Savanna

“ Near, laughing women are grouped in the water, washing clothes and themselves. Soft green savannas open, sprinkled, like a park, with groves and monarch trees; under their shade cattle, have taken shelter from the ardent sun. ”

“ We went pretty nearly all over Savannah that afternoon and the next day. It's a beautiful city. There is a little public square at nearly every corner, and one of the wide streets has a double row of big trees running right down the middle of it, with grass under them, and, what seemed stranger yet, the trees were all in leaf, little children were playing on the grass, and the weather was warm and splendid. The gardens in front of the houses were full of roses and all sorts of flowers in blossom, and Rectus wanted to buy a straw hat and get his linen trousers out of his trunk. ”

“ There is a profound mournfulness too hovering around these silent, solitary avenues, where groups of sombre giant trees stand brooding and wrapped in their grey moss mantles, with drooping arms, and hoary heads bent low together, as though they were whispering mysteries, holding a solemn council, and pronouncing the eternal sentence on the dead below.
There is nothing prosaic or commonplace about Savannah; it is a perfectly idyllic city, primitive and simple in its ways, with no stir of frivolous worldly gaieties to rouse it from its sublime repose. ”

“ But with the lion's monarch tread,
Thou eomest to thy battle bed,
Savannah! oh, Savannah!
Thine arm of flesh is girded strong;
The blue veins swell beneath thy wrong;
To thee, the triple cords belong,
Of woe, and death, and shameless wrong,
And spirit vaunted long, too long!
Savannah! oh, Savannah!
No blood-stains spot thy forehead fair;
Only the martyrs' blood is there;
It gleams upon thy bosom bier,
It moves thy deep, deep soul to prayer,
And tunes a dirge for thy sad ear,
Savannah! oh, Savannah!
Thy clean white hand is opened wide
For weal or woe, thou Freedom Bride ”

“ These were, the great savannahs where herds of wild cattle and deer roamed, and where the Free Companions came to fill their larders. It was a wilder land than the Tidewater, for only once did we see a human dwelling. Far remote on the savannahs I could pick out twirls of smoke rising into the blue weather, the signs of Indian hunting fires. Shalah began now to look for landmarks, and to take bearings of a sort. Among the maze of creeks and shallow bays which opened on the land side it needed an Indian to pick out a track. ”

“ The savannahs bear a sort of thin coarse grass. The mould is also a coarser sand than that by the sea-side, and in some places it is clay. Here are a great many rocks in the large savannah we were in, which are five or six feet high, and round at top like a hay-cock, very remarkable; some red and some white. The woodland lies farther in still, where there were divers sorts of small trees, scarce any three feet in circumference, their bodies twelve or fourteen feet high, with a head of small knibs or boughs. ”

“ The city extends upon a level sandy plain, stretching back from the bluff shore along the river, has broad streets crossing at right angles, with small parks at the intersections, and many trees border the streets and fill the parks, so that it is fairly embowered in foliage, thus presenting an attractive and novel appearance. This adornment makes Savannah the most beautiful city of the coast—the oak, palmetto and magnolia, with the holly, orange, creeping ivy and clustering vines, setting the buildings in a framework of delicious green. ”

“ On the day when the earth opened its maternal breast and produced all the various trees and flowers of the earth, Savannah, with its red-brown water, was a river newly sprung from chaos, and rich with its essence, nor yet had had time to settle itself and clear its water, when the green plants of earth sprang forth in wild luxuriance ”

“ In Savannah he has taken refuge in a line constructed behind swamps and overflowed rice-fields, extending from a point on the Savannah River about three miles above the city, around by a branch of the Little Ogeechee, which stream is impassable from its salt-marshes and boggy swamps, crossed only by narrow causeways or common corduroy-roads.
There must be twenty-five thousand citizens, men, women, and children, in Savannah, that must also be fed, and how he is to feed them beyond a few days I cannot imagine. ”

