We only trust him
for preaching."
Monday, March 1st, opened fair, but the wind
arose when the canoe reached Three Mile Cut,
which connects the Darien with Altamaha River.
I went through this narrow steamboat passage,
and being prevented by the wind from entering
the wide Altamaha, returned to the Darien
River and ascended it to General's Cut, which,
with Butler River, affords a passage to the
Altamaha River. Before entering General's Cut,
mistaking a large, half submerged alligator for a
log on a mud bank, the canoe nearly touched the
saurian before he was roused from his nap to
retire into the water. General's Cut penetrates
a rice plantation opposite the town of Darien,
to Butler's Island, the estate of the late Pierce
Butler, at its southern end. Rice-planting, since
the war, had not proved a very profitable
business to the present proprietors, who deserve
much praise for the efforts they have made to
educate their freedmen. A profitable crop of
oranges is gathered some seasons from the
groves upon Butler's Island.
From the mouth of General's Cut down
Butler River to the Altamaha was but a short row.
The latter stream would have taken me to
Altamaha Sound, to avoid which I passed through
Wood's Cut into the South Altamaha River, and
proceeded through the lowland rice-plantations
towards St. Simon's Island, which is by the sea.
About the middle of the afternoon, when close
to Broughton Island, where the South Altamaha
presented a wide area to the strong head-wind
which was sending little waves over my canoe,
a white plantation-house, under the veranda of
which an elderly gentleman was sitting, attracted
my attention. Here was what seemed to be the
last camping-ground on a route of several miles
to St. Simon's Island.
If the wind continued to blow from the same
quarter, the canoe could not cross Buttermilk
Sound that night; so I went ashore to inquire if
there were any hammocks in the marshes by the
river-banks between the plantation and the sound.
The bachelor proprietor of Broughton Island,
Captain Richard A. Akin, posted me as to the
route to St. Simon's Island, but insisted that the
canoe traveller should share his comfortable
quarters until the next day; and when the next
day came round, and the warm sun and smooth
current of the wide Altamaha invited me to
continue the voyage, the hospitable rice-planter
thought the weather not settled enough for me
to venture down to the sound. In fact, he held
me a rather willing captive for several days, and
then let me off on the condition that I should
return at some future time, and spend a month
with him in examining the sea islands and game
resources of the vicinity.
Captain Akin was a successful rice-planter on
the new system of employing freedmen on
wages, but while he protected the ignorant blacks
in all their newly-found rights, he was a
thorough disciplinarian.
