We stopped some time at one of the plantations, to rest ourselves and refresh the horses.

We had a chatty conversation with several gentlemen present; but there was one person, a middle aged man, with an absent look in his face, who simply glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed again into the meditations which our coming had interrupted.

The planters whispered us not to mind him--crazy.

They said he was in the Islands for his health; was a preacher; his home, Michigan.

They said that if he woke up presently and fell to talking about a correspondence which he had some time held with Mr.Greeley about a trifle of some kind, we must humor him and listen with interest; and we must humor his fancy that this correspondence was the talk of the world.
It was easy to see that he was a gentle creature and that his madness had nothing vicious in it.