he bright
sunlight played with the shadows of the clouds upon the wide marshes,
which were now growing green with the warmth of returning spring. The
fish sprang from the water as I touched it with my light oars.

St. Simon's Island,--where Mr. Pierce Butler once cultivated sea-island
cotton, and to which he took his English bride, Miss Kemble,--with its
almost abandoned plantation, was reached before ten o'clock. Frederica
River carried me along the whole length of the island to St. Simon's
Sound. When midway the island, I paused to survey what remains of the
old town of Frederica, of which but few vestiges can be discovered.
History informs us that Frederica was the first town built by the
English in Georgia, and was founded by General Oglethorpe, who began
and established the colony.

The fortress was regular and beautiful, and was the largest, most
regular, and perhaps most costly of any in North America of British
construction. Pursuing my journey southward, the canoe entered the
exposed area of St. Simon's Sound, which, with its ocean inlet, was
easily crossed to the wild and picturesque Jekyl Island, upon which the
two bachelor brothers Dubignon live and hunt the deer, enjoying the free
life of lords of the forest. Their old family mansion, once a haven of
hospitality, where the northern tourist and shipwrecked sailor shared
alike the good things of this life with the kind host, was used for a
target by a gunboat during the late war, and is now in ruins.

Here, twenty years ago, at midnight, the slave-yacht "Wanderer" landed
her cargo of African negroes, the capital for the enterprise being
supplied by three southern gentlemen, and the execution of the work
being intrusted, under carefully drawn contracts, to Boston parties.

The calm weather greatly facilitated my progress, and had I not missed
Jekyl Creek, which is the steamboat thoroughfare through the marshes to
Jekyl and St. Andrew's Sound, that whole day's experience would have
been a most happy one. The mouth of Jekyl Creek was a narrow entrance,
and being off in the sound, I passed it as I approached the lowlands,
which were skirted until a passage at Cedar Hammock through the marsh
was found, some distance from the one I was seeking. Into this I
entered, and winding about for some time over its tortuous course, at a
late hour in the afternoon the canoe emerged into a broad watercourse,
down which I could look across Jekyl Sound to the sea.

This bro