Part 8 (1/2)
”Now, by the departure of our friend to look after his business, the doctor and the professor were thrown upon their own resources for enjoy there was great danger of their being melted down into their boots, they threw off their clothes, and regardless of ardless of spiders and the whole race of poisonous vered to their necks into the ditch by the roadside For long weary hours ed till the welco and stue of this, our pleasure trip
”For miles the tall, slender pine and cypress-trees festooned with rape-vines, were unbroken by a single clearing or a single shanty The Scuppernong grapes, by the way, are a great luxury; fro that can be found (we believe) in the world One vine is found on Roanoke Island, which is two th, covers several acres of land, and was planted by Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, centuries ago For miles that afternoon, andered up and down the country seeking for water fit to drink and finding none; looking at the droves of rollicking darkies,crops of corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, and still fighting the aborigines, the flies
”We have seen sos in the South, some beautiful scenes, but at this season of the year, at least, the flies and hly as the harpies of olden tireat gala-day of Jareat Norfolk steamer honors the toith its presence; everybody (and soht Here are groups of 'FF's' puffing their long pipes and talking the everlasting 'd--n nigger'; there are crowds of 'fifteenth a like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten, mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured Doctor B and Professor F, looking northward as the pilgri of handkerchiefs, and ae go out of the howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed that is
”The _Astoria_, is but a wretched tub, and we crawl along at the rate of four or fivehere and there to avoid the wrecks of the war, panting for breath, longing, 'as the heart panteth for the water-brook,' to see once land Never will this excruciating sail be forgotten All day--all night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little stearoaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, nasty Roanoke
”Hour after hour we sat gazing at the tall cypress-trees and the long trailinga dead and ruined world Here and therehuge nests of the size and shape of a barrel, and near, on the ruined branch of a lightning-struck tree, perched on its top his sleepless watch and ward, while the wife-bird tended the household Gods below Deadly e turtles lay listless in the sun, and hundreds of bushels of blackberries asting their sweetness on the desert air Now and then there came to us like an inspiration fro shame and despair to the breasts of all the other warblers of the aerial choir
”Nothing could be er, as we listened to the the sicklysun, with not a breath of air to lift the blood red banners of the trus are heard fro, look like fields of fire The winds co, for they caoons, stifling with the hot breath of the miasma
”Every now and then the Rip Van Winkle machinery breaks down, and for hours we areand pounding in the Vulcanic realered Aurora, daughter of the dawn, but like a huge red hting, withering lances of scorching heat We touch once reets us with its usual entertain water whiskey Our tenhours owing to the fact, that the intelligent contrabands were paid by the hour for 'toting' the cargo; but off we are at last, thank heaven, and at length we enter the great canal leading to the North River of Norfolk
”With chat and jest orrying away the leaden-winged hours, when suddenly thug, splash, and like a huge turtle ere floundering in the ,' said the captain, 'till the tide comes up;'
and so for three reat disinia 'Ah,' said the er was torn limb from limb by the bloodhounds, there the runaway slave chose to endure starvation and death ae; there Ifro scums to their fever-haunted dens to escape the lash'
”Thus was the story of Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe verified by one of Virginia's own sons All the fearful word paintings of Dred floated again before our mental vision, and we thanked God that the old horror of slavery is passed, and that the old flag now floats indeed 'o'er the land of the free and the ho, like all things earthly, at length had their end, and just as the lory, the wheels began to ain worried our tortuous way up the North River 'Ah,' said thein silence at the sad waves below, 'alas, here I a beeswax and eggs for hog and hominy, chills and fever; but I was once a schoolmaster with 1,200 a year, down in Connecticut; wine and woot it--I've discovered perpetual motion, and the world will honor me yet'
”'Wish you would apply it to this old tub at once,' said the professor; and the forlorn peddler went his way to cherish visions of colory Just then ere electrified by a cheer frohts of Norfolk flashed over this splendid harbor, yet to float the cole regret to the old tub _Astoria_, and entered the narrow streets, reeking with the horrors of a thousand and one stenches, sturoes to the hotel, where we indulged once more in the luxury of a bath, which the nasty water of North Carolina had forbidden for many weary days Suddenly the city was aroused by the roll of dru in Court House Square
Thither we followed the crowd, listening for awhile to the blatant Southern orators roaring about the future greatness of the 'Mother of Presidents,' deploring the reign of carpet-baggers and calling for a white reat unwashed; while the sons of Haladly responded to the steareat and glorious North”
CHAPTER XI
IN ARCADIE
I gladly returned, like a tired child, to the kindly faces and hearty greetings of reen fields, and all the beautiful children of suht owl hooted to the stars, Cradled where sunshi+ne crept through leafy bars; Reared where wild roses bloolad the summer air,
”Each dainty zephyr whispers follow me, Ten thousand leaflets beckon fros vain?
Leave faain'
”I hear the forest'he has come'
A feathered chorus' joyous welco seems a part Of nature's welcoed, and for the better With htly rocks and sturacefully to the little river and were covered with tall, waving, luxuriant grasses, starred with buttercups, clover, and daisies The dilapidated house and barn had given place to s; apple, pear, and peach-trees, covered with fragrant blossoms were substituted for their decayed and skeleton prototypes; the narrow, crooked, h the knee-deep, and often hub-deep sticky clay, had becohway