them in good condition. The dilapidation of the past is hardly seen, and one feels a fresher breeze of the present while driving through the busy, shaded streets. Grand old trees, singly or in groups, stud the surrounding landscape; fine old farm-houses (I was about to say "halls" and "manors") are visible in the distance; and a drive of two miles to the north brings you to the blue inlets and bays of Miles River, and the quiet, pastoral beauty of their shores. marking: "if they begin to feel care for their | a bright, clean, cheerful place, still keeping its future, they have already learned something." old-time mansions and gardens, but keeping This seemed to be a view of the matter which the gentleman had not considered. Similar opinions to his own were frequently suggested to us in a delicate way, but the tone was always regretful rather than bitter. Indeed, I should have been better satisfied if our hosts had not taken such evident pains to suppress any expression of what many of them must still feel in their hearts. I, at least, went to the Eastern Shore prepared to hear a frank discontent, possibly a little expressed hostility to the government, and to hear it patiently and tolerantly. When men can exchange the most conflicting views without irritation they are already half reconciled. In the one or two instances where I was able to approach the subject I was quite satisfied with the spirit in which my advances were met. It had long been dark when we reached the train, and of our night's travel I know nothing. We awoke at Middletown, and started early (leaving the main line at Clayton) for a trip down the Maryland and Delaware road, a branch some fifty miles in length, running southwestward through Carolina and Talbot counties to Oxford, at the mouth of the Choptank River. It is a fine, open country, easily improved, apparently healthy, and offering such inducements in the way of mild winters, cheap lands, and nearness to markets that the absence of immigration seemed to call for some special explanation. Why should Eastern and Northern farmers go to Iowa or Nebraska when such a region lies within twenty-four hours of Maine or Vermont? Until very recently immigration has been practically discouraged, not alone through the hostile sentiment of the old proprietors, but also through their reluctance to part with any portion of their large (and generally encumbered) estates. It has been held to be more "aristocratic" to possess a thousand heavily mortgaged than a hundred free acres. Large estates belong to "blood," which is still a word of great potency in the world. I don't know how many times during that day the birthplace of somebody's grandfather was pointed out to me. Utterly unknown names and genealogies were explained with a patience and an enthusiasm which presupposed the profoundest interest on my part. Where such a tendency is universal-at least among all men of middle age-it betrays a feeling which no argument will touch. It is so simple and candid, so natural, by reason of inheritance and education, that we had best let it alone, and trust to the slow influence of example. One man of fine character and true refinement, ignorant of his ancestors, will effect more by his life in such a region than all propagandists for the dignity of labor. A number of gentlemen joined our party for the further trip to Oxford, ten miles distant. The wheat and corn fields, the tall woods of pine and white oak, and the hollows grown with persimmon and sweet-gum soon flew past, and the great bay, six miles broad, opened before us, its capes and islands hiding the Chesapeake beyond. The train halted at the beach, where winds and waves invited to a bath; but those of us who plunged into the tepid tide were so sharply stung by sea-nettles that we came out again in no very comfortable plight. Turning toward Oxford, I first saw, as I supposed, a ruined abbey-walls, buttresses, and pointed windows of gray stone-on a knoll beside the water. But it was simply an unfinished church, commenced on too ambitious a scale, and now more picturesque in its ruin than it ever could have been if completed. Oxford, two hundred years old or more, has, I should guess, one inhabitant for each year of its age. It is a dream of another continent. Before one house there is a grape-vine a foot in diameter, brought from Guernsey, perhaps in Charles II.'s time; a large English walnut-tree grows on the beach, the Scotch thistle thrusts its yellow blossom through old garden palings, and the fig-tree has almost become a wild bush. Another plant grows there, of which the inhabitants unconsciously eat: in Oxford it is always afternoon. Why, the half hour we passed in loitering through its silent streets was equal to a night's sleep! I know not what heraldic phantoms