It seemed as if we were commencing our journey in dead earnest as we were leaving Thomasville. Our party was complete, and we were all settled in our special places for the trip, our luggage and bags all in ship-shape order. The day, too, was Saturday, the 16th; hence our real beginning was not, after all, on the fatal "13th," when we left New York. Some of us had little pet superstitions about numbers. Sixteen, however, seemed to satisfy all parties. It was composed of seven and nine, and had also in it two eights and four fours. Here was completeness and perfection, besides the mystery and infinity of the sacred seven and the thrice perfect nine.
On our way from New York, had we not also a bad omen? The end extension step of our car got ripped off at one of the stations; and as we were also shunted about a little at Thomasville, just before starting, rip went the other step. There was suppressed gloom at these accidents; but the said gloom was all dispersed when, some hours after, we were detained by a broken bridge. "There," said one of the ladies, "that is the third accident since we left. We are all safe now." Although the third accident was to a bridge, and not to our car, it, however, answered all purposes, and set us completely at rest.
How inevitable those little superstitions are, and how hard it is to despise them, or, as we say, rise above them! We sometimes laugh at them, but we cherish them all the same, and fain would show our more exalted wisdom by the mirth they give us. Unlucky days and numbers, together with signs and omens, and all such, are open questions with me. I should be sorry to be incapable of a little superstition, so called, now and then. Indeed, I rather believe it is all a phantasmal flickering of the abyss of mysteries with which we are, at all times and in all places, ever enveloped.
Off we are, then, from Thomasville, with waving handkerchiefs and pleasant farewells from the dear friends we leave behind. Our journey lay through a rich country, the whole effect like an English landscape—luxuriant trees, and a verdant, undulating surface, glowing with flowers, and here and there, opulent with cultivation. We had hoped to have reached New Orleans in time for church service on Sunday morning, but the broken bridge prevented all that; and when we reached Montgomery, Alabama, we were too late, even there, for attendance at morning service, and were inexorably scheduled to leave for New Orleans early in the afternoon.
Our stay gave us an opportunity to get a sort of silent silhouette of the old Capitol of the Confederacy. A Sunday sleep was over the business portions of the town, broken only by the pathetic persistence of those who will run to the store, and look at the mail, or do something or other, from the mere fact that the average business man, in the average town, does not know what on earth to do with himself when not at work. He will hang around even on Sunday at his place of business, for it is less wearisome there than anywhere else.
Some of us saw at Montgomery the spot in the Capitol, marked by a star in the pavement, where Jefferson Davis stood when sworn in as President of the Confederacy; others of us in our stroll saw the public fountain, with its bronze tablets of: "This side for colored people," "This side for white people," and also a tablet, of possibly universal application to blacks and whites alike: "No loafing round here." We also noticed a rather startling announcement at the Y.M.C.A. Hall: "The devil will be fought in four rounds here to-night."
Our afternoon and evening ride from Montgomery to New Orleans gave one the impression of all manner of possible wealth and progress. It seemed a rich, fertile country, needing but the influx of capital and labor to make it a paradise. There may be dragons lurking in swamps, or demons in the upper air, ready to hurl fiery darts at daring man in his Promethean efforts. But dragons can be starved by drainage, and atmospheric disturbances of storm and tornado, no doubt, do more good than harm in the long run.
It was well on in the night when we got into New Orleans, but we enjoyed the quiet of the Sunday, even on our speeding train. We felt the beauty of the great level stretches of flat land, mingled constantly with the gleaming waters of lake and bayou and morass, all looking more and more mysterious as the light faded away into the night.
IV