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H. C. HORNADY, )
EDITOR #4 PROPRIETOR. f
IfOLTOHI.
Alode.
Inscribed h the Daughters of the South.
BY MART A. McCRIMMON.
I sit beneath the solemn pines,
And watch their shadows/where
Pale moonlight falls in ‘silver lines '
Upon tho summer air;
And listen to their ceaseless moan.
That sadly breathes ‘ Alone—alone ! ’
How like a humau voice it seenis
A sighing, low lament,
For blighted hopes and broken dreams,
And ties asunder rent;
A voice that seckt the Lethean shore,
And murmurs oft 4 No more —no more !’
No inure, no more t and can it be
Our hearts, like these sad pines,
Must ever breathe their minstrelsy
To memory, that entwines
About them, like the ivy grown
Upon a crumbling burial stone ?
Yes, never more life's golden hour#
Will come as once they came;
The voice of Spring, the breath of flowers,
Will be nomor© the same;
For nature ? s charms can ne’er impart
A balm to heal the wounded heart.
And oh ! this wicked war has torn
The light from every home,
And many a noble form been borne
To fill a distant tomb;
And some that high in hope remain
Will never more come back again.
From eyes of light and cheeks most fair
Sad tears unceasing flow ;
And scarce a heart that does not wear
Some badge of speechless woe;
For all that’s dear in life is o’er
When those we love return no more.
But if tho ‘ loved ones’ ne’er return,
Does there not yet remain
Some high and holy thoughts that burn
Upon the heart and brain—
Somo noble duties which demand
A willing mind and ready handl
In truth there does. Then, heart, be still;
Flow back, ye rising tears;
An J, with a heaven-aspiring will,
That laughs at doubts and fears,
Let’* struggle with a purpose true,
For that which duty bids us do.
And while a heart that may be blest
Is bowed with care and grief,
And while a weary soul seeks rest
Which wo might give relief,
We’ll hush our spirits’ useless moan
And weep no more ‘alone—alone!’
Our bleeding country calls us, too,
To lend a helping hand
To those who seek to drive the foe
From out our cherish’d iahd—
A fi>e whose dastard soul would wreak
It* vengeance on the fair and weak. .
Oh, Sisters ! let us heed that call,
Since tears will not avail.
Our life, our liberty, our all,
Hang trembling on the scale ;
And naught that we can do should be
Too great a price for liberty.
Then let us murve our hearts to bear
The storms that o’er them beat;
For ihough alone, we may, by prayer,
Our strongest foes defeat ;
For sweetest incense ’round God’s throne
Are prayers of those who weep alone.
Ml Mm her.
years have flown since she folded
her while hands upon her breast and quiet
ly tell asleep in Jesus. Long years have
passed since, onAhat bleak November Sab
bath, we laid her to rest beneath the tall
pine whose leaves, swept by the autumn
blast, suug a melancholy requiem over her
grave, Yes, time has passed rapidly by ;
and yet so vividly is her form, her every
gesture, word and look before me now, that
it seems but y esterday 1 saw her.
Sometimes, when the storms oflife sweepj
rudely over me; when my little barque \
it‘nw almost shattered, and poor weak hu- j
man nature, forgetting to look up, sinks
nearly exhausted under its load ; how my
aching brain sighs to pillow itself upon her
breast, and my throbbing heart longs for
her tender sympathy 1 At such times 1
feel as if 1 would give the world, were it
min#, to have h#r com# in #nd go out aa of
j old —to see her approving smile, and hear
j her words of love and comfort. But when
! I think of the turmoils of life, its unceasing
j rounds of care and toil and strife and sorrow
[ —when I remember how often her weary
■ head was bowed beneath its weight of woe,
how her loving heart was stricken with
grief at the trials that beset those she fond
iy loved, but could not aid ; when I think
how uncomplaingly her worn feet trod the
rough and thorny path of life —patiently,
calmly enduring the many sorrows and
tiials that ehequered her three-score years
of existence, I look up and bless God that
she is gone. Yes, with a full heart 1 thank
my Ileavely Father for II is goodness in
removing her ft pm this vale of tears. —
Sweetly, quietly, her ashes rest beneath the
green sod, while her glorified spirit makes
one of the number around the Throne, who
through much tribulation have entered into
the heavenly Canaan.
