CHAP. XXII.] JOURNEY TO MONTGOMERY. 35 



These Northern settlers are compelled to pre 

 serve a discreet silence about such grievances when 

 in the society of Southern slave-owners, but are 

 open and eloquent in descanting upon them to a 

 stranger. They are struck with the difficulty ex 

 perienced in raising money here, by small shares, for 

 the building of mills. &quot; Why,&quot; say they, &quot; should 

 all our cotton make so long a journey to the North, 

 to be manufactured there, and come back to us at so 

 high a price ? It is because all spare cash is sunk 

 here in purchasing negroes. In order to get a 

 week s work done for you, you must buy a negro 

 out and out for life.&quot; 



From Columbus we travelled fifty-five miles west to 

 Chehaw, to join a railway, which was to carry us on to 

 Montgomery. The stage was drawn by six horses, 

 but as it was daylight we were not much shaken. 

 We passed through an undulating country, sometimes 

 on the tertiary sands covered with pines, sometimes 

 in swamps enlivened by the green palmetto and tall 

 magnolia, and occasionally crossing into the borders 

 of the granitic region, where there appeared imme 

 diately a mixture of oak, hiccory, and pine. There 

 was no grass growing under the pine trees, and the 

 surface of the ground was everywhere strewed with 

 yellow leaves, and the fallen needles of the fir trees. 

 The sound of the wind in the boughs of the long- 

 leaved pines always reminded me of the waves break 

 ing on a distant sea-shore, and it was agreeable to 

 hear it swelling gradually, and then dying away, as 

 the breeze rose and fell. Observing at Chehaw a 

 great many stumps of these firs in a new clearing, I 



c G 



