Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1901 — A SOUTHERN TRIP. [ARTICLE]

A SOUTHERN TRIP.

No More Pleasant Trip Can Be Made Than to the South in the Winter. From the zero weather of the north to a land of sunshine and flowers in a few hours is the experience of one taking a trip to the south during this time of year. We left Rensselaer February 10th and saw the last of the heavy snow which covered the ground here at that time at Bedford. We arrived at Louisville in the evening and found a vast difference in the temperature, the weather being almost springlike m comparison to the zero weather which we left a few hours before. Leaving Louisville about 3 o’clock the next morning over the L. &N. railroad, daylight found us at gow Junction, Ky., where the first snow of the year was falling. Here we took the dummy line to the Mammoth Cave. The distance is eight miles and the fare $2 for the round trip. A trip to the Cave is well worth all it costs and a person could speud a few days there very profitably. - A visitor has the choice of two routes through the cave—the long and the short—the former at a cost of |3 for each person and the latter at a cost of $2 for the guide. In addition to these a trip can be taken over the dome route for an extra dollar. The long route is about 18 miles and the short route 8 miles. The trip over cue short route, which we,took, can be made in five hours or less. In order to keep our article within a limited space we can only touch briefly upon the many sights to be seen here. There is but one entrance to the cave. In the war of 1812 the goverment used the clay from the cave in making salt peter which it used in making gunpowder, and the timber used in the mining is still to be seen in the cave, as well preserved as the day in which work was stopped. Among the points of interest on the short route are the entrance, salt peter works, rotunda, large circle room, audibin avenue, olive’s bower, stalagmite formation, main cave or broadway, 40 feet high, 60 feet wide and four miles long; exit of corkscrew, church, Booth’s theatre, where Edwin Booth oncj delivered a recitation from Hamlet; gothic avenue, seat of the mummies, where two mummified Indians were found in 1817; post oak pillar, resembling an oak tree; stalagmite hall, catacombs, buffalo head, pillars of Hercules, Pompeii and Caesar; Washington’s hand, hornets nests, arm chair, drop curtain, elephant’s head, lovers’ leap, main cave, fat girl, hen and chickens, standing rocks, statute of Martha Washington, foi\>ed by the different angles of the cave; giant’s cpffin, 42 feet long, 20 wide and 19 deep, sanitarian, consisting of 20 stone houses, where consumptives livenin'lß42, but the treatment proving a failure, they were deserted; star chamber, day break, Dante’s gateway, wooden bowl room, steps of time, Richardson’s spring, lover’s retreat, the dome, bottomless pit, etc. A description of these various points would fill a book. The next night we stopped over at Nashville, Tenn., where may be seen one of the finest depots in the United States, recently erected by the L. & N.road.

Birmingham, Ala., in the heart of the iron and coal region, is probably the most lively city in the south, and is called the “Pittsburg of the South.” At Flomaton, where the L. & N. branches off to Pensacola and other points in Florida we were within a few hundred yards of the Florida line, and while the train stopped we ran over the line and set foot on Florida soil. After an all-day’s trip through desolate fine lands and gloomy swamps, and over large rivers we arrived in the evening at Mobile, Ala., one of the important seaports of the gulf coast and said to be the third oldest city of the United States. It is the largest city in the state and is a quaint old Spanish town, reminding one of the pictures he sees of Cairo or other cities of the far east. Its streets are very narrow and dirty and nearly every civilized and half civilized nation on earth iB represented on them. The ships of niany nations unload their cargoes at her wharfs and take away loads of cotton, lumber, turpentine and other products of this region. Out from the business portion are many palatial residences built after the old style of architecture peculiar to the south, with massive pillars and wide verandas extending around the house at each story. Beautiful lawns spread

out before them covered with roses and other flowers already in bloom and many kinds of semi-tropical trees .and plants. The streets in this district are bordered with live oak and magnolia trees, their spreading green branches presenting a delightful contrast to the northern tourists who have just left the region of ice and snow.

