Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/351

 and clear. A grave, elderly gentleman, in whose company I contemplated the starry heavens on the upper deck, told me that later on in the summer the southern cross might be perceived on the horizon, as well as the uppermost star in the ship Argo. Thus you see that new lights and new constellations now rise above my head! I bid them welcome!

In the deep twilight came a boat rowing up to the steamer. Several blacks and one white man were in the boat. The white man came on board after taking a friendly leave of the blacks, a voice from among whom cried after him,—“Don't forget yourself long away, massa!” “No! no!” cried massa back to them.

At about half past eleven we reached Savannah. I accompanied Miss P., her sister, and a young agreeable physician, to the largest hotel in the city, the Palasky House: so called from the Polish hero of that name, who fought and fell in the American War of Independence, and whose monument, a handsome, white marble obelisk, stands upon a green spot of ground before the hotel, surrounded by splendid trees.

At seven o'clock the next morning I was in a railway carriage on my way to Maçon, a long and very wearisome day's journey, especially in the great heat, and with the smoke and steam which filled the carriages. The road lay through a barren, sandy extent of country, overgrown with pine-forest, and almost entirely without human habitations, excepting on the railway stations, where small colonies began to form themselves, trades were followed, and the meagre soil cultivated. At a few of these I alighted, and botanised in the wood, where I found several yellow orchises.

The amusement of the journey was in the carriage in which I sate, from a fat, jolly-looking gentleman, in a cap and grey coat, in person not unlike a mealsack, upon which the head was set, round and moveable as a top, and