He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.
MANY years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an
ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had
reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left
New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island,
near Charleston, South Carolina.
This Island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is
about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated
from the main land by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness
of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh hen. The vegetation, as might be
supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near
the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame
buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may
be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of this
western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the seacoast, is covered with a dense
undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The
shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost
impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance.
In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern or more remote end of
the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere
accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship --- for there was much
in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual
powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of
alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely employed
them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and
through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens --- his collection of the
latter might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he was usually
accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the
reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to
abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young
"Massa Will." It is not improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be
somewhat unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a
view to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.
The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom very severe, and in the fall of
the year it is a rare event indeed when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of
