On the sweetest of spring mornings, when the sunshine seems to reach down into our hearts, and the soft breeze stirs our pulse and sets our thoughts playing a jubilant melody, while our hearts sing a soft sweet song that the ears hear not, and that our own spirits can but dimly comprehend—we turn our back on the quaint old city of Charleston, and resume our journey South.

Squatting about the platform of the railway station we find groups and whole families of negroes, or, as they are now more respectfully called, “coloured folk,”—from the queer little black ball of a baby, to the withered old grandmother with a face notched and scarred, as though time had kept his calendar and scored the passing years in wrinkles, till they all run one into the other, and the face was made up of nothing else. They are dressed, as is the custom of their kind, in all the colours of the rainbow, and are heavily laden with baskets of fish, fruit, vegetables, and bundles of their personal belongings, with their “piccaninnies” sprawling at their feet and crawling in and out like little black eels. We are struck with an idea, almost a dread, that they are going to ride in our car—not that we object to the colour of “God’s image carved in ebony,” but their neighbourhood is not odorous.

“We has second class on dis line,” said the porter, in answer to our inquiries, “and dey be gwine dere; dey’s no company for white folk—not clean, nor nice in dey’s manners. I’s black myself, but I knows dem folk’s no company for ladies and gen’l’men.”

With much tumbling, and clutching their brood together, they scrambled into their appointed places, in a seedy-looking car adjoining ours, and we are off; the city spires and steeples fade from our view, and our faces are set towards Georgia. We are well beyond the region of the maple trees now; but forests of pine and cypress, dashed here and there with the snow-white blossoms of the dogwood, close on all sides of us, except where our narrow iron path makes its way through them. Soon we come to an open clearing, where the forest trees have been cut down and timber huts built up; this is a wood station, and mountains of logs are piled on each side. Here we stop to feed our engine, while a diversified company of wild hogs—gaunt, lean, hungry-looking creatures, all legs and heads, like swinish tramps who get their living in the woods—gather and grunt in herds almost under our car wheels, and goats with large families of youthful nannies and billies stand staring mildly in the background, now and then playfully butting one another.

We are soon off again; racks of wood are stationed at certain distances all along the line, coal being scarce in these localities, and wood much lighter of digestion. Our hungry engine insists on having four square meals a day, and even then grows weak and feeble, and demands a snack in between; it slackens, and snorts, and grumbles, till the driver, often aided by the passengers (who seem to enjoy the fun), gets down and cuts a few dainty branches just to appease its appetite, and coax it on to the next station.

We pass through the great salt marsh, where the grand old pines, rank on rank, are standing with their roots in pickle, and their half bald heads fringed with green lifted heavenwards. A bush fire has broken out somewhere in the distance, and the flames come leaping along the surface of the marsh, with a blue, lurid-looking light, feeding upon whatever they can find; now they glide in graceful spiral lines, like fiery serpents round the trunk of some grand old tree, and leave it a charred and blackened stump.

As the evening shadows fall we enter the cypress swamps; the dusky forms of the forest giants stand stiff and stark in the gloaming, making up a weird and somewhat romantic scene. Night closes in, the great golden moon climbs slowly into the purple skies, and the balmy evening air has a delicious fragrance as though it came from worlds unknown. But with all its sombre subtle charm, a cypress swamp is not exactly the place one would choose to break down in, and just here our engine, which has been crawling and groaning like a crippled maniac for the last half hour, elects to stop short. She (I believe engine is feminine) stops, and shows no sign of ever intending to move again.

American sang-froid is difficult to disturb, but on this occasion the passengers deign to manifest some interest in the cause of the delay. They bombard the conductor with questions, and skirmish round the engineer, sending their suggestions flying round his devoted head, till a peremptory order is given, and they are driven back into the cars with some loss of patience. As if by magic, a breakdown gang is soon gathered round the engine—heaven knows where they came from, whether they dropped from the skies, or emerged from the bowels of the earth, for human habitation thereabout seemed impossible, unless they had built a nest high up in the dark cypress boughs.

