Atlantic States -- Description and travel; Kemble, Fanny, 1809-1893; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1783-1865
At about half-past three, we arrived at a place called
_Syracuse_!!!--where, stopping to change horses, my father observed that
here there were two different routes to our point of destination; and
desired our driver to take that which passes through Skaneateles, a very
beautiful village, situated on a lake so called. However, to this the
master of the inn, who was also, I believe, proprietor of the coach,
seemed to have some private objection; and while my father was yet
speaking, very coolly shut the coach door in his face, and desired the
driver to go on in the contrary direction. The insolence of the fellow
enraged my father extremely; and it was rather astonishing, that's the
fact: but the deuce is in't if, in a free country, a man may not choose
which way his own coach shall go, in spite of the folk who pay him for
the use of it. We had to pocket the affront; and, what was much more
disagreeable, to travel an ugly uninteresting road, instead of a
picturesque and pretty one. We had not proceeded many miles after this
occurrence, and were just recovering our equanimities, when the said
vehicle broke down. We were not overturned or hurt, only tilted a little
on one side. The driver, however, did not seem to think it safe to
proceed in this condition: the gentlemen got out, and searched the
hedges and thickets for a piece of oak sufficiently strong and stout to
repair, at least for the moment, the damage: we were not at the time
within reach of any house. At last, they procured what they wanted; and,
having propped up the carriage after the best fashion they could, we
proceeded at a foot pace to the next village. Here, while they were
putting our conveyance into something like better order, ---- and I
wandered away to a pretty bright water-course, which, like all water in
this country, was made to turn a mill. The coach being made sound once
more, we packed ourselves into it, and progressed. The evening was
perfectly sultry. I never shall forget, at a place where we stopped to
water the horses, a cart-full of wretched sheep and calves, who were, I
suppose, on their way to the slaughterhouse, but who, in the mean time,
seemed enduring the most horrible torture that creatures can suffer.
They were jammed into the cart so as to be utterly incapable of moving a
single limb; the pitiless sun shone fiercely upon their wretched heads,
and their poor eyes were full of dust and flies. I never saw so
miserable a spectacle of suffering. I looked at the brutal-looking man
that was driving them, and wondered whether he would go to hell, for
tormenting these helpless beasts in this fashion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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