door, bringing some two hundred blankets, groces of large needles, pounds of skeins of flax thread, brass thimbles, fiery red, white, and blue bandannas, or kerchiefs, for the women, who form them into most becoming turbans, by a coquettish tie around their heads, and then a thousand yards of white and blue stout allwool plains, that is to be cut into coats and pants, skirts and bodices-small, smaller, smallest-to fit the dimensions of all the men, women, and children on the plantation; and all this sempstress work to be cut out (and personally delivered, to insure equal justice) and made under the eye of the mistress, who has trained some half-dozen or more negresses to the trade of cutting, fitting, and sewing. I would candidly ask my Northern sister, who has so harshly condemned the ladies of the South, is this yearly enterprise of a planter's wife, with all the other daily etceteras, living a life of idleness? 'Tis true, before she is a wife, or head of a plantation, the miss in her teens does no work in South Carolina, except in her flower-garden, in reading, or perfecting her education, and doing amateur fine needle-work; for she always has a maid of her own to attend to her chamber, to sew, and to dress her, etc.; so that a young lady's life there is one of great personal liberty, and all sorts of recreation. But the moment she becomes a planter's wife, her domestic talents grow by the squareyard every year; for by a quick transformation, she is changed from a laughing, thoughtless flirt, seeking only to make herself beautiful and admired, into a responsible, conscientious "sister of charity" to her husband's numerous dependants. But to return to Mr. Wyndham's breakfast-table, and the happy children who had been promised by mamma and papa, that all their requests should be granted as soon soon as they had completed their daily routine of study — which mamma personally attended to when Mr. Wyndham did not have a private tutor.* Mingo, the driver, received all his orders for the day. Mr. Wyndham went to the store-room, (which is never in a planter's house or cellar, but always in a building across the yard,) to give out dinner to the cook-for there gentlemen think their wives so beautiful and delicate, that they never tax them with the exposure of hot sun and damp feet in their journey to the said store-room, nor to the gross inductiveness of mind necessary to concoct a recherche coast plantation dinner, where the inhabitants of the river† are almost always The author's brother, in Carolina, has just engaged a private tutor, and, with a relative and himself, contracts to pay him fifteen hundred dollars a year, allowing him to take a few more scholars than their own children. In the mouth of the rivers, and on the coasts, the shark, the guarr, and devil-fishes, are all found, but in no respect rendered useful. However, the sea-coast and rivers furnish a variety of fine fish for human use, both of the salt and freshwater kinds. The angel fish, so called from their uncommon splendor; the sheep-head, so named from its having teeth like a sheep's; the cavalli, the mullet, the whiting, the plaice, and young bass, are all esteemed delicate food. Besides these, porgy, shad, trout, stingray, drum, cat, and black fish, are all used, and taken in abundance. The fresh-water rivers and ponds furnish stores of fish, all of which are excellent in their season. The sturgeon and rock fish, the fresh-water trout, the pike, the bream, the carp, and roach, are all fine fish. Near the sea-shore, vast quantities of oysters, crabs, shrimps, etc., may be taken, together with terrapin and turtle. obliged to contribute their share in making an orthodox meal. After which necessary concomitant of each day's comforts, Mr. Wyndham's horse is brought to the door for him to ride to the several fields, to see how the cotton, corn, rice,* and cow-peas are growing; how the negroes carefully hoe the grass away; how the blacksmith has pleased his customers; and how the carpenters are progressing on the numerous improvements and repairs of the plantation; and then, if no company arrives to dine with him which is not * The production of rice in South Carolina, which is of such prodigious advantage, was owing to the following incident: "A brigantine from the island of Madagascar, in 1697, happened to put into that colony. They had a little seed-rice left, not exceeding a peck, or a quarter of a bushel, which the captain offered and gave to a gentleman by the name of Woodward. From part of this he had a very good crop, but was very ignorant for some years how to clean it. It was soon dispersed over the province, and, by frequent experiments and observations, they found out ways of producing and manufacturing it to so great perfection, that it is said to exceed any other rice in value. The writer of this hath seen the said Captain in Carolina, where he received a handsome gratuity from the gentlemen of that country in acknowledgment of the service he had done to that province." "It is likewise reported that Mr. Du Bois, Treasurer of the East India Company, did send to that country a small bag of seed-rice some short time after, from whence it is reasonable enough to suppese there might come those two sorts of that commodity, the one called red rice in contradistinction to the white rice, from the redness of the inner husk or rind of this sort, though they both clear and become alike white. . . . It was generally planted in South Carolina about the year 1710 — the first planting, 1700." — Historical Collections by B. R. Carroll. - About two-thirds of the rice used in the United States is raised in South Carolina. often the case- he takes his eldest sons, and runs his horse into the island forests, to hunt the deer for food -the mink and fox, because they steal poultry, and the wild cat, because it is a most ferocious, destructive enemy to the lambs. Not unfrequently, too, Mr. Wyndham kills an alligator some ten feet long; which feat can only be accomplished by setting the dogs on him, and firing down his throat when he opens his mouth to snap at them, as his body is encased in an armor of scales that a cannon-ball could scarce perforate, and his roar shakes the ground around him. On this particular day that has been described, some half-dozen friends had dined with them; Mr. and Mrs. Judge Heyward; Dr. and Mrs. North (he was their family physician); and Mr. and Mrs. Halcombe (he was the pastor of the Euhaw Church.) These guests, with their children, never left until nearly dark, when their carriages and horses conveyed them gaily off (for the horses are as hospitably entertained, together with the coachman and footman, as their masters.) Retiring early to bed, after thanking God, in their closets, for his innumerable mercies, Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham were startled at midnight, to see a ghastly bare-boned hideous monster stalk up to the trundle-bed where the smallest of their children slept; and fiercely announcing that his name was Death, he struck five of them with his sharp scythe, having poisoned the point with scarlet-fever; and in four weeks, these beautiful little angels unfolded their wings, and flew up to the abode of their father's and mother's God; where their inestimable mother followed them in one year, leaving a husband, whom she requested, with unearthly disinterestedness, soon to supply her place, in that busy household, by another Mrs. Wyndham; her two sons, Edward and Halcombe, who were large boys, to be sent to college, at New York, and her two remaining daughters to be adopted by a noble Christian friend, who promised her, on her death-bed, that she would take them home with her, and be their mother as long as she lived; for she had no children of her own. After all these affectionate responsibilities had been arranged, Mrs. Wyndham, with a faith that appropriates the atonement of her Savior, as the key that opens heaven to all who knock at the gates of Paradise, bid her husband good-night, and then the angels hovering around her dying-bed, took her by the hand, and escorted her safely through the dark valley of the shadow of death, and she found herself in the presence of angels and archangels, who were singing hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; and Jesus Christ, sitting at the right hand of God, in a vesture dipped in blood, and welcoming her with extended hands, in which she recognized the print of the nails that fastened him. to the cross. And then when the book of remembrance that had been kept by the Holy Spirit, of all her thoughts, words, and actions, during her pilgrimage on earth, was read out, before countless witnesses, she heard the plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord; for I was hungry, and you gave me meat; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you clothed me; sick, and in prison, and you ministered unto me." After this, she was |