The South-West, by a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 1
by J. H. Ingraham · English · Gutenberg #35133 · 449,699 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The South-West, by a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 1
Author: J. H. Ingraham
Release date: January 31, 2011 [eBook #35133]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOUTH-WEST, BY A YANKEE. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME 1 ***
Produced by Curtis Weyant, Barbara Kosker and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
THE
SOUTH-WEST.
BY A YANKEE.
Where on my way I went;
------------A pilgrim from the North--
Now more and more attracted, as I drew
Nearer and nearer.
ROGERS' ITALY.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
NEW-YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, CLIFF-ST.
1835.
[Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835,
by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern
District of New-York.]
TO THE
HON. JOHN A. QUITMAN,
EX-CHANCELLOR OF MISSISSIPPI,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
INTRODUCTION.
The succeeding pages grew out of a private correspondence, which the
author, at the solicitation of his friends, has been led to throw into
the present form, modifying in a great measure the epistolary vein, and
excluding, so far as possible, such portions of the original papers as
were of too personal a nature to be intruded upon the majesty of the
public;--while he has embodied, so far as was compatible with the new
arrangement, every thing likely to interest the general reader.
The author has not written exclusively as a traveller or journalist. His
aim has been to present the result of his experience and observations
during a residence of several years in the South-West. This extensive
and important section of the United States is but little known. Perhaps
there is no region between the Mississippi river and the Atlantic
shores, of which so little accurate information is before the public; a
flying tourist only, having occasionally added a note to his diary, as
he skirted its forest-lined borders.
New-York, Sept. 1835.
CONTENTS.
I.
A state of bliss--Cabin passenger--Honey-hunting--Sea-life--Its
effects--Green horns--Reading--Tempicide--Monotony--Wish for
excitement--Superlative misery--Log--Combustible materials--Cook
and bucket--Contrary winds--All ready, good Sirs--Impatient
passengers--Signal for sailing--Leave-takings--Sheet home--Under
weigh. Page 13
II.
A tar's headway on land--A gentleman's at sea--An agreeable trio
--Musical sounds--Helmsman--Supper Steward--A truism--Helmsman's
cry--Effect--Cases for bipeds--Lullaby--Sleep. 20
III.
Shakspeare--Suicide or a 'foul' deed--A conscientious table--
Fishing smacks--A pretty boy--Old Skipper, Skipper junior, and
little Skipper--A young Caliban--An alliterate Man--Fisherman--
Nurseries--Navy--The Way to train up a Child--Gulf Stream--
Humboldt--Crossing the Gulf--Ice ships--Yellow fields--Flying
fish--A game at bowls--Bermuda--A post of observation--Men,
dwellings, and women of Bermuda--St. George--English society--
Washing decks--Mornings at sea--Evenings at sea--A Moonlight
scene--The ocean on fire--Its phosphorescence--Hypotheses 25
IV.
Land--Abaco--Fleet--Hole in the Wall--A wrecker's hut--Bahama
vampyres--Light houses--Conspiracy--Wall of Abaco--Natural
Bridge--Cause--Night scene--Speak a packet ship--A floating
city--Wrecker's lugger--Signal of distress--A Yankee lumber
brig--Portuguese Man of War. 42
V.
A calm--A breeze on the water--The land of flowers--Juan Ponce de
Leon--The fountain of perpetual youth--An irremediable loss to
single gentlemen--Gulf Stream--New-Providence--Cuba--Pan of
Matanzas--Blue hills of Cuba--An armed cruiser--Cape St. Antonio
--Pirates--Enter the Mexican Gulf--Mobile--A southern winter--A
farewell to the North and a welcome to the South--The close of the
voyage--Balize--Fleet--West Indiaman--Portuguese polacre--Land ho!
--The land--Its formation--Pilot or "little brief authority"--
Light house--Revenue cutter--Newspapers--"The meeting of the
waters"--A singular appearance--A morning off the Balize--The
tow-boat 55
VI.
