from sensuous Pompeii; and then we came away, thinking that Elizabeth City might, indeed, once more awake to proud and prosperous days. But, said the thought, it will take more than a generation for the revival, and the people of the old glory shall not be those of the new. The wealth that was based on slavery was a bubble, and the pride that went with it was a poison for the very earth. God's hand is heavy when the scales come to be balanced. Expiation and atonement are always bitter, however they may be sweetened by the spirit of renunciation.
We intended to return to Norfolk by the Chesapeake & Albemarle Canal, the flourishing waterway, crowded with ships, which ought to be only a young rival of the Dismal Swamp Canal, for the latter had all the natural advantages, and also controlled the field.
But the Chesapeake & Albemarle Company had an inferior route, plus intelligence, and the consequence is that it is crowded with commerce, while the Dismal Swamp Canal is traversed by one poor little steamer, the Thomas Newton that looks like the working model of Fulton's first steamship.
There was a storm raging along the coast, and we could not face bad weather outside in our canoes to get to the other canal, so we shipped our
