Gullah culture, centered on the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia, is unique. Until recently, modern America had barely impinged, and the Gullahs retained their own customs, beliefs, and argot—"Mah head leab me" ("I forgot"); "E unrabble e mout' all day" ("He never shuts up"); "Mek so?" ("Why?"). Even today, the women outside the post office speak a language I can barely follow.

Their baskets, many of them very fine, are spread out on the sidewalk, but I'm not here to buy, just to soak up the last of the day's warmth. As I do so, a young woman crosses the street wearing fishnet stockings and a long skirt-coat slit to the hip, flashing toned thighs at every step. The man who stumbles in her wake is heavily bandaged, one arm in a cast. An S&M scenario? Judging by the woman's hauteur and the height of her stiletto heels, it seems probable.

Strange apparition. The couple pass, and the world slips back into somnolence. The Gullah women's voices wash over me, soft and rich, the rhythm of their patois close to song. A gentle salt-flecked breeze is on my face; I drift into a doze. Sweet life.

Drive a few miles south of Charleston on Route 17, heading toward Savannah, then hang a left onto a back road, and you're back in the 1950s. Tiny churches, Baptist or AME (African Methodist Episcopal), lurk among scruffy pinewoods; Patty Ruth's Beauty Shop is just down the way from Morrison's Barbershop, which also offers propane gas and a car wash. Then comes Hollywood. Starry-eyed wannabes who dream of hitting the big time in Tinseltown and end up here instead will find that their choice of glitz boils down to Youngblood's Club (check your weapons at the door) or China Fun II ("best Chinese in Hollywood").

Many of the inhabitants hereabouts are black Charlestonians priced out of their old neighborhoods by the real estate boom. Their manners and speech belong to an earlier time. Walking into a crossroads convenience store, I interrupt a discussion on whether it's more fitting for a married couple to lie together before or after church. (Not "have sex"—lie together, just as it says in the Bible.)

Over a bridge lies Edisto, a magic island where the feeling of suspended time is even stronger. Once, it was divided into great plantations. Many were broken up during Reconstruction, and the island became isolated. Now that there's a bridge, life has opened up somewhat, and there are even a few condos by the beach. In general, though, Edisto has held on to its soul. The side roads are still humpbacked dirt tracks overhung by live oaks, and they lead to miles of pristine marshland, a patchwork quilt of inlets and bays, a vast emptiness that belongs to herons and pelicans, giant turtles, alligators, herds of wild pigs. Humans are intruders.

Late one afternoon, I meet my wife for a drink at the Market Pavilion hotel. The lobby bar, a splendidly showy affair, looks out across what seems like acres of hardwood floors, red velvet upholstery, dazzling white napery, and crystal chandeliers under a twenty-five-foot ceiling. The menu, equally showy, features dishes—veal chop stuffed with prosciutto and provolone, for example, or applewood-smoked bacon wrapped around filet mignon stuffed with blue cheese—that bring on acid reflux simply by reading about them. We content ourselves with gawking.