CHAPTER XIX. 



Rivers made turbid by the Clearing of Forests. Land rising in successive 

 Terraces. Origin of these. Bones of extinct Quadrupeds in Lower 

 Terrace. Associated Marine Shells. Digging of Brunswick Canal. 

 Extinction of Megatherium and its Contemporaries. Dying out of rare 

 Species. Gordonia Pubescens. Life of Southern Planters. Negroes 

 on a Rice Plantation. Black Children. Separate Negro Houses. 

 Work exacted. Hospital for Negroes. Food and Dress. Black 

 Driver. Prevention of Crimes. African Tom. Progress of Negroes 

 in Civilization. Conversions to Christianity. Episcopalian, Baptist, and 

 Methodist Missionaries. Amalgamation and Mixture of Races. 



WE returned from St. Simon s to Hopeton, much pleased with 

 our expedition. As our canoe was scudding through the clear 

 waters of the Altamaha, Mr. Couper mentioned a fact which 

 shows the effect of herbage, shrubs, and trees in protecting the 

 soil from the wasting action of rain and torrents. Formerly, 

 even during floods, the Altamaha was transparent, or only stained 

 of a darker color by decayed vegetable matter, like some streams 

 in Europe which flow out of peat mosses. So late as 1841, a 

 resident here could distinguish on which of the two branches of 

 the Altamaha, the Oconee or Ocmulgee, a freshet had occurred, 

 for the lands in the upper country, drained by one of these (the 

 Oconee) had already been partially cleared and cultivated, so that 

 that tributary sent down a copious supply of red mud, while the 

 other (the Ocmulgee) remained clear, though swollen. But no 

 sooner had the Indians been driven out, and the woods of their 

 old hunting-grounds begun to give way before the ax of the new 

 settler, than the Ocmulgee also became turbid. I shall have 

 occasion, in the sequel, to recur to this subject, when speaking of 

 some recently-formed ravines of great depth and width in the 

 red mud of the upland country near Milledgeville in Georgia. 



The low region bordering the Atlantic, comprising the sea- 

 islands, such as St. Simon s, and the flat or nearly level plains 



