If we form our estimate of the condition of the South from considering the condition of its means of communication, we shall find it bad indeed. While I was there, some of its main lines of railway were running only one passenger train a-day. And, notwithstanding the infrequency of the trains, I observed in all the districts I passed through that there were very few passengers, and very little traffic. What ruin and desolation may be read in this single fact, when one remembers that a few years back the value of the raw produce exported from the Southern States amounted to between fifty and sixty million pounds a-year, and was greater than anything else of the kind in the world. What a vast amount of travelling must such a vast amount of business have given rise to! for not only was fifty or sixty million pounds’ worth of cotton, rice, sugar, turpentine, and tobacco to be sent out of the country, but there was also an equal value in food and manufactured goods to be brought in; for in the South they hardly grew or manufactured anything, except what they exported. Everything they consumed was imported. One cannot but contrast the stirring life which all this must have caused in every town, harbour, and railway, with their present deadness. The rails from Petersburg to Weldon are very much out of order, but one despairs of being able to convey in words an adequate idea of the state of disorder in which they are between the latter town and Wilmington. It was over this line, of 162 miles in length, that, during the war, the blockade-run goods and munitions of war were forwarded to Richmond and the front. At that time there were but small means for repairing or replacing worn-out rails. And as the trade of Wilmington is now dwindled to nothing, and this road is off the main line of communication with the South, there have as yet been no inducements or funds to set it right. The jolting on it is so great that the passengers are incessantly being thrown to a height of several inches from their seat; and that at last produces in some the effect which a gale at sea would have upon them. I believe that no English railway carriage with only four, or at most six wheels, could keep on such rails; but American carriages, having never less than eight wheels, have a much firmer hold. CHAPTER VIII. FIRST SIGHT OF A COTTON FIELD—SPANISH MOSS—A NIGHT ON THE RAILS—MANY KINDS OF SAMENESS IN AMERICA—MAIZE—ORDER OF SUCCESSION IN THE FOREST—ITS EXTENT—EVERGREENS IN THE SOUTHERN FOREST—POOR LAND IN THE SOUTH MAY BE MORE PROFITABLE THAN RICH LAND IN THE WEST—DEADNESS OF CHARLESTON—ITS HOTELS—A CHARLESTON SAM-WELLER—THE NAPLES OF THE UNITED STATES—FEW ENGLISH TRAVELLERS—SUFFERINGS OF SOUTHERN FAMILIES—WANT OF SCHOOLS—HOW THE DEFICIENCY IS BEING SUPPLIED—BLACKS SHOULD BE PUT ON SAME FOOTING AS WHITES—DIALOGUE WITH BLACK MEMBER OF CONVENTION—ANOTHER CONVENTION—ABLE BLACK MEMBER—SOUTH CAROLINA ORPHAN ASYLUM. [Sidenote: _First Sight of a Cotton Field._]