The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-28
"DE SUWANEE RIBBER. -
Sir Edwin Arnold BGhOldS the Famous
Old Stream

During His Trip From New York to
New Orleans, and It Reminds Him
of His Favorite Song and Inspires
Poetic Meditations Which Read Pret-
tily in Prose Printed in England.
Sir Edwin Arnold, in the London Telegraph.
Among the experiences of travel, few
are more striking than the manner in
which a locality will become interesting,
not by its historical or commercial or per-
sonal associations so much as by its men
ton in literature or song. A common ex-
ample of this is realized by everybody who
crosses the border into Scotland for the
first time. BY whichever road he enters
the Land Of Cakes" the tourist or Wis
itor finds himself journeying with Sir
Walter Scott as an ever-present and invis-
IDLE guide. Everything reminds him of
the Wizard of the North" and every
scene takes its character from the magic
pages of Sir Walter On one hand it will
be Lindisfarne and Tantallon, Berwick
and the Scotch marshes, interesting at
every stage because Of Lord Mar
mion and Constance and the border
ballads. On the other side, from
where ''the sun shines bright
on Carlisle wall" over Cannobie Lea,
where Young Lochinvar carried off his
bride, and across the Solway Firth to
| Melrose and Dryburgh, and so on right
away to the high lands and in their deep
! est recesses, it is all not so much Scot
| land as Scott's land-pessessed EN- bell
lished and made famous by that great
genius. It really seems as if imagina-
| ton and art can do more to render a
place memorable and attractive than even
the noisieSt historical occurrences. No
| doubt it makes the traveller look out of
the windows of this railway carriage or
diligence with some emotion when, say
in Italy, he crosses the little stream that
was the Rubicon; or hears from the con
ductor down in the hills of Umbria that
the rivulet under his feet flowing into the
lake is called Sanguinetto, the bloody
channel, . and instantly remembers that
this is where Roman and Carthaginian
blood mingled in such pr0fuSlOn that the
mountain brook took its name from that
red day of the battle of Thrasimene. But
it Stirs the artistic mind yet more to sit
on the hills near Eiesole. IN the spot
where the ladies and cavaliers of Boo
cacclO related to each other the stories of
the Decameron; or to see the stone bench
in Florence where Dante sat daily medi-
tating his Inferno - or in Verona, to re
call. at the tomb of the Capulets, the
| tender sorrows of Romeo and Juliet. To
take more familiar instance, and one
close at home, all the records Of the
temple-the beginning of the wars of the
White and Red Roses in its ancient
garden; the old Templar knights that
sleep within its church, and the long roll
of famous forensic worthless with which
its courts and its buildings are haunted
what are these to move the fancy and
touch the heart compared TO the tomb of
Goldsmith in a corner of that legal laby-
rinth, of the memories that cluster round
the bit of green foliage and bubbling
water in Fountain court, where Ruth
Pinch tapped her pretty foot on the gravel
while she listened to her lover!
These thoughts come to me. remember
ing something that happened in a long
Journey which took last year between
New York and New Orleans, going round
by the south. and following what is called
by enterprising railway advertisers there
the Sunset Route" Train travelling in
the states is wonderfully well organized
and fairly comfortable for long trips but
it cannot be said that the average scenery
of the great republic Is beautiful or inter-
esting There is an aspect about the gen
eral American landscape which can be
spindly: the wild growth of woods and
wastes is ragged. and even in some of
the prettier combinations hideous COllec-
tions of black and half-burned stumps de-
face the prospect and make the land seem
like a collection Of cemeteries in memory
of its bygone forests. When once you get
out of the large and well-built towns and
cities, the country regions are full Of
mean and ugly wooden houses made Of
weather board; and as you go farther
south these degenerate into ragged
farm houses, which paint upon
their roofs the names of
patent medicines in staring letters,
or negro shanties scarcely more human in
appearance than pig styes South Of
Washington there are certainly some
charming regions under the Blue Ridge
and among the woods Of Virginia, and
climate and scenery both alter a little for
the better when the train crosses into
North Carolina, and you run down by
Hendersham and Raleigh, Spartanburg,
Columbia and Augusta through South
Carolina. The eye, saddened by the alb
sence of furred and feathered life in the
desolate rural districts Of the north, sees
here with pleasure the buzzard and the
hawk lowering in the sky, the wild fowl
clustering upon the inlets and swamps.
and in the forest squirrels and chipmunks
playing about, with. perhaps, a deer or
two. The expresses and great white
sycamores are a welcome change from the
live oak ana maple and fir, and the negro
population, growing denser. lends an IN
teresting feature TO the prolonged journey
Farther south your train goes march
ing through Georgia. and you begin 10
feel the Influences Of a subtrOpical lati-
tude IN the vegetation and character Of
the common life. Types Of the southerner