The surroundings were of a lovely nature
during this day's journey. Here marshes,
diversified by occasional hammocks of timber dotting
their uninteresting wastes; there humble
habitations of whites and blacks appearing at intervals
in the forest growth. As I was destitute of a
finished chart of the Coast Survey, after rowing
along one side of Hutchinson's Island I became
bewildered in the maze of creeks which
penetrate the marshes that lie between Bennett's
Point and the coast.

Making a rough topographical sketch of the
country as I descended Hutchinson's Creek, or
Big River, -- the latter appellation being the
most appropriate, as it is a very wide
watercourse, -- I came upon a group of low islands,
and found upon one of them a plantation which
had been abandoned to the negroes, and the little
bluff upon which two or three rickety buildings
were situated was the last land which remained
unsubmerged during a high tide between the
plantation and the sea.

I was now in a quandary. I had left the
hospitable residence of Governor Aiken at ten o'clock
A. M., when I should have departed at sunrise in
order to have had time to enter and pass through
St. Helena Sound before night came on. The