CRAVEN COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. 163 



school-boy, we used to run two miles to Maham's 

 mill-pond, and on Saturday spent the whole morn- 

 ing there in the luxurious bath, and no one ever 

 dreamed of a luxury in the shape of a towel, beyond 

 our ordinary handkerchiefs. The truth is, that dis- 

 eases, fevers particularly, come from God ; to what 

 end, we know not precisely, but a good one, we may 

 be certain. If there were no fevers provided for us, 

 we would be deprived of one of the means for quit- 

 ting this world ; and it is worse than useless to 

 speculate upon the causes which, in every case, and 

 we believe we may say, in any case, generate this 

 disorder. 



A pretty extensive observation has convinced us 

 that we know absolutely nothing of the causes of 

 fever. We have seen overseers living year after 

 year in the rice fields of Cooper River, in the unin- 

 terrupted enjoyment of perfect health. These ifi- 

 stances are too common to be marked as exceptions. 

 We have generally observed that those overseers 

 are least sickly who are required to spend their 

 summers on the plantation. We have known 

 others who preserved their health until they re- 

 sorted to the pine lands. In such cases, our ra- 

 tionale of the cause is this : The overseer must be 

 on the plantation late in the evening and early in 

 the morning. If he lives on the plantation, he has 

 no occasion to rise before his usual hour ; if he re- 

 tires to a pine land, he must abstract from sleep 



