No description of life on these islands would be complete without a word
concerning the fleas. They appeared at the opening of spring, and kept
constantly "risin'," as the people said, until they reached a height the
possibility of which we had never conceived. We had heard and read of
fleas. We had never _realized_ them before. Words utterly fail to
describe the tortures we endured for months from these horrible little
tyrants. Remembering our sufferings "through weary day and weary
_night_," we warn everybody not gifted with extraordinary powers of
endurance to beware of a summer on the Sea Islands.
Notwithstanding the heat, we determined to celebrate the Fourth of July
as worthily as we could. The freed people and the children of the
different schools assembled in the grove near the Baptist Church. The
flag was hung across the road, between two magnificent live-oaks, and
the children, being grouped under it, sang "The Star-Spangled Banner"
with much spirit. Our good General could not come, but addresses were
made by Mr. P.,--the noble-hearted founder of the movement for the
benefit of the people here, and from first to last their stanch and
much-loved friend,--by Mr. L., a young colored minister, and others.
Then the people sang some of their own hymns; and the woods resounded
with the grand notes of "Roll, Jordan, roll.
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