Who, oh! who would summon a freed
spirit back to this sorrow-stricken and sin
stained earth ? What pleasure would it
afford one to see our beloved land surround
ed by foes, and its once-smiling fields stain
ed with the blood of thousands of our name
and kindred ? Far better the mother to
be sleeping her last sleep, than living to
hear the death-cry of her loved.
4 Not lost, but gone before,’ is my own
dear mother; and God forbid I should ever
murmur at His will. Rather rnay I en
deavor so to live that when with me life’s
toilsome journey is over, and my weary
frame sinks back to its kindred dust, my
spirit may join hers in singing praises to
Him who loved us and w r ashed us in His
blood.
AUNT EDITH.
Life In the Country.
'Gad made the country; man, the town.'
Some sage politician has declared that
oould he have the w riting of the national
songs of a people, ho would ask no greater
engine of popular influence. The position
is a correot one, and it is not a little strange
to note the vast power there sometimes is
in a single lino or phrase, which, by being
often quoted, becomes familiar to the mind ;
how apt we are to receive a doctrine thus
insiduoualy, and perhaps thoughtlessly con
veyed, without once stopping to question
eiaher the sentiment itself or the authority
lying back of it.
The quotation above, for instance, is one
which is enstamped upon the minds of a
majority of our readers, though, perhaps,
not one in a hundred knows the author of
it, or the circumstance under which it had
its birth—oontent only to know that it has
a sort of indefinite meaning, the purport of
which is to invest with sacred dignity our
rural homes, and to subdue or restrict the
growing importance of the marts of trade.
Is the sentiment a true one? This is a
query which has rarely been put; but, to
our thinking, a very proper one. What
has God done for the country more than
for the town ? In what sense is one the
particular work of His hands more than the
other? Man may have done more for the!
town than the country, but the hand of the
Great Artificer is alike displayed in each.
It is all proper enough lor poets and senti-j
mentalists to go into rhapsodies about the j
charms of the country, and the sweet claims
of rural life. But do we ever stop to think
that these same ecstatic rhapsodies are like
our fireside warriors, who cannot bear the
smell even of villainous saltpetre, —or our
sage doctors who prescribe nauseous po-1
tions for others, but never indulge in the ■
luxury themselves ? These overdrawn pic
ture# of the country and country life are
1 got up’ with the narrow purlieus of some :
six-by-nine city attic, in whose straitened j
dimensions the breath of Heaven cannot
enter, except as it is filtered through the I
dust and poisonous vapors of an overpopu
lated city; and these very poetical writers
about 4 umbrageous forests, 4 sparkling
rill*,’ and 4 dewy meads,’ will be found
among the very last who would choote to j
live in the country.
The country has charms and advantages
which can be appreciated only by those
who have fully experienced them, and the
want of them. The advantages of the
country, however, are not of a poetical, but
of a very practical and substantial character
; —such as pure air, healthy diet, invigora
j ting exercise, quiet rest, absence of undue
iexcitement, modest expectations, a calm
"m BASHER oras" CS IS "1.0VH."
ATLANTA, QA„ JULY 19, 1862.
trust in the economy of nature, and a firm
reliance upon the God of the harvest. —
A life in the country should be the most
peaceful and satisfactory of any n earth;
and to that person whose tastes aftd habits
so incline, there oan be no safer or more
sensible investment than a ‘cot in the val
ley,’ with all the trappings of nature and
improvements of art.
But we oannot all live in the country. —
Theae must be towns, and people to inhabit
them. God dwells also in the cities, and
His hand is as manifest in the throbbing
pulse of commerce and manufactures, as in
the springing grass and the whitening
harvest.
Life in the country and life in the city
have each their charms and peculiar advan-.
tages, and he is the true man who is alive
to those charms and makes a proper use o>
thbse advantages. E.
TIIE HOLY LAND.
OT II ARKfKT MVRTINBAI'.
The Jordan and the Dead Sea.
