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.
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