CHAPTER VII

Summary

Dec. 23. 1841. — From Williamsburg we went to Norfolk in Virginia, passing down the James river in a steamer, and from Norfolk by railway to Weldon in North Carolina, passing for eighty miles through a low level country, covered with fir trees, and called the Pine Barrens. On our way we were overtaken by rain, which turned to sleet, and in the evening formed a coating of ice on the rails, so that the wheels of the engine could take no hold. There was a good stove and plenty of fuel in the car, but no food. After a short pause, the engineer backed the locomotive for half a mile over that part of the rail from which the snow and ice had just been brushed and scraped away by the passage of the train; then, returning rapidly, he gained sufficient momentum to carry us on two or three miles farther, and, by several repetitions of this manoeuvre, he brought us, about nightfall, to a small watering station, where there was no inn, but a two-storied cottage not far off.

Here we were made welcome, and as we had previously dropped by the way all our passengers except two, were furnished with a small room to ourselves, and a clean comfortable bed. We soon made a blazing wood-fire, and defied the cold, although we could see plainly the white snow on the ground through openings in the unplastered laths of which the wall of the house was made.