hover over the place and soothe the life-long slumber of the inhabitants, but they must be pleasant, for the people are apparently as happy as they are indolent. To me Oxford was a surprise and a charm. I shall never think of the place but as a fortunate haven of escape from the stormy worry of our American life. Afterward, at another place, when a bright young lady said to me, "We are all poor nowwe have lost our labor," I answered, “But you have so many luxuries for nothing: the finest fish, crabs, and oysters at your door; canvasback, red-head, and other ducks in the season; fruit, wild as well as cultivated; sailing, bathing, and easy communication with the world." There is no farm in Talbot County, I am told, more than five miles from navigable water. The Easton, which we reached early in the fore- whole country is penetrated, like the coast of noon, is the largest town on the Eastern Shore, Norway, with broad, winding fiords of the Chesaactually containing 2000 inhabitants, although peake. The winters are just severe enough to all the others claim to have that number. It is fill the ice-houses-rarely below eighteen deVOL. XLIII.-No. 257.-45 grees-and the fig and pomegranate flourish in the open air. The climate is healthy, in spite of malarious rumors, for the large frames, fresh, color, and apparent vigor of the people are the best testimony. South, depends on the young men, of course, yet it is virtually in the hands of the women. If the latter could see that their views of gentility are rather those which the early settlers brought with them two centuries ago than those of even aristocratic Europe at the present day, they would not discourage necessary, honest, manly labor in the men. Their own time would' be spent in some beneficent form of activity, instead of vain lamentations for a vanished glory. They are quick, naturally intelligent, and possess many admirable instincts; and perhaps they are not aware of the power which they collectively possess in fixing the governing ideas of their own society. During the war they exercised their will to the utmost without needing the ballot; there could be no better evidence of the genuine, intrinsic influence which woman possesses over man. But when I think of noblesse, my thoughts involuntarily turn to a princess of an ancient line who broiled a beefsteak for me when I was hungry, and to a most accomplished and refined baroness who, in days of necessity, did the washing Our visit was too brief for more than a superficial acquaintance with the present feelings of the old residents. All of them protested to me that they had no prejudice against immigration, and some confessed that the large estates were now an evil. The large, irregular peninsula between Eastern and Choptank bays has long been divided into smaller farms, and has flourished in consequence; but near Easton there is still one estate which produces 30,000 bushels of wheat. Marl and muck are at hand for manuring, and the soil, which is only sandy in occasional belts, responds gratefully to every attention which it receives. From all I could observe or hear, I think it probable that the old prejudices-which were greatly dependent on the isolation, not only of the whole peninsula, but of its different districts—are beginning to yield. Some of the elderly gentlemen seemed to have been shut up in the palace of the Sleep-for herself and children. It is the very qualing Beauty for a hundred years, so strangely did their views of life hint of a remote past (as, for instance, the establishment by law of different costumes for different classes of society!); but many of the younger men have awakened to the fact that the world has changed, and their duties have changed with it. ity of a noble character that it can not be degraded by any necessary action. Manual labor, per se, is not agreeable: we all know that; but we might as well socially disqualify a family for having dyspepsia as for the labor that comes of duty. branch we took the main line to Dover, the capital of the State of Sauls-Delaware, I mean. Again carriages and untiring hosts, who carried us through the pretty, flourishing town, the incredible blackberry fields and peach orchards around, until we were well imbued with the capacities of the country. It was the nearest approach to a California orchard that I have seen on the Atlantic coast. At the charming home of Mr. H— we found the first well-kept turf, and a profusion of rare roses. The shore of Delaware Bay, a few miles distant, is low and marshy, unlike the bold, dry shores of the Chesapeake. In Dover there are already many Northern families, and the town is growing through the increase of their new and elegant homes. It was easier, we found, to arrive at Easton The Eastern Shore has these advantages over