if an infant, he was of the race of giants, none of whom existed in these days. This seemed to be conclusive- the hint was taken, and other witnesses were called to prove that my suspicions were correct. A verdict for the prosecution was given on this principle — which our philosophic judge said he always followed- namely: that men hardly ever quarrel, unless both parties are more or less in the wrong, and one is most likely to do justice by not entirely satisfying either party. This rule is not so very bad, but I do not think it good; for the weakest and best natured invite aggression, and they should not be sure to suffer with the evil. The fellow against whom I had turned the tide so suddenly, stole from me an article as he departed, by way of making up his loss. But I was informed of it, and made him pay for it by threatening him with a visit to the fort in St. Augustine. People told me he would serve me a bad trick should he meet me alone on the pine barrens, but I trusted to a scowl to annihilate him. A determined spirit is as good as side-arms, at any time. My determination was formed to make it a bad business to any man who should ever dare to think of such a thing as attacking me. This is the only way for one who has nothing to depend upon but his own resources. One good-natured man offered to stand by me in another instance where my life was threatened. However, I only told him that I was obliged to him, but could take care of myself against any man that I had yet seen; for if some had more strength, I could find means to stand upon a par with them. I found that mere brute force is not formidable, even in a lawless country. It is mean, underhand cunning, which is the worst thing in the world. Put an unprincipled lawyer, merchant, and banker together, clean, smooth, and genteel though they may be, and no wild beasts or ruffians will do more injury to society by their overt acts than will these, secretly, against every noble-hearted fellow they meet. They will starve him to death if they can, and ridicule him when they dare, while they are fattening on the genius of those like him. With this good-natured philippic, let us look up for the Flying Dutchman.

As sure as fate, he is gone! What has become of him? There appears to be an island where he was. Yes, that island at a distance, with its two or three trees, looks like a square-rigged vessel, in every respect some of the sails furled, some spread, and some partly clewed up. The illusion is as perfect as possible; and when you approach near enough, the enchantment is gone, and you cannot figure out any thing like a vessel; and you are the more convinced that you did really see one, and that it has vanished.

Passing this mysterious island, you approach, after a while, an old plantation, which is spread two or three miles along the river, for the fertile strip is very narrow. The old homestead had been burned in the wars, and now the owner was not wealthy enough to restore things to their former appearance. But although all of his orange, lemon, and fig trees had been cut down, they were grown up again from the roots, so that he had the best part of his income from them. The negroes seemed to be happier in their thoughtlessness than their master, with his cares, not only for his own family, but for all of theirs. Negroes, under good masters, as they almost invariably are, are as happy as any persons I ever saw. On new planta

tions they fare badly in comparison with those on old ones; and when they are let out, they are used like hack-horses, too frequently; for they are northern men, generally, who are in haste to be rich, who hire, and are not accustomed to the negro character, and who do not know that they will do more from affection to the master with whom they have grown up, in respectful habits of good feeling, than for any man who thinks to make them work as a northern working-man and his employer meet each trying to make his cold, calculating self-interest overreach the other. We will not here argue on this subject; but my decided impression, from all I saw, is, that the man at the north who lets out money on the property bought by money, and receives interest without laboring for his living, mentally or physically, is as much a slave-holder in principle as the southern man; and when he expends that interest-money or rent to sow dissensions between men who live much happier in the state of mutual dependance and affection which exists between a generous-minded southern man and his affectionate dependants, he acts, to say the least, without a proper knowledge of his own character, or the characters of those whom he professes a desire to reform, with the words 'stand back! I am holier than thou!' if not on his lips, in his heart and conduct.

To show the feeling that subsists between a master and his slaves, I will relate one or two incidents.

