ck runs across our path or whistles up from the wet
leaves, we come suddenly upon a dozen or more little basins, the
largest not over six feet by nine, which have no outlet whatever. One
hole about two feet in diameter goes sheer down between two pine trees
to a depth never yet fathomed: you cannot see it until right on it,
and you cannot use a rod, but drop your line about twelve feet deep,
and your cork will go down like lead, while you pull up red perch and
blue bream until your arm wearies of the sport. I have caught five
dozen in a winter's afternoon, for the fish bite best in the coldest
weather, the temperature of the water being sixty-two degrees the year
round, irrespective of the weather. You must go fifteen miles before
reaching another of these springs or fountains, and then ten more
to the last of the chain, the famous Eutaw Springs of Revolutionary
memory. Here, then, must be a subterranean river or reservoir at least
twenty-eight miles long, teeming with the same fish which swim in the
surface-streams, yet having no discoverable connection with any of
these. We meet with no rocks or stones anywhere, but our walk leads
us past many marl-pits from which numerous fossil remains have been
obtained. The fertile and superstitious imagination of the negroes has
not been idle in such a suggestive field, and they have peopled these
fountains with spirits which they call "cymbies," akin to the undine
and the kelpie. On Saturday nights you may hear a strange rhythmic,
thumping sound from the spring, and looking out you may see by the
wild, fitful glare of lightwood torches dark figures moving to and
fro. These are the negro women at their laundry-work, knee-deep in the
stream, beating the clothes with heavy clubs. They are merry enough
when together, but not one of them will go alone for a "piggin" of
water, and if you slip up in the shadow of the old oak and throw a
stone into the spring, the entire party will rush away at the splash,
screaming with fear, convinced that the "cymbie" is after them.

Leaving the spring behind us, we pass up the long lane between two
cotton-fields of a hundred acres each, in which the blackened stalks
are still standing, as are the dried cornstalks and gray pea-vines in
the field beyond. These will remain until the early spring, when they
will be cut down and "listed in" with the hoe, for not a foot of this
rich and profitable plantation has ever been broken with the plough.
Incredibl