FOOTPATHS 223 
the brilliant lizards glanced across your track, 
and your horse’s ears suddenly pointed forward 
and his pace grew uneasy as he snuffed the pre- 
sence of something you could not see. At night 
you had often to ride from picket to picket in 
dense darkness, trusting to the horse to find 
his way, or sometimes dismounting to feel with 
your hands for the track, while the great South- 
ern fireflies offered their floating lanterns for 
guidance, and the hoarse “ Chuck-will’s-widow ” 
croaked ominously from the trees, and the great 
guns of the siege of Charleston throbbed more 
faintly than the drumming of a partridge, far 
away. Those islands are everywhere so inter- 
sected by dikes and ledges and winding creeks 
as to form a natural military region, like La 
Vendée; and yet two plantations that are 
twenty miles asunder by the road will some- 
times be united by a footpath which a negro 
can traverse in two hours. These tracks are 
limited in distance by the island formation, but 
they assume a greater importance as you pene- 
trate the mainland ; they then join great States 
instead of mere plantations, and if you ask 
whither one of them leads, you are told “To 
Alabama,” or “ To Tennessee.” 
Time would fail to tell of that wandering 
path which leads to the Mine Mountain near 
Brattleborough, where you climb the high peak 
