Next morn we wakened with the shout Of merry voices high and clear; And saw the teamsters drawing near To break the drifted highways out. Down the long hillside treading slow We saw the half-buried oxen go, Shaking the snow from heads uptost, Their straining nostrils white with frost. Before our door the straggling train Drew up, an added team to gain. The elders threshed their hand a-cold, Passed, with the cider mug, their jokes From lip to lip. _Traveling and Taverns_ Traveling in ye olden time was by stage going at the rate of ten miles an hour, always stopping at taverns for meals and giving passengers an opportunity to visit the bar to imbibe Holland gin and sugar-house molasses, a popular morning beverage. When the Revolution came most of these vehicles ceased to ply between the distant cities; horseback traveling was resumed, and a journey of any length became a matter of grave consideration. On the day of departure the friends of the traveler gathered at the inn, took a solemn leave of him, drank his health in bumpers of punch, and wished him God-speed on his way. It was no uncommon thing for one who went on business or pleasure from Charleston to Boston or New York to consult the almanac before setting out and to make his will. A traveler was a marked man, and his arrival at an ordinary was the signal for the gathering of all who could crowd in to hear his adventures and also the news. Colonel Byrd was a typical cavalier, and in writing of his visit to Germanna shows an appreciation of the good things of life, with a hearty good will toward his neighbor and especially his neighbor's wife, and a zest for all good things to eat and drink. In his trips he smacks his lips over the fat things that fall in his way. Now it is a prime rasher of bacon, fricasseed in rum; now a capacious bowl of bombo. He tells how he commended his family to the Almighty, fortified himself with a beefsteak, and kissed his landlady for good luck, before setting out on his travels. The liquor traffic added to the discomforts of travel by water. At New York until the rude steamboats of Fulton made their appearance on the ferry, the only means of transportation for man and beast were clumsy row-boats, flat bottomed, square ended scows with sprit-sails, and two masted boats called periaguas. In one of these, if the day were fine, if the tide were slack, if the waterman were sober, and if the boat did not put back several times to take in belated passengers who were seen running down the hill, the crossing might be made with some degree of speed and comfort and a landing effected at the foot of the steps at the pier which, much enlarged, still forms part of the Brooklyn slip of the Fulton Ferry.