wood, the wild hawthorn, the Cherokee rose, the leafless 

 azalea; and nearer the wheel-track appeared at intervals the 

 humbler flowers of spring, the pink oxalis, the may-apple, 

 the fire-pink, and violets of various sorts. 



The day was excessively hot, and we deferred our return 

 till the cool of evening. Before us was the red western sky 

 seen through the great tall trunks of Georgia pines; behind 

 us a little later rose the full moon with its cool white light; 

 and later still the weird flames of forest fires flared up on 

 either side the highway, burning up the dry pitch in the old 

 pockets that had been cut in pines by the turpentine-makers, 

 or cremating entirely the trunks of trees that were dead. It 

 is hard to understand how these fires, even in time of drouth, 

 do so little damage to the forests of the southern pine-belt; 

 while in northern forests they prove so destructive. 



The site of the Walter place on the banks of the Santee is 

 about two miles north of the Charleston highway, and was 

 reached through a muddy and tortuous forest-road. We should 

 have had great difficulty in tracing it and in finding the grave, 

 had we not had the good fortune to fall in with a colored man 

 who was familiar with the region, and had, while getting out 

 railway ties, accidently stumbled upon the tomb-stone; for 

 all traces of Walter's house, or of any out-buildings that might 

 have once stood in the neighborhood, have wholly disap- 

 peared. The grounds and the garden have quite reverted to 

 the original forest. I looked in vain for the tallow-trees that 

 Ravenel described as standing about the grave in 1856. I 

 searched for other plants which might be regarded as vestiges 

 of the botanical garden that had flouished there one hundred 

 and twenty years before, and observed at opposite ends of the 

 grave two large willow-oaks, (Quercus Phellos), that had 

 every indication of having been planted there. Looking about 

 diligently for other horticultural signs, I noticed the strong 

 perfume of the sweet violet. Ah, I thought, Walter had 

 growing here the violet of his English home, and it has be- 



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