than to leave. We were tempted by the offer Virginia-that the soil has been only distour of a terrapin supper, a bridal reception, and aged, not exhausted; that the new order of more private hospitality than we were individthings is not new enough (for this part of Dela-uals to accept; but the schedule of our special ware has been practically free for fifty years) to train was laid in advance, and we were combe angrily resisted; and that its future prosper-pelled to adhere to it. Running back the ity depends on the markets of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. It is one of the most admirable fruit-growing regions in the world. Southern New Jersey, which lies opposite to it, has a much less favorable soil; the rich levels of Lombardy have not a more auspicious climate. The means of transportation by the Delaware Railroad are direct and rapid. Fruit delivered at Dover in the afternoon reaches New York by daylight next morning, in freight cars specially constructed for ventilation and smooth running. The four branches to the Chesapeake will soon demonstrate to the old Maryland families the profits of this special culture on small farms, will bind them by interest to the section with which they are geographically connected, and gradually reconcile them to the inevitable change in their fortunes. Transmitted ideas are always the most stubbornly held. Even if a community, after a while, discovers that it is nearly alone in holding them, that very circumstance is accepted as an honorable distinction. I heartily sympathize with an affectionate regard for the past, both of families and communities; but nothing can be more fatal than to set the standard of life behind instead of before us. The development of the Eastern Shore, like that of Virginia, and, I suspect, the entire Our own little company was increased very agreeably by two gentlemen of the place, who joined us for the remainder of the excursion. It was already sunset when we took the train and sped southward, our destination being Cambridge, at the extremity of the Dorchester and Delaware road, the last of the four western branches. Until it grew too dark to see them, there were peach orchards on either hand, part of that harvest of three and a quarter millions of baskets, which is the growers' esti mate for this season. The increase in the pro- | time-or even tide-seated at such a table? duction of berries, is even more remarkable. It was quite late when we reached Cambridge, and I had gone to bed before the train stopped, missing the chance-which fell upon the fortunate president of meeting some ladies of the place who had strolled to the station. In the morning my first view was of a sheet of sparkling blue water, the Choptank (originally Chop-tauk, which means "Blue Water"), the next of a spray of splendid acacia blossoms, golden, tipped with rosy mist, from a tree which Mr. Chad discovered in returning from his nettled bath. The town, across a bridged inlet, shone in the sunshine, and the rich foliage in which its houses were buried rocked in a breeze so pure and fresh that it seemed to recreate the world. This cheerful impression remained with us; it would be difficult to find a more delightful little place than Cambridge. As old as its Massachusetts namesake, it has not even yet reached the conventional 2000 inhabitants; but it has more good, and fewer mouldy, dilapidated houses than any ancient town we saw. I noticed four hotels, every one of which looked comfortable. Some of the houses must be more than two hundred years old, for they are built with bricks brought from England; and theirs is an honored and respectable, not a neglected, age. Deviled crabs, such as we enjoyed, are as soft as flowers for the old thief's foot to fall upon; and so he went unheeded, and the locomotive blew off its unnecessary steam, until we finally escaped with barely time for a clear track. The delay was doubly fortunate, for it enabled us to carry some of the Cambridge ladies with us as far as the junction at Seaford. Below this point, on the main line, the country changes in character. The soil grows sandy, the pine displaces the oak, and the farms have a shabby, impoverished air. A few miles below Seaford is Delmar, on the line (its name compounded of Del-aware and Mar-yland), and we presently reached Salisbury, at the junction of the Wicomico and Pocomoke branch, which runs eastward some thirty miles to Berlin, near the Atlantic. We seem, however, to have reached North Carolina. Swamps of pine and cypress, saw-mills, roads deep in sand, scanty cultivation, are the features here, as on the road from Weldon to Wilmington. We caught a hasty glimpse of the place while waiting for the Berlin train to give us the track, and then sped away through forests and swamps for the