Meanwhile various editions of the cause of our delay are freely circulated. One piece of official information at last reaches us: The mainspring of our engine is broken. One reports that they are making a new one; another that they are mending the old one. “No, they are propping it up with a piece of wood,” says a third. “That’s impossible,” cries another unlicensed authority; “the idea of an engine hobbling on wooden legs!” Then begins a game at speculation, and we all take a hand: “How long shall we be kept there?” “Perhaps all night—perhaps all day!” “Will they send help to us?” “They can’t, there’s only a single line of rail, and no telegraph near.”

Then some of our fellow travellers begin to relate, at the top of their voices, a chapter of the worst accidents that have ever happened anywhere or to anybody, ending with the relation of a terrible catastrophe which happened only a week ago, when the trestle work, which runs for six miles across the Savannah river a little further on, gave way, and the whole train was precipitated into the river—“not a soul saved,” adds the narrator with great gusto.

Meanwhile everybody is getting hungry; and buns, biscuits, and morsels of stale crumbly cake are fished up from bags or baskets. I have nothing to fish up from anywhere, and a good Samaritan gives me an orange and a piece of rye bread; never was voluntary contribution more thankfully received. Presently a plausible youth comes along the car selling cold hard-boiled eggs. Where he comes from, where he got, or how he cooked his eggs is a mystery; but hunger bids us hasten to invest in his wares. Alas! he and his eggs prove a delusion and a snare! The eggs we throw out of the window—but the deceiver has disappeared.

By degrees the clatter of tongues ceases; silence falls over us. Alligators and frogs are croaking in the swamps; I don’t know which croaks loudest; their language seems so similar, I can hardly tell one from the other. Everybody regards the situation with irritating good temper, nobody grumbles. Are the true Americans ever heard to complain, I wonder? They are patient, cheerful always, and stoical and philosophical as Red Indians. Oh, for a good British growl! I lift my voice feebly once or twice, but am shamed into silence by the example of my companions.

Presently we begin to move, and slowly as a royal progress we roll on towards Savannah. When we reach it the small hours of the morning are already far on the march and we go supperless to bed. On taking a survey of our surroundings by daylight we have reason to be very well satisfied with our quarters. We have two large sunny rooms, most comfortably furnished, opening on to a wide verandah overgrown with greenery, which is luxuriant everywhere South.

A few words here concerning the accommodation for tourists which is to be found in all Southern cities. On first setting our faces thitherward we received a mass of gratuitous information—all of which we accepted cum grano salis. We were neither disposed to be led nor misled by friendly counsels. “There are no decent hotels—nothing but ramshackle old buildings, mere refuges for the destitute.”

“Where you’ll always find lively companionship—especially by night.”

“Perhaps an alligator in the morning, or a comfortable moccasin or black snake coiling round your feet to get themselves warm.”

“A family of young roaches six inches long flying out of your shoe as you go to put your foot into it.”

“Nothing to eat but tough steaks, and hominy fried in fat, or rusty bacon served in its own grease.”

“Alligator soup is a rare dainty.”

“And they’ll dish up a rattlesnake into a tasty ragout. No fresh milk—no fresh meat—nothing but tallow-fried steak; ground beans in your coffee-cup in the morning.”

These fancy sketches, however, bore not the slightest resemblance to the actual truth; they were born of a too lively imagination, with no experience to keep it from rambling into the realms of fiction. In all the Southern cities we visited there was most excellent hotel accommodation to be found, though the hotels are not as a rule, either so large or luxurious as those in other portions of the United States. There are fewer grand corridors, less velvet upholstery, less carving and gilding and gorgeous mirrors; but the rooms are large, airy, and conveniently furnished, and nowhere is a comfortable lounge or rocking-chair found wanting. The cuisine is not always such as to tickle the palate of an epicure, or gratify the taste of a gourmet. There is no attempt (and how often in the most pretentious hotels it is only an attempt) at French cookery—no entrÉes, no “high falutin” arrangements at the dinner table; but there is generally good soup, a great variety of excellent fish and vegetables, poultry, fruit, and pies, and puddings, and most delicious crisp salads of all descriptions—and what can a whole-souled, hungry mortal desire more? No one with a healthy appetite and good digestion will complain of Southern fare, to which Southern courtesy imparts perhaps its sweetest savour.

