The Tugalo is one of the most beautiful streams I ever beheld. Its banks are finely diversified with mountain scenery, generally in the distance; while the bottoms are in the highest state of cultivation--indeed, some of the finest plantations, and best built mansions in all the southern country, are on this river. At times, the water, which is always clear, runs smooth and deep, for some distance, when suddenly it is broken by shoals, miles and miles in length; the current roaring and dashing among the rocks, with astonishing velocity; so that to navigate the surging waves, required all the skill and presence of mind we could muster.
After the Tugalo makes its junction with the Seneca, the stream takes the name of Savannah, or as the mountaineers call it--the Sav-a-naw. Below the mouth of the Seneca, the river rapidly widens, and the water assumes a yellowish or muddy color, and it is full of wild and dangerous shoals. The bottoms, on either side, are wide and well cultivated; but on account of the fearful freshets, caused by the rising of the mountain streams above, there are no houses built near the river--they generally being from two to three miles back, and sometimes even farther than that; so that we seldom saw any one, save the slaves, and their overseers--the former being the most abject human beings I ever saw. Occasionally, the overseers themselves were black, and as far as I could see, they were equally severe on the laborers, with the white men.
There are no towns at all, immediately on the Savannah, above Augusta. Occasionally we would meet a keel boat coming up to the plantations after corn for the rebel army, they being propelled by poles, and manned by negroes--the man in charge occasionally being a white man; usually, however, he was as black as a crow. Almost every boat contained half a a dozen rebel soldiers as a guard; and these would sometimes hail us as we passed; but as they could not stop without "losing deal" with the current, we would not, for fear of losing deal with them, and therefore, our conversations were of brief duration. If we happened to meet on a shoal, they had always as much as they could do to climb up over it, and we had all we could do to keep from being dashed to pieces among the rocks, so we paid little attention to each other.