Even a log-cabin is not
a bad place to lodge in if you have a valet (who cannot leave you)
to dress you, and brush your boots and your clothes, and light your
fire, and bring you ice-water and juleps and cocktails, and anything
else you happen to think of, who sleeps comfortably in a blanket
across your door. In fact, without this the Virginia springs could
never have become a popular resort until railroads were opened.
People used to take twenty days in reaching them from the coast--
some in their own carriages with four horses, and a wagon for the
baggage and "darkies," and some in stages, sleeping in taverns on the
roadside; but nothing could have made this practicable or tolerable
but the band of negroes by whom they were always accompanied.
This, too, enabled them to make their plans with certainty for
staying at the springs all summer, which they could not have done
had they been unable to count on their servants. One gentleman,
a Charlestonian, telling me his reminiscences of these long journeys
to the springs taken with his parents in their own carriage, when
he was a boy, said his mother was very delicate and her health
required it.
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