Baltimore, but my first glimpse over the threshold of the South: into
the land of aristocracy and hospitality, of mules and mammies, of
plantations, porticos, and proud, flirtatious belles, of colonels,
cotton, chivalry, and colored cooking.

CHAPTER III

WHERE THE CLIMATES MEET

Here, where the climates meet,
That each may make the other's lack complete--

--SIDNEY LANIER.

Because Baltimore was built, like Rome, on seven hills, and because
trains run under it instead of through, the passing traveler sees but
little of the city, his view from the train window being restricted
first to a suburban district, then to a black tunnel, then to a glimpse
upward from the railway cut, in which the station stands. These facts, I
think, combine to leave upon his mind an impression which, if not
actually unfavorable, is at least negative; for certainly he has
obtained no just idea of the metropolis of Maryland.

Let it be declared at the outset, then, that Baltimore is not in any
sense to be regarded as a suburb of Washington. Indeed, considering the
two merely as cities situated side by side, and eliminating the highly
specialized features of Washington, Baltimore becomes, according to the
standards by which American cities are usually compared, the more
important city of the two, being greater both in population and in
commerce. In this aspect Baltimore may, perhaps, be pictured as the
commercial half of Washington. And while Washington, as capital of the
United States, has certain physical and cosmopolitan advantages, not
only over Baltimore, but over every other city on this continent, it
must not be forgotten that, upon the other hand, every other city has
one vast advantage over Washington, namely, a comparative freedom from
politicians. To be sure, Congress did once move over to Baltimore and
sit there for several weeks, but that was in 1776, when the British
approached the Delaware in the days before the pork barrel was invented.

As a city Baltimore has marked characteristics. Though south of Mason
and Dixon's Line, and though sometimes referred to as the "metropolis of
the South" (as is New Orleans also), it is in character neither a city
entirely northern nor entirely southern, but one which partakes of the
qualities of both; where, in the words of Sidney Lanier, "the climates
meet," and where northern and southern thought and custom meet, as well.
This has long been the case. Thus, although