at the end of a few years, leaving the sleepy
population, among whom he has amassed them, floated still farther down
the tide of dwindling prosperity....

At a small place called Waynesborough, ... I asked for a glass of milk,
and they told me they had no such thing. Upon entering our new vehicle,
we found another stranger added to our party, to my unspeakable
annoyance. Complaint or remonstrance, I knew, however, would be of no
avail, and I therefore submitted in silence to what I could not help. At
a short distance beyond Waynesborough we were desired to alight, in
order to walk over a bridge, which was in so rotten a condition as to
render it very probable that it would give way under our weight. This
same bridge, whose appearance was indeed most perilous, is built at a
considerable height over a broad and rapid stream, called the Neuse, the
color of whose water we had an excellent opportunity of admiring through
the numerous holes in the plankage, over which we walked as lightly and
rapidly as we could, stopping afterwards to see our coach come at a
foot's pace after us. This may be called safe and pleasant traveling.
The ten miles which followed were over heavy sandy roads, and it was
near sunset when we reached the place where we were to take the
railroad. The train, however, had not arrived, and we sat still in the
coaches, there being neither town, village, nor even a road-side inn at
hand, where we might take shelter from the bitter blast which swept
through the pine-woods by which we were surrounded; and so we waited
patiently, the day gradually drooping, the evening air becoming colder,
and the howling wilderness around us more dismal every moment.

In the mean time the coaches were surrounded by a troop of gazing boors,
who had come from far and near to see the hot-water carriages come up
for only the third time into the midst of their savage solitude. A more
forlorn, fierce, poor, and wild-looking set of people, short of absolute
savages, I never saw. They wandered round and round us, with a stupid
kind of dismayed wonder. The men clothed in the coarsest manner, and the
women also, of whom there were not a few, with the grotesque addition of
pink and blue silk bonnets, with artificial flowers, and
imitation-blonde veils. Here the gentlemen of our party informed us that
they observed, for the first time, a custom prevalent in North Carolina,
of which I had myself frequently heard before--the women chewing
t