About five o’clock on a sultry afternoon we start on the cars for Atlanta. The train is crowded, the day is bright, the spiritual thermometer stands high, and everybody seems resolved to be social with everybody else; they commence with a running fire of casual gossip, and proceed to give gratuitous information of a confidential character concerning themselves and their families. One gentleman is returning from Texas, and fondly cherishes a banana tree, which he is carrying home to his wife in Atlanta, intending to try and coax it into growing in the garden there. He has tried the experiment before, he tells us, but the banana will not take kindly to the soil; in spite of all care hitherto it has invariably drooped and died. Still, he does not despair; like the lonely scion of a sickly family he will cherish this last, and endeavour to raise a new family on his native soil.

We fare well on this journey; though there are no regular eating stations erected on the way yet we are well provided for. People come on the cars at certain places, bringing plates of broiled chicken and meats, with delicious little brown crisp rolls of bread, hard boiled eggs, and tarts, covered with snow-white napkins, and daintily arranged so as to tempt the appetite; and baskets of delicious grapes and peaches with the tender bloom upon them, and every kind of fruit that is in season. Glasses of iced milk, a delicious beverage, may also be obtained.

We reach Atlanta the next day about two o’clock, and take up our abode at Markham House, which is conveniently situated opposite the railway station. This is an extremely comfortable and homelike hotel, without any pretence to luxurious entertainment or upholstered grandeur; but we find there a capital table liberally served.

We are, however, somewhat dismayed on going to perform our customary ablutions when we find our ewer filled with something strongly resembling pea-soup. We demand water, and learn that this obnoxious liquid is all the water we are likely to get for ablutionary purposes. The table is supplied with something drinkable of a less soupy description, though far removed from the “bright waters of the sparkling fountain;” but for a few days we must perforce be content, and take our mud bath with what appetite we may.

There is nothing picturesque or attractive in either of the Atlanta hotels; ours, we are told, is considered second rate, but there is really little difference between them. Both are situated in crowded thoroughfares, and both are within a stone’s throw of the railway station, and are simple structures with no architecture to speak of. The city is built in a rambling labyrinthine fashion, as though it had grown up in a wild way of its own, straggling along here and there, without any set plan or design beyond the convenience of the day. It has pushed itself out in all directions, here pranking itself out in glowing gardens and garlands of green, there rising up in huge brick buildings seven stories high, massed together in blocks, or stretched in long rows, lifting their stony heads high in the air, looking down threateningly and frowningly as though they meant some day to topple over into the narrow street below. It has grown large and strong, and no longer runs in leading-strings, but asserts itself as one of the most important cities of the South.

The resources of the surrounding country are developing day by day, being especially rich in the production of cotton of the finest kind, quite equal to that grown on the famous Sea-islands of Carolina. All the varied wealth of the country for hundreds of miles round pours into Atlanta, which in turn distributes it to all parts of the world. This conglomeration of bricks and mortar is not attractive in itself, but is most interesting in its early history, its gradual growth and marvellous development; all within the city limits is full of the stir and bustle of commonplace life, its surroundings are simply lovely and most romantic.

A short car drive through the up-and-down stony streets, a ramble through a winding lane, and we are in the midst of a beautiful wild wood flaming with scarlet honeysuckle, creeping up, twining round, and seeming to strangle the great strong trees in its close embrace, drooping its bright blooms like a canopy above our heads; they are lovely to the eye, but, like so many beautiful things, are poisonous and scentless. We wander for hours, but do not get to the end of the crimson woods. Every man, woman, or child we meet—black, white, or brown—have their hands full of the gorgeous rose-red flowers of this Southern honeysuckle, so far richer than its northern sister. Some are carrying them home in baskets for domestic decoration, others make them into wreaths, or wear them on their hats or on their breasts.

No matter in what direction you turn on leaving the labyrinths of bricks and mortar, you are at once plunged into a wealth of lovely scenery, fringed on one side with the blazing woods; on one side it is skirted by richly-timbered, well-cultivated lands, jewelled with wild flowers of every hue and colour. Then we come upon a tangle of forest scenery or thickets varying from a few to thousands of acres. These consist of a dense growth of live and water oaks, dog wood, hickory, and pine, hung with garlands of moss, or close clinging draperies of purple blooms, birds are peeping and twittering in and out, butterflies and insects humming, and a whole colony of frogs croaking joyously throughout this luxuriant wilderness. We should not be much surprised to find a fairy city hidden away in this labyrinthine mass of leaves and timbers; who knows but when the evening shadows fall, and a thousand tiny twinkling lights flash hither and thither, we think the fireflies are abroad, when in reality it is the elfin army of lamplighters illuminating their fairy city with wandering stars.

