THEuoLocnsj', a-js 



au idi'a of the havilsliips our Ir.iveler of wailing on a slranf^er. Tlii-se tav- 



experienced in his journey from Wasli- erns were ehivateil oiV props al)out 



iugton to Savannah. - four or five feet from the ground 



To a stranger the climate of Virginia leaving a roomy retreat Ixdow for the 



and the Carolinas was such that with- hogs of which eaeli landlord or planter 



out proper preventatives one was en- would own a hundred or more. Wil 



dangered with tliat dreaded southern son says every night the hogs eame to 



disease, malaria fever, Wilson said the remlezous under the house and with 



iuhai»itanls use brandy as a safeguard whose eharmiug voeal ))erformance the 



for this disease and so universal is the wearied traveller is serenaded the 



pratlce that the lirst thing you lind whole night long, till he is foreed to 



them employed in after rising, is.prepar- eurse the hogs, the house, and every- 



ing the usual morning's beverage, which thing aitout it. 



is the brandy toilly. IL; saiil it was AtWashington,NorthCarolina he eros-. 

 almost n!!\t to impassible to meet a s(!d the Tar river and journeed to Wil- 

 mati whose lips wer(( not parched an<l mingtoii, a distance of over a hundred 

 blistereil with drinking the poison. He miles, and along the whole route there 

 lodged one night at the houseof a i)lant- were only three taverns, two of which 

 er, who informed him that out of a fam- were clo>.ed. the landlords having ilied 

 ily of thirteen children onl^' three sur- with fever. Later he writes from 

 vived all having been carried away Charleson; " the general features of 

 with the bilious fcni-i . There were two North Carolina, where I cro.ssed it, are 

 alternatives to the inhabitants; drink immeusesolitary pinesavannas.through 

 brandy, or have the ague. VV Ison which the road winds among stagnant 

 I'ather than form the habit of using the ponds, swarming with alligators; dark 

 poison decided to take his chances. sluggish creeks of the color of bi-andy 

 He escapetl the disease, ami how he enormous cypress swamps, which to a 

 remained in that latitude four months stranger, have a sticking desolat«( and 

 without contracting the fever was a ruinous appearance!." Within the re- 

 wonder to himself ami to the inhabi- cesses of ihes(j immense cypress swamps 

 tants. lived many rare birds unknown to Wil- 



The accomodations our traveler re- son. He attempted to ptjuelrate some 

 ceived while in this region were some- of the swamps in search of l)irds; but 

 what dilTerent from what they are now was obliged to give up in despair, 

 and from what he was accustomed to however he found many birds on the 

 receive. The taverns in the south were luargins of these swamps unknown in 

 shocking sul)s»itutes for public houses Penn.sylvania. Kemaining at Wilming- 

 and were the most desolate and wretch- ton a brief time he rode through soil- 

 ed places imaginable; Itare, bleak and tary pine savannas, and cypress 

 dirty walls, with 'one ()r two broken swamps as he hail <lone before, .some- 

 chairs and a bench, forming all the fur- times thirty miles, without seeing a hut 

 uilure of an apartment. The negroes or a human being.- All through South 

 conducted everything; there being but Carolina he pursued a circuitous route 

 a single or a few white females in a tav- iu order that he might visit all the 

 eru, and the.se seldom made their ap- jdanters. 



pearance. The males were unworthy Wilson fared even belter tiian his 



of the name and aibled to the nnappe- horse for .soon after he had left Wibning- 



tizing llavor of the establishment a half ton his faithfid sl.-rd became exhaus- 



a dozen or more half clothed negroes ted by continual exertion and he was 



snrroiimlrd vuu.L'Iad of lheopi)ortuuity (d)liged to exchange with a planter. 



