against the sky we saw the slow rising of the smoky clouds that showed the pine forest to be on fire still.  What an immense quantity of property such a fire must destroy!  The negro huts on several of the plantations that we passed through were the most miserable human habitations I ever beheld.  The wretched hovels at St. Annie’s, on the Hampton estate, that had seemed to me the ne plus ultra of misery, were really palaces to some of the dirty, desolate, dilapidated dog kennels which we passed to-day, and out of which the negroes poured like black ants at our approach, and stood to gaze at us as we drove by.

The planters’ residences we passed were only three.  It makes one ponder seriously when one thinks of the mere handful of white people on this island.  In the midst of this large population of slaves, how absolutely helpless they would be if the blacks were to become restive!  They could be destroyed to a man before human help could reach them from the main, or the tidings even of what was going on be carried across the surrounding waters.  As we approached the southern end of the island, we began to discover the line of the white sea sands beyond the bushes and fields,—­and presently, above the sparkling, dazzling line of snowy white,—­for the sands were as white as our English chalk cliffs,—­stretched the deep blue sea line of the great Atlantic Ocean.

We found that there had been a most terrible fire in the Hamilton woods—­more extensive than that on our own plantation.  It seems as if the whole island had been burning at different points for more than a week.  What a cruel pity and shame it does seem to have these beautiful masses of wood so destroyed!  I suppose it is impossible to prevent it.  The ’field hands’ make fires to cook their mid-day food wherever they happen to be working; and sometimes through their careless neglect, but sometimes too undoubtedly on purpose, the woods are set fire to by these means.  One benefit they consider that they derive from the process is the destruction of the dreaded rattlesnakes that infest the woodland all over the island; but really the funeral pyre of these hateful reptiles is too costly at this price.

Hamilton struck me very much,—­I mean the whole appearance of the place; the situation of the house, the noble water prospect it commanded, the magnificent old oaks near it, a luxuriant vine trellis, and a splendid hedge of Yucca gloriosa, were all objects of great delight to me.  The latter was most curious to me, who had never seen any but single specimens of the plant, and not many of these.  I think our green house at the north boasts but two; but here they were growing close together, and in such a manner as to form a compact and impenetrable hedge, their spiky leaves striking out on all sides like chevaux de frise, and the tall slender stems that bear those delicate ivory-coloured bells of blossoms, springing up against the sky in a regular row.  I wish I could see that hedge in blossom.  It must be wonderfully strange and lovely, and must look by moonlight like a whole range of fairy Chinese pagodas carved in ivory.