“ He called the settlement Savannah from the Indian name of the river on which it stands.
The people of Charleston, South Carolina, were glad to have some English neighbors south of them that would help them fight the Spaniards of Florida, who hated the English, and wanted to drive them out. They gave the newcomers a hundred head of cattle, a drove of hogs, and twenty barrels of rice.
The emigrants set to work with a will, cutting down the forest trees, building houses, and planting gardens. There were no idlers to be seen at Savannah: even the children found something to do that was helpful. ”

“ Savannah is the most charming of cities, and reminds me of “the maiden in the greenwood.” It is, even more than Charleston, an assemblage of villas which have come together for company. In each quarter is a green market place surrounded with magnificent, lofty trees; and in the centre of each verdant market-place leaps up a living fountain, a spring of fresh water gushing forth, shining in the sun and keeping the green sward moist and cool. Savannah might be called the city of the gushing springs; there cannot be, in the whole world, a more beautiful city than Savannah! ”

“ The savannahs of Atures, covered with slender plants and grasses, are really meadows resembling those of Europe. They are never inundated by the rivers, and seem as if waiting to be ploughed by the hand of man. Notwithstanding their extent, these savannahs do not exhibit the monotony of our plains; they surround groups of rocks and blocks of granite piled on one another. ”

“ Savannah never had a habit of going across the seas for hotel names. It boasts of no Victoria, no Buckingham, no Imperial, but it has a Screven, named after a prominent Georgia family; a Pulaski, named for a military hero, and now a De Soto, in honor of the discoverer of the Mississippi river. Savannah is nothing if not patriotic. It has a Monterey square, a Forsyth park, and among its monuments are the noble columns erected to perpetuate the memory of three revolutionary heroes—Jasper, Green and Pulaski. ”

“ The houses of the savannah Indians are, as a rule, circular, about thirty feet in diameter, and they accommodate a large number of people and dogs. The walls are of mud, about four feet high, and the thatch slopes up sharply to a high pointed top, so that inside there is a sort of upper story, where provisions can be stored out of the way of the starving curs who abound in every village. ”

“ I have often heard the Indians speak of this strange creature, whom they imagine to be a species of malevolent genius, and about whom they recount the most fantastic and improbable stories; but I confess I was far from suspecting that the Queen of the Savannah and Doña Emilia de Saldibar were one and the same person. ”

“ Aiken, however, sixteen miles before you reach the Savannah river, has a pleasant aspect. It is situated on a comparatively high tract of country, sandy and barren, but healthy, and hither the planters resort in the hot months from their homes in the less salubrious districts. Pretty cottages stand dispersed among the oaks and pines, and immediately west of the place the country descends in pleasant undulations towards the valley of the Savannah. ”

“ Beautiful in itself, beautiful in its surroundings,{96} Savannah is an ideal city for a summer lounge, with its pleasant shady promenades and myriad miniature parks, thronged with people who are always well dressed but never loud in their attire; there is a quiet refinement and dignity about them which savours of old world conservatism.
A host of good fairies seem to have been hovering round at the birth of Savannah. In 1733 the city consisted of only a few tents pitched under the pine trees between what is now Bull and Whitaker Streets, now it is one of the most thriving cities of the South ”

“ The extent of the larger savannahs is very great, some of them exceeding twenty miles, and the horses that are allowed to range in them become so shy, that their owners only can approach them, and the animals are considered safe from depredators.
As we gradually emerged from the hard bosom of the mountains, we were struck with the simple beauty of this little garden of nature. The vale is triangular, its greatest breadth being about five miles; its whole extent is covered with a rich turf, intermingled by just sufficient cultivated land as to supply the inhabitants with grain. ”

“ There is no foreign or mill population to contend with, and no cheap sports throwing their coin. At the little roadhouses and inns on the way to town everything is well handled and we saw many little parties of two or three ladies together having supper without escort. Savannah is out and out the most attractive place we have yet seen.
Turned out one morning at 3 a.m. to twist Mascot around on beach for rudder repairs. These beaches, so-called, are not real beaches at all but huge mud banks covered several feet deep with oyster shells through which the brown clay mud oozes at every step. ”

