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504 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
of a mos.t prosaic object, a railroad trestle poised high, and spanning the river from
bank to bank. On the Carolina side white chalk cliffs loom up, cut by a road that
winds up and up until lost to sight over the high brow of the white bare hills.
"It is a singularly quiet place, this famous Southern duelling ground; the natural
face of which seems never to change. No sound breaks the stillness, but the occa
sional flutter of the winged inhabitant of the bushes, the lap of the water over the
sand bar's, or the grinding wheels of an occasional vehicle that has just been ferried
over.
'' Many of the lagoons have never been explored, and just how many there are
cannot, seemingly, be ascertained. Dense canebrakes, absolutely as impregnable as a
stone wall, shutting out daylight in their vicinity, cut off communication except where
the tilled lands skirt them, or where a narrow and tortuous passage leads into the
Savannah. It is a curious phenomenon that, however high the river rises, or however
low it sinks, the waters in the lagoon remain the same—weird, ghostly, mysterious, a
freak of nature in her most somber mood—spots of eternal mourning, mayhap for
bygone transgressions—blots upon the fair face of nature beneath the ardent South
ern sun.
"But let us climb up to the top of the high white cliffs of Beech Island, cm the
South Carolina side, whence spreads out the level duelling ground. The September
moon is rising, and the silence is intense; almost palpable or tangible, as it were.
The reddening gum leaves flutter in the lazy breeze—flurrying lightly over the moss
with a sound that might be made by the ghostly footsteps of the things unseen.
Even the bird voices seem far away and hushed; the moonlight filters through the
whispering pines that complain in far-off hushed undertones; and standing there one
feels as though civilization and the fret of life and the strife of man had been left
many miles behind, and that the land in which it is always afternoon—if not black
night—were well at hand.
"Beeeh Island is a fair and blessed land, but there hangs a dark and bloody
fringe along some of her borders."—"Georgia's Land Marks, Memorials and
Legends." L. L. Knight. Vol.11.