st New York
Volunteers, who had lived on the island since 1861. Mr. Kleim took me to
his bachelor quarters, where the wet cargo of the Maria Theresa was
dried by the kitchen fireplace.

The next day, February 18, I left Seabrook and followed Skull Creek to
Mackay's Creek, and, passing the mouth of May River, entered Calibogue
Sound, where a sudden tempest arose and drove me into a creek which
flowed out of the marshes of Bull Island. A few negro huts were
discovered on a low mound of earth. The blacks told me their hammock was
called Bird Island.

The tempest lasted all day, and as no shelter could be found on the
creek, a darky hauled my canoe on a cart a couple of miles to Bull
Creek, which enters into Cooper River, one of the watercourses I was to
enter from Calibogue Sound. Upon reaching the wooded shores of Bull
Creek, my carter introduced me to the head man of the settlement, a
weazened-looking little old creature called Cuffy, who, though
respectful in his demeanor to "de Yankee-mans," was cross and
overbearing to the few families occupying the shanties in the
magnificent grove of live-oaks which shaded them.

Cuffy's cook-house, or kitchen, which was a log structure measuring nine
by ten feet, with posts only three feet high, was the only building
which could be emptied of its contents for my accommodation. Our
contract or lease was a verbal one, Cuffy's terms being "whateber de
white man likes to gib an ole nigger." Cuffy cut a big switch, and sent
in his "darter," a girl of about fourteen years, to clean out the
shanty. When she did not move fast enough to suit the old man's wishes,
he switched her over the shoulders till it excited my pity; but the girl
seemed to take the beating as an every-day amusement, for it made no
impression on her hard skull and thick skin.

After commencing to "keep house," the old women came to sell me eggs and
beg for "bacca." They requested me never to throw away my
coffee-grounds, as it made coffee "good 'nuf for black folks." I
distributed some of my stores among them, and, after cutting rushes and
boughs for my bed, turned in for the night.

These negroes had been raising Sea-Island cotton, but the price having
declined to five cents a pound, they could not get twenty-five cents a
day for their labor by cultivating it.

The fierce wind subsided before dawn, but a heavy fog covered the
marshes and the creek. Cuffy's "settlement" turned out before sunrise to
see me off; a