158 HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF 



Before we bring this long and desultory sketch to 

 a close, the nature of the subject appears to call for 

 some remarks respecting health and disease. It was 

 the search after health which led to the settlement 

 of Pineville, and it was the prevalence, long con- 

 tinued, of a fearful malady, which, in 1836, drove 

 the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere. 



Whoever will consult Mouzon's map of St. Ste- 

 phen's district, and compare it with the aspect 

 which a map of the same region, if now constructed, 

 would present, will naturally inquire, to what causes 

 such a melancholy contrast is to be attributed. In 

 the palmy days of this parish, the fourteen miles of 

 road, which we described at the commencement of 

 this sketch as leading from the canal to the church, 

 passed in sight of upwards of twenty plantations. 

 And such is the depth of the swamp, and so great 

 was the demand for its valuable lands, that many 

 more were to be found in the interior which were 

 not seen from the road. The first cause of this 

 desolation is to be found in the frequency and the 

 irregularity of the freshets in the Santee River, 

 which have reduced the garden of the State to an 

 absolute wilderness. A few of the names on Mou- 

 zon's map are extinct ; but the greater part may still 

 be found in St. John's Berkeley, between Monck's 

 Corner and the Eutaw Springs. Before the intro- 

 duction of the cotton culture, the lands of this last 

 parish were held in very little esteem. Mr. Philip 