This day (April 0) we were to visit the
Jordan and the Dead Sea. In the morning
about five o’clock, l ascended a steep mound
near our encampment, and saw a view as
different from that of the preceding day as
a change of lights could make it. The sun
had not risen ; but there was a tint of its
approach in a gush of pale light behind the
Moab mountains. The strip of woodland
in the middle of the plain looked black in
contrast with the brightening yellow' preci
pices of Quarantania on the west. South
ward, the Dead Sea stretched into the land,
gray and clear. Below me, our tents and
horses, and the moving figures of the Arabs,
enlivened the shadowy banks of the stream.
We were off soon after six, and were to
reach the banks of the Jordan in r l . out two
hours. Our way lay through the same sort
of forest land as we had encamped in. It
was very wild ; and almost the only tokens
of habitation that we met with, were about
Rihhah—by some supposed to be the exact
site of the ancient Jericho. This is now as
miserable a village as any in Palestine; its
inhabitant are as low in character as in
wealth. No stranger thinks of going near
it who is not w'ell armed and guarded.—
Yet there is no need to resort to any means
but honest and very moderate industry to
obtain a comfortable subsistence here —if
only honesty were eneouraged, and industry
protected by a good social state. The fine
fig trees that are scattered around, and the
abundant promise of the few crops that are
sown, show that the soil £fnd climate are not
to blame. At this place there is a square
tower, conspicuous from afar above the
trees, which some suppose to be the sole
remnant of the great city ; but it can hard
ly be ancient enough to have belonged to
the old Jericho.
On a hillock in the midst of the brush
wood, we saw a few birds of such a size
that one of the party, In a moment of for
gerfulness, cried out 1 Ostriches ! ’ There
are no ostriches iu this country ; but these
cranes looked very like them, while on their 1
feat. One by one they rose, stretching out
their long legs behind them—certainly the
largest birds 1 ever saw fly, or probably
shall ever see.
* Though we had been told, and had read,
that the river could not be seen till the trav
eller reached its very banks, we could notj
help looking for it. Three broad terraces:
have to be traversed ; and then it is sunk j
in a deep bed, where it rushes hidden among,
the woodland. Its depth of water varies j
much at different seasons; though less now I
than formerly. The Scriptures speak so{
much of the overflow of Jordan, and of the
lion coming up at the swelling of Jordan,
that it is supposed that formerly the river
wis subject to inundations which may have'
formed the three terraces above mentioned,!
snd caused the extraordinary fertility of the;
plain in old times; and that the wild beasts
which then harbored in the brakes, came up
to terrify the dwellers in the fields. How-j
ever this may have been, it is not so now. j
The channel is no doubt deepened; and the
river now, in the fullest season, only brims
over its banks into the brakes, so as to,
stand among the canes, and never reaches
the terraces.
Though we were all on the look out, and i
though we reached the river at the spot
which is cleared for the approach of the
Easter pilgrims, we could not see the water
till we could almost touch it. The first
notice to me of where it was, was from
some of the party dismounting on the Pil
grims’ beach. VV hen I came up— —’ O, how
j beautiful it was !—how much more beauti-
Ifui than all pictures and all descriptions had
led me to expect! The only drawback
was that the stream was turbid j not only
whitish, from a sulphurous admixture, but
muddy. But it swept nobly along, with a
strong and rapid current, and many eddies,
gushing through the thick woodland, and
flowing in among the tail reeds, now smiting
the white rocks of the opposite shore, and
now winding away out of sight behind the
poplars and acacias and tall reeds which
crowded its banks. It is not a broad river;
but it is full of majesty from its force and
loveliness. The vigorous, up-springing cha
racter of the wood along its margin struck
me much; and we saw it now in its vivid
spring green.
The pilgrims rush into the sacred river
in such numbers, and with so little precau
tion as to the strength of the current, that
no year passes without some loss of life :
and usually several perish. This year only
one was drowned. Whatever superstition
there* might have been among our company
it was not of this wild sort, and we bathed
in safety. The ladies went north and the
gentlemen south. I made a way through
the thicket with difficulty, till I found a lit
tle cove which the current did not enter,
and over which hung a sycamore, whose
lower branches were washed by the ripple
which the current sent in as it passed! On
these branches the bather might stand or
sit without touching the mud, which lay
soft and deep below. The limestone preci
pice and wooded promontory opposite made
the river particularly beautiful here ; and
sorry I was to leave it at last.
