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After Oglethorpe himself, most remarkable perhaps of those going to Georgia were the brothers John and Charles Wesley. Not precisely colonists are the Wesleys, but prospectors for the souls of the colonists, and the souls of the Indians Yamacraws, Uchees, and Creeks. They all landed at Savannah, and now planned to make a settlement south of their capital city, by the mouth of Altamaha.
True, after the "American Treaty" of 1670 between England and Spain, the English built a small fort upon Cumberland Island, south of the Altamaha, and presently another Fort George to the northwest of the first, at the confluence of the rivers Oconee and Oemulgee. There were, however, no true colonists between the Savannah and the Altamaha.
But below Altamaha the coast and the country inland became debatable, probably Florida and Spanish, liable at any rate to be claimed as such, and certainly open to attack from Spanish St. Augustine. Here lay a stretch of seacoast and country within hailing distance of semi-tropical lands. It was low and sandy, with innumerable slow-flowing watercourses, creeks, and inlets from the sea.
Well, such a one was once written, I have forgotten by whom, but assuredly the heroine of it ought to have been the Altamaha shad a delicate creature, so superior to the animal you northerners devour with greedy thankfulness when the spring sends back their finny drove to your colder waters, that one would not suppose these were of the same family, instead of being, as they really are, precisely the same fish.
The latter stream would have taken me to Altamaha Sound, to avoid which I passed through Wood's Cut into the South Altamaha River, and proceeded through the lowland rice-plantations towards St. Simon's Island, which is by the sea.
Rice-planting, since the war, had not proved a very profitable business to the present proprietors, who deserve much praise for the efforts they have made to educate their freedmen. A profitable crop of oranges is gathered some seasons from the groves upon Butler's Island. From the mouth of General's Cut down Butler River to the Altamaha was but a short row.
Below Charleston in South Carolina, below Cape Fear, below Port Royal, a great river called the Savannah poured into the sea. Below the Savannah, past the Ogeechee, sailing south between the sandy islands and the main, ships came to the mouth of the river Altamaha. Thus far was Carolina.
He decided to found this colony to the south of South Carolina, so that it might not only be a refuge for the oppressed, but also form a buffer state between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida. So from George II Oglethorpe got a charter for the land lying between the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, and in honour of the King the colony was called Georgia.
He came to us from Altamaha, away down there beneath the gnarled oaks of Southeastern Georgia, where the sea croons to the sands and the sands listen till they sink half drowned beneath the waters, rising only here and there in long, low islands. The white folk of Altamaha voted John a good boy, fine plough-hand, good in the rice-fields, handy everywhere, and always good-natured and respectful.
The men had no opportunity either to fight or escape. "Dismount, gentlemen!" said Sallette. Then he addressed himself to the leader. "What is your name?" In reply to this, a fictitious name was given, as Sallette and his companions afterwards found out. "Where is your camp?" asked Sallette. "We are from over the river," answered the man, meaning the Altamaha. "Where did you cross?"
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