“Don’t know--but Peter Green he died last week.”
The connection between the deceased Peter Green and my acquaintance, Mr. ----, I have yet to learn. Another time we ask--
“Which is the car for Thunderbolt?” and are promptly answered,
“That red un is startin’ right away for Laurel Grove.” I inquire the way to the railway station, and am directed to the river side. I ask about the morning train, and am answered with detailed information about the evening express. However, on sternly reiterating my question, and emphasising the note of interrogation, I sometimes succeeded in at last receiving the desired information.
No one should leave Savannah without visiting the ancient cemetery of Buonaventura, the former residence of a fine old family, which passed from their hands many years ago, and after undergoing many changes has been at last converted into a cemetery. On entering the noble avenue, and passing beneath the arching glories of the grand old oaks, with their long weird robes of Spanish moss, it is difficult to believe that we are entering a city of the dead, by whom indeed it is very sparsely populated, the graves are so few and far between; one can almost fancy that the dead had wandered thither, and moved by the sublime repose of the place had lain down to rest, while nature wrapped them round about with her soft mantle of green, and showered her sweet-scented wild flowers above them. There is a profound mournfulness too hovering around these silent, solitary avenues, where groups of sombre giant trees stand brooding and wrapped in their grey moss mantles, with drooping arms, and hoary heads bent low together, as though they were whispering mysteries, holding a solemn council, and pronouncing the eternal sentence on the dead below.
There is nothing prosaic or commonplace about Savannah; it is a perfectly idyllic city, primitive and simple in its ways, with no stir of frivolous worldly gaieties to rouse it from its sublime repose. No sound of drums and trumpets runs echoing through its streets; the only music is that which the wind makes as it whistles in many monotones through the tall tree tops, and calls soft melodies from the tremulous leaves, as the ancient god Pan made music by the reedy waterside. It is not grey with age, nor marred and scarred by the hand of time; it seems to luxuriate in eternal youth, and live a dreamy life of unaltered poetry and sunshine. Even that most prosaic of all institutions, the police station, is in perfect unison with the rest of this Arcadian city; it seems to have nothing to do but drone away its hours in one ceaseless _dolce far niente_, as though the ugly serpent sin crawled low down out of sight--perhaps stirring the hearts, but rarely inciting the acts of the people. There seems to be a great scarcity even of small sinners. It is a low, clean, brick building in a cool shady part of the city; covered with climbing plants and held close in the embrace of an ancient vine, which twines in and out of every nook and cranny as though it could never be torn away but with the life of the building.