The railway, after crossing a mile or two of meadows, hugs the river all the way.The scenery is the reverse of bold.The hills are low, monotonous in form, and the stream winds through them, with many a pretty turn and "reach," with scarcely a ribbon of room to spare on either side.The river is shallow, rapid, stony, muddy, full of rocks, with an occasional little island covered with low bushes.The rock seems to be a clay formation, rotten and colored.As we approach Warm Springs the scenery becomes a little bolder, and we emerge into the open space about the Springs through a narrower defile, guarded by rocks that are really picturesque in color and splintered decay, one of them being known, of course, as the "Lover's Leap," a name common in every part of the modern or ancient world where there is a settlement near a precipice, with always the same legend attached to it.
There is a little village at Warm Springs, but the hotel--since burned and rebuilt--(which may be briefly described as a palatial shanty) stands by itself close to the river, which is here a deep, rapid, turbid stream.A bridge once connected it with the road on the opposite bank, but it was carried away three or four years ago, and its ragged butments stand as a monument of procrastination, while the stream is crossed by means of a flatboat and a cable.In front of the hotel, on the slight slope to the river, is a meager grove of locusts.The famous spring, close to-the stream, is marked only by a rough box of wood and an iron pipe, and the water, which has a temperature of about one hundred degrees, runs to a shabby bath-house below, in which is a pool for bathing.The bath is very agreeable, the tepid water being singularly soft and pleasant.It has a slightly sulphurous taste.Its good effects are much certified.The grounds, which might be very pretty with care, are ill-kept and slatternly, strewn with debris, as if everything was left to the easy-going nature of the servants.The main house is of brick, with verandas and galleries all round, and a colonnade of thirteen huge brick and stucco columns, in honor of the thirteen States,--a relic of post-Revolutionary times, when the house was the resort of Southern fashion and romance.These columns have stood through one fire, and perhaps the recent one, which swept away the rest of the structure.The house is extended in a long wooden edifice, with galleries and outside stairs, the whole front being nearly seven hundred feet long.In a rear building is a vast, barrack-like dining-room, with a noble ball-room above, for dancing is the important occupation of visitors.
The situation is very pretty, and the establishment has a picturesqueness of its own.Even the ugly little brick structure near the bath-house imposes upon one as Wade Hampton's cottage.No doubt we liked the place better than if it had been smart, and enjoyed the neglige condition, and the easy terms on which life is taken there.There was a sense of abundance in the sight of fowls tiptoeing about the verandas, and to meet a chicken in the parlor was a sort of guarantee that we should meet him later on in the dining-room.There was nothing incongruous in the presence of pigs, turkeys, and chickens on the grounds; they went along with the good-natured negro-service and the general hospitality; and we had a mental rest in the thought that all the gates would have been off the hinges, if there had been any gates.The guests were very well treated indeed, and were put under no sort of restraint by discipline.The long colonnade made an admirable promenade and lounging-place and point of observation.It was interesting to watch the groups under the locusts, to see the management of the ferry, the mounting and dismounting of the riding-parties, and to study the colors on the steep hill opposite, halfway up which was a neat cottage and flower-garden.The type of people was very pleasantly Southern.Colonels and politicians stand in groups and tell stories, which are followed by explosions of laughter; retire occasionally into the saloon, and come forth reminded of more stories, and all lift their hats elaborately and suspend the narratives when a lady goes past.A company of soldiers from Richmond had pitched its tents near the hotel, and in the evening the ball-room was enlivened with uniforms.Among the graceful dancers--and every one danced well, and with spirit was pointed out the young widow of a son of Andrew Johnson, whose pretty cottage overlooks the village.But the Professor, to whom this information was communicated, doubted whether here it was not a greater distinction to be the daughter of the owner of this region than to be connected with a President of the United States.