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.”