m consist largely of arable land, which,
before the war of the rebellion, was divided by hedges into great
plantations, whereon the rich planters, aided by their hundreds of
slaves, cultivated, besides vegetables of all kinds, the famous long
staple "Sea Island cotton." The islands are separated from each other
and from the main land by arms of the sea, here called rivers, or
creeks, according to their width and depth, some, as Beaufort, Broad and
Coosaw rivers, from one to three miles in width and thirty feet in
depth, and others, which, at low tide, are but marshes, with a thread of
water.


AFTER THE WAR.

After the war the large plantations were subdivided into five, ten and
twenty-acre farms, which were by the government distributed among the
"heads of families," generally of the slaves who were left on them, and
these <DW64>s, with their descendants, still occupy these farms, living
in comfortable cabins, each plantation having its own hamlet or colony.
After the first shock of change was over, these <DW64>s developed into
orderly, industrious, thriving Christian communities. Each farm was
thoroughly cultivated, and there was produced every year good crops of
potatoes, sweet and Irish, peas, corn, melons and one or two bales of
cotton, which, mortgaged to the local storekeeper, generally a white
man, furnished them with groceries. All raised and owned horses, mules,
hogs, cattle, turkeys, domestic fowls and ducks. All were owners of one
or more buggies, carts, plows and other agricultural implements, and
those who lived near the sea owned one or more boats, with outfit of
nets and fishing gear, and from spring until winter the sea yielded
abundant harvest of good fish, turtles, crabs, shrimps, prawns, clams
and oysters, and the marshes furnished terrapin, which sold at very
remunerative figures, as I well know, for the storm took from me nearly
three hundred of them. Every cabin was comfortable, from their point of
view, furnished, and in many were sewing machines, house organs and
melodeons, and for every 