Having now completed my collections in Georgia, I took leave of these Southern regions, proceeding on my return to Charleston. Left Savanna in the evening, in consequence of a pressing invitation from the honourable Jonathan Bryan, Esq. who was returning from the capital, to his villa, about eight miles up Savanna river; a very delightful situation, where are spacious gardens, furnished with variety of fruit trees and flowering shrubs. Observed in a low wet place at the corner of the garden, the Ado (Arum esculentum); this plant is much cultivated in the maritime parts of Georgia and Florida, for the sake of its large Turnip-like root, which when boiled or roasted, is excellent food, and tastes like the Yam; the leaves of this magnificent plant are very large, and of a beautiful green colour, the spatha large and circulated, the spadix terminates with a very long subulated tongue, naked and perfectly white: perhaps this may be the Arum Colocasia. They have likewise another species of the esculent Arum, called Tannier, which is a large and beautiful plant, and much cultivated and esteemed for food, particularly by the Negroes.
At night, soon after our arrival, several of his servants came home with horse loads of wild pigeons (Columba migratoria), which it seems they had collected in a short space of time at a neighbouring Bay swamp: they take them by torch light: the birds have particular roosting places, where they associate in incredible multitudes at evening, on low trees and bushes, in hommocks or higher knolls in the interior parts of vast swamps. Many people go out together on this kind of sport, when dark: some take with them little fascines of fat Pine splinters for torches; others sacks or bags; and others furnish themselves with poles or staves: thus accoutered and prepared, they approach the roosts; the sudden blaze of light confounds, blinds and affrights the birds, whereby multitudes drop off the limbs to the ground, and others are beaten off with the staves, being by the sudden consternation, entirely helpless, and easily taken and put into the sacks. It is chiefly the sweet small acorns of the Quercus phillos, Quercus aquatica, Quercus sempervirens, Quercus flammula, and others, which induce these birds to migrate in the autumn to those Southern regions; where they spend their days agreeably, and feast luxuriously, during the rigour of the colds in the North, whither they return at the approach of summer to breed.
Sat off next day, and crossed the river at Zubley’s ferry, about fifty miles above Savanna, and in three days after arrived at Charleston.
Observed, by the way near Jacksonsburg Ponpon, After fructicovus, growing plentifully in good moist ground, usually by the banks of canals. It is a most charming autumnal flowering shrub, it will rise to the height of eight or ten feet, when supported by neighbouring trees.
After a few days residence in Charleston, I sat off on my return to my native land; crossed Cowper river, about nine miles above the city, where the water was a mile wide, and the ferry-house being on the opposite shore, I hoisted my travelling blanket on a pole for a signal, which being white, the people soon came to me and carried me safe over. In three days more easy travelling, I crossed Winyaw bay, just below Georgetown; and in two days more, got to the west end of Long bay, where I lodged at a large Indigo plantation. Sat off early next morning, and after crossing over the sand ridges, which afford little else but Quercus pumila, Myrica cerifera, Cassine, Sideroxylon and Andromeda entangled with various species of Smilax, got on the bay, which is a hard sand beach, exposed for the distance of fifteen miles to the continual lash of the Atlantic ocean. At about low water mark, are cliffs of rocks of the helmintholithus, being a very firm concrete or petrifaction, consisting of various kinds of seashells, fine sand and pulverized shells: there is a reef of these rocks, thirty or forty yards farther out than low water mark, which lift their rugged backs above water, and brave the continual strokes of the waves, which, however, assisted by the constant friction of the sands, make continual inroads upon them, bore them into holes and cavities, when tempestuous seas rend them to pieces, scattering the fragments over the sandy shore. It is pleasant riding on this clean hard sand, paved with shells of various colours.
Observed a number of persons coming up a head, whom I soon perceived to be a party of Negroes. I had every reason to dread the consequence; for this being a desolate place, I was by this time several miles from any house or plantation, and had reason to apprehend this to be a predatory band of Negroes; people being frequently attacked, robbed, and sometimes murdered by them at this place. I was unarmed, alone, and my horse tired; thus situated every way in their power, I had no alternative but to be resigned and prepare to meet them. As soon as I saw them distinctly a mile or two off, I immediately alighted to rest, and give breath to my horse, intending to attempt my safety by slight, if upon near approach they should betray hostile designs. Thus prepared, when we drew near to each other, I mounted and rode briskly up; and though armed with clubs, axes and hoes, they opened to right and left, and let me pass peaceably. Their chief informed me whom they belonged to, and said they were going to man a new quarter at the west end of the bay; I however kept a sharp eye about me, apprehending that this might possibly have been an advanced division, and their intentions were to ambuscade and surround me; but they kept on quietly, and I was no more alarmed by them. After noon, I crossed the swash at the east end of the bay, and in the evening got to good quarters. Next morning early I sat off again, and soon crossed Little River at the boundary; which is on the line that separates North and South Carolina: in an old field, on the banks of this river, a little distance from the public house, stands a single tree of the Magnolia grandiflora, which is said to be the most northern settlement of that tree. Passed this day over expansive savannas, charmingly decorated with late autumnal flowers, as Helianthus, Rudbeckia, Silphium, Solidago, Helenium, Serratula, Cacalia, Aster, Lillium Martagon, Gentiana cærulea, Chironia, Gentiana saponaria, Asclepias coccinea, Hypericum, Rhexia pulcherima, &c. &c.
