XCIV 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
me with kindness — said he valued the book highly — and paid 
me the twelve dollars; on which I took occasion to prognosti- 
cate my final success on receiving its first fruits from him. 
“ I will not tire you by a recital of the difficulties which I 
met with between Charleston and Savannah, by bad roads, and 
tlie extraordinary flood of the river Savannah, where I had 
nearly lost my horse, he having, by his restiveness, thrown 
himself overboard ; and, had I not, at great personal risk, res- 
cued him, he might have floated down to Savannah before me. 
“ I arrived here on Tuesday last, and advertised in the Re- 
publican, the editors of which interested themselves considera- 
bly for me, speaking of my book in their Thursday’s paper 
with much approbation. The expense of advertising in the 
southern states is great; but I found it really necessary. I 
have now seen every person in this place and neighbourhood, 
of use to be seen. Here I close the list of my subscrip- 
tions, obtained at a price worth more than five times their 
amount. But, in spite of a host of difficulties, I have gained 
my point; and should the work be continued in the style it has 
been begun, I have no doubt but we may increase the copies 
to four hundred. I have endeavoured to find persons of re- 
spectability in each town, who will receive and deliver the vo- 
lumes, without recompense, any further than allowing them to 
make the first selection. By this means the rapacity of some 
booksellers will be avoided. 
“The weather has been extremely warm these ten days, the 
thermometer stood in the shade on Friday and Saturday last, 
at 78° and 79°. I have seen no frost since the 5th of February. 
The few gardens here are as green and luxuriant as ours are in 
summer — full of flowering shrubbery, and surrounded with 
groves of orange trees, fifteen and twenty feet high, loaded with 
fruit. The streets are deep beds of heavy sand, without the ac- 
commodation of a foot pavement. I most sincerely hope that 
I may be able to return home by water; if not, I shall trouble 
you with one letter more.” 