“ I spent five years in Savannah, devoting my whole time to the colored people. Savannah claims 30,000 inhabitants, of whom about 15,000 are colored. Topeka has 16,000 inhabitants, 5,000 of whom are colored. Physical wants can be more easily supplied in Savannah than in Topeka. In nearly all of the South the bare necessities of life are more easily secured than at the North. ”

“ Taking our lives in our hands, a second escape was effected, and on December twenty-third, but two days after Sherman's occupancy of the [Pg 475] city, Savannah proved itself, indeed, a city of refuge. Union troops welcomed us with open arms, and we were soon despatched northward.
The traveler who visits Savannah to-day will view it under very different auspices. The white wings of peace have brooded over it for more than half a generation, loyalty has taken the place of treason in the hearts of her people, and prosperity is visible on her streets and wharves. ”

“ SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.
The city of Savannah, with its balmy air, its far famed Bonaventure Cemetery, its pretty parks, broad streets and many natural attractions (acknowledged to be one of the most attractive Southern cities) , was long avoided by many pleasure tourists, because it had no hotel worthy of a city claiming fifty thousand inhabitants and doing a business of over one hundred and thirty millions of dollars annually.
Savannah is the greatest cotton port in the world—New Orleans excepted. Savannah has deep water and good docks. ”

“ I left, with a feeling of regret, the agreeable society of Savannah. The steamboat took us to St. Mary's, through passages between the sea-islands and the main-land, similar to those by which we had arrived at Savannah. In the course of the day, we passed a channel in which we saw several huge alligators basking on the bank. The grim creatures slid slowly into the water at our approach. We passed St. Mary's in the night, and in the morning we were in the main ocean, approaching the St. John's, where we saw a row of pelicans standing, like creatures who had nothing to do, on the sand. ”

“ Its upper course is rapid, and the river carries a great deal of silt, which is deposited near its mouth in low islands and spits, dividing the river into narrow channels. The entrance is being extensively improved by means of jetties, and a 26-foot channel will be secured to the city of Savannah, 18 miles from the sea. ”

“ Savannah. A city and port of Georgia, U. S., on the right bank of the Savannah River, 18 miles from its mouth. The city is surrounded by marshes and islands, and was defended by Fort Pulaski and Fort Jackson. Savannah was founded in 1733, by the English general Oglethorpe. In 1776 a British fleet, attempting to take the town, was repulsed after a severe action; but it was taken in 1778, and held in 1779 against the combined French and American forces. In the war of Secession, after many unsuccessful attacks by sea, it was taken by Gen. Sherman in February, 1865. ”

“ The feathers of an Eagle are soft, and signify love; the Buffalo's skin is warm, and signifies protection; therefore, I hope the English will love and protect our little families."
Founding of Savannah.—Progress of the Colony.—Methodists.—Defenses against the Spaniards.
722tions were established, and on the twelfth of February1732 the little band of settlers came from Port Royal and landed at the site of the future city of Savannah. ”

“ What I want to say is, that Leroyd is aboard and that the brig will touch at Savannah for Mr. Pepper’s old clerk, Mr. Weeks, who is in the plot to find the Silver Swan, too. I shall leave her at Savannah if it is a possibility.
“If you get into Savannah while she is there, however, and I don’t appear, try to find some way of getting me out. I’m afraid of Leroyd—or, that is, I should be if he knew I was here.
“I’ve got enough to eat and drink to last me a long time and am comfortable. I can make another raid on the pantry, too, if I run short.
“Look out for Swivel; he’s a good fellow. ”

“ The house of the hunter-naturalist was placed at some distance from the river’s bank, its site chosen with an eye to the picturesque; and no lovelier landscape ever lay before the windows of a dwelling. From its front ones—or, better still, the verandah outside them—the eye commands a view alone limited by the power of vision: verdant savannas, mottled with copses of acacia and groves of palm, with here and there single trees of the latter standing solitary, their smooth stems and gracefully-curving fronds cut clear as cameos against the azure sky. ”