Observed likewise in these savannas abundance of the ludicrous Dionæa muscipula (Dionæa, Ellis epis. ad Linnæum, miraculum naturæ, folia biloba, radicalia, ciliata, conduplicanda, sensibilia, insecta incarcerantia. Syst. vegetab. p. 335).
This wonderful plant seems to be distinguished in the creation, by the Author of nature, with faculties eminently superior to every other vegetable production[[59]]; specimens of it were first communicated to the curious of the old world by John Bartram, the American botanist and traveller, who contributed as much if not more than any other man towards enriching the North American botanical nomenclature, as well as its natural history.
After traversing these ample savannas, I gradually ascended sand hills to open Pine forests; at evening got to Old town near Brunswick, where I lodged. Brunswick is a sea-port town on the Clarendon, or Cape Fear river, about thirty miles above the capes; it is about thirty years since this was the seat of government, when Arthur Dobbs, Esq. was governor and commander in chief of the province of North Carolina. Continued up the west side of North West of Cape Fear river, and rested two or three days at the seat of F. Lucas, Esq. a few miles above Livingston’s creek, a considerable branch of the North West. This creek heads in vast swamps, in the vicinity of the beautiful lake Wakamaw, which is the source of a fine river of that name, and runs a South course seventy or eighty miles, delivering its waters into Winyaw bay at George-town. The Wakamaw lake is twenty-six miles in circuit; the lands on its Eastern shores are fertile, and the situation delightful, gradually ascending from pleasing eminences; bounded on the North-West coast by vast rich swamps, fit for the production of Rice: the lake is twelve miles west from —— Moore’s, Esq. whose villa is on the banks of the North West.
Proceeding again up the North West, crossed Carver’s creek, and stopped at Ashwood, the ancient seat of Colonel William Bartram. The house stands on the high banks of the river, near seventy feet in height, above the surface of the water; this high bluff continues two or three miles on the river, and commands a magnificent prospect of the low lands opposite, when in their native state, presenting to the view grand forests and expansive Cane meadows: the trees which compose these forests are generally of the following tribes, Quercus tinctoria, Querc. alba, Querc. phillos, Querc. aquatica, Querc. hemispherica, Fraxinus excelsior, Platanus occidentalis, Liriodendron tulipifera, Liquidambar styraciflua, Ulmus, Telea, Juglans hickory, Juglans cinerea, Juglans nigra, Morus rubra, Gleditsia triacanthus, Hopea tinctoria, Nyssa aquatica, Nyssa sylvatica, Carpinus and many more; the Cupressus disticha as stately and beautiful as I have seen any where. When these lands are cleared of their timber and cultivated, they produce abundantly, particularly, Wheat, Zea, Cotton, Hemp, Flax, with variety of excellent vegetables. This perpendicular bank of the river, by which the waters swiftly glide along, discovers at once the various strata of the earth of this low maritime country. For the most part the upper stratum consists of a light, sandy, pale, yellowish mould or loam, for ten or twelve feet in depth (except the flat level land back from the rivers, where the clays or marle approach very near the surface, and the ridges of sand hills, where the clays lie much deeper): this sandy mould or loam lies upon a deep bed of black, or dark slate coloured saline and sulphureous earth, which is composed of horizontal thin flakes or laminæ, separable by means of very thin, almost imperceptible veins or strata of fine micaceous particles, which drain or percolate a clear water, continually exuding, or trickling down, and forming little rills and diminutive cataracts, being conducted by perpendicular chinks or fissures: in some places, a portion of this clear water or transparent vapour, seems to coagulate on the edges of the veins and fissures, leaving a reddish curd or jelly-like substance sticking to them, which I should suppose indicates it to spring from a ferruginous source, especially since it discovers a chalybeate scent and taste: in other places these fissures show evidently a crystallization of exceeding fine white salts, which have an alluminous or vitriolic scent: there are pyrites, marcasites, or sulphureous nodules, shining like brass, of various sizes and forms, some single and others conglomerated: other places present to view, strata of heterogenous matter, lying between the upper loamy stratum and the bed of black saline earth, consisting of various kinds of sea shells, some whole, others broken to pieces, and even pulverized, which fill up the cavities of the entire shells, and the interstices betwixt them: at other places we observe, two or three feet below the surface or virgin mould, a stratum of four, five or six feet in depth, of brownish marle, on a bed of testaceous rocks; a petrefaction composed apparently of various kinds of sea shells, belemnites, sand, &c. combined or united with a calcareous cement: these masses of rocks are in some places detached by veins and strata of a heterogenous earth, consisting of sea shells and other marine productions, as well as terrestrial, which seem to be fossile or in some degree of petrifaction, or otherwise transmuted, particularly those curious productions called birds bills or sharks teeth (dentes carchariæ) belemnites, &c. loosely mixed with a desiccated earth composed of sand, clay, particles of marle, vegetable rubbish, &c. And again we observe shells, marcasites, belemnites, dentes carchariæ, with pieces of wood transmuted, black and hard as sea coal, singly interspersed in the black vitriolic strata of earth: when this black earth is exposed to the sun and dry air, the little thin laminæ separate, and soon discover a fine, white crystallization, or alluminous powder; but this very soon disappears, being again incorporated with the general mass, which gradually dissolves or falls like quick-lime, and appears then a greyish, extremely fine, dry micaceous powder, which smells like gun-powder.