CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. 93 



" To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 

 To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 

 Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 

 And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; 

 To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 

 With the wild flocks that never need a fold ; 

 Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean. 

 This is not solitude ; 't is but to hold 

 Converse with nature's charms, and view her charms unroll'd." 



That portion of Craven County which hes south 

 of Santee River is marked by this species of solitary 

 grandeur, heightened, however, by an association 

 with former animation. He who travels in winter 

 from the bank of the Santee Canal towards the 

 east will find himself in an almost uninterrupted 

 forest of pines. On his left lie the mysterious 

 depths of the Santee Swamp, whose soil, once teem- 

 ing with the rewards of industry, is now abandoned 

 to the hand of nature ; before and around him the 

 tall pines, with their melancholy moan, spread them- 

 selves in an apparently impenetrable mass. Here 

 and there a broad and well-worn avenue leading 

 from the wood, or a stately time-honored mansion, 

 seen in the distance, heightens the sense of solitari- 

 ness by suggesting ideas of society. As you pro- 

 ceed, you find yourself in the streets of a village ; 

 but the houses are built with a special reference to 

 the preservation of the trees ; and the closed doors 

 and windows of these dwellings, their chimneys, 

 from which issues no hospitable smoke, recall vividly 



