nset. The next day the weather was still milder, until
about noon, when we arrived off Cape Hatteras a strong wind set in from
the northeast, clouds gathered with a showery aspect, and every thing
seemed to betoken an impending storm. At this moment the captain shifted
the direction of the voyage, from south to southwest; we ran before the
wind leaving the storm, if there was any, behind us, and the day closed
with another quiet and brilliant sunset.

The next day, the third of our voyage, broke upon us like a day in summer,
with amber-colored sunshine and the blandest breezes that ever blew. An
awning was stretched over the deck to protect us from the beams of the
sun, and all the passengers gathered under it; the two dark-complexioned
gentlemen left the task of filling the spittoons below, and came up to
chew their tobacco on deck; the atrabilious passenger was seen to interest
himself in the direction of the compass, and once was thought to smile,
and the hale old gentleman repeated the history of his Norwalk relatives.
On the fourth morning we landed at Savannah. It was delightful to eyes
which had seen only russet fields and leafless trees for months, to gaze
on the new and delicate green of the trees and the herbage. The weeping
willows drooped in full leaf, the later oaks were putting forth their new
foliage, the locust-trees had hung out their tender sprays and their
clusters of blossoms not yet unfolded, the Chinese wistaria covered the
sides of houses with its festoons of blue blossoms, and roses were nodding
at us in the wind, from the tops of the brick walls which surround the
gardens.

Yet winter had been here, I saw. The orange-trees which, since the great
frost seven or eight years ago, had sprung from the ground and grown to
the height of fifteen or twenty feet, had a few days before my arrival
felt another severe frost, and stood covered with sere dry leaves in the
gardens, some of them yet covered with fruit. The trees were not killed,
however, as formerly, though they will produce no fruit this season, and
new leaf-buds were beginning to sprout on their boughs. The dwarf-orange,
a hardier tree, had escaped entirely, and its blossoms were beginning to
open.

I visited Bonaventure, which I formerly described in one of my letters. It
has lost the interest of utter solitude and desertion which it then had. A
Gothic cottage has been built on the place, and the avenues of live-oaks
have been surrounded wi