CRAVEN- COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. 165 



assert, but that the city has become more healthful, 

 and that our people have a greater fear of fever than 

 formerly. The great clanger to be apprehended is 

 not the remittent fever, which proceeds by rapid 

 stages to a fatal crisis, but the slow and lingering 

 intermittent. As we have before said, it is the repe- 

 tition of these attacks which breaks down the man. 

 They tell fearfully, too, upon children, who have 

 not the strength to bear up against their ravages. 

 They get ague cakes, and smiles and laughter no 

 longer play about their little faces, and they know 

 nothingof the joys and sports of childhood, and their 

 melancholy countenances prey upon your spirits as 

 you behold their listless tawny faces ; and at last 

 God, in his mercy, takes them to himself, and they 

 trouble this world no more. It is the child, there- 

 fore, who has special cause to bless the benevolence 

 which provides the pine lands. There they feel the 

 balmy air as it kisses their cheeks, and it seems the 

 breath of God, Inviting them to be happy, and 

 laughter and childish glee fill the air with their 

 hopeful and heart-reviving sounds. And let not 

 the carping critic point to the tombstones which 

 cluster about the cemeteries of our country, and 

 show how many have died in childhood, and in 

 the prime of manhood, even under the favoring 

 influence of the pine-land air. Regard not their 

 death. That is the debt of nature. But look to 

 their lives. If they were happy in life, there is 



