t whose notice not a
sparrow falleth to the ground.

Ten miles of this black current were passed over, when the first signs
of civilization appeared, in the shape of a sombre-looking, two-storied
house, located upon a point of the mainland which entered the swamp on
the left shore of the river. At this point the river widened to five or
six rods, and at intervals land appeared a few inches above the water.
Wherever the pine land touched the river a pig-pen of rails offered
shelter and a gathering-place for the hogs, which are turned loose by
the white Cracker to feed upon the roots and mast of the wilderness.

Reeve's Ferry, on the right bank, with a little store and
turpentine-still, twenty miles from Old Dock, was the next sign of the
presence of man in this swamp. The river now became broad as I
approached Piraway Ferry, which is two miles below Piraway Farm.
Remembering the warnings of the squire as to the "awful wretches in the
big pine woods," I kept a sharp lookout for the old women who were to
give me so much trouble, but the raftsmen on the river explained that
though Jim Gore had told me the truth, I had misunderstood his
pronunciation of the word _reaches_, or river bends, which are called in
this vicinity _wretches_. The reaches referred to by Mr. Gore were so
long and straight as to afford open passages for wind to blow up them,
and these fierce gusts of head winds give the raftsmen much trouble
while poling their rafts against them.

My fears of ill treatment were now at rest, for my tiny craft, with her
sharp-pointed bow, was well adapted for such work. Landing at the ferry
where a small scow or flat-boat was resting upon the firm land, the
ferryman, Mr. Daniel Dunkin, would not permit me to camp out of doors
while his log-cabin was only one mile away on the pine-covered uplands.
He told me that the boundary-line between North and South Carolina
crossed this swamp three and a half miles below Piraway Ferry, and that
the first town on the river Waccamaw, in South Carolina, Conwayborough,
was a distance of ninety miles by river and only thirty miles by land.
There was but one bridge over the river, from its head to Conwayborough,
and it was built by Mr. James Wortham, twenty years before, for his
plantation. This bridge was twenty miles below Piraway, and from it by
land to a settlement on Little River, which empties into the Atlantic,
was a distance of only five miles. A short canal would connect this
r