's Cut down Butler River to the Altamaha was
but a short row. The latter stream would have taken me to Altamaha
Sound, to avoid which I passed through Wood's Cut into the South
Altamaha River, and proceeded through the lowland rice-plantations
towards St. Simon's Island, which is by the sea. About the middle of the
afternoon, when close to Broughton Island, where the South Altamaha
presented a wide area to the strong head-wind which was sending little
waves over my canoe, a white plantation-house, under the veranda of
which an elderly gentleman was sitting, attracted my attention. Here was
what seemed to be the last camping-ground on a route of several miles to
St. Simon's Island.

If the wind continued to blow from the same quarter, the canoe could not
cross Buttermilk Sound that night; so I went ashore to inquire if there
were any hammocks in the marshes by the river-banks between the
plantation and the sound.

The bachelor proprietor of Broughton Island, Captain Richard A. Akin,
posted me as to the route to St. Simon's Island, but insisted that the
canoe traveller should share his comfortable quarters until the next
day; and when the next day came round, and the warm sun and smooth
current of the wide Altamaha invited me to continue the voyage, the
hospitable rice-planter thought the weather not settled enough for me to
venture down to the sound. In fact, he held me a rather willing captive
for several days, and then let me off on the condition that I should
return at some future time, and spend a month with him in examining the
sea islands and game resources of the vicinity.

Captain Akin was a successful rice-planter on the new system of
employing freedmen on wages, but while he protected the ignorant blacks
in all their newly-found rights, he was a thorough disciplinarian. The
negroes seemed to like their employer, and stuck to him with greater
tenacity than they did to those planters who allowed them to do as they
pleased. The result of lax treatment with these people is always a
failure of crops. The rivers and swamps near Broughton Island abound in
fine fishes and terrapin, while the marshes and flats of the sea islands
afford excellent opportunities for the sportsman to try his skill upon
the feathered tribe.

On Monday, March 9th, the Maria Theresa left Broughton Island well
provisioned with the stores the generous captain had pressed upon my
acceptance. The atmosphere was softened by balmy breezes, and t