gards housekeeping (for fresh meat and vegetables may be had every day, at all seasons, in this country, where the year may be reckoned by summers, not by winters, as with us and which compels us to dry, and salt, and lay in stores during the living portion of the year, in preparation for the dead), yet has she much to look after and to provide for, so that house and home may be supplied with not merely the material things, but with those that shall beautify it; and this more especially in the Southern States, where all the domestics are of the negro race, which is by nature careless and deficient in neatness. I admire what I saw of the Southern ladies and mistresses of families. The young girls, on the contrary, I should like to see a little more active in the house, and more helpful to their mothers in various ways. But it is not the custom; and the parents, from mistaken kindness, seem not to wish their daughters to do any thing except amuse themselves, and enjoy liberty and life as much as possible. I believe that they would be happier if they made themselves more useful. The family relationship between parents and children seems to me particularly beautiful, especially as regards the parents toward the children. The beautiful, maternal instinct is inborn in the American women, at least in all its fervent, heartfelt sentiment; and better, more affectionate fainily-fathers than the men of America I have seen nowhere in the world. They have, in particular, a charming weakness. for-daughters. And God bless them for it! I hope the daughters may know how to return it with interest. Now must I bid mamma adieu, as I am going out with the family here to visit some ancient Indian graves-Indian mounds as they are called. They are a sort of barrows, now overgrown with trees, and are the sole memorials which remain here of the original inhabitants of the country, with the exception of the names which they gave to rivers and mountains, and which, for the most part, are VOL. I.-P still retained. These names are symbolic, and are generally melodious in sound. It is not more than twenty years since the last Indian tribes in Georgia were driven thence by an armed force; and I have heard eye-witnesses relate the scene, how on the morning when they were compelled to leave their huts, their smoking hearths, their graves, and were driven away, men, women, and children, as a defenseless herd, the air was filled with their cry of lamentation! Now no Indians are to be met with in Georgia or Carolina, though in Alabama, the furthest state west, may still be found tribes of Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians. Lively picnics are now held on these ancient Indian mounds. I have for two nights in succession dreamed most livingly that mamma was here—was come to America to see me. I was very glad of it, but at the same time much surprised, because Agatha was not with her, and I thought in my dream, it is impossible that mamma could leave. Agatha alone-"It must be a dream!" And a dream, and a foolish dream it was, certainly, my sweet mamma; but I should be very glad that one part of it were true, namely, that I saw you looking so well and so happy. If I could only see that, then would I have the joy of embracing mamma, not in sleep and in a dream, but in wakeful reality! To-morrow I set off for Savannah. Savannah, May 11th. And here I now am, sweet mamma, after an affectionate parting from the amiable family in Vineville, whom I was sorry to leave. I got rid of a headache as soon as possible last evening, after the fatiguing day's journey by rail-way in the heat of the sun, the smoke, and the steam, during which my little basket of bananas was my only comfort and support. Long live the banana! To-day I have received visits and flowers-among the latter a Magnolia grandiflora, a magnificent flower, as noble as it is beautiful, a child of primeval light-and among the former, one from a piquant young lady, who was herself married at fourteen years of age-she is now only seventeen, but looks as if she were twenty-and who will carry me off this afternoon on a promenade to Bonaventura-some romantic spot. Her dark romantic eyes have something quite interesting in them. Later. I have had a visit from the greatest autograph collector in the world, Mr. T., who kindly invited me to his house and home at Savannah! and here comes now my Swiss professor, and will talk to me of poetry and religion, and the spirit of things; and now it is dinnertime, and I must think about my body, and therefore 1 must make an end of all. But first a kiss-on the paper and in spirit to my beloved! LETTER XVI. Savannah, May 14th, 1850. "The greatest autograph collector in the world" is also the most friendly, the best-hearted man in the world, and so kind to me that I shall always think of him with gratitude. His collection of autographs is the first which I have over been able to examine with interest and respect-not because it occupies many folios, and has a whole room. appropriated to it, and could not be fully examined in less than six or seven months, which certainly might inspire respect, but because a portrait is appended to the handwriting of each distinguished person, mostly an excellent copper-plate engraving, together with some letter or interesting document belonging to the history of that individual. All this gives to the autograph collection of Mr. T. a real historical or biographical interest. His house is one of those excellent, agreeable ones which I described in my former letter. His kind little. wife, two younger sons, and the young wife of the eldest son, constitute the family; a quiet, kind, hospitable family, over which death, however, has lately cast its shadow. Here, too, the mothers have sorrowed most; and here sorrow two mothers-the elder, her eldest, grown-up son; the younger, her little boy, both lately deceased! Savannah is the most charming of cities, and reminds me of "the maiden in the green-wood." It is, even more than Charleston, an assemblage of villas which have come together for company. In each quarter is a green marketplace, surrounded with magnificent, lofty trees; and in the centre of each verdant market-place leaps up a living fountain, a spring of fresh water, gushing forth, shining in the sun, and keeping the green-sward moist and cool. Savannah might be called the city of the gushing springs; there can not be, in the whole world, a more beautiful city than Savannah! Now, however, it is too warm; there is too much sand, and too little water. But I like Savannah. I find here a more vigorous spiritual life, a more free and unprejudiced looking at things and circumstances, in particular at the great question of slavery, than in Charleston, and I have here become acquainted with some excellent, true people-people who will look the question directly and fairly in the face; who, themselves slaveholders from the more remote times, are yet laboring for the instruction of the slave, for emancipation and free colonization. Ah, Agatha! I have felt on this occasion like a weary and thirsty wanderer of the desert, who has arrived all at once at a verdant oasis, where palms wave and fresh waters spring forth, and I have watered with tears of joy the flowers of freedom on the soil of slavery; for I suffered greatly at first in society, from the endeavors of many people to thrust upon me their contracted views, and from a want of honesty, if not in the intention, yet in the point of view from which they regarded slavery. One evening, however, when I was more than usually annoyed, and quite |