At dawn next morning we made coffee and a hasty breakfast, fixed up as well as we could in our sylvan dressing-rooms, and pushed on, for it is settled that traveling between eleven and two will have to be given up unless we want to be roasted alive.  H. grew worse.  He suffered terribly, and the rest of us as much to see him pulling in such a state of exhaustion.  Max would not trust either of us to steer.  About eleven we reached the landing of a plantation.  Max walked up to the house and returned with the owner, an old gentleman living alone with his slaves.  The housekeeper, a young colored girl, could not be surpassed in her graceful efforts to make us comfortable and anticipate every want.  I was so anxious about H. that I remember nothing except that the cold drinking-water taken from a cistern beneath the building, into which only the winter rains were allowed to fall, was like an elixir.  They offered luscious peaches that, with such water, were nectar and ambrosia to our parched lips.  At night the housekeeper said she was sorry they had no mosquito-bars ready and hoped the mosquitoes would not be thick, but they came out in legions.  I knew that on sleep that night depended recovery or illness for H. and all possibility of proceeding next day.  So I sat up fanning away mosquitoes that he might sleep, toppling over now and then on the pillows till roused by his stirring.  I contrived to keep this up till, as the chill before dawn came, they abated and I got a short sleep.  Then, with the aid of cold water, a fresh toilet, and a good breakfast, I braced up for another day’s baking in the boat.

[If I had been well and strong as usual the discomforts of such a journey would not have seemed so much to me; but I was still weak from the effects of the fever, and annoyed by a worrying toothache which there had been no dentist to rid me of in our village.[31]]

Having paid and dismissed the boat’s watchman, we started and traveled till eleven to-day, when we stopped at this cotton-shed.  When our dais was spread and lunch laid out in the cool breeze, it seemed a blessed spot.  A good many negroes came offering chickens and milk in exchange for tobacco, which we had not.  We bought some milk with money.

A United States transport just now steamed by and the men on the guards cheered and waved to us.  We all replied but Annie.  Even Max was surprised into an answering cheer, and I waved my handkerchief with a very full heart as the dear old flag we have not seen for so long floated by; but Annie turned her back.

Sunday, July 13, 1862. (Under a tree on the east bank of the Mississippi.)—­Late on Saturday evening we reached a plantation whose owner invited us to spend the night at his house.  What a delightful thing is courtesy!  The first tone of our host’s welcome indicated the true gentleman.  We never leave the oars with the watchman; Max takes those, Annie and I each take a band-box, H. takes my carpet-sack, and Reeney brings up the rear with Annie’s.  It is a funny procession.  Mr. B.’s family were absent, and as we sat on the gallery talking it needed only a few minutes to show this was a “Union man.”  His home was elegant and tasteful, but even here there was neither tea nor coffee.