In these sweet solitudes the morning passes quickly, and in the afternoon we go to the cemetery, which is about three miles from the town, to witness the decoration of the soldiers’ graves—for it is Memorial Day—the one day set apart in every year now and for all time for people to come to do honour to the dead who fell in the lost cause; nay, for the dead who fell on either side. Streams of people crowd the highways and byways, all flowing in one direction, and all mass together at the wide-open gates of the cemetery. The ground is kept by sundry mutilated remnants of the war; some with one arm, some with one leg, but none have the right complement of limbs, while some are mere mutilated crippled specimens of humanity, with bent bodies and limbs twisted out of their natural form. We wonder how they have had courage to crawl so far towards the end of their days, and to bear themselves cheerfully too. But the great God who “tempers the wind to the shorn lamb” has not forgotten them. He sends them an invisible support and comforter we know not of; He lays His blessed hand upon their heart-strings and makes a music in their lives, grander and sweeter than is the blare of victorious trumpets to the conqueror’s ear. They live their lives out in this city of the dead, and through the sunny days or evening shadows, sleeping or waking, are always there surrounded by their silent brotherhood, who wait for them in the great beyond. They lie here under the green sod with upturned faces and hands crossed upon their breasts. “After life’s fitful fever they sleep well.”

We arrive an hour before the ceremonial commences, and walk about the pretty grave-garden and read the names upon the monuments, and listen to anecdotes of those who rest below. The old soldiers seem to love to talk of their dead comrades, to fight their battles over again. They tell us how this one, “such a fine, handsome young fellow,” rode always into battle whistling a merry tune as he dashed into the thick of it; and how this one with the spirit of the ancient Puritans uplifted his voice to the glory of God as he brandished his sword and rushed to the front.

Presently a slow solemn strain of music with the roll of the muffled drum reaches our ears. It comes nearer and nearer. There is a trampling of feet, “the tramp of thousands sounding like the tread of one,” and the committee, escorted by a detachment of soldiers with their arms reversed and followed by a multitude of people, make their way across the hilly ground, and through the winding pathways till they reach a wide grassy slope, where, railed in and reached by a flight of marble steps, there stands a huge plain shaft of granite, with the inscription in large gold letters, “To our Confederate Dead,” engraved thereon. A platform is raised in front of this, which is now occupied by some score or two of ladies, all dressed in deep mourning, each carrying a basket of flowers, which may be replenished from the miniature mountain of violets and pale wild roses which are heaped upon the ground. Lying around, spreading in all directions, are myriad nameless graves. Some have a white headstone a foot high, some have wooden crosses, some have but the green turf to cover them. Here Federals and Confederates lie side by side, no enmity between them now. The treaty of eternal peace has been signed by the sovereign lord, Death; all are now gathered together and are marching through the silent land, under the banner of their great Captain, Christ.

There was a slight stir and a few elderly gray-headed men, accompanied by a minister of the church, ascended the platform. A hush fell upon the multitude, and all listen reverently and bareheaded while an earnest simple prayer is offered up.

Then a tall, soldier-like man, a well-known general, who had faced a hundred fires, stepped forward and made a most touching and eloquent address—to which friend or foe, victor and vanquished, might listen with equal feeling of interest and respect,—glorifying the heroic qualities of those who fought and fell in the lost cause, but, while giving honour to the dead, detracting nothing from the living. The keynote running through the whole discourse was like a prayer that the seed sown amid fire and sword, and watered by the blood of patriots (patriots all; no matter on which side they fought, each believed they were fighting for their rights), might take root, grow, flourish, and yield a glorious harvest for the gathering of this great country, her unity never again to be disturbed and torn by the children of her love and pride.

At the conclusion of the address a hymn, “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” was sung by the uplifted voices of the whole multitude, even to the outermost edge they caught up the sweet refrain, and it rose and fell, swelled and softened, till it rolled back upon our ears in waves of melodious music, which stirred our hearts and sent a mist floating before our eyes.

Now the ladies descend from the platform and scatter themselves over the ground, their mourning figures passing to and fro among the graves: on every mound they lay a bunch of flowers, regardless on which side they fought,—the “boys in blue” and the “boys in gray” are all arrayed in one common raiment now. Who knows but a spirit army may be bending down from the skies above, watching the pious work, and no longer seeing through a glass darkly, longing to whisper, “All is well,” to the hearts which are still sorrowing below.

The solemn ceremonial over, drums beat, the soldiers resume their arms, form in line, the band plays a stirring military air, and they march quickly off the ground. We watch the crowd melt away, but do not feel disposed to join the busy, chattering stream on its homeward road, especially as by this time quite a miniature fair has risen up outside the cemetery gates; and roast; peanuts, fruit, cake, and iced drinking stalls are surrounded by thirsty multitudes, who keep up a lively rattle among themselves; while the tag-rag of the gathering run after the military procession, and follow it on its way back to the dusty town. We wander for a while through the deserted cemetery, reading the strange medley of mottoes, and the sometimes ludicrous and always commonplace chronicles of the virtues of the sleeper. We are presently invited to sit down and rest in the porch of a rustic dwelling, the home of one of the crippled guardians of the place—a grand old man he was, with gray hair and a face bronzed by exposure to many weathers, and scored and wrinkled by the hand of time. He brought us a jug of deliciously cool milk, and sat down and talked, as old men love to talk, of “the days that are bygone”; and told us many pleasant anecdotes of “how we lived down south forty years ago.”

The evening shadows were lengthening, and lying like long spectral fingers on the dead men’s graves, as we rose up and made our way hurriedly to the horse-car which was to carry us back to Atlanta.