latter town. It was an agreeable surprise-the warm, cozy-looking little place, on the head waters of the Pocomoke. Dusty and old, though not with the venerable dignity of the towns on the Eastern Shore, it looked comfortable; and when our new and large and jolly friends proposed a drive to Sinepuxent Sound, with the prospect of a boat to carry us across to the At Our many hosts took us to see a place on the shore which was a very "home of ancient peace." The low house, with its gambrel roof, overlooked the water; its rooms were paneled to the ceiling, and the stately gentle-lantic beach, we hailed the good fortune which men and dames of a past century looked upon us from the walls. On the small but nobly timbered lawn grew the crape-myrtle of the South; and there was a giant apricot-tree, fifty feet high, and laden with bushels of ripening fruit it could not have been much less than a hundred and fifty years old. In the recordroom of the court-house we saw some of the ancient volumes, with documents dating as far back as the year 1665. Yet, in spite of these evidences of antiquity, I heard less of ancestors than in other places. I was told-and do not doubt the fact that the broad rivers, as the inlets of the Chesapeake are called, are positive lines of division, marking boundaries of character, relationship, social intercourse, hab-its broad border of marshy green, and a levelits, and manners. I must add, however, that we found no different degrees of cordiality in meeting the people of four sections. had delivered us into their hands. Six level miles through the woods and fields brought us to a neat farm-house, which becomes a hotel at will; and here a late supper was ordered, although the modest landlord protested that he was out of every thing but "chickens and sich." Beyond the house a natural green meadow stretched to the sound, which lay like a sheet of pearly glass, two or three miles in breadth, a sandy bar to the east dividing it from the open ocean. The sun was already low, the sloop was waiting, and we speedily pushed out into the beautiful solitude of water and sky. The farm tavern was the only dwelling in sight: north and south stretched the quiet sound, with topped forest behind. There was no boat visible except our own, and nothing to be seen on the sandy promontory, which stretches fifty The president had arranged to leave at elev-miles southward until it reaches Chincoteague en o'clock, and gave orders accordingly; but Inlet, except two or three wild ponies. we must first visit the beautiful, bold rivershore, gather mountain cherries (Prunus cerasus), and inspect an Indian "kitchen-midden" of oyster-shells; and so it came to pass that at eleven o'clock we found ourselves seated, with twenty more, at Mr. B's table, with deviled crabs and fried chickens before us. "Time was made for slaves" seems to be a truism on the Eastern Shore; but who could think of The beach, a quarter of a mile in breadth, rises but a few feet above the sea level. There are some sheds for bathers and excursionists, facing the Atlantic, which here, growing gray in the sunset, rolled in, and broke in long, heavy, lazy swells. It was too tempting; a look at the sand assured us that sea-nettles were unknown, and we presently met the great, lifting masses of water, and rode them as if they were tame elephants. Of all coast bathing this is the finest I ever saw. The sand, which is like velvet to the feet, has a gradual slope; there is no perceptible under-tow or side current; and the lazy force of the huge waves, which subside rather than break violently, allows the bather to rock and swing upon them with a new sense of luxury. The temperature of the sea was perfect, and nothing but the falling twilight called us back to the shore. W— and C, outside the swells, floated on their backs like contented nautili, and were hardly to be enticed to the strand, even by the prospect of "chickens and sich." on a foundation of oyster-shells, is the terminus of the road, one hundred and thirty-five miles south of Wilmington and eighty-five miles north of Norfolk. The three steamers left during our stay-one for the latter city, one for the Accomac shore, and one for Wilmington by sea. The small population lives by fishing and by opening oysters during the season. Last year's exportation of oysters, if I remember rightly, was about nine thousand tons. The water fairly swarms with fish and crabs, and the marshes around are a paradise for the sportsman. I can not recount all the prospects of future growth and trade which were explained to me here, as at the other points touched in our ex The "sich" being oysters and delicate fish, fresh from the water, we marveled at our land-cursion. My aim is to describe briefly what I lord's modesty. Often as the dishes needed