PREFACE. AN English lady, married to an influential planter in South Carolina, had been bereaved of three of her nearest and dearest relatives in England; but as no letters could reach her, it was determined that one of her family should convey to her the sad tidings, and comfort her in her distress. The writer of these memoranda was the one selected for the errand. Though he kept a diary, it was not with a view of publication (and he here humbly apologizes for presuming to offer such desultory matter for that purpose); but several of his friends being of opinion that interesting information might hereby be conveyed to English readers-especially as so few English travellers have visited the districts mentioned-he ventures to throw himself on the generosity of those who may honour his reminiscences with perusal; trusting * that the many imperfections and, perhaps, repetitions which will occur in a narrative made up from a source often disturbed by troubles and difficulties, and at last re-arranged amidst the many engagements which fall on a clergyman in charge of a poor and straggling parish, will meet with leniency, leading to forgiveness. W. WYNDHAM MALET, Vicar of Ardeley, near Buntingford, Herts. P.S. I have to thank the Messrs. Forsyth Brothers, of St. Ann Street, Manchester, for their kind permission to insert a copy of the music for the song "Maryland." A Move to the Sea, and First Visit to the Plantation.. CHAPTER V. Off to Columbia and the Refuge Plantation CHAPTER VI. Back at the Refuge, and then to the Wakamah and the 78 86 109 138 152 AN ERRAND TO THE SOUTH IN THE SUMMER OF 1862. CHAPTER I. From England to Washington. AMONG the inconvenient results of the war between the Federal and Confederate States of America may be reckoned the stoppage of the mails. Political animosities between "North" and "South" might in many cases render tolerable the severance of epistolary communication in the New World; but sore has the privation been to thousands of kindred hearts in England and France on one side of the Atlantic, and the Southern States on the other so that indeed the "King of Hearts" might justly have raised his sceptre against this strife as well as "King Cotton." Though the first steamer B |