CHAPTER I. THE SOUTH, A NOBLE REALM OF BEAUTY, WEALTH AND PROMISE The growth of the Great Republic-The summerland of the continent-The boundaries of the South-The Mason and Dixon line-The extension of the slave system-The grand proportions of the South-Its geographical character-Its mountain system-Its rainfall and watercourses-States west of the Mississippi-A noble river-The industrial sections-Negro labor—A self-supporting land-Its varied wealth and beauty. U PON the Great Republic of the West, rich, broad, prosperous, promising, "The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave," Nature has showered her gifts with a lavish hand. For long ages, during which only the savage red man trod its lofty mountains and ample plains, this great domain was being prepared for the nursery of a mighty nation. In the latter days this nation arose, a weak infant at first, yet fast growing sturdy and powerful, until it became of giant girth and strength, a young and lusty Goliath of the West, fitted to cope with the greatest powers of the ancient East, and perhaps in time to triumph over them all. Such is the great Union of States which has made America the modern wonder of the world, the paragon of nations. But the gifts of Nature were not equally distributed over this outstretching realm. In the west she withheld her largess, and a vast area of land was left in an arid and desert condition. In the north she gave fertility, but overspread it for half the year with wintry bleakness and freezing chill. Only in the south, the broad and smiling summerland of the continent, were her gifts laid with no niggardly hand, the soil, the sun, the rains, the streams all vieing to produce here one of the richest and most beautiful lands upon the face of the globe; a region of perennial charm, of rare fertility, of delightful climate, lying midway between the realms |