In South Carolina. 201 



it necessary to burn the decayed grass, the dried 

 leaves, and the little shrubs, that the surface of the 

 ground may be prepared for approaching vegetation. 

 The fire thus communicated spreads with inconceiva- 

 ble rapidity, so that several acres are almost instantly 

 covered with a sheet of flame. In passing by the 

 trunks of the pine-trees, the fire occasionally seizes on 

 the oozing turpentine that exudes from their sides. 

 Pursuing this combustible matter, the flame mounts 

 to their summits and spreads along their branches, 

 and frequently lodges in their decayed limbs, so that 

 sometimes the forest is in a blaze. 



By the light of one of these fires Dr. Coke and 

 Bishop Asbury traveled while pursuing their jour- 

 ney through the forests from Charleston to Georgia. 

 " It was," says he, " the most astonishing illumination 

 that I ever beheld. We seemed surrounded with ex- 

 tensive fires, and I question whether the King of 

 France's stag-hunt in his forest by night, which he 

 has sometimes given to his nobility, would be more 

 wonderful or entertaining to a philosophic eye. I 

 have seen old rotten pine-trees all on fire ; the trunks, 

 and the branches which looked like so many arms, 

 were full of visible fire, and made a most grotesque 

 appearance." 



They entered Georgia at Augusta, and reached Mr. 

 Grant's, in the county of Wilkes, where the Confer- 

 ence was to be held on the 8th of March. Having 

 passed through the business with order and unanim- 

 ity, they directed their hasty steps back to Charles- 

 ton, riding two hundred miles in five days, to hold the 

 third session of the South Carolina Conference, ap- 

 pointed to begin on Tuesday, the 17th of March, 1789. 

 They found the work of God in a prosperous condition, 



