ke the one we are now seeking, are approached only by
going over several cross roads and by lanes. Our last turn takes us into
a handsome avenue of live oaks, whose overarching branches are adorned
with long ringlets of the graceful Spanish moss. In the woods on either
side of the drive way are dogwood and Pride-of-Asia trees in full
blossom, wild honeysuckle, and the sweet yellow jasmine which fills the
air with its delicious fragrance. As we drive into the yard, the
plantation house suddenly appears to view, half hidden by the dense
foliage of magnolia and orange trees. Although called one of the finest
residences on the island, the house is inferior to many of our larger
farmhouses in New England, and is a simple two-story structure of wood,
resting on brick piles, with a veranda in front. Just beyond the path
that leads by the house, is a handsome flower garden, while both in the
rear of the 'great house' and beyond the flower garden are rows of negro
huts. We are soon greeted by our hosts--one, a brave Vermonter, who
served faithfully in the army till disabled, the other, a Quaker of
Philadelphia, who has left family and friends to labor for the
freedman--and ushered into the principal room of the house, where we are
presented to a party of the neighboring superintendents and school
teachers. Dinner is all ready, and we sit down to a right royal
entertainment, the chief dishes of which are portions of an immense
_drumfish_ cooked in various fashion. Few entertainers can prove more
agreeable than Northern men with Southern hospitality, and we eat and
make merry without even a thought of Colonel Barnwell, whose home we
have thus 'invaded,' and who, perchance, is shivering in the cold, and
suffering the privations of a rebel camp in Eastern Virginia. We must
not omit the praise due to our cook, a woman taken from the 'field
hands,' and whose only instructors have been our hosts, neither of whom
can boast of much knowledge of the art of cooking. It would, however, be
hardly safe to trust to an untutored field hand, as I once learned to my
cost, when my contraband of the kitchen department called me to dinner
by announcing that the eggs had been boiling for an hour, and the
oysters stewing for twice that time!

HOME LIFE OF THE FREEDMEN.

After dinner we visit the negroes in their cabins. The _home life_ of
the freedmen is at once the most noticeable and most interesting feature
of their new condition. Even in former