on our left, in a few hours pass the
Santee River, and enter an estuary into which the Pedee and Maccamaw run
a few miles farther to the northwest.

The steamer ran alongside a jetty and pier, which was crowded by men in
uniform, waiting for the news and for supplies of creature comforts.
Ladies were cantering along the fine hard beach, and some gigs and
tax-carts, fully laden, rolled along very much as one sees them at
Scarborough. The soldiers on the pier were all gentlemen of the county.
Some, dressed in gray tunics and yellow facings, in high felt-hats and
plumes and jack-boots, would have done no discredit in face, figure,
and bearing to the gayest cavaliers who ever thundered at the heels of
Prince Rupert. Their horses, full of Carolinian fire and mettle, stood
picketed under the trees along the margin of the beach. Among these men,
who had been doing the duty of common troopers in patrolling the
sea-coast, were gentlemen possessed of large estates and princely
fortunes; and one who stood among them was pointed out to me as captain
of a company, for whose use his liberality provided unbounded daily
libations of champagne, and the best luxuries which French ingenuity can
safely imprison in those well-known caskets with which Crimean warriors
were not unacquainted at the close of the campaign.

They were eager for news, which was shouted out to them by their friends
in the steamer, and one was struck by the intimate personal cordiality
and familiar acquaintance which existed among them. Three heavy guns,
mounted in an earthwork defended by palisades, covered the beach and
the landing-place, and the garrison was to have been reinforced by a
regiment from Charleston, which, however, had not got in readiness to
go up on our steamer, owing to some little difficulties between the
volunteers, their officers, and the quartermaster-general's department.

As the "Nina" approaches the tumble-down wharf, two or three citizens
advance from the shade of shaky sheds to welcome us, and a few country
vehicles and light phaetons are drawn forth from the same shelter to
receive the passengers, while the negro boys and girls who have been
playing upon the bales of cotton and barrels of rice, which represent
the trade of the place on the wharf, take up commanding positions for
the better observation of our proceedings. There is an air of quaint
simplicity and old-fashioned quiet about Georgetown, refreshingly
antagonistic to the bus