Leaving Mobile on Wednesday afternoon we passed through a chain of beautiful gulf coast resorts, viz: Scranton, Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Mississippi City, Gulfport, Long Beach Pass Christian and Bay St Louis, all in Mississippi. We also passed through Beauvoir, Miss., the late home of Jeff Davis, and where his widow still resides. These little resort cities are kept up by the residents of New Orleans and other large southern cities in the summer season and by northern tourists in the winter. The same evening we reached New Orleans, the Crescent City, and’ the Metropolis of the South. Here we found all bustle and push in prepara tion for Mardi Gras, the greatest festival of all of the year in the South. It is estimated that 40,000 strangers were in the city to witness the festivities, which took place Monday and Tuesday, February 18th and 19th. A description of the mardi gras would take up more space than we have to devote to it. However, it is a grand sight, and worth going many miles to see.

New Orleans is a strange city. It is wholly unlike any place we have in the North. They do everything differently from us. We heard an Orleanian say that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east and one can believe it in this city. The streets of the city are all in the form of a crescent and nobody, not even the natives, can tell in what direction they are going at any time. The water of the Mississippi river flows northward there and it is said that the river actually flows up hill from N. Of to the Gulf. The water is higher than the land and levees are necessary to keep it from overflowing everything. They bury their dead on top of the ground and bulla tombs over them Their cisterns, from which they get their supply of drinking water, are built up into the air instead of down in the ground, as with us. The people you meet on the street invariably turn to the left instead of -to the right and thus a Hoosier is always running into someone. The people of New Orleans and in fact the whole South are the most hospitable, courteous and accommodating to i e found anywhere, but those in business in the Crescent City know their opportunity. They imagine every northern visitor has lots of money and they ask fabulous prices for everything. Lodging especially is at a premium during' the Mardi Gras and some who arrive late and do not know where to go have to pay as high as $5 a night for a chair to sit in or $lO for a cot in so:ne hall way. The hotels are all jammed during Mardi Gras and the proprietors make the most of it.

It would be impossible, to give the reader much of an idea of the many points of interest visited in the great French-American city. We spenc two weeks in sight seeing and did not see it all, either. It is like a trip co another world to leave the zero weather of the snow bound North and step off the train a few days later into this city, lying here sunning itself in the lap of spring on the elbow of the j?reat yellow river. Long before reaching the place the beautiful roses and many other kinds of flowers are seen nodding a greeting from beside the railway and the traveler is carried right through the midst of a region of growing gardens that make the land scape %ok like May instead of February. The longer a person stays in New Orleans the longer he would like to stay. The nitv has numerous public parks and private lawns that are now covered with green grass, flowers, banana plants and semi tropical trees. A stranger can wander about 1 to his heart’s content, for'it is impossible to get lost, as all the streets open into Canal street, the main thoroughfare of the city, except the cross streets, and they all lead to the river. The electric cars all start from and return to Oanal street, and thus a person could not lose himself if he should try. A 160 mile trip up the Mississippi river to Bayon Sara was one of the pleasures of our trip. The trip took three days, but was well worth the time spent. Plantations are about all that are to be seen on a trip of this nature. Only two cities were passed —Donaldsonville and the state capital

—Baton Ronge. At each point we landed and made a short trip. The passengers on the boat were mostly northerners. We found a bride and groom from Indianapolis, a man and wife from New York, two couples from Michigan, and others from near by states. We left New Orleans on Monday evening of last week by the Queen & Crescent Route, and on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday forenoon we took in the sights of Chattanooga, Tenn., including a visit to Lookout Mountain and Chicamauga Park, where were fonght some ofthe most important battles of the civil war. After an all-day’s trip over the Cum berlain chiin of mountains we arrived in Cincinnati, where we realized that we were again in the frozen North. Thursday evening, nearly three weeks after our departure, we arrived home, well repaid for the time and ex pense incurred.