here the inhabitants of this
favored estate would resort for recreation in the afternoon and evening.
Near this strip of land, beneath the shade of an immense live-oak,
luxuriates a clump of West India bamboo, said to have originated from a
single stalk brought here by General Lee. The feathery lances clash and
rattle with all the wild abandon characteristic of them in their native
isles. I have not seen a more perfect group outside the islands of the
Caribbean Sea.

From the walls of the second story--if you wish to view the
wide-extended prospect to the south you must clamber there--you can look
across three thousand acres of salt marsh to Fernandina and St. Mary's,
along the river and beach, across miles of ocean. Ivy climbs the corner
wall of the ruins and covers garden-wall and trees. Ruin everywhere
stares you in the face: on every side are deserted fields and
gardens--fields that employed the labor of four hundred negroes; fields
that were fertile and yielded large crops of the famous "Sea-Island
cotton." Bales from this estate were never "sampled." The Sea-Island
cotton that took the prize at the World's Fair in London was raised on
this island.

East of the garden, stretching toward the ocean-beach, is the
olive-grove. Seventy years ago the first olive trees were imported from
Italy and the south of France. They grew and flourished, and years ago
this grove yielded a profit to its owners. In 1755, Mr. Henry Laurens of
South Carolina imported and planted olives, capers, limes, ginger, etc.,
and in 1785 the olive was successfully grown in South Carolina; but
probably there is not at the present day a grove equal in extent to
this. It was estimated that a large tree would average a gallon of oil
per year: there were eight hundred planted and brought to a flourishing
and profitable stage of growth. There are several hundred now, scattered
through a waste of briers and scrub and overgrown with moss.

But the avenues? In the hottest day there are shade and coolness beneath
the intertwined branches of the live-oaks that arch above them. The eye
is refreshed in gazing down these vistas over the leaf-strewn floors of
sand. The sunshine sifts through the arch above, flecking the roadway
with a mosaic of leaves and boughs in light and shade. From the limbs
hang graceful pennons of Spanish moss, festooned at the sides, waved by
every wind, changing in every light. Grapevines with stems six inches in
diameter climb into