n Mobile, our friends there suggested Pascagoula, as a better place,
and, as it was more accessible than the former, we decided upon trying
the effect of the sea-breeze there. It was early in the season to
visit a watering-place, but we were not the less welcomed by the
proprietors of a delightful hotel, (which has since been burned down),
for, as it happened, they were old acquaintances of ours. This hotel
was a commodious, and cheerful looking establishment, with its large
dancing saloon attached, and had every convenience for the amusement
and comfort of the gay crowd that assembled there in the summer months
for pastime or health. It stood on an eminence, and commanded a
beautiful view of the bay. The large yard in front, which gradually
sloped down to the beach, was planted with evergreens and shrubbery,
presenting a gay contrast, which, with the flowered vines, so prettily
trained around the pillars of the long piazza, made it rurally
picturesque, and filled the air with odors of the sweetest kind. But
nothing was so sweet to me as the unadulterated sea air, which I
delighted to drink in, every breath of which seemed to send vigor into
my wasted and weakened frame. At first, I could walk but a little way
along the beach; but soon, by leaning on the arm of my husband, I could
walk half a mile out on the pier, and, sitting down in a chair
(provided for me), would remain there, with the rest of the party, for
hours, as deeply interested in fishing as ever that famous old angler,
Sir Izaak Walton, could have been. And if he had been as successful as
we were in hooking and pulling out the great variety of fish, large and
small--with an occasional monster of the deep, which caused us to open
our eyes in amazement--I am sure he could not have ruminated to his
heart's content, as he did, and made the world so much the wiser for
his having lived and angled in it.

Pascagoula, as it was then, was by far the most fascinating place
I had ever seen. Besides its natural beauties and advantages, (its
health-giving influences being, no doubt, the greatest to the invalid),
we had a pleasant little society of cultivated people, all bent on
pleasure and sport. Sometimes we would go rowing, and then sailing.
At other times we would course up the Pascagoula river--a beautiful
little stream, all studded with the gardens of cottagers. One of these
was an Italian, who, devoted to the land of his birth, had, as it were,
transpla