The atmosphere of this favoured place was supposed to impart knowledge and wisdom to all who breathed it, and the veriest ass was a Solon, and an umpire, if he could discourse fluently of the different localities, and various wonders, of _Augusty_. The farmers of the surrounding country paid a yearly visit to Augusta, and having sold their “_crap_” of the great Southern staple, and laid in their stock of winter necessaries, returned home with something of that holy satisfaction with which the pious Mohammedan turns his face homeward from Mecca. The first step upon arriving in the city was to lay aside their “_copperas-coloured_,” fabrics of the wife’s or daughter’s loom, and purchase a new suit of “_store_-clothes.” These were immediately donned, and upon returning home were carefully embalmed, nor again permitted to see the light until the next Sunday at “meetin’,” when the farmer, with head erect and ample shirt-collar, strutted up the aisle, the lion of the occasion, the “observed of all observers” till the next Sabbath, when his neighbour returning with _his_ new suit, plucked off his laurels and twined them green and blooming upon the crown of his own shilling beaver. These annual trips were _the event_ and _era_ of the year, and the farmer returned to his home big with importance and news. The dishonesty and shrewdness of “them Gimblit fellers,” (Cotton-Buyers,) the extortions of hotel-keepers, the singular failures of warehouse steelyards to make cotton-bales weigh as much in Augusta as at home, the elegant apparel of the city belles and beaux, and the sights and scenes which greeted their astonished gaze, formed the year’s staple of conversation and discussion; and it would be difficult to say who experienced the greater delight—the farmer in relating his wondrous adventures, or his wife and daughters in listening to them with open mouths, uplifted hands, and occasional breathless ejaculations of “Good Lord, look down!” “Oh! go away!” or, “Shut up!” “You don’t ses so!”