The captain had provided a little private store of crackers, cheese, segars, and a bottle of brandy, and turning to his trunk, he opened it and drew them out one by one, passing the crackers and cheese to Tommy, and imbibing a little of the deacon himself, thus satisfying the cravings of nature.  Night came on; they were crossing the bar and approaching the outlet of the Edisto, which was broad in sight; but there was neither coffee. nor tea on board, and no prospect of supper-nothing but a resort to the crackers and cheese remained, the stock of which had already diminished so fast, that what was left was treasured among the things too choice to be eaten without limitation.  They reached the entrance, and after ascending a few miles, came to anchor under a jut of wood that formed a bend in the river.  The baying of dogs during the night intimated the vicinity of a settlement near, and in the morning the captain sent one of the negroes on shore for a bottle of milk.  “Massa, dat man what live yonder ha’n’t much no-how, alwa’s makes ’em pay seven-pence,” said the negro.  Sure enough it was true; notwithstanding he was a planter of some property, he made the smallest things turn to profit, and would charge vessels going up the river twelve and a half cents per bottle for milk.

The captain had spent a restless night, and found himself blotched with innumerable chinch-bites; and on examining the berths and lockers, he found them swarming in piles.  Calling one of the black men, he commenced overhauling them, and drew out a perfect storehouse of rubbish, which must have been deposited there, without molestation, from the day the vessel was launched up to the present time, as varied in its kinds as the stock of a Jew-shop, and rotten with age.  About nine o’clock they got under weigh again, and proceeding about twenty miles with a fair wind and tide, they came to another point in the river, on which a concourse of men had assembled, armed to the teeth with guns, rifles, and knives.  As he passed up, they were holding parley with a man and boy in a canoe a few rods from the shore.  At every few minutes they would point their rifles at him, and with threatening gestures, swear vengeance against him if he attempted to land.  The captain, being excited by the precarious situation of the man and his boy, and anxious to ascertain the particulars, let go his anchor and “came to” a few lengths above.

Scarcely had his anchor brought up than he was hailed from the shore by a rough-looking man, who appeared to be chief in the manouvre, and who proved to be no less a personage than a Mr. S—­k, a wealthy planter.

“Don’t take that man on board of your vessel, at the peril of your life, captain.  He’s an abolitionist,” said he, accompanying his imperative command with a very Southern rotation of oaths.

The man paddled his canoe on the outside of the vessel, and begged the captain “for God’s sake to take him on board and protect him; that an excitement had been gotten up against him very unjustly, and he would explain the circumstances if he would allow him to come on board.”