38 REMINISCENCES OF 



fall upon it, into the creeks and ravines leading 

 into the river ; consequently much of the water 

 was absorbed by the earth or evaporated before it 

 could be received into its channels, and even when 

 there so many obstacles yet awaited its progress, 

 that heavy contributions were still levied upon it. 

 The river, too, had time to extend along its course 

 the first influx of water before that from more 

 remote tributary sources would reach it. Owing 

 to these and other causes, the Santee was compara- 

 tively exempt from those freshets which have since 

 blighted the prosperity of what was once a second 

 Egypt. A breadth of three or four miles of swamp 

 as fertile as the slime of the Nile could have made 

 it, was safe for cultivation ; and its margins were 

 thickly lined with the residences of as prosperous a 

 people as ever enjoyed the blessings of God. Some 

 there were who lived in the swamp, and even on 

 the very bank of the river. The exceeding fertility 

 of the soil rendered labor scarcely necessary to 

 make it a wilderness of vegetable luxuriance. The 

 great quantity of decomposing matter, and the 

 myriads of insects incident thereto, and the abun- 

 dant yield of seeds, furnished by the rank weeds 

 and grass, caused the poultry-yard to teem with a 

 well-fed population, and the pastures of crab grass 

 and cane, which are yet proverbial, poured into 

 the dairies streams of the richest milk, and en- 

 livened the scene at morn and evening with the 



