the question is one of moral and mental culture,—­not the colour of an integument,—­and assure them, much to my own comfort, whatever it may be to theirs, that white people are as dirty and as dishonest as coloured folks, when they have suffered the same lack of decent training.  If I could but find one of these women, on whose mind the idea had dawned that she was neither more nor less than my equal, I think I should embrace her in an ecstacy of hopefulness.

In the evening, while I was inditing my journal for your edification, Jema made her appearance with her Bran-brown baby, having walked all the way down from Busson Hill to claim a little sugar I had promised her.  She had made her child perfectly clean, and it looked quite pretty.  When I asked her what I should give her the sugar in, she snatched her filthy handkerchief off her head; but I declined this sugar basin, and gave it to her in some paper.  Hannah came on the same errand.

After all, dear E——­, we shall not leave Georgia so soon as I expected; we cannot get off for at least another week.  You know, our movements are apt to be both tardy and uncertain.  I am getting sick in spirit of my stay here; but I think the spring heat is beginning to affect me miserably, and I long for a cooler atmosphere.  Here, on St. Simon’s, the climate is perfectly healthy, and our neighbours, many of them, never stir from their plantations within reach of the purifying sea influence.  But a land that grows magnolias is not fit for me—­I was going to say magnolias and rattlesnakes; but I remember K——­’s adventure with her friend the rattlesnake of Monument Mountain, and the wild wood-covered hill half-way between Lenox and Stockbridge, which your Berkshire farmers have christened Rattlesnake Mountain.  These agreeable serpents seem, like the lovely little humming birds which are found in your northernmost as well as southernmost States, to have an accommodating disposition with regard to climate.

Not only is the vicinity of the sea an element of salubrity here; but the great masses of pine wood growing in every direction indicate lightness of soil and purity of air.  Wherever these fragrant, dry, aromatic fir forests extend, there can be no inherent malaria, I should think, in either atmosphere or soil.  The beauty and profusion of the weeds and wild flowers in the fields now is something, too, enchanting.  I wish I could spread one of these enamelled tracts on the side of one of your snow-covered hills now—­for I daresay they are snow-covered yet.

I must give you an account of Aleck’s first reading lesson, which took place at the same time that I gave S——­ hers this morning.  It was the first time he had had leisure to come, and it went off most successfully.  He seems to me by no means stupid.  I am very sorry he did not ask me to do this before; however, if he can master his alphabet before I go, he may, if chance favour him with the occasional sight of a book, help himself on by degrees.  Perhaps he will have the good inspiration to apply to Cooper London for assistance; I am much mistaken if that worthy does not contrive that Heaven shall help Aleck, as it formerly did him—­in the matter of reading.