When we left the quarantine ground on Thursday morning, after lying moored all night with a heavy rain beating on the deck, the sky was beginning to clear with a strong northwest wind and the decks were slippery with ice. When the sun rose it threw a cold white light upon the waters, and the passengers who appeared on deck were muffled to the eyes. As we proceeded southwardly, the temperature grew milder, and the day closed with a calm and pleasant sunset. The next day the weather was still milder, until about noon, when we arrived off Cape Hatteras a strong wind set in from the northeast, clouds gathered with a showery aspect, and every thing seemed to betoken an impending storm. At this moment the captain shifted the direction of the voyage, from south to southwest; we ran before the wind leaving the storm, if there was any, behind us, and the day closed with another quiet and brilliant sunset.
The next day, the third of our voyage, broke upon us like a day in summer, with amber-colored sunshine and the blandest breezes that ever blew. An awning was stretched over the deck to protect us from the beams of the sun, and all the passengers gathered under it; the two dark-complexioned gentlemen left the task of filling the spittoons below, and came up to chew their tobacco on deck; the atrabilious passenger was seen to interest himself in the direction of the compass, and once was thought to smile, and the hale old gentleman repeated the history of his Norwalk relatives. On the fourth morning we landed at Savannah. It was delightful to eyes which had seen only russet fields and leafless trees for months, to gaze on the new and delicate green of the trees and the herbage. The weeping willows drooped in full leaf, the later oaks were putting forth their new foliage, the locust-trees had hung out their tender sprays and their clusters of blossoms not yet unfolded, the Chinese wistaria covered the sides of houses with its festoons of blue blossoms, and roses were nodding at us in the wind, from the tops of the brick walls which surround the gardens.
Yet winter had been here, I saw. The orange-trees which, since the great frost seven or eight years ago, had sprung from the ground and grown to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, had a few days before my arrival felt another severe frost, and stood covered with sere dry leaves in the gardens, some of them yet covered with fruit. The trees were not killed, however, as formerly, though they will produce no fruit this season, and new leaf-buds were beginning to sprout on their boughs. The dwarf-orange, a hardier tree, had escaped entirely, and its blossoms were beginning to open.
I visited Bonaventure, which I formerly described in one of my letters. It has lost the interest of utter solitude and desertion which it then had. A Gothic cottage has been built on the place, and the avenues of live-oaks have been surrounded with an inclosure, for the purpose of making a cemetery on the spot. Yet there they stand, as solemn as ever, lifting and stretching their long irregular branches overhead, hung with masses and festoons of gray moss. It almost seemed, when I looked up to them, as if the clouds had come nearer to the earth than is their wont, and formed themselves into the shadowy ribs of the vault above me. The drive to Bonaventure at this season of the year is very beautiful, though the roads are sandy; it is partly along an avenue of tall trees, and partly through the woods, where the dog-wood and azalea and thorn-trees are in blossom, and the ground is sprinkled with flowers. Here and there are dwellings beside the road. "They are unsafe the greater part of the year," said the gentleman who drove me out, and who spoke from professional knowledge, "a summer residence in them is sure to bring dangerous fevers." Savannah is a healthy city, but it is like Rome, imprisoned by malaria.
The city of Savannah, since I saw it six years ago, has enlarged considerably, and the additions made to it increase its beauty. The streets have been extended on the south side, on the same plan as those of the rest of the city, with small parks at short distances from each other, planted with trees; and the new houses are handsome and well-built. The communications opened with the interior by long lines of railway have, no doubt, been the principal occasion of this prosperity. These and the Savannah river send enormous quantities of cotton to the Savannah market. One should see, with the bodily eye, the multitude of bales of this commodity accumulating in the warehouses and elsewhere, in order to form an idea of the extent to which it is produced in the southern states—long trains of cars heaped with bales, steamer after steamer loaded high with bales coming down the rivers, acres of bales on the wharves, acres of bales at the railway stations—one should see all this, and then carry his thoughts to the millions of the civilized world who are clothed by this great staple of our country.
I came to this place by steamer to Charleston and then by railway. The line of the railway, one hundred and thirty-seven miles in length, passes through the most unproductive district of South Carolina. It is in fact nothing but a waste of forest, with here and there an open field, half a dozen glimpses of plantations, and about as many villages, none of which are considerable, and some of which consist of not more than half a dozen houses. Aiken, however, sixteen miles before you reach the Savannah river, has a pleasant aspect. It is situated on a comparatively high tract of country, sandy and barren, but healthy, and hither the planters resort in the hot months from their homes in the less salubrious districts. Pretty cottages stand dispersed among the oaks and pines, and immediately west of the place the country descends in pleasant undulations towards the valley of the Savannah.
The appearance of Augusta struck me very agreeably as I reached it, on a most delightful afternoon, which seemed to me more like June than March. I was delighted to see turf again, regular greensward of sweet grasses and clover, such as you see in May in the northern states, and do not meet on the coast in the southern states. The city lies on a broad rich plain on the Savannah river, with woody declivities to the north and west. I have seen several things here since my arrival which interested me much, and if I can command time I will speak of them in another letter.