52 THE INLAND PASSAGE. 



South, which is a probably a climacteric result, but 

 pregnant of many possibilities for the future. It is 

 they who supply Charleston market, it is they who 

 do the fishing and the work, and more important 

 still, it is they who make all the Sea-island cotton 

 and bring it to the city in their boats from the shores 

 where inevitable death lurks for the superior race. 

 That most valuable of Southern products, the old 

 time king of the world, arrives in driblets, here a 

 pound and there a pound. It is badly baled, but it 

 comes and in good order too. To day the negro 

 controls the whilom king, which is indeed putting 

 the bottom rail on top. 



The Charleston "Eagles," as he called the buz- 

 zards, were a source of infinite complacency to the 

 philosophical soul of the doctor. He would 

 watch them by the hour, sympathizing with their 

 metaphysically thoughtful ways. He would study 

 their awkward and ungainly motions on the ground, 

 and wonder that anything so ungraceful on foot 

 could be so exquisitely elegant and graceful in the 

 air when on the wing. These queer creatures stay 

 around the market, and although the law forbids 

 their being fed, as it is found Avith them as with 

 human buzzards that necessity is the mother of scav- 

 engering, your butcher is always ready to throw 

 them a surreptitious piece of meat for your amuse- 

 ment. They are the only street cleaners, and if they 

 got their dinners gratuituosly they might cease their 

 useful public labors. 



On January tenth we tore ourselves away from 



