98                
             A ride from Beaufort__.
17.  Thursday.  A disappointment about
getting a carriage and going to Port Royal
Ferry, as proposed,  Hickox having allowed
his negro to drive off with it. (This Lieut.
Volney Hickox was a very queer fellow, who
had been insane once and incarcerated in a
lunatic asylum : Morrow pronounced him still
crazy and told me of extraordinary letters
which Hickox had sent him.  He lived all
alone in a large, sunny vacant house, and
was very disputatious and fond of controversy.
Generally he bored me.)  Got the big horse
again and set off for a ride with Babcock.
The heat intense.  Through the forest of pines,
and live oaks, and cherry trees, moss covered most of them, at a
slapping pace.  Babcock looked like Cahill
and reminded me of Heylyn in some respects.
A pause under a tree; negro huts and cot-
ton fields.  Purchase of a melon and re-
freshment.  Found the newly-arrived govern-
ment agent, an elderly Englishman from the
midland counties.  As we sat eating our me-
lons under the trees conversing, the negroes
old and young, crowded about us deferentially.
A ride to the river, then back.  To a pitcu-
resque place where the Beaufort folks used
to pic-nic in ante-Secession times.  Some