As to the picturesqueness, charm, officeholding, and oratory, I found his judgments substantially correct, but though I did perceive a certain lack of energy in some small cities, I should not call that trait a leading one in the larger southern cities to-day.  On the contrary, I was impressed, in almost every large center that I visited, with the fact that, in the South more, perhaps, than in any other part of the country, a great awakening is in progress.  The dormant period of the South is past, and all manner of developments are everywhere in progress.  Nor do I know of any city which better exemplifies southern growth and progress than Atlanta.

My Baedeker, dated 1909, opens its description of Atlanta with the statement that the German consul there is Dr. E. Zoepffel.  I doubt it—­but let us pass over that.  It describes Atlanta as “a prosperous commercial and industrial city and an important railroad center, well situated, 1030-1175 feet above the sea, enjoying a healthy and bracing climate.”  That is true.  Atlanta is, if I mistake not, the highest important city east of Denver, and I believe her climate is in part responsible for her energy, as it is also for the fact that her vegetation is more like that of a northern than a southern city, elms and maples rather than magnolias, being the trees of the Atlanta streets.

Baedeker gave Atlanta about 90,000 inhabitants in 1909, but the census of 1910 jumped her up to more than 150,000, while the estimate of 1917 in the “World Almanac” credits her with about 180,000.  Moreover, in the almanac’s list of the largest cities of the earth, Atlanta comes twentieth from the top.  It is my duty, perhaps, to add that the list is arranged alphabetically—­which reminds me that some cynic has suggested that there may have been an alphabetical arrangement of names, also, in the celebrated list in which Abou Ben Adhem’s “name led all the rest.”  Nevertheless, it may be stated that, according to the almanac’s population figures, Atlanta is larger than the much more ancient city of Athens (I refer to Athens, Greece; not Athens, Georgia), as well as such considerable cities as Bari, Bochum, Graz, Kokand, and Omsk.  Atlanta is, in short, a city of about the size of Goteborg, and if she has not yet achieved the dimensions of Baku, Belem, Changsha, Tashkent, or West Ham, she is growing rapidly, and may some day surpass them all; yes, and even that thriving metropolis, Yekaterinoslav.

As to the “healthy and bracing climate,” I know that Atlanta is cool and lovely in the spring, and I am told that her prosperous families do not make it a practice to absent themselves from home during the summer, according to the custom of the corresponding class in many other cities, northern as well as southern.