There are plenty of wild fowl, but a scarcity of all such animal food as beef or mutton, in consequence of there being so little grazing land, and that little is of very poor quality; the cattle they do raise is of the most inferior order—Pharaoh’s lean kine; and as they are not able to satisfy their own appetites, are not qualified to gratify ours. The native meats are tough and flavourless. Private families get along very well with the articles of consumption enumerated above. The good sirloin or succulent saddle is rarely seen upon their tables, though the hotels import largely; indeed, throughout Georgia, Carolina, &c., the substantials are always supplied from the eastern states. Our bill of fare reads thus:—“Tennessee beef,” “Boston pork,” “New York mutton,” and even “New York lamb.”

On a sunny morning we take our first ramble through the “forest city” of Savannah, and how well it deserves the name! It seems to have grown out of the very heart of the “forest primeval,” whose giant progeny still keep guard over the nest of human kind. Whichever way we turn, we look through long vistas of shady streets crossing each other at right angles; at each of these crossings, throughout the entire city, is an open space laid out as a pretty little pleasaunce or toy garden, carpeted with soft turf and tiny beds of bright flowers, and sometimes planted with green shrubberies, while the fine old forest trees, which time and civilisation have left standing, spread their wide branches for colonies of wild birds to build and sing in. These spaces are like slightly improved miniature editions of Paddington Green, but every one, though it be but twelve foot square, is dignified by the name of “park.”

Some of the widest thoroughfares have four rows of trees planted the entire length, the branches here and there meeting overhead, forming a perfect archway, while the open street cars on the Central Avenue beneath seem to carry us along through primeval bowers of luxuriant green; we can hardly believe that anything so prosaic as “iron rails” supply part of the motive power.

We find these open street cars a most convenient and pleasant mode of locomotion, and spend much time riding about the city in this democratic fashion, for the streets are ill-kept and dusty, and the roadways sometimes a foot deep with heavy sand, so that it is impossible either to walk or drive in a private vehicle with any comfort. Once we are attracted by big red letters painted on a car side “Concordia,” “Forsyth Park.” Everybody says we must go there; we take everybody’s advice, and, as usual, find “nothing in it.” Concordia is a fine name for a small tea-garden; Forsyth is a pretty shady spot, though it might be railed into a small corner of Kensington Gardens; but the warm southern breeze, and the oleander, orange, lemon, and magnolia—although the latter is not yet in bloom—have made our short expedition a most agreeable one.

There is little architectural beauty anywhere in the city or its surroundings—scarcely any attempt at ornamentation. The houses are made up of doors and windows on the strictest utilitarian principles.

The natural beauties of this Arcadian city are so great they don’t seem to care at all for the embellishments of art. Among the pleasant drives in the city suburbs, is one to Laurel Grove. We step from the cars at the terminus, and inquire of an old negro our way to the nearest point of interest. He regarded us a moment with his beady black eyes, with his head on one side like an inquisitive old bird. “Why! why! I thought everybody know’d everywheres about Laurel Grove. But maybe you don’t live nigh Savannah—come a long ways, perhaps?” he added curiously.

We explained our nationality.

“My lord! England!” I wish I could paint the expression of astonishment, curiosity, and interest that overspread his good-humoured old monkey face as he added, inspecting us admiringly, “My! Think o’ that! I never spoke to an English lady but once before. It’s a cold country over thar, ain’t it?”

The old man seems inclined to talk, and I am disposed to encourage his loquacity; so much information may be gained in those gatherings by the wayside—one feels the pulse of the spirit of the people, and learns which way their hearts are beating. It is wiser to feed upon such crumbs as chance throws in our way, than to wait till a full banquet of stereotyped facts are spread before us. He asked me many questions, which I answered in the way best suited to his understanding; then I began a short catechism on my side. He was very communicative, and answered me frankly enough. He had been born a slave, he said, on a cotton plantation a few miles from the city, and in the season still worked for his old master.

“But since you are now free,” I inquire, “why don’t you go North, and break all connection with the old life? surely you would find more advantageous employment and opportunities for improvement there?”

“Na, na,” said the old man, “we never go North; the Yankees set’s free and gie’s votes, but it ain’t home-like to us thar. We likes to stay along o’ them as we was raised wi’; ole mass’rs know all ’bout us, n’ we know all about them.”

We found the changes rung to the same tune with but slight variation throughout the South. The coloured people will serve their old masters, will ask their advice and guidance, go to them for consolation in their trouble, and seek their assistance when they are in difficulties; but they will not vote for them, nor in any way serve their political influence. They seem to have a hazy notion that they might be taken back into slavery; they cannot realise that such a thing is impossible, nor can they understand that their masters are glad to be rid of the responsibility which slavery imposed upon them. The masters rejoice in their freedom as much as the slaves do in theirs.

