Narrovj Esc(qie. 81 



i.lie monster steam ferries, with which I was, however, famiHar 

 from New York. Mrs. Corvin was quite in ecstasies about 

 them, and they are indeed very remarkable vessels. To the 

 right and left are extensive halls for an immense number of 

 passengers, with all the accommodations of a ship, only on a 

 larger scale, and between these passenger-halls is a free space 

 large enough for several omnibuses. The whole immense 

 structure is overtowered by an open kind of steeple, crowned 

 with an immense gilt eagle or Columbia, or Goddess of Liberty. 

 There is placed the conductor of the vessel at the wheel, his 

 elevated position permitting him to overlook the whole ferry 

 and everything before him. 



Louisville^ the capital of Kentucky, where we arrived in the 

 afternoon, is a lovely city. The streets are wide,* and before 

 the houses are neat gardens, most of which are laid out taste- 

 fully, and ornamented with all the vegetal luxury favoured by 

 a mild climate, permitting pomegranate trees to grow and bear 

 fruit in the open air. 



We left Louisville next morning at six o'clock. The rail- 

 road passes through a very fine and romantic country, some- 

 times up steep hil'.s, two locomotives dragging the train with 

 great difficulty. The tints of autumn made the woods appear 

 quite gorgeous, the sun heightening the orange and red to ut- 

 most brilliancy. To the right and left we saw whole fields 

 covered with tall blooming thistles, and between their fine red 

 flowers were sparkling others of a brilliant yellow. At other 

 places the ground-*was covered with white flowers so densely 

 that it seemed like snow. 



We had a narrow escape, for an hour after we had passed 

 one of the stations the rebels stopped the train which we had 

 met on our road, and burnt it. Nashville, the capital of the 

 State of Tennessee, very romantically situated on the deep 

 and swift Cumberland river, and a pleasant town, looked rather 

 dismal on our arrival, for it rained as hard as possible. The St. 

 Cloud Hotel was crammed wnih. officers, and we were the only 

 ladies in it. I had been there before, and was known by the 

 landlord, who managed to procure a room for us. The whole 

 hotel, which in time of peace might have been nice and com- 

 fortable, was in the utmost disorder, and disgustingly dirty. 



There was nothing that could detain us in Nashville, but it 

 was not so easv to leave it. Trains were going now and then 



