The
discomfort lies chiefly in the hearts of those four black men
yonder--and in mine.
We rumble south in quite a business-like way. The bare red
clay and pines of Northern Georgia begin to disappear, and in
their place appears a rich rolling land, luxuriant, and here and
there well tilled. This is the land of the Creek Indians; and a
hard time the Georgians had to seize it. The towns grow more
frequent and more interesting, and brand-new cotton mills
rise on every side. Below Macon the world grows darker; for
now we approach the Black Belt,--that strange land of
shadows, at which even slaves paled in the past, and whence
come now only faint and half-intelligible murmurs to the
world beyond. The "Jim Crow Car" grows larger and a
shade better; three rough field-hands and two or three white
loafers accompany us, and the newsboy still spreads his
wares at one end. The sun is setting, but we can see the great
cotton country as we enter it,--the soil now dark and fertile,
now thin and gray, with fruit-trees and dilapidated buildings,
--all the way to Albany.
At Albany, in the heart of the Black Belt, we stop.
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