e the people on board. When we went
down the bank the boats were just pushing from the shore, with bags of
coal. They could not go directly to the ship, but rowed some distance
along shore to the north, and then falling into the ice drifted with it
back to the ship. When they reached her a rope was thrown to them, and
they made fast and the coal was raised. We watched them through a glass,
and saw a woman leaning over the side of the ship. The steamer left at
five o'clock that day.

"It was worth the trouble of a ride to 'Sconset to see the masses of
snow on the road. The road had been cleared for the coal-carts, and we
drove through a narrow path, cut in deep snow-banks far above our heads,
sometimes for the length of three or four sleighs. We could not, of
course, turn out for other sleighs, and there was much waiting on this
account. Then, too, the road was much gullied, and we rocked in the
sleigh as we would on shipboard, with the bounding over hillocks of snow
and ice.

"Now, all is changed: the roads are slushy, and the water stands in deep
pools all over the streets. There is a dense fog, very little wind, and
that from the east. The thermometer above thirty-six.

"[Mails arrived February 3, and our steamboat left February 5.]"

CHAPTER IV

1857

SOUTHERN TOUR

In 1857 Miss Mitchell made a tour in the South, having under her charge
the young daughter of a Western banker.

"March 2, 1857. I left Meadville this morning at six o'clock, in a
stage-coach for Erie. I had, early in life, a love for staging, but it
is fast dying out. Nine hours over a rough road are enough to root out
the most passionate love of that kind.

"Our stage was well filled, but in spite of the solid base we
occasionally found ourselves bumping up against the roof or falling
forward upon our opposite neighbors.

"Stage-coaches are, I believe, always the arena for political debate.
To-day we were all on one side, all Buchanan men, and yet all
anti-slavery. It seemed reasonable, as they said, that the South should
cease to push the slave question in regard to Kansas, now that it has
elected its President.

"When I took the stage out to Meadville on the 'mud-road,' it was filled
with Fremont men, and they seemed to me more able men, though they were
no younger and no more cultivated.

"March 5. I believe any one might travel from Maine to Georgia and be
perfectly ignorant of the route, and yet be well taken care of, mainly