The greater part of one day--crossing New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the up-stretched head of little Delaware, Maryland--finally the Old Dominion and the real South. A day spent behind the glass of the car window--the brisk and busy Jersey towns, the Delaware easily crossed; Philadelphia, with her great outspreading of suburbs; Wilmington; a short cut through the basements of Baltimore; the afternoon light dying on the superb dome of the Washington Capitol--after that the Potomac. Then a few evening hours through Virginia, the southern accent growing more pronounced, the very air softer, the negroes more prevalent, the porter of our car continually more deferential, more polite. After that a few hours of oblivion, even in the clattering Pullman which, after the fashion of all these tremendously safe new steel cars, was a bit chilly and a bit noisy. In the morning a low and unkempt land, the railroad trestling its way over morass and swamp and bayou on long timber structures and many times threading sluggish yellow southern rivers by larger bridges. Between these a sandy mainland--thick forests of pine with increasing numbers of live-oaks holding soft moss aloft--at last the outskirts of a town. Other folk might gather their luggage together, the vision of a distant place with its white spires, the soft gray fog that tells of the proximity of the open sea blowing in upon them, held us at the window pane. A river showed itself in the distance to the one side of the train, with mast-heads dominating its shores; another, lined with factories stretched upon the other side. After these, the streets of the town, a trolley car stalled impatient to let our train pass--low streets and mean streets of an unmistakable negro quarter, the broad shed of a sizable railroad station showing at the right. "Charleston, sah," said the porter. Remember now that he had been a haughty creature in New York and Philadelphia, ebon dignity in Baltimore and in Washington. Now he was docility itself, a courtesy hardly to be measured by the mere expectation of gratuity. The first glimpse of Charleston a rough paved street--our hotel 'bus finding itself with almost dangerous celerity in front of trolley cars. That unimportant way led into another broad highway of the town and seemingly entitled to distinction. "Meeting street," said our driver. "And I can tell you that Charleston is right proud of it, sir," he added. Charleston has good cause to be proud of its main highway, with the lovely old houses along it rising out of blooming gardens, like fine ladies from their ball gowns; at its upper end the big open square and the adjacent Citadel--pouring out its gray-uniformed boys to drill just as their daddies and their grand-daddies drilled there before them--the charms of St. Michael's, and the never-to-be-forgotten Battery at the foot of the street.