I had made up my mind to stay at Fort Andrews for a time, partly to fulfil an engagement with a friend whom I had arranged to meet here, and to whom I shall shortly have to refer more at length, and partly to recruit my strength, a tertian ague having seized me, which much debilitated my frame, and made travelling very irksome.  My accommodation was indifferent, but medical assistance, which I needed most, was not wanting, and I shall never forget the courtesy of the officers.

I employed my time chiefly in rambling the woods, when health would permit, and had a boat lent to me, with which, in company, I several times penetrated the tortuous river, Esteenahatchie, to the bay, some miles distant.  At night the boats were all sunk, or they would have been stolen or destroyed by the Indians, who hovered round and committed petty depredations at every opportunity.  Below the fort, was a ruinous mill, in a gloomy dell, through which the river wended its silent course.  This had once been tenanted, but the inhabitants were murdered some years before by the Indians, who afterwards (as is their almost unvarying custom), added to the atrocity by setting fire to the building.

Sitting one day, after a lengthened ramble, in solitary meditation on my position and the surrounding scenery, I saw a fine Indian, who appeared greatly fatigued, emerge from the adjoining hammock, and walk to the edge of the stream, and there, after glancing round him with eager eye and air, he laid down his rifle, and stepping on to a tree which debouched into the stream (lying as it had been struck down by a tornado), he crouched down at the end of it, and commenced laving himself with the water.  His appearance was romantic, and there is no doubt, from his dress, he was a warrior of some note, probably following his wife, one of the squaws captured by the volunteers I have before mentioned, and who were still at Fort Andrews, awaiting orders from General Taylor.  I could have shot him to a certainty, had I been armed, which was not the case.  Had it been so, however, I was predetermined never, unless in self-defence, to imbrue my hands in Indian or negro blood while in the territory, neither was I disposed to betray him, for I deeply sympathized with the misfortunes of his race, and well knew that an inexcusable spirit of aggrandizement on the part of the Federal Government had in the first place roused the indignation of both negroes and red men, and provoked hostilities.  After performing his ablution, the Indian stalked like a deer into the recesses of the forest, I having in the mean time, as a matter of policy, moved out of danger, for he was no doubt animated with feelings of dire revenge, and in a very different mood from that in which I have described myself to have been at the time.