It is useless to attempt to make out where
the baptism of Jesus took place, or where
His disoiple* and John administered the
rite. And on the spot one has no pressing
wish to know. The whole of this river is
so sacred and so sweet, that it is enough to
have saluted it in any part of its course.
One thing more we did: we remembered
friends faraway, and carried away some
water for them, having provided tin cases
for the purpose. The Queen’s children are
baptized in Jordan water; and I brought
away a easeful for the baptism of the chil
dren of a friend who lives further away
from the Jordan than our Queen does. —
This business done, we were summoned to
horse, and rode away southward to the
Dead Sea.
The belt of woodland soon turned away
eastward, and we found ourselves exposed
to extreme heat, on a desolate plain crusted
with spit and cracked with drought. There
had been a closeness and murkiness in the
air, all the morning, which was very op
pressive ; and now it was, at our usual slow
pace, almost intolerable. I put my horse
to a fast canter, and orossed the plain as
quickly as possible, finding this pace a re
lief to my horse as well as myself. The
drift of the beach of the sea looked dreary
enough ; ridges of broken canes and willow
twigs washed up, and lying among the salt
and the little unwholesome swamps of the
shore; but - the waters looked bright and
clear, and so tempting that our horses put
their noses down repeatedly, always turn
ing away again in disgust. 1 tasted the
water—about two drops —and I almost sup
posed that I should never get the taste out
of my mouth again. And this is the water
poor Costigan’s coffee was made of!
Costigan was a young Irishman, whose
mind was possessed with the idea of ex
ploring the Dead Sea, and giving the world
the benefit of his discoveries. It would ■
have been a useful service, and he had zeal
and devotedness enough for it. But he
wanted either knowledge or prudence; and
he lost his life in the adventure, without
having left us any additional information
whatever. lie had a small boat carried
overland by camels; and in this he set
forth (in an open boat in the monih of July!)
with only one attendant, a Maltese servant.
They reached the southern end of the lake,
not without hardship and difficulty ; but the
fatal struggle was in getting back again.—
The wihd did not favor them, and once blew
such a squall that they had to lighten the
boat, when the servant stupidly threw over
board the only cask of fresh water that they
had. They were now compelled to row for
their lives, to reach the Jordan before they
perish with thirst; but the sun scorched
them from a cloudless sky, and the air was
like a furnace. When Costigan could row
no longer, his servant made some coffee
from the water of the lake, and then they
lay down in the boat to die. But the man
once more roused himself, and by many
efforts brought the boat to the head of the
lake. They lay helpless for a whole day
on the burning shore, unable to do more
than throw the salt water over each other
from time to time. The next morning the
servant crawled away in hopes of reaching
Rihhah, which he did w ith extreme diffi
culty. He sent Costigan’s horse down to
the shore, with a supply of water. He
was alive, and was carried to Jerusalem in
the coolness of the night. He was taken
car# of in the Latin convent there, but he
died in two days. Not -a note relating to
his enterprise was ever found, and during
his illness he never spoke on the subject. —
Any knowledge that he might have gained
has perished with him, and no reliable in
formation could be obtained from his ser
vant. Costigan’s grave is in the American
burying-ground, and there I saw the stone
which tells his melancholy story. He died
in 1855.
There appears to be no satisfactory evi
dence as to whether any fish are to be found
in the Dead Sea. Our guides said that
some small black fish have been there; but
others deny this. A dead fish has been
found on the shore near the spot where the
Jordan inters the lake, but this might have
{TERMS : Two Dollars per annum,
STRICTLY IN ADVANCE.
been cast up by the overflow of the river.
