eisure to admire our
jetty torch-bearers, who lounged round in a state of tattered undress,
highly picturesque,--the staring whites of their eyes, and glittering
ranges of dazzling teeth exhibited to perfection by the expression of
grinning amusement in their countenances, shining in the darkness almost
as brightly as the lights which they reflected. We had especially
requested that we might have a coach to ourselves, and had been assured
that there would be one for the use of our party. It appeared, however,
that the outside seat of this had been appropriated by some one, for our
coachman, who was traveling with us, was obliged to take a seat inside
with us; and though it then contained five grown persons and two
children, it seems that the coach was by no means considered full. The
horrors of that night's journey I shall not easily forget. The road lay
almost the whole way through swamps, and was frequently itself under
water. It was made of logs of wood (a corduroy road), and so dreadfully
rough and unequal, that the drawing a coach over it at all seemed
perfectly miraculous. I expected every moment that we must be overturned
into the marsh, through which we splashed, with hardly any intermission,
the whole night long. Their drivers in this part of the country deserve
infinite praise both for skill and care; but the road-makers, I think,
are beyond all praise for their noble confidence in what skill and care
can accomplish.

You will readily imagine how thankfully I saw the first whitening of
daylight in the sky. I do not know that any morning was ever more
welcome to me than that which found us still surrounded by the
pine-swamps of North Carolina, which, brightened by the morning sun, and
breathed through by the morning air, lost something of their dreary
desolateness to my senses....

Not long after daybreak we arrived at a place called Stantonsborough. I
do not know whether that is the name of the district, or what; for I saw
no village,--nothing but the one lonely house in the wood at which we
stopped. I should have mentioned that the unfortunate individual who
took our coachman's place outside, towards daybreak became so perished
with cold, that an exchange was effected between them, and thus the
privacy (if such it could be called) of our carriage was invaded, in
spite of the promise which we had received to the contrary. As I am
nursing my own baby, and have been compelled to travel all day and all
night, o