spinster friends, it
may be well to say a few words of the locality which they inhabited.

[Illustration: Fig. 2. Map of Charleston and Vicinity.]

Charleston stands upon the extremity of a narrow peninsula, between the
Cooper and the Ashley Rivers. Charleston Harbor, supplied by these and
some smaller streams, lies between Mt. Pleasant and Sullivan's Island on
the northeast, and James and Morris Islands on the southwest. One cannot
but be struck with the resemblance, so great as to be almost
symmetrical, between the two sides of the harbor. Mt. Pleasant and James
Island are quite high land,--high at least for the coast of South
Carolina,--and are separated from the mainland, the one by the Wando
River, the other by Wappoo Creek; while Sullivan's Island, where stand
Fort Moultrie and other Rebel batteries, corresponds almost precisely to
Morris Island, both being low and sandy, and being, as it were, bent
inland from the sea, with sharp points looking toward the city, their
convex shores forming a rounded entrance to the harbor. Extending
southward from Morris Island, and separated from it by Lighthouse Inlet,
is Folly Island; and in exact correspondence to the latter, north of
Sullivan's Island, and separated from it by Breach Inlet, is a similar
sand-ridge called Long Island. But now occurs a difference; for while
between Long and Sullivan's Islands and Christ's Church Parish is an
immense salt marsh intersected by creeks, but presenting an unbroken
surface, in the midst of the corresponding marsh between Morris and
Folly Islands and James Island is a group of low wooded islands, the
largest of which lies opposite the upper or north end of Folly Island.
To this no name is given on the maps, nor is it even distinguished from
the marsh. It is, however, completely surrounded by water; and, though
this is in the form of creeks neither wide nor deep, yet the peculiar
softness of the mud, and the absence of any landing-place except upon
the side toward Folly Island, render it almost inaccessible.

To this narrow strip of land, not three miles in length, was given the
name of Long Island,--perhaps by our own troops, who knew nothing of an
island of the same name _north_ of the harbor; and in case it is found
that no other name belongs to it, we may properly avoid a confusion, and
christen it _Spider_ Island, in honor of the remarkable insects for
whose especial benefit it seems to have been made, and which, with the
excep