BONAVENTURE CEMETERY, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.
Our next halting place on the flight southward was Savannah, the Gate City, as it is the Queen City of the South. Next to Atlanta in commercial importance, Savannah is easily first of all sunny metropoli in the superb beauty of its situation and the park grandeur of its surroundings. Here it was that General Oglethorpe founded his Georgia colony early in 1733; and the flourishing city, from which the first ocean steamer that ever attempted to cross the Atlantic sailed, and its rank as the second cotton port of the United States, are striking proofs of his foresight and excellent discrimination.
The city is situated on a bold bluff overlooking the Savannah River, along which it extends in a curved front for a distance of three miles, affording excellent wharfage. The streets are all very broad and magnificently shaded, while parks containing one to three acres occur at all the principal intersections, charmingly laid out and beautified with flowers, which grow in that warm climate in the richest profusion. Flower gardens constitute one of the most characteristic features of the place, for a majority of the residences are surrounded by ample grounds that are abloom with flowering plants throughout the year. This is the borderland of southern evergreens, where the stately oak is festooned with pearl-gray mosses, and the orange and the magnolia fill the air with delicious perfumes. Along the streets, too, are rows of flowering oleanders, pomegranates, palmettos, bananas, laurels, bays and sweet crape-myrtles. But of all the beauties about Savannah none rival the charms of Bonaventure Cemetery, four miles from the city, on Warsaw River, and reached by a shell road that is equal to any drive-way in the world. Every grave is a flower-bed, and the long avenues canopied with moss-garlanded oaks present a picture Arcadian in its loveliness, and suggestive of those flowery glades through which immortals might delight to wander.
OLD CITY GATES, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA.—As St. Augustine is the oldest town in America, having been founded by the Spaniards in 1565, it is quite natural that we should find here many relics of the past mingled with the bright and better features of modern life. The old city was surrounded by a wall as security against attacks from the outside, and of this wall the gates, so beautifully photographed on this page, are about the only remaining relics. It is one of the links connecting the present with the earliest events of discovery in our country—a link rusty with the blood of conquest and martyrdom. Here it was that Spanish cruelty and French retaliation were carried to the most barbaric extreme, and cruelty is always in need of strong walls to protect it from the enemies it creates and nourishes.
A HOME IN THE MOUNTAINS OF GEORGIA.
The country district about Savannah is somewhat similar in appearance to that of Western North Carolina, except that its mountains are not nearly so high. The soil, however, is practically the same, as are the social conditions; and hence the constant reminder of that section which we have already described. The old log-cabin is a familiar sight in Georgia, often vine-wreathed, and showing signs of great antiquity, with roofs of clap-board, upon which the rain patters like the long-roll beat of a snare-drum. The picture which we present is typical of this class, and an example as well of rural simplicity. Homely, battered by time, and affording few comforts, yet in such cabins greatness has often had its birth, nor scorned such humble nativity. How many men of high estate lie down in the drapery of fine linen and, when night has folded the earth in her sable arms, think of the old cabin home in Georgia; of the long time ago; of the bubbling spring in the hollow and the gourd that hung by it; of the grape-vine swing, and the cows mooing in the pasture; of father and mother, and the graves on the hillside. And there is a sigh from the heart. The old time was the flush of life’s morning; it is growing evening now, and the shadows are creeping up the slopes. Soon the present will be the “old times” to our children. How many men who have achieved greatness would exchange their possessions and positions for youth and the old cabin home as they see it now in their dreams! Many, yes, very many.