44 THE IN^LAJ^D PASSAGE. 



but we purchased some yery fair beef at yery mod- 

 erate prices, eighteen pounds of porterhouse being 

 sold to us for eight cents a pound. The town is a 

 pretty one, and the next day being Sunday, we went 

 to the colored Methodist Church, a thing that no 

 yisitor must fail to do, and heard some yery charm- 

 ing singing. This was our first experience of the 

 quaint, wild, and slightly barbaric harmony of the 

 yoices of the negroes, of which we were to hear a 

 great deal before our return to the North. 



Beaufort y^as the first thoroughly Southern town, 

 with its fig trees in the open air, the Yupawn, or 

 natiye Tea tree, the red-berried eyergreen bushes, 

 whose name we could not ascertain, and its genial 

 air of Southern indolent happiness, which we had 

 yisited. We were sorry to leaye it, and had Florida 

 been only placed where it ought to haye been, fiye 

 hundred miles nearer New York, we should haye 

 stayed days if not weeks longer. But the time Avas 

 flitting by, and still we were a thousand miles from 

 our destination. So without more ado we put to sea. 

 From Beaufort to Cape Fear there is such a bend 

 in the coast that it is laid down on the charts as a 

 bay. Being shielded from the terrible northeasters 

 of the Atlantic, which reach no farther tlian Cape 

 Hatteras, it is as safe for a small yessel as any part 

 of the boisterous ocean ever can be. But I was glad 

 when Heartsease got through the yoyage. With 

 care there is no danger, and the trip is not half as 

 perilous a one as we are accustomed to take at the 

 Xorth, where we are at home, without a thought of 



