ears clad in the sober
brown of winter.

At this season Charleston is dull to a proverb; most of the planters,
with their families, being in the country, and the rest preparing to
follow; the city is, therefore, nearly abandoned to the cotton-shippers;
and so it will remain until the month of February, when the race-meeting
draws the whole State together; and, for a period of four or five weeks,
few places, as I learn, can be more lively or more sociable. After this
date, the country families once more return to their plantations, where
they can remain with safety until about the second week in April: after
which date the choice between country and city may be summed up in the
words of Shakspeare, to "go and live, or stay and die;" since to stay is
assuredly to die, after once the malaria is fairly in movement.
Formerly, the winter campaign used to be prolonged until the middle of
June; but of late years the time has been, from some cause or other,
gradually abridged by common consent, until now the 15th of April is
considered the last day of security.

The forest rides leading on either hand from the main road to the Cooper
and Ashley rivers by which the sandy neck the city occupies is flanked,
are, though flat, very delightful. Plants and flowers of rare beauty and
in great variety abound here; the wild vine and other climbing plants
are drawn from tree to tree; and the live-oak, sycamore, hickory, with
the loftiest pines, altogether form avenues down which the eyes of a
stranger wander with delight, and in which on these delicious calm days
it is a joy to linger. My rides were sometimes solitary; and it was on
these occasions I most enjoyed these forest paths, now as healthful as
beautiful; yet, let only a few months pass away, and to sleep one night
within their shade would be death as certain as though it were spent
beneath the boughs of the poisonous Upas.

I could hardly conceive the possibility of such a baneful change, as, on
a bright day of December, I sauntered carelessly along, watching the sun
dancing in long lines of light over the smooth water, and an atmosphere
before me glowing, as though a veil of gold tissue had been drawn above
the forest. Yet so it is; the overseers alone remain upon the plantation
after sunset, and amongst these the numerous deaths, as well as the
cadaverous hue of the survivors, afford unquestionable testimony of the
peril incurred by such a residence.

To the negro alone this