Columbia.--Wright’s Hotel.--Variegated scenes.--Past and present.--A Sabbath city.--The penitentiary.--Sunday service.--A few last words.
We start for Columbia at half-past eight in the morning; it is dull and misty during the earlier part, but as the day deepens the weather clears, and by the time we are running through the great cotton belt of Georgia, a bright sun is shining, and we enjoy the pretty, peaceful scenery; which, however, has no especial feature till we reach the Great Stone Mountain, a vast mass of gray granite, standing bald and bare, rising far above the tops of the tallest trees, which are grouped round its base, like a company of dwarfs at the feet of a giant. It is visible for miles round--a huge, gray dome cut out of the blue skies. The stone quarry from the base of this mountain is used, and has been used for years past, in the building of public edifices and churches in the near-lying cities, without any visible diminution or disfiguration. Here and there is a deep dentation--as though you had scooped a spoonful from a mountain of ice cream, nothing more. When it first looms upon the sight, it looks like a huge globe rising out of the earth, smooth as a billiard ball, silhouetted against the bright blue skies.
It is nearly eleven o’clock at night when we reach Columbia; here hotel omnibuses, as usual, are in waiting. Into one of these we get; and the lumbering, creaky old vehicle leaps, and bumps, playing the game of pitch and toss with us, as it rattles over the rough, stony way, through a darkness black as Erebus. We peer out through the windows; there is nothing but darkness visible--no signs of a city. Presently, rows of trees, dark, spectral trees, seem to be marching past us--rustling their leaves, waving their thick branches, stretching their leafy arms on each side of us, as though they were trying to stop our way! Are we driving through a forest? we wonder.
There is only one other occupant of the omnibus--a tall, limp young man, who has flung himself in a heap at the farthest corner. We venture to inquire of him.
“We seem to be going a long way. Are we far from the city?” and he answers in a sort of dislocated voice,
“Well--we’re getting along;” which patent fact brings no information to our inquiring minds.