National Republican., 1885-03-04

too, with their owners always smoking |
on the veranda in white suits and |
Panama hats, are conspicuous by their |
absence, and the only country houses we
see are long, low wooden structures
attached to immense two-story verandas
There Ia party Of school-boys on the
train going home for the all-important
Mardi Gras. There are five of them,
and at every stop the entire five file out.
They spend thoir whole timo getting out
or getting drinks Of water or going to the
smok ing-room and are not in their seats
ten consecutive minutes the whole way
down. They converse uninterruptedly
and impart much useful and more or less
reliable information. AZ we approach
our journeys end tho most skeptical are
infected with the enthusiasm with which
they dart from window to window assur-
ing us that from this point they never
fail to sec alligators Of the largest and
most ferocious description. The rest of
us fail to descry them, but are assured by
one Of tho boys that he saw one but ii
got away
BEFORE HE COULD CALL Us.
When we wake in the dim gray of the
early morning aud see the masts and
shipping of Mobile we see, too, that we
have left the snow behind us. Not far
from here we cross the bridge over an
arm OF Bay St. Louis, so long that 1t
seems as If II spanned the Atlantic ocean,
and find ourselves stopping, with the sun
steaming in 80 warmly that VIC change
our seats, in thicket of sugar cane.
The boys all hasten to get out aud cut
| themselves iishng-rods, which are Of no
earthly use to them, and arc very much
in overybody's way. The minutes that
We wait here seem hours to n break fast
less crowd, who can obtain nothing more
substantial than big, sweet bunohes of
| yellow jonquils thrust in the windows by
small black boys, except leathery-looking
| turnovets, which seem hardly the thing
| to begin tho day on.
All the way down from here the road
sides are mass of fresh. wet green.
| There are great, towering live.oaks, some
of them magnificent specimens. especially
Mt Biloxi, where each one spreads its
superb luxuriance Of shade all by itself,
as If 1T know II was q show, and was de-
| termined to make the most of 1t. Many
| of them are festooued with the dropping
gray moss, which, though | know it is
much admired, looks to me like dirty gray
cobwebe. There are whole thickets Of
| shining green myrtle and laurel, and
quantities Of spiky palmetto, growing in
obtrusirely from the ground, instead ol
setting up in conservatories as q rare
exotic. There are miles aud miles oi
solemn pine forests with thick carpet oi
spicy. slippery brown needles under theii
slim, close trunks, and along the edges
there are whole banks of the softest
deepest green moss.
We had Knocked at the young lady ir
the wide shade hat and tho open-n et
muslin dress, who is represented in the
railroad book in the act of picking
oranges from tho tree in the dead o
winter, as a mythical character. Blu
whom we steam slowly into the city an:
pass garden with treos thickly covereS
with the bright yellow fruit we feel W,
can believe anything, and reject will
scorn the suggestion that they are fas
tened on for spectacular effect. We see
with great approval, u street car drawn b.
mule, which imparts decidedly foreigl
flavor to the view; buy the Picayun
solely for its name, and feel that we ar
indeed in New Orleans.
ELSIE HATHAWAY.