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In spite of our abhorrence of the destruction and construction which have made modern Rome so wholesome and delightful, most of us had our habitations in the new quarters; but certain pleasanter of the older streets, like the Via Sistina, Via del Babuino, Via Capo le Case, Via Gregoriana, were our sojourn or our resort.
All this had been done; and the party, having spent nearly three weeks among the lakelets and interweaving streams going to make up the sources of the Magalloway and Connecticut rivers, with occasional recourse to the nearest habitations on the upper Magalloway, for provisions, but with very indifferent success in taking furs, had now, on the urging of young Elwood, returned to the Maguntic, which, after a hard day's journey, they had reached, at the point where we have introduced them, about sunset the day but one preceding, thrown up a temporary shanty, and encamped for the night.
When I left my boat, on arriving, and walked through the narrow streets of Khartoum, between mud walls, very few of which were even whitewashed, I thought it a miserable place, and began to look out for some garden where I might pitch my tent, rather than live in one of those dirty-looking habitations.
They made the clothes, the shoes, hats, shirts, underwear, tools, and all the other necessities that mankind required; they tilled the ground and produced its food. Curiously enough, those who did these indispensable things were condemned by the encompassing system to live in the poorest and meanest habitations and in the most precarious uncertainty.
Further: suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their "implied faith" in words, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a proviso, declaring that Congress should not "exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the District," but that the "case" of slavery should be an exception: who does not know that Congress, if it had accepted the cession on those terms, would have violated the Constitution; and who that has ever studied the free mood of those times in its bearings on slavery proofs of which are given in scores on the preceding pages can for an instant believe that the people of the United States would have altered their Constitution for the purpose of providing for slavery an inviolable sanctuary; that when driven in from its outposts, and everywhere retreating discomfited before the march of freedom, it might be received into everlasting habitations on the common homestead and hearth-stone of this free republic?
The buffetings of inland waves were not only insulting, but dangerous, to our leaky punt. At any moment, Iglesias and I might find ourselves floundering together in thin fresh water. Joyfully, therefore, at last, did we discern clearings, culture, and habitations at the lake-head.
"Yes, sir, that is Beechey Island; only you must let us get further north the coast is more easy of access." "But where are the habitations and the magazines?" said Hatteras. "Oh, you can't see them till you land; they are sheltered behind those little hills you see yonder." "And is that where you transported a considerable quantity of provisions?"
The redman's canoe, the explorer's batteau, the hunter's lodge, the emigrant's cabin, all stood related to that inspiring vista. For the first time in my life I longed to put this noble stream into verse. All that day I had studied the land, musing upon its distinctive qualities, and while I acknowledged the natural beauty of it, I revolted from the gracelessness of its human habitations.
The habitations on the way are mostly board shanties and mean frame cabins, but the railway is introducing ambitious architecture here and there in the form of ornamental filigree work on flimsy houses; ornamentation is apt to precede comfort in our civilization.
The habitations are mostly long, flat-roofed sheds, double storied, with doors composed of a single plank, and holes for windows pierced high above the ground, and decorated with miserable wood-work: the principal houses have separate apartments for the women, and stand at the bottom of large court-yards closed by gates of Holcus stalks.
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