A planter of my acquaintance was on a visit to a friend, and they began to speak of the comparative merits of their boats and oarsmen, and it resulted very naturally in a wager. The interest which their hands took in the result their busy looks, as they turned over their boats to see the bottoms smoothed and greased, and their nice examinations of their oars-laid open their whole hearts. I thought of the close survey Ulysses took of his bow, when he was about to prove his strength. All these arrangements being completed, the fine tall fellows took their seats in their boats, with veins swelling and hearts throbbing with excitement, awaiting the signal for a start. The masters were the helmsmen; and I really believe there was not a man under them who would have hesitated to rupture an artery to have the honor of beating in the race. All the passion a negro can exhibit in his ebony face, by the contortions of its muscles, was here exhibited. At length, off they started— and they did not sleep over their work. No oarsmen surpass ours of Whitehall; and it is therefore useless to describe their fleetness. It is enough to say, that the visiting planter was beaten, and paid the wager cheerfully-but not so willingly did his negroes submit. They cursed their stars, and eyes, and their master's folly, because he would race with a poor canoe, when they had a better one at home! They said they hoped he would lose every dollar he had in the world, and every nigger' in the bargain, if he would bet so foolishly, when they had not half a chance. He told them, goodhumoredly, they must try it again, and if they did not beat next time, he would sell every rascal of them. Fearing he would try it again, they gathered around him as soon as they could find an opportunity when he was alone, and told him the crops were suffering by their absence, and if they did not go home immediately, the grass and weeds would destroy them entirely; and when pressed to pro

long his visit, he gave his negroes' remonstrances as a reason for going. In truth, any one might see that they were as proud of every thing belonging to their master, as if it were their own.

On another occasion, I went to see a vessel which had been cast away on the beach, loaded with sugar: there were several stout negro boys of apparently ten, twelve, and fourteen years of age, watching a number of boxes, which their master had bought at an auction. On approaching them, I said: 'Fine times, boys, with nothing to do but play, eat sugar, and catch oysters and fish for dinner.' 'Not very fine times,' said one. Why?' I asked: 'what more can you want, than plenty to eat and drink, and no work to do?' 'Ah,' said he, master does not make we boys work; and when we are at home, we can hear the fiddle, and dance; but none of us can play here.' Put the same questions to English factory children, or northern factory children and apprentices, and see if answers indicative of a more happy situation will be returned!

That they do not strive to educate them allowing it to be possible so that they may be above the menial offices which must necessarily be performed, is a merey instead of a disadvantage; for there is no more miserable being in creation than one possessed of refined feelings, and under the necessity of laboring for a living, in offices which are felt as degrading. This must be the case, where all classes are equally and greatly refined by education. Let all levellers think of these hints. For my own part, I think a wise and a good Providence made the negro as inferior in capacity to the white race, as he is in beauty, and other respects, and that he is better situated, as a slave to a white man, than if he were free in his own country, living on snakes and toads. Those who say that the black and white races are equal, might as well say that black is white; for each have had a fair trial of all the advantages of civilization — the negro in Africa, the whites in Europe and America - and while we have read the stars, and almost annihilated time and space, they have hardly learned to build a canoe, or make a fish-hook. But to return from my digression.

There is little remarkable on either shore of the St. John's. The banks generally are no banks, and the trees extend to the water's edge, so that you seem to be sailing through the woods. At long intervals, you may see the marks of the labors of man, and not the least beautiful is an extensive cotton-field, with its light green, so different from the green of any tree. The corn does not look so well as our northern corn, while growing, but it tastes much better when grown. It is sweeter, and more like wheat, when made into bread. The sugar-cane is planted near Jacksonville, but principally south of St. Augustine, at New-Smyrna, although as yet without much profit any where in the territory. It is a rich plant in appearance, while growing, and looks much like a field of monstrous corn, thickly planted, but without ears. It is a very common amusement there to chip off the bark and chew the pith, and would be so here, could we have good cane in abundance. I believe it would fatten up many a lean person, and perhaps cure some diseases; for in sugar-time, every living thing seems to grow fat. The sugar is made by simply

passing the cane, two or three at a time, between rollers, that press out the sap, which is then boiled down and grained.