saw, neither disparaging nor favoring any speto be replenished, fresh stores never failed, un- cial section of the peninsula. There is very littil, filled, refreshed, and satisfied to the very tle of it which does not offer a fair field for demarrow of our bones, we drove back through velopment. I found every where fewer marshes, the darkness to Berlin. The many delays oc- less sand, a more capable soil, and greater facilcasioned by hospitality obliged us to again cor-ities for improvement than previous reports had rect the failures in our programme by night led me to believe. travel. But, before going further, I must say a word about the outside land, known at this point as Sinepuxent Beach, but further south as Assateague Island. One can travel upon it, between ocean and sound, the whole distance to Chincoteague Inlet, finding a habitation about once in a dozen miles. Toward its southern extremity it becomes broader, and is somewhat populated. This is the breedingplace of a race of ponies, which run wild, feeding on the strong beach grass, except once a year, when they are herded, the colts branded with their owners' marks, and the mature animals sold. Those I saw were very handsome creatures, of a bright bay color, and about the size of a Mexican mustang. The Sinepuxent expands into the broader Chincoteague Sound, the haunt of sturdy fishermen, of unmixed English stock. The poorer classes of all this region are rough and ignorant, but very goodnatured and hospitable. Accomac and Northampton are the two counties of Virginia. The same peculiarity of deep inlets on the Chesapeake and sounds and sandy islands on the Atlantic side continues all the way down to Cape Charles. Cobb's Island, a few miles north of the cape, has a large hotel, and is a favorite resort of the people of Baltimore and Norfolk. Here the climate is mild enough for both cotton and rice. In a few more years the Peninsular Railroad will undoubtedly be pushed down to Cherrystone Inlet, within thirty-five miles of Norfolk. I went to bed on leaving Berlin, and slept soundly until awakened by the incessant noise of rolling barrels. We were upon the pier at Crisfield, and three steamers beside us were taking on their freight. My companions were, in addition, tormented by mosquitoes; so we all arose early and looked about us. The bay here is a part of Tangier Sound, divided by three large islands from the main body of the Chesapeake. Crisfield, which is a new place, built Around Crisfield the principal crop was sweetpotatoes. The land rises very slowly from the water level; but after we had passed through ten or twelve miles of pine, oak, and cypress forest, with an occasional holly-tree, we found beautiful fields and orchards, new dwellings, and a promise of prosperity, at Westover. Between this point and Salisbury there is Princess Anne, a small but dignified little place, where we ig norantly ran away from and seemed to slight, without intending it, a very graceful and generous welcome. The train was again behind its arranged time, with a regular passenger train chasing it; so, taking some of our Berlin friends on board at Salisbury, we hurried back into Delaware for our last branch excursion to Lewes and the Breakwater. But from the junction at Harrington to the ocean we were no longer tourists. The trip took on more and more of a social character. There were fresh guests at Milford, others at Georgetown. The train made a mile a minute. There was fishing on the pier, bathing in the surfless water inside of Cape Henlopen, a distant view of the costly breakwater and icebreaker, and a dinner prolonged over the returning miles. I will not chronicle further than to mention the cordial atmosphere in which men of the most different experiences and opinions harmonized on a common social ground; and there was no new feature of the region to be added to previous observations. We went northward, dropping some of our company at every principal station, until, beyond Clayton, reduced to our original four, we sat down to fresh pipes of reflection, and compared our impressions. I give you the bearing of my own, corrected by three compasses which but slightly varied. If this shall incline any liberal, clear-eyed, intelligent summer tourist to run down the Eastern Shore and see for himself, I feel sure he will come back well satisfied with his experience. HANNAH JANE. HANNAH JANE. BY PETROLEUM V. NASBY. 46 AT HER OLD HOME IN PIKETON PARSON AVERY MADE US ONE." ABEL MERRIWEATHER, REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE THIRTY-THIRD DISTRICT SHE isn't half so handsome as when, twenty years agone, Her fingers then were taper, and her skin was white as milk, The form of Aphrodite, with a pure Madonna face. She had but meagre schooling: her little notes to me Her |