly whitish grey. 



