A Thousand-Mile Walk 
who has a single thought. I also met a brother, 
Scotchman, who was especially interesting and 
had some ideas outside of Southern politics. 
Altogether my half-day and night on board the 
steamer were pleasant, and carried me past 
a very sickly, entangled, overflowed, and un- 
walkable piece of forest. 
It is pretty well known that a short geologi- 
cal time ago the ocean covered the sandy level 
margin, extending from the foot of the Alle- 
ghanies to the present coast-line, and in re- 
ceding left many basins for lakes and swamps. 
The land is still encroaching on the sea, and it 
does so not evenly, in a regular line, but in 
fringing lagoons and inlets and dotlike coral 
islands. 
It is on the coast strip of isles and peninsulas 
that sea-island cotton is grown. Some of these 
small islands are afloat, anchored only by the 
roots of mangroves and rushes. For a few 
hours our steamer sailed in the open sea, ex- 
posed to its waves, but most of the time 
she threaded her way among the lagoons, the 
[ 86 ] 
