Country Life in the South
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
Summary
“For Nature here
Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will
Her virgin fancies.”
Milton.“These views of the degradation of the Southern States receive a melancholy and impressive confirmation from the general aspect and condition of the country, viewed in contrast with its former prosperity. With natural advantages more bountiful than were ever dispensed by a kind Providence to any other people upon the face of the globe, there is, from the mountains to the sea coast, one unbroken scene of cheerless stagnation and premature decay.”
—Southern Review,vol. ii., p. 513.There was no end to the kind cautions given me against travelling through the Southern States; not only on account of my opinions on slavery, but because of the badness of the roads, and the poverty of the wayside accommodations. There was so much of this, that my companion and I held a consultation one day, in our room at Washington, spreading out the map, and surveying the vast extent of country we proposed to traverse before meeting my relatives at New Orleans. We found that neither was afraid; and afterwards that there was no cause for fear, except to persons who are annoyed by irregularity and the absence of comfort. The evil prognostications went on multiplying as we advanced: but we learned to consider them as mere voices on the mountain of our enterprise, which must not deter us from accomplishing it.
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- Retrospect of Western Travel , pp. 36 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1838