e full-grown
spiders of Long Island. This single cocoon formed the entering wedge of
doubt, and soon it was clear that the only means of proof lay on Long
Island itself.

But how was this to be reached? Easily enough while we were upon Folly
Island and could row through the creeks to a wharf on the east side of
Long Island. But now the case was altered; for between James and Long
Islands was the immense marsh already mentioned, intersected by creeks,
and composed of mud practically without bottom, and ranging from
eighteen to twenty-three feet in depth by actual measurement. Around or
over or through this marsh it was necessary to go, in order to reach
Long Island, the home of the spiders.

I could easily occupy the rest of my allotted space in recounting my
various attempts to reach this El Dorado, which my fancy, excited by
every delay, stocked with innumerable cocoons of the kind already found
so abundantly on James Island. These I expected would furnish thousands
of spiders, the care of which, with the reeling of their silk, would
give employment to all the freed people in South Carolina,--for even
then the poor creatures were finding their way to the coast. And
perhaps, I thought, some day, the Sea-Island silk may be as famous as
the choice Sea-Island cotton. This hope I still cherish, together with
the belief that, under certain conditions, the spiders may also be
reared at the North.

After riding miles and miles in all directions in search of the readiest
point of attack; after having once engaged a row-boat to go around
through Stono River and meet me at the nearest point of land,--on which
occasion I dismounted to give my horse a better chance of getting over a
bad place in the road, and the ungrateful beast left me in the lurch and
went home much faster than he came, while I, being now half-way, walked
on through the marsh, and had the pleasure of sitting on a log in a
pouring rain for an hour, with Long Island just on the other side of a
creek over which no boat came to carry me,--after this and other
disappointments, I at last made sure by going in the boat myself, and so
finally reached the island. But now, to my discomfiture, after a most
careful search, I saw only two or three cocoons of the kind I looked
for, while the others, of loose texture, were quite abundant, and
doubtless would have been found in still greater numbers but for their
always being under leaves, and often at a considerable height.