One needs actually to pass over the face of the South in order to realize how much progress has been made in transportation facilities. That section has always been alive to the necessity of getting its crops to market, and Charleston has for a century been at work on communications with the interior; and the Pedee Canal, the first commercial canal in the United States, was constructed in 1795 to bring the crops to that port. The navigable reaches of the Southern rivers up to the "fall line" were early utilized for light-draught steamers, of which some still survive. Turnpike roads were also built into the interior of the state; and the railroad from Charleston to Hamburg--140 miles--completed in the thirties, was the longest continuous line of railroad then in existence. Down to the Civil War Charleston had an ambitious scheme for a direct line across the mountains to Cincinnati. The effort to keep transportation up to the times for various reasons was not successful; settlements were sparse, exports other than cotton scanty, distances great, free capital limited. In the last ten years the South has seen a wonderful advance in railroad transportation. States like Louisiana and Georgia are fairly gridironed with railroads, and new ones building all the time: indeed, in the "Delta" of Mississippi a railroad can live on local business if it has a belt of its own twelve miles wide. Nevertheless, the present railroad system in the South, comprising about 80,000 miles, has been mostly built since 1880. This system includes several lines from the Middle West to the seaboard, so that Baltimore, the James River ports, New Orleans, and Galveston are enriched by commerce passing through their ports to regions outside the Southern states. Nevertheless, as will be seen in the next chapter, this means that the great distributing centers in the Union are outside the limits of the South. The progress of the country is measured also by the great improvement in accommodation for travelers. The testimony is general that down to about 1885 there were, outside half a dozen cities, no really good hotels to be found in the South; now you may travel from end to end of the region and find clean, comfortable, and modern accommodations in almost every stopping place. The demands of the drummers are in part responsible for this gratifying state of things.