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In 1846 the Asheville school was broken up, and I resolved to try my fortunes in the South, journeying with Mrs. John Dickson to Charleston, S.C., exchanging the fine mountain country for the level rice-fields of South Carolina. It was a striking journey—a transformation scene! It is thus described in a journal of that date:—

On January 14 we left by stage early in the morning. We jolted off in the bright moonlight; the ground was frozen hard and very rough. I walked with Flinn over the Blue Ridge and the Saluda, another branch of the Alleghanies. The weather was beautiful, the air invigorating, and the mountain seemed to deserve its name. On the top of the Saluda a stone marks the boundary of the two Carolinas. I hesitated at crossing it, for my affections are all with the ‘old North State.’ At the foot we drank to its health from the Poinsett Spring, as we had promised John to do. A little afterwards we passed the wildest scenery I ever remember to have seen. The road wound down the south side of the mountain in very abrupt curves, so as to form a succession of terraces one above the other; whilst, on the opposite side, the wooded mountain ridge, though so near, was softened by mist, and seemed to tower to tremendous heights, though I was surprised to see how this height seemed to lessen as we descended. We reached Greenville late, after eighty miles of horribly rough staging; there we spent the next day, and I took a pleasant walk with Flinn by the reedy river, which rushes in cascades through rocks and wooded hills. The next two days we travelled through pretty, undulating country, gradually becoming more level. I saw the first characteristic swamp, also the palmetto and the strange grey moss, a yard long, hanging from the trees. We spent a night in Columbia. It seemed a strange revival of old associations to enter a city once more. The hotel was full of horse-racers engaged in betting. The next day a rapid railway journey brought us to Charleston by two o’clock. The country between Columbia and Charleston was much prettier than I expected. The lovely day made everything beautiful; the numerous pines, the holly, wild orange, live oak, and other evergreens seemed to give the lie to January. The moss, hanging one or two yards long from the trees, looked like gigantic webs or the ghosts of weeping willows; the rice-fields, under water, were as blue as the sky; the level cotton-fields, extending for hundreds of acres, with their belts of evergreens, were strange and beautiful.