It is said that small birds do not fly over
this lake, on account of the deleterious na
ture of its atmosphere. About small birds
I cannot speak; but I saw two or three
vultures winging their way down it ob
livuely. The curious lights which hung
over the surface struck me as showing an
unusual state of the atmosphere —the pur
ple murky light resting on one part, and the
line of silvery refraction in another.—
Though the sky was clear after the morning
clouds had passed away, the sunshine ap
peared dim ; and the heat was very op
pressive. The gentlemen of the party who
stayed behind to bathe, on rejoining us at
lunch-time, declared that they had found
the common report of the buoyancy of the
water of this sea not at all exaggerated, and
that it was indeed an easy matter to float
in it, and very difficult to sink. They also
found their hair and skin powdered with
salt when dry. But they could not admit
the greasiness or stickiness which is said to
adhere to the skin after bathing in the \ cad
Sea. They were very positive about this;
and they certainly did observe the fact
very carefully. Yet I have seen, since my
return, a clergyman who bathed there, and
who declared to me that his skin was so
sticky for some days after, that he could
not get rid of it, even from his hands.—-
And the trustworthy Dr. Robinson, a late
traveller there, says : “ After coming out I
perceived nothing of the salt cryst upon the
body, of which so many speak. There was
a slight pricking sensation, especially where
the skin had been chafed; and a sort of
greasy feeling, as oil, upon the skin, which
lasted for several hours.” The contrast of
these testimonies, and the diversity which
exists among the analyses of the waters
which have been made by chemists, seem to
show that the quality of the water of the
Dead Sea varies. And it appears reasona
ble that it should ; for it must make a great
difference whether fresh waters have been
pouring into the basin of the lake, after the
winter rains, or a great evaporation has
been going on under the summer's sun.—
In following the margin of the sea, w e had
to cross a creek, where my skirt w’as splash
ed and which turned presently to a thin
crust of salt; and the moisture and sticki
ness were as great a week after wards as at
the moment.
We wound among salt marshes and
brakes, in and out on the desolate shore of
this sea—this sea, w hich is not the less
dead and dreary for being as clear and blue
as a fresh mountain tarn. As we ascended
the ranges of hills which lay between us
and the convent where we were to rest, the
Jordan valley opened northwards, and the
Dead Sea southwards, till the extent tra
versed by the eye was really vast. llow
beautiful must it have been once, when the
Jordan valley, whose verdue was now
shrunk into a black line amidst the sands,
wrs like an interminable garden ; and when
the cities of the plain stood bright and busy
where the Dead Sea. now lay blank and
grey ! As I took my last look baok, from
a great elevation, I thought that so mourn
ful a landscape, for one having real beauty,
I had never seen.
.....- ——■' ■■.■■■■ i—
n word Cotlon, w hich is adopted in all
the modern languages of Europe, is derived
from an Arab word. The origin of the use
of fabrics made from this article dates very
far back. In the time of Herodotus all the
Indians wore them; in the first centuries
before Christ there were manufactories of
cotton tissues in Egypt and Arabia, but the
Greeks and Romans do not appear to have
used them much. The Chinese did not
commence cultivating the cotton until after
the conquest of the Tartars in the thir
teenth century, and at the same period cot
ton tissues formed an important article of
commerce in the Crimea and Southern Rus
sia, whither they were brought from Turk
istan. From the tenth century the Arabs
had naturalized the cotton plant in Spain;
and in the fourteenth, the eottonades of
Granada surpassed in reputation those of
the East. The manufacture of cotton good*
in Italy dates as far back as the beginning
of the fourteenth century, the first estab
lishments being at Milan and Venice. It i*
■ presumed that there were at that period
manufactories for cotton goods in England,
as Deland, who lived in the time of Henry
VIII, speaks of some being at Bolton on
the Moor, and an act of Parliament of 1552,
under Edward VI, mentions the cotton tis
sues of Manchester, Lancashire and Che
shire. The cotton manufacture did not
acquire any importance in 1* ranee until
1787, when the French government estab
lished spinning machines at Rouen ; but it
was not, however, until under the empire
that, thanks to the efforts of Richard Le
noir, this branch of industry became flour
ishing. ‘
The law should be to the sword what the
handle is to the hatchet: it should direct
the stroke and temper the force.
There is no one else who has the power
to be so much your friend, or so much your
enemy, yourself.
If you must find fault, do it in private if
po-a Me, aid some time a r ter the offence
rather than at tha time.
NUMBER 3.5
