Ting,
or when ye hab got it?" which was another form
of expressing the old question, "Is there more
pleasure in possession than in anticipation?"
Another night the colored orators became
intensely excited over the query, "Which is de
best, Spring Water or Matches?"
The freedmen, for so unfortunate a class, seem
to be remarkably well behaved. During several
journeys through the southern states I found
them usually temperate, and very civil in their
intercourse with the whites, though it must be
confessed that but few of them can apply
themselves steadily and persistently to manual labor,
either for themselves or their employers.
CHAPTER XV. DOWN UPON THE SUWANEE RIVER.
THE RICH FOLIAGE OF THE RIVER. - COLUMBUS. - ROLINS'
BLUFF. OLD TOWN HAMMOCK. - A HUNTER KILLED BY A
PANTHER, DANGEROUS SERPENTS. - CLAY LANDING. THE
MARSHES OP THE COAST, - BRADFORD'S ISLAND. - MY LAST
CAMP. - THE VOYAGE ENDED.
Some friends, among whom were Colonel
George W. Nason, Jr., of Massachusetts,
and Major John Purviance, Commissioner of
Suwanee County, offered to escort the paper
canoe down "the river of song" to the Gulf of
Mexico, a distance, according to local authority,
of two hundred and thirty-five miles.
