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standoffish,” she said, “but we’re not hostile. We’re famously hospitable, in fact, even by southern standards. Savannah’s called the ‘Hostess City of the South,’ you know. That’s because we’ve always been a party town. We love company. We always have. I suppose that comes from being a port city and having played host to people from faraway places for so long. Life in Savannah was always easier than it was out on the plantations. Savannah was a city of rich cotton traders, who lived in elegant houses within strolling distance of one another. Parties became a way of life, and it’s made a difference. We’re not at all like the rest of Georgia. We have a saying: If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, ‘What’s yourbusiness?’ In Macon they ask, ‘Where do you go to church?’ In Augusta they ask your grandmother’s maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is ‘What would you like to drink?’”
    She patted the basket of martinis. I could hear the echo of Captain Flint shouting for rum.
    “Savannah’s always been wet,” she said, “even when the rest of Georgia was dry. During Prohibition, filling stations on Abercorn Street sold whiskey out of gas pumps! Oh, you could always get a drink in Savannah. That’s never been any secret. I remember when I was a child, Billy Sunday brought his holy-revival crusade to town. He set himself up in Forsyth Park, and everybody went to hear him. There was great excitement! Mr. Sunday got up and declared at the top of his voice that Savannah was
the wickedest city in the world!
Well, of course, we all thought that was perfectly marvelous!”
    Miss Harty handed me the basket and led the way through the hall and out the front door to my car. With the basket on the seat between us, she guided me as I drove through the streets.
    “I’m going to take you to visit the dead,” she said.
    We had just turned onto Victory Drive, a long parkway completely covered by an arch of live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. In the center, a double colonnade of palms marched along the median strip as if lending architectural support to the canopy of oaks and moss.
    I glanced at her, not sure I’d heard correctly. “The dead?”
    “The dead are very much with us in Savannah,” she said. “Everywhere you look there is a reminder of things that were, people who lived. We are keenly aware of our past. Those palms, for example. They were planted in honor of soldiers from Georgia who died in the First World War.”
    After driving three or four miles, we turned off Victory Drive onto a winding road that took us to the gates of Bonaventure Cemetery. A live-oak forest of a primeval dimension loomed before us. We parked the car just inside the gate and continued on foot, coming almost at once to a large white marble mausoleum.
    “Now, if you should die during your stay in Savannah,” Miss Harty said with a gentle smile, “this is where we’ll put you. It’s our Stranger’s Tomb. It was built in honor of a man named William Gaston. He was one of Savannah’s greatest hosts and party givers, and he died in the nineteenth century. This tomb is a memorial to his hospitality. It has an empty vault in it that’s reserved for out-of-towners who die while visiting Savannah. It gives them a chance to rest awhile in one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world, until their families can make arrangements to take them away.”
    I remarked that I hoped I would not tax Savannah’s hospitality to that extent. We moved on past the tomb along an avenue bordered by magnificent oaks. On both sides, moss-covered statues stood in an overgrowth of shrubbery like the remnants of an abandoned temple.
    “In Colonial times, this was a lovely plantation,” Miss Harty said. “Its centerpiece was a mansion made of bricks brought over from England. There were terraced gardens extending all the way down to the river. The estate was built by Colonel John