sibilities of the completion of the Southern Pacific route to San Diego, in California, as the surveys have shown her to be the nearest Eastern port on an air line from the Pacific terminus.*

The Atlantic and Gulf Railroad is another important feeder to Savannah. It is the main thoroughfare connecting Savannah with Florida, Southern and Southwestern Georgia, and Eastern Alabama, and extends to Bainbridge, on Flint River, 237 miles from Savannah. From Lawton to Live Oak runs a branch road connecting the Florida system with that of Georgia -at present the only Northern outlet for the dwellers in the flowery Peninsula. A road from Macon crosses the Atlantic and Gulf route fifty-six miles from Savannah, and gives Brunswick, which was at one time expected to be a great city, an important outlet by land. The Savannah and Charleston railroad, completely destroyed during the war, has been rebuilt, but is so poorly stocked that it is a penance to ride over it, although the lowland scenery through which it runs is among the most exquisite in the Atlantic States. The grand cane-brakes, unsubdued and seemingly impenetrable, extending on either side the track for miles; the stretch of lovely field, with the fawn and rabbit bounding across it; the odorous

Savannah would be, by shortest distance from San Diego, 2,070 miles; Charleston, 2,184; Norfolk, 2,331. The completion of a Southern Pacific railway will certainly add immensely to the commercial importance of Savannah.

CWLS

forest, with its stately avenues of pine; the little villages of the gatherers of naval stores; the mossy boughs, and tangled vines, the muddy-colored rivers, and the marshes filled with wildest masses of decaying vegetation-all add to the charm.

The numerous steamship lines from Savannah to Liverpool, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, carry away enormous quantities of cotton, and if the needed improvements at the mouth of the river were made, the commerce of the port would be very much increased. The entrance is considered one of the easiest on the Southern coast, the bar having a depth of nineteen feet of water upon it at mean low tide, and a rise of seven feet on the flood; but it is now necessary that the obstructions placed in the stream in war time be removed, and that extensive dredging be accomplished.

The total amount of upland cotton exported from Savannah in American vessels from July 1, 1865, to June 30th, 1872, was 704,373 bales, or 323,202,812 pounds, valued at $59,537,460: total amount of seaisland cotton exported in American vessels, 12,437 bales, valued at $2,062,576. In foreign vessels during the same period, 1,292,979 bales of upland cotton, valued at $124,562,590, and 21,899 bales of seaisland cotton, valued at $4,057,708, were exported. The coastwise trade was also very large, amounting to 1,539,560 bales of upland, and 40,574 bales of sea-island

cotton.

The value of both exports and imports since 1866 has been as follows:

and in 1873 they did not fall short of the amount in 1872. Savannah and Charleston are rivals in the cotton trade, and the newspapers of the two cities fight at every opportunity with an eager fierceness. Savannah is now receiving more than seven hundred thousand bales of cotton yearly. The crop of Georgia alone, I should say, is rather more than that in successful years; and, at the rate at which the production in the regions tributary to the Forest City is increasing, she will soon rank with New Orleans. There is an enormous disparity between the amount of exports and imports; most of the vessels which enter the port of Savannah are compelled to go there in ballast. If cotton were taken away from the town, there would be little vivacity left. The aim of the port is to control the cotton of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, and it is entered in the lists as a formidable competitor with Charleston for supremacy. flourishing cotton exchange, earnest merchants and manufacturers, and certain advantages of location, are doing much to place Savannah first among the Southern Atlantic cities.

A

There is a constant drain of emigration from the poorer districts of Georgia, as from Alabama, and, indeed, from most of the cotton states. Hundreds of poor whites, unable to make a living from the worn-out soil, under the new order of things, fly to Texas. Yet Georgia certainly does not grow weaker. Her material progress is in the highest degree encouraging. The valuation, in 1858, counting the slaves as capital, was over six hundred millions of dollars; the revolution decreased it to $148,122,525, on a gold basis, in 1866. The commonwealth had been racked literally to its center by the invasion and support of a merciless army. She was weighted down so heavily that recovery seemed impossible. Yet she grew in strength and prosperity year by year thenceforward. In 1872 she returned a valuation in gold of $213,160,808, a substantial increase in six years of nearly seventy-five millions in currency. In other words she increased her wealth by about the total gold value of all her lands-some thirty millions of

VOL. VIII.-26

acres.

This liberal increase was accomplished despite a decrease in the number of laborers, for although the aggregate population had increased since the war, there were only 114,999 laborers reported in 1871, while in 1866 there were 139,988. In 1872 the number had still further decreased, and it is estimated that in six years nearly thirty thousand laborers have been lost to the state.* But the improved methods of culture, and the use of powerful fertilizers, as well as the influence of an energetic spirit which perhaps distinguishes the Georgian above his neighbors of the other States, have enabled the lessened number of workers to do what few dared to predict as possible. It is estimated that in six years and a half the increase in the total value of the property of the state has been 44 per cent. It is to be regretted that the legislators of a com

THE PULASKI MONUMENT, SAVANNAH.

prospects by ominously talking of repudiation. Now that the majority of the plantations are in good condition; now that the farming implements destroyed in the war have been replaced; now that the quantity of live stock in all sections has been nearly doubled since 1867; and that the planters look confidently forward to the time when Georgia shall produce a million bales yearly,-in spite of all the drawbacks and failures of an imperfect and vexatious labor system,-it is hardly wise to threaten the state's credit with destruction, because of the irregularities which the government, inaugurated by reconstruction, brought into existence. With caution in future, and with some check upon the multitude of railway schemes which constantly arise, Georgia can lightly carry all the debt she has contracted, until she is ready to throw it off. Railroad building and speculation have always been passions dear to the Georgian heart; and within thirty years more than forty millions of dollars were invested in lines built in the State.

