l for
help; but a sudden and determined spring, and a friendly bunch of rushes
beyond, spared me that mortification. When two thirds of the way across,
and while thinking we should soon reach dry land, we came upon the edge
of a creek, not wide, it is true, but with soft, slimy, sloping sides,
(for _banks_ they could not properly be called,) and no one knew how
many feet of mud beneath its sluggish stream. Under ordinary
circumstances I might have sounded a retreat; but, remembering that
there was twice as much mud behind as before us, and feeling ourselves
sinking slowly but surely in our tracks, we slid down the sides into the
water. This received our bodies to the waist, the mud our legs to the
knees; but we struggled through, and, after another terrible thirty
yards of mud, reached Long Island. Leaving my faithful companions to
rest, I struck off down the east side of the island, and soon found
spiders in plenty. Stopping at the wharf, and returning upon the west
side, I counted one hundred spiders in less than an hour. This was only
a voyage of discovery, but I could not resist the temptation to capture
one big fellow and put it in my hat, which, with the edges brought
together, I was forced to carry in my teeth, for one hand was required
to break down the webs stretched across my path, and the other to do
battle in vain with the thousands of mosquitoes, of huge size and bloody
intent, besetting me on every side. What with the extreme heat and my
previous fatigue, and the dread lest my captive should escape and
revenge herself upon my face while I was avoiding the nets of her
friends, and the relentless attacks of their smaller but more venomous
associates, it was the most uncomfortable walk imaginable. To complete
my misery, the path led me out upon the marsh where I could see nothing
of the boat or my companions, and whence, to reach them, I had to walk
across the head of the island. Excepting the dreaded recrossing of the
mud, I hardly remember how we made our way back; but by one means and
another I finally reached Charleston at nine o'clock, about as
disreputable-looking a medical man as ever was seen.

However, all this was soon forgotten, and, being now assured of the
presence of the spiders in their former haunts, on the 30th of August,
1865, I organized a new expedition, which was to proceed entirely by
water, and which consisted of a sail-boat and crew of picked volunteers.
Leaving Mt. Pleasant in the mor