CHAPTER LXVII.
OFF TO CHARLESTON--PASSING THROUGH THE RICE SWAMPS--TWO EXTREMES OF SOCIETY--ENTRY INTO CHARLESTON--LEISURELY WARFARE--SHELLING THE CITY AT REGULAR INTERVALS--WE CAMP IN A MASS OF RUINS--DEPARTURE FOR FLORENCE.
The train started in a few minutes after the close of the conversation with the old Georgian, and we soon came to and crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina.

The river was wide and apparently deep; the tide was setting back in a swift, muddy current; the crazy old bridge creaked and shook, and the grinding axles shrieked in the dry journals, as we pulled across.

It looked very much at times as if we were to all crash down into the turbid flood--and we did not care very much if we did, if we were not going to be exchanged.
The road lay through the tide swamp region of South Carolina, a peculiar and interesting country.

Though swamps and fens stretched in all directions as far as the eye could reach, the landscape was more grateful to the eye than the famine-stricken, pine-barrens of Georgia, which had become wearisome to the sight.

The soil where it appeared, was rich, vegetation was luxuriant; great clumps of laurel showed glossy richness in the greenness of its verdure, that reminded us of the fresh color of the vegetation of our Northern homes, so different from the parched and impoverished look of Georgian foliage.