Beautiful in itself, beautiful in its surroundings, Savannah is an ideal city for a summer lounge, with its pleasant shady promenades and myriad miniature parks, thronged with people who are always well dressed but never loud in their attire; there is a quiet refinement and dignity about them which savours of old world conservatism.

A host of good fairies seem to have been hovering round at the birth of Savannah. In 1733 the city consisted of only a few tents pitched under the pine trees between what is now Bull and Whitaker Streets, now it is one of the most thriving cities of the South; both wharves and quays are crowded with men and merchandise, for a brisk and flourishing business is carried on in the timber and cotton trade. It is a most important commercial centre, both its imports and exports being on a largely increasing scale.

It is impossible not to enjoy thoroughly a saunter through this Arcadian city, a chat with the natives included. We were constantly amused by finding ourselves playing at a forced game of “cross questions and crooked answers,” our inquiries on any subject never receiving a direct reply. In years gone by I had a passing pleasant acquaintance with a family who lived in Savannah, but who, I afterwards learnt, were then sojourning in England for a time. It would have given me great pleasure to renew the acquaintance, and I inquire of the hotel clerk if Mr. —— is still living in Savannah?

“Ain’t seen him for a long while; think he’s dead or gone to Europe, but I’ll ask.” He telephones the inquiry to some invisible party, and a sepulchral voice answers back—

“Don’t know—but Peter Green he died last week.”

The connection between the deceased Peter Green and my acquaintance, Mr. ——, I have yet to learn. Another time we ask—

“Which is the car for Thunderbolt?” and are promptly answered,

“That red un is startin’ right away for Laurel Grove.” I inquire the way to the railway station, and am directed to the river side. I ask about the morning train, and am answered with detailed information about the evening express. However, on sternly reiterating my question, and emphasising the note of interrogation, I sometimes succeeded in at last receiving the desired information.

No one should leave Savannah without visiting the ancient cemetery of Buonaventura, the former residence of a fine old family, which passed from their hands many years ago, and after undergoing many changes has been at last converted into a cemetery. On entering the noble avenue, and passing beneath the arching glories of the grand old oaks, with their long weird robes of Spanish moss, it is difficult to believe that we are entering a city of the dead, by whom indeed it is very sparsely populated, the graves are so few and far between; one can almost fancy that the dead had wandered thither, and moved by the sublime repose of the place had lain down to rest, while nature wrapped them round about with her soft mantle of green, and showered her sweet-scented wild flowers above them. There is a profound mournfulness too hovering around these silent, solitary avenues, where groups of sombre giant trees stand brooding and wrapped in their grey moss mantles, with drooping arms, and hoary heads bent low together, as though they were whispering mysteries, holding a solemn council, and pronouncing the eternal sentence on the dead below.

There is nothing prosaic or commonplace about Savannah; it is a perfectly idyllic city, primitive and simple in its ways, with no stir of frivolous worldly gaieties to rouse it from its sublime repose. No sound of drums and trumpets runs echoing through its streets; the only music is that which the wind makes as it whistles in many monotones through the tall tree tops, and calls soft melodies from the tremulous leaves, as the ancient god Pan made music by the reedy waterside. It is not grey with age, nor marred and scarred by the hand of time; it seems to luxuriate in eternal youth, and live a dreamy life of unaltered poetry and sunshine. Even that most prosaic of all institutions, the police station, is in perfect unison with the rest of this Arcadian city; it seems to have nothing to do but drone away its hours in one ceaseless dolce far niente, as though the ugly serpent sin crawled low down out of sight—perhaps stirring the hearts, but rarely inciting the acts of the people. There seems to be a great scarcity even of small sinners. It is a low, clean, brick building in a cool shady part of the city; covered with climbing plants and held close in the embrace of an ancient vine, which twines in and out of every nook and cranny as though it could never be torn away but with the life of the building.

Well, our last day in this forest city closes; the mocking bird, that sings only in the dark, holds its last concert on our verandah, and we are sung to sleep by the sharp cutting cries of a family of youthful alligators which some northern tourists are taking home in a tank.