Desiring to go along between the islands and the coast to Georgia, and up the St. Mary's, I procured a pilot at Jacksonville; but he had the pleurisy, and of course could not do much a couple of strangers were there, however, desiring to go on the same route; and although I was not much pleased with the appearance of one bullnecked fellow of them, I yet took him in, thinking he might do good service in case of necessity. Some of his exploits, which unguardedly came out in the course of the voyage, did not assist to raise him in my estimation. It appeared that he had endeavored to bribe my pilot to play falsely in a horse-race; and when he spoke of an acquaintance of mine at the North, after acknowledging that he had taken excellent wine with him, he abused him. I asked him on what principle he could do so, and told him I was sorry I had ever become acquainted with him. He muttered that I should be more sorry before he had done with me. I discovered that he was a 'precious bad one,' and all his looks showed it. I told him very plainly, that I would not be the owner of such a face as his for any money. He made answer that he knew his face was against him, and that a gentleman with whom he had been out a-hunting, on a late occasion, had been so scared by him, for nothing at all, that he cocked his gun, and walked him into town before him. With all this recommendation, he was good for nothing to work the boat. A gale came on from the north-east, and we had a number of miles to 'beat' through a salt meadow, extending as far as the eye could reach. The creek was not over twenty or thirty yards wide, and wound backward and forward, so that at one time the wind was free, and then there would be a long reach to run right in the wind's eye. When this was the case, we could not gain an inch by sailing, and so I had the sails down, and set all hands to work to row; but the three new hands I had picked up were not worth as much as the one with whom I started; and after worrying them all down, and blistering my own hands, Í sent my man out with a long rope and pole to drive in the sedgy bank of the creek, that we might warp the boat along, for the wind blew so violently as almost to take away my breath, and there was no other way left to make the least headway. We continued at this provoking business, until my new friends had betaken themselves to the shelter of the deck. My pilot moaned with pain in his side, the negro man was covered with creek mud, and I was exhausted. In fact, it was impossible to reach any place of shelter ahead before night and back we must go. I told all hands my determination; when the pleasant, virtuous passenger, of the happy countenance, started up, and expressed a willingness to work, and a great disinclination to return. But I was captain, and ordered up the sails, and ran back to a house which looked like a place of resort for pirates, being built on a pile of oyster-shells, with no inducements about it for any man to build there; it was alone, too, without connexion with any other place, that I could see, excepting over morasses or water. There was a swivel there, and one of my companions picked up a handsome gold shirt-button by the landing-place. Inside the house there was no furniture, excepting a cot bedstead or two,

and some old-fashioned guns, with locks such as I had never before seen. The inhabitants consisted only of men, and they were rough enough in appearance, and Spanish, withal. Had the house been comfortable, I intended to have staid here for the night, for it had begun to rain in earnest: taking altogether, however, I did not like either my company or accommodations. We roasted a few sweet potatoes, and broiled some bacon on the hearth, and while all thought I intended to stay, I told my man to shoulder his bag, and the others to follow, if they wished to go back with me to Jacksonville. The bullneck protested against this, but I told him to stay, if he did not wish to go, and departed without much ceremony. The truth might have been, that he feared to put out to sea exactly, or to run through the broad bay, at the mouth of the river, in such a storm of wind and rain : but as I have hinted before, there is nothing to dread in the elements, or from wild beasts, compared to the perils of a bad-hearted man, when you are unsuspicious or asleep. I did not care much for one bad man, but I did not like such an odds as I thought very possibly that house might present. They may have all been very honest, civil people; but I did not like appearances. Therefore, much against my will, we ran back; for nothing irks me so much as to be foiled. I determined to go all the way back to my camp, and not to start again until I should find two good hands on whom I could depend. This I did after a time, but must make the voyage along the coast the subject of another story. My gentleman, who was to make me repent my unceremonious treatment of him, I should not dismiss in silence. He came to my place after a while, and offered, by the merest accident in the world, a miserable counterfeit of a hundred dollar bill, to change with me for small bills, as it would be a great convenience to him in travelling to have some smaller notes. I told him at once that it was a counterfeit, and as there were two or three persons by, he walked off, but soon returned when he saw they had left me alone, and gone home, and began to open his vest, and hitch up his suspenders, on purpose to show me his dagger; but, as if by chance, I merely commended his prudence in going so well armed. As there was no court within many miles, I suffered him to depart in peace; had there been, he should have given some other account of himself. Such characters, I am happy to say, are not more numerous in the territory than elsewhere, and I do not wish to scandalize the country on account of a few lawless individuals.

A SECOND EXCURSION.

I HAVE endeavored to describe an attempt to run along the inner passage, between Amelia Island and the main land of Florida, in an open boat, which attempt was frustrated by a north-east gale, and other misadventures. But on the occasion of which I am now going to speak, I secured good men, and there was no gale; but oh! the musquitoes, and sand-flies, and the hot sun, between the sedge-banks! The channel was the most tortuous that can be imagined; and a person seeing as far as the eye can reach, over the level plain, would imagine that nothing could be easier than to find the way—yet hardly any