(among them Dr. Hughes, with his distressed face, and Diogenes, who looked daggers at me), set off in high glee.  The ride along the pleasant road was lovely; early birds sung sweetly; the dew, yet undisturbed, glistened everywhere, the morning breeze blew freshly in my face.  As the sun began to assert his power, I became eager to penetrate into the shady woods, and at last, spying a grand aisle in “Nature’s temple,” bade the driver enter it.  For a while the result was most enjoyable.  The spicy aroma of the pines, the brilliant vines climbing everywhere, the multitude of woodland blossoms blooming in such quantities and variety as I had never imagined, charmed my senses, and elevated my spirit.  Among these peaceful shades one might almost forget the horror and carnage which desolated the land.  The driver was versed in wood-craft, and called my attention to many beauties which would have otherwise escaped me.  But soon his whole attention was required to guide the restive mule through a labyrinth of stumps and ruts and horrible muddy holes, which he called “hog wallows;” my own endeavors were addressed to “holding on,” and devising means to ease the horrible joltings which racked me from head to foot.  After riding about two miles we came to a small clearing, and were informed that the road for ten miles was “tolerbal clar” and pretty thickly settled.  So after partaking of an early country dinner, also obtaining a small amount of eggs, chickens, etc., at exorbitant prices, we resumed our ride.  That expedition will never be forgotten by me.  At its close, I felt that my powers of diplomacy were quite equal to any emergency.  Oh, the sullen, sour-looking women that I sweetly smiled upon, and flattered into good humor, praising their homes, the cloth upon the loom, the truck-patch (often a mass of weeds), the tow-headed babies (whom I caressed and admired), never hinting at my object until the innocent victims offered of their own accord to “show me round.”  At the spring-house I praised the new country butter, which “looked so very good that I must have a pound or two,” and then skilfully leading the conversation to the subject of chickens and eggs, carelessly displaying a few crisp Confederate bills, I at least became the happy possessor of a few dozens of eggs and a chicken or two, at a price which only their destination reconciled me to.

At one house, approached by a road so tortuous and full of stumps that we were some time before reaching it, I distinctly heard a dreadful squawking among the fowls, but when we arrived at the gate, not one was to be seen, and the mistress declared she hadn’t a “one:  hadn’t saw a chicken for a coon’s age.”  Pleading excessive fatigue, I begged the privilege of resting within the cabin.  An apparently unwilling assent was given.  In I walked, and, occupying one of those splint chairs which so irresistibly invite one to commit a breach of good manners by “tipping back,” I sat in the door-way, comfortably swaying