country. The hammocks are chosen for plantations; here the cane is
cultivated, and groves of the sweet orange planted. But I shall say more
of Florida hereafter, when I have seen more of it. Meantime let me speak
of my journey hither.

I left Charleston on the 30th of March, in one of the steamers which ply
between that city and Savannah. These steamers are among the very best
that float--quiet, commodious, clean, fresh as if just built, and
furnished with civil and ready-handed waiters. We passed along the narrow
and winding channels which divide the broad islands of South Carolina from
the main-land--islands famed for the rice culture, and particularly for
the excellent cotton with long fibres, named the sea-island cotton. Our
fellow-passengers were mostly planters of these islands, and their
families, persons of remarkably courteous, frank, and agreeable manners.
The shores on either side had little of the picturesque to show us.
Extensive marshes waving with coarse water-grass, sometimes a cane-brake,
sometimes a pine grove or a clump of cabbage-leaved palmettoes; here and
there a pleasant bank bordered with live-oaks streaming with moss, and at
wide intervals the distant habitation of a planter--these were the
elements of the scenery. The next morning early we were passing up the
Savannah river, and the city was in sight, standing among its trees on a
high bank of the stream.

Savannah is beautifully laid out; its broad streets are thickly planted
with the Pride of India, and its frequent open squares shaded with trees
of various kinds. Oglethorpe seems to have understood how a city should be
built in a warm climate, and the people of the place are fond of reminding
the stranger that the original plan of the founder has never been departed
from. The town, so charmingly embowered, reminded me of New Haven, though
the variety of trees is greater. In my walks about the place I passed a
large stuccoed building of a dull-yellow color, with broad arched windows,
and a stately portico, on each side of which stood a stiff looking
palmetto, as if keeping guard. The grim aspect of the building led me to
ask what it was, and I was answered that it was "the old United States
Bank," It was the building in which the Savannah branch of that bank
transacted business, and is now shut up until the time shall come when
that great institution shall be revived. Meantime I was pained to see that
there exists so little reverence for its