The heat out of doors was so great that I felt little
tempted to stir out, but at two o'clock Mr. Magee drove me to a pretty place,
call Spring Hill, where Mr. Stein, a German merchant of the city, has his
country residence. The houses of Mobile merchants are scattered around the
rising ground in that vicinity; they look like marble at a distance, but a
nearer approach resolves them into painted wood.
Stone is almost unknown on all this seaboard region. The
worthy German was very hospitable, and I enjoyed a cool walk before dinner
under the shade of his grapes, which formed pleasant walks in his garden. The
Scuppernung grape, which grew in profusion — a native of North Carolina — has a
remarkable appearance. The stalk, which is smooth, and covered with a
close-grained gray bark, has not the character of a vine, but grows straight
and stiff like the branch of a tree, and is crowded with delicious grapes.
Cherokee plum and rose-trees, and magnificent magnolias, clustered round his
house, and beneath their shadow I listened to the worthy German comparing the
Fatherland to his adopted country, and now and then letting out the secret love
of his heart for the old place. He, like all of the better classes in the
South, has the utmost dread of universal suffrage, and would restrict the
franchise largely to-morrow if he could.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 226-7
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