rowded, and were very comfortable. People who cannot get
accommodated at the white sulphur, remain here until they can, the
distance between those being only twenty-two miles.

The only springs which are fashionable are the white sulphur, and as
these springs are a feature in American society, I shall describe them
more particularly.

They are situated in a small valley, many hundred feet above the level
of the sea, and are of about fifteen or twenty acres in area, surrounded
by small hills, covered with foliage to their summits: at one end of the
Valley is the hotel, with the large dining-room for all the visitors.
Close to the hotel, but in another building, in the ballroom, and a
little below the hotel on the other side, is the spring itself; but
beautiful as is the whole scenery, the great charm of this watering
place is, the way in which those live who visit it. The rises of the
hills which surround the valley are covered with little cottages,
log-houses, and other picturesque buildings, sometimes in rows, and
ornamented with verandahs, without a second storey above; or kitchen
below. Some are very elegant and more commodious than the rest, having
been built by gentlemen who have the right given to them by the company
to whom the springs belong, of occupying themselves when there, but not
of preventing others from taking possession of them in their absence.
The dinners and other meals are, generally speaking, bad; not that there
is not a plentiful supply, but that it is so difficult to supply seven
hundred people sitting down in one room. In the morning, they all turn
out from their little burrows, meet in the public walks, and go down to
the spring before breakfast; during the forenoon, when it is too warm,
they remain at home; after dinner, they ride out or pay visits, and then
end the day, either at the ball-room or in little societies among one
another. There is no want of handsome equipages, many four in hand
(Virginny long tails) and every accommodation for these equipages. The
crowd is very great, and it is astonishing what inconvenience people
will submit to, rather than not be accommodated somehow or another.
Every cabin is like a rabbit burrow. In the one next to where I was
lodged, in a room about fourteen feet square, and partitioned off as
well as it could be, there slept a gentleman and his wife, his sister
and brother, and a female servant. I am not sure that the nigger was
not under the bed