hich I reached Bear River, with its wide and long
reaches, and descended it to St. Catherine's Sound.

Now the sea opened to full view as the canoe crossed the tidal ocean
gate-way two miles to North Newport River. When four miles up the
Newport I entered Johnson's Creek, which flows from North to South
Newport rivers. By means of the creek and the South Newport River, my
little craft was navigated down to the southern end of St. Catherine's
Island to the sound of the same name, and here another inlet was crossed
at sunset, and High Point of Sapelo Island was reached.

From among the green trees of the high bluff a mansion, which exhibited
the taste of its builder, rose imposingly. This was, however, but one of
the many edifices that are tombs of buried hopes. The proprietor, a
northern gentleman, after the war purchased one-third of Sapelo Island
for fifty-five thousand dollars in gold. He attempted, as many other
enterprising northerners had done, to give the late slave a chance to
prove his worth as a freedman to the world.

"Pay the negro wages; treat him as you would treat a white man, and he
will reward your confidence with industry and gratitude." So thought and
so acted the large-hearted northern colonel. He built a large mansion,
engaged his freedmen, paid them for their work, and treated them like
_men_. The result was ruin, and simply because he had not paused to
consider that the negro had not been _born_ a freedman, and that the
demoralization of slavery was still upon him. Beside which facts we must
also place certain ethnological and moral principles which exist in the
pure negro type, and which are entirely overlooked by those
philanthropic persons who have rarely, if ever, seen a full-blooded
negro, but affect to understand him through his _half_-white brother,
the mulatto.

Mud River opened its wide mouth before me as I left the inlet, but the
tide was very low, and Mud River is a sticking-point in the passage of
the Florida steamers. It became so dark that I was obliged to get near
the shore to make a landing. My attempt was made opposite a negro's
house which was on a bluff, but the water had receded into the very
narrow channel of Mud River, and I was soon stuck fast on a flat.
Getting overboard, I sank to my knees in the soft mud. I called for
help, and was answered by a tall darky, who, with a double-barrelled
gun, left his house and stood in a threatening manner on the shore. I
appealed for h