So feverish has become the railroad mania that there is a class who are in favor of an inhibition of State aid to works of internal improvement, and who would be glad to see a clause to that effect inserted in the constitution. It is expected that

in due time a convention will be called for the purpose of altering the constitution in many ways, as the Georgia conservative press and politicians are clamorous for one to take the place of "the instrument dignified with that name and forced upon the people by Federal intervention."

66

Autumn-time in Georgia, when harvest is nearly over, is brisk and redolent of inspiring gayety. In the last days of November the towns and cities are filled with the planters from hundreds of miles roundabout; money flows plentifully; at Savannah there are agricultural fairs, races, reviews of the fine military organizations which the city boasts, balls, and wassail. The halls of the Screven and the Pulaski, Savannah's two prime hotels, echo to the cheery laugh of the tall and handsome planter, as well as to the cough of the Northern invalid. On a bright day in December, when a stiff breeze is blowing through the odorous foliage, Savannah presents an aspect of gayety and vivacity which is hardly Southern in character. Elegant equipages dash along the hard white roads leading to the pretty river-side resort known as Thunderbolt," or the somber, mystical aisles of the "Bonaventure " cemetery. Where the Tatnalls once lived in regal splendor, Savannah now buries its dead. There are many fine monuments in the forest cemetery, but no marble can vie in beauty and grandeur with the mighty yet graceful live oaks which spread their arched boughs and superb foliage. From Bonaventure one may look out across the lowlands traversed by estuaries, along which steamers crawl on the inland route to Florida; or may stray into cool pineries; then returning, may find himself beneath sach lofty domes, or such broad and majestic aisles, whose pavements are of tesselated sun and shade, that he may start with surprise when, awaking from his day-dream, he discovers that he is not wandering in some giant cathedral. The inhabitants of Savannah have the delights of sea-bathing and sea air within a few miles of town at such pretty resorts as the "Thunderbolt,' the Isle of Hope, Beaulieu. Montgomery, and White Bluff.

From the steeple of the venerable Exchange one can get, here and there, glimpses of Savannah's especial curiosities. On Bull street he can see the Masonic Hall, where the ordinance of secession was passed in 1861; and, piercing the foliage, the tall

spire of the Independent Presbyterian Church, or St. John's, or the Ionic proportions of Christ Church, in the parish over which John Wesley was once rector; and may look down into parks where flashing fountains scatter their spray-jets upon lovely beds of flowers. Forsyth Park contains a massive fountain, around which, as in continental cities, troops of children and their nurses are always straying. In Monument Square rises a handsome shaft to the memory of Greene and Pulaski. Monument Square is one of the principal centers in Savannah, and around it are grouped the hotels and the State Bank edifice; the Bank itself exists no longer. The Pulaski monument, a beautiful marble shaft, surrounded by a figure of the Goddess of Liberty, ornaments still another square. Wandering up Bull, or Drayton, or along Broad streets, one sees shop, theater, public hall, market, luxurious private dwellings, many-balconied and cool, and fountain and monument; yet feels around him the tranquility and beauty of the southern forest. Each one of the thirty thousand inhabitants of Savannah should daily have a benediction in his or her heart for the planters of the colony, who gave Savannah such scope for gardens and parks, for fountains and shaded av

enues.

The municipal control of the town thus pleasantly situated is very nearly perfect. The police corps is a military organization, clothed in Confederate gray, subject to strict discipline, armed with rifles, revolvers and sabers, and occupying a handsome garrison barracks in a central location. It is one of the prides of the city, and Gen. Anderson, an ex-United States and Confederate officer, keeps it in perfect discipline. Only now and then, in the troublesome days or reconstruction, did it come into collision with the factions at election time. One policeman wanders over each ward every night.

There is but little violation of law, save in the brawls incidental to a seaport, and the larcenies arising from the freedman's undeveloped moral consciousness. The negroes no longer have any voice whatever in political matters, and are not represented in the city government. The registration law in the city, which was in force at the outset of reconstruction, has been abolished. There are only four hundred negro voters registered in the city. The banking capital of Savannah was decreased from twelve to three millions by the war, but the city owes comparatively little money, has a valuation of sixteen millions, and manages to do much business on small capital. Education in the city and in the thickly settled county of Chatham surrounding it is making far better progress than in the back country. In 1866 the Board of Education in Savannah was made a corporate body, and a most excellent system of schools for white children was inaugurated, to which have now been added

A COUPLE OF CRACKERS."

SIM