On some of the boats negro fish-markets are conducted 504
The old Klein house 512
Citizens go at midday to the square 520
Hanging in the air above the middle of the stream 536
These small parks give Savannah the quality which differentiates it from all other American cities 556
The Thomas house, in Franklin Square 561
You will see them having tea, and dancing under the palm fronds of the cocoanut grove 576
Cocktail hour at The Breakers 581
Nowhere is the sand more like a deep warm dust of yellow gold 588
The couples on the platform were “ragging” 600
Harness held together by that especial Providence which watches over negro mending 613
It was a very jolly fair 616
The mysterious old Absinthe House, founded 1799 620
St. Anthony’s Garden 632
Courtyard of the old Orleans Hotel 641
The little lady who sits behind the desk 656
The lights are always lowered at Antoine’s when the spectacular Cafe Boulot Diabolique is served 664
Passing between the brilliantly illuminated buildings, the Mardi Gras parades are glorious sights for children from eight to eighty years of age 672
THE BORDERLAND
O magnet-South! O glistening,
perfumed South!
O quick mettle, rich blood,
impulse and love! good and evil!
O all dear
to me!
Walt Whitman.
AMERICAN ADVENTURES
CHAPTER I
ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES
On journeys through the States
we start,
... We willing learners
of all, teachers of all, lovers of all.
We dwell a while in every city and town ...
—Walt Whitman.
Had my companion and I never crossed the continent together, had we never gone “abroad at home,” I might have curbed my impatience at the beginning of our second voyage. But from the time we returned from our first journey, after having spent some months in trying, as some one put it, to “discover America,” I felt the gnawings of excited appetite. The vast sweep of the country continually suggested to me some great delectable repast: a banquet spread for a hundred million guests; and having discovered myself unable, in the time first allotted, to devour more than part of it—a strip across the table, as it were, stretching from New York on one side to San Francisco on the other—I have hungered impatiently for more. Indeed, to be quite honest, I should like to try to eat it all.