crops of corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, and still fighting the
aborigines, the flies.

"We have seen some toothsome things in the South, some beautiful
scenes, but at this season of the year, at least, the flies and
mosquitoes ruined all as thoroughly as the harpies of olden times
defiled the feast of the wandering Trojans.

"The great gala-day of Jamesville has dawned, to-day the great Norfolk
steamer honors the town with its presence; everybody (and some more)
comes down to the wharf to see the wonderful sight. Here are groups of
'F.F.'s' puffing their long pipes and talking the everlasting 'd--n
nigger'; there are crowds of 'fifteenth amendments' laughing
and frolicking like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten,
mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured Doctor B. and Professor F.,
looking northward as the pilgrim to his loved and far-off Mecca. A
scream, a hurrah, a waving of handkerchiefs, and away we go out of the
howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed that
is.

"The _Astoria_, is but a wretched tub, and we crawl along at the rate
of four or five miles per hour, halting here and there to avoid the
wrecks of the war, panting for breath, longing, 'as the heart panteth
for the water-brook,' to see once more the shores of our beloved New
England. Never will this excruciating sail be forgotten. All day--all
night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little steamer
groaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, nasty
Roanoke.

"Hour after hour we sat gazing at the tall cypress-trees and the long