A Port Royal correspondent of the Times writes:

One of the most remarkable features of the new life in South Carolina is afforded by the negroes. Black servants have been hired by many of the officers as waiters, and washermen and women. Black gangs have worked on the shore, or been used as oarsmen ; blacks have served as scouts and guides in the reconneissances. Crowds of the women and children may be seen in various parts of the camps, but especially near head-quarters, where they inhabit their own huts still. There they receive their rations, there they build fires to cook their food or to do their washing, and cluster into odd-looking groups, picturesque for all their squalor. The men and boys join them at night, and always, after supper, in a dilapidated out-house, is held a, prayer-meeting. I listened outside, last night, and heard ardent ejaculations or thanksgiving for the favorable chance God had given to “my colored bruddren.” The jargon was absurd, but It was earnest; the singing was out of tune and time, but it was fervent. In some quarters the blacks are less religious, and held a ball to celebrate the coming of the Yankees. I have talked with nearly half of those I have seen; have asked them which they preferred, the new or the old order of things, and though some here and there spoke kindly of their masters, there was no mistaking the genuineness of their gratitude for the change.