Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) [Illustration: OUR HOST.] A FLIGHT IN SPRING IN THE CAR LUCANIA FROM NEW YORK TO THE PACIFIC COAST AND BACK DURING APRIL AND MAY, 1898, AS TOLD BY THE REV. J. HARRIS KNOWLES NEW YORK 1898 SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR FREDERICK HUMPHREYS, M.D. No. 750 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY J. HARRIS KNOWLES Dedication _TO THE LUCANIANS_: "THE KING AND THE QUEEN" "THE APOSTLE AND THE ANGEL" "THE FAIRY PRINCESS" "JUNO AND PSYCHE" "THE GYPSY QUEEN" "THE PRINCESS" "MINERVA AND JUPITER" "MERCURY," AND "THE SPANISH COUNT" THESE RANDOM JOTTINGS OF OUR HAPPY "FLIGHT IN SPRING," ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THEIR FRIEND "THE POPE" CONTENTS I PAGE The Circumstances of the Flight.--The Start.--The Car "Lucania."--The Kitchen.--The Cook.--The Poetic Dinner.--Our Accommodations.--Visitors at Newark.--Improvised Theatricals.--Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington.--The Approaching War Crisis 1 II On through the South.--Thomasville, Georgia.--Dr. Humphrey's Winter Home.--Southern Flowers.--The Old Plantation.--War Declared.--They Leave To-day 8 III Departure from Thomasville.--Pet Superstitions.--Montgomery, Alabama.--The Capitol.--The Public Fountain.--Montgomery to New Orleans 15 IV New Orleans.--Surviving Traces of Spanish and French Occupation. --Jackson Square.--Cathedral of St. Louis.--The Cemeteries.--Melancholy Perspectives.--Audubon Park.--Graves for Sale.--The French Market.-- Mobile and New Orleans as Seen Nearly Thirty Years Ago.--St. Charles Hotel.--A Dinner at Dr. Mercer's 19 V Impressions of New Orleans.--Its Harbor.--The Levee at Night.--Southern Texas.--Its Forests, Flowers, and Birds.--The Prairie Pool 25 VI San Antonio.--Work of Jesuit Missionaries.--Street Ramble.--The Old Cathedral.--Evenings in our Car.--A Mission Car.--The Tired Clergyman with his Renewal of Vigor.--The Alamo.--The Siege Sustained by Colonel Travis and his Men.--The Tragedy.--Hymn of the Alamo.--The Western Texas Military Academy 30 VII In Desolate Places.--Beauty Everywhere.--Railway Engineering.-- Analogy in the Conduct of Life.--El Paso.--The Sand Storm.--Human Grasshoppers.--The Placid Night.--Rev. Dr. Higgins.--Juarez.--Rev. M. Cabell Martin.--Strangeness of our Mexican Glimpse.--The Post-Office.--The Old Church.--The Padre's Perquisites.--The Prison.--El Paso Again.--Cavalry Going East for the War 47 VIII