-yards, and some of the ships built from it are now blockading the
very harbors from which it was carried. The pitch pine is the common
growth of the interior, and under a new system would form a valuable
article of commerce as lumber, and as yielding the _now_ so much
required turpentine. Of wild animals and birds, here are to be found a
large variety. The Hunting Islands and others are well stocked with
deer. During the winter wild, geese and ducks abound, and a variety of
fish, with fine oysters, can be had at all seasons.

We now come to consider the present inhabitants of this district. The
whites are almost entirely the descendants of the earliest settlers of
this State, who were English,[E] Scotch, and Protestant Irish, with a
slight infusion of the Huguenot and Swiss elements. A century and a half
has rendered them homogeneous. As there has never been any interest here
other than agriculture, and as every man may be said to own the
plantation he cultivates, there has been as little change of property or
condition as possible, and therefore the same land and system of
cultivation has passed from father to son through four or five
generations. Had there been any emigration or change of population, some
alterations, and most likely new enterprise and vigor, would have been
infused, and more modern and national feeling have been instituted for
their narrow and sectional prejudices. No doubt our national character
has been much influenced by the division of land. Where this has been
nearly equal, as in our New England towns, a republican form of
government has been almost a necessity. But at the South an entirely
different arrangement has prevailed. Land was at first distributed in
large bodies fitted to accommodate a state of slavery; and the
consequence was that a feudal system was inaugurated from the
settlement, which has continued with increasing power. This has been one
of the permanent causes of Southern pride and exclusiveness.

The inhabitants of South Carolina and Virginia previous to the
Revolution were very supercilious towards the North, and even to their
less opulent neighbors of Georgia and North Carolina; a feeling which
was often the cause of much antagonism among the officers and soldiers
during the war. Charleston and Williamsburg gave the tone to good
society, and it was haughty and aristocratic in the extreme. While
Virginia has for the last half century been in a state of comparative
decay, Sou