p was the old town of
Abingdon, in southwest Virginia, on the Virginia and East Tennessee
railway; a town of ancient respectability, which gave birth to the
Johnstons and Floyds and other notable people; a town, that still
preserves the flavor of excellent tobacco and, something of the
easy-going habits of the days of slavery, and is a sort of educational
center, where the young ladies of the region add the final graces of
intellectual life in moral philosophy and the use of the globes to their
natural gifts. The mansion of the late and left Floyd is now a seminary,
and not far from it is the Stonewall Jackson Institute, in the midst
of a grove of splendid oaks, whose stately boles and wide-spreading
branches give a dignity to educational life. The distinction of the
region is its superb oak-trees. As it was vacation in these institutions
of learning, the travelers did not see any of the vines that
traditionally cling to the oak.

The Professor and the Friend of Humanity were about starting on a
journey, across country southward, through regions about which the
people of Abingdon could give little useful information. If the
travelers had known the capacities and resources of the country, they
would not have started without a supply train, or the establishment
of bases of provisions in advance. But, as the Professor remarked,
knowledge is something that one acquires when he has no use for it. The
horses were saddled; the riders were equipped with flannel shirts and
leather leggings; the saddle-bags were stuffed with clean linen, and
novels, and sonnets of Shakespeare, and other baggage, it would have
been well if they had been stuffed with hard-tack, for in real life meat
is more than raiment.

The hotel, in front of which there is cultivated so much of what the
Germans call sitzfleisch, is a fair type of the majority of Southern
hotels, and differs from the same class in the North in being left a
little more to run itself. The only information we obtained about it was
from its porter at the station, who replied to the question, "Is it
the best?" "We warrant you perfect satisfaction in every respect."
This seems to be only a formula of expression, for we found that
the statement was highly colored. It was left to our imagination to
conjecture how the big chambers of the old house, with their gaping
fireplaces, might have looked when furnished and filled with gay
company, and we got what satisfaction we could out of a b