The Mississippi--The Whale--Description of tow-boats--A package--A
threatened storm--A beautiful brigantine--Physiognomy of ships--
Richly furnished cabin--An obliging Captain--Desert the ship--
Getting under weigh--A chain of captives--Towing--New-Orleans--A
mystery to be unraveled. 64
VII.
Louisiana--Arrival at New-Orleans--Land--Pilot stations--Pilots
--Anecdote--Fort--Forests--Levee--Crevasses--Alarms--Accident--
Espionage--A Louisianian palace--Grounds--Sugar-house--Quarters
--An African governess--Sugar-Cane--St. Mary--"English Turn"--
Cavalcade--Battle-ground--Music Sounds of the distant city--Land
in New-Orleans--An _amateur_ sailor. 73
VIII.
Bachelor's comforts--A valuable valet--Disembarked at the Levee
--A fair Castilian--Canaille--The Crescent city--Reminiscence of
school days--French cabarets--Cathedral--Exchange--Cornhill--A
chain of light--A fracas--Gens d'Armes--An affair of honour--
Arrive at our hotel 87
IX.
Sensations on seeing a city for the first time--Capt. Kidd--
Boston--Fresh feelings--An appreciated luxury--A human medley
--School for physiognomists--A morning scene in New-Orleans--
Canal street--Levee--French and English stores--Parisian and
Louisianian pronunciation--Scenes in the market--Shipping--A
disguised rover--Mississippi fleets--Ohio river arks--Slave laws.
96
X.
First impressions--A hero of the "Three Days"--Children's ball--
Life in New-Orleans--A French supper--Omnibuses--Chartres street
at twilight--Calaboose--Guard house--The vicinage of a theatre--
French cafes--Scenes in the interior of a cafe--Dominos--Tobacco
smokers--New-Orleans society. 108
XI.
Interior of a ball room--Creole ladies--Infantile dancers--French
children--American children--A singular division--New-Orleans
ladies--Northern and southern beauty--An agreeable custom--Leave
the assembly room--An olio of languages--The Exchange--Confusion
of tongues--Temples of Fortune. 117
XII.
The Goddess of fortune--Billiard rooms--A professor--Hells--A
respectable banking company--"Black-legs"--Faro described--
Dealers--Bank--A novel mode of franking--Roulette table--A supper
in Orcus--Pockets to let--Dimly lighted streets--Some things not
so bad as they are represented. 127
XIII.
A sleepy porter--Cry of fire--Noise in the streets--A wild scene
at midnight--A splendid illumination--Steamers wrapped in flames
--A river on fire--Firemen--A lively scene--Floating cotton--
Boatmen--An ancient Portuguese Charon--A boat race--Pugilists--A
hero 137
XIV.
Canal-street--Octagonal church--Government house--Future
prospects of New-Orleans--Roman chapel--Mass for the dead--
Interior of the chapel--Mourners--Funeral--Cemeteries--Neglect
of the dead--English and American grave yards--Regard of
European nations for their dead--Roman Catholic cemetery in
New-Orleans--Funeral procession--Tombs--Burying in water--
Protestant grave-yard. 145
XV.
An old friend--Variety in the styles of building--Love for
flowers--The basin--Congo square--The African bon-ton of
New-Orleans--City canals--Effects of the cholera--Barracks--
Guard-houses--The ancient convent of the Ursulines--The school
for boys--A venerable edifice--Principal--Recitations--Mode of
instruction--Primary department--Infantry tactics--Education in
general in New-Orleans. 158
XVI.
Rail-road--A new avenue to commerce--Advantages of the rail-way
--Ride to the lake--The forest--Village at the lake--Pier--
Fishers--Swimmers--Mail-boat--Cafes--Return--An unfortunate cow
--New-Orleans streets. 171
XVII.
The legislature--Senators and representatives--Tenney--Gurley
--Ripley--Good feeling among members--Translated speeches--
Ludicrous situations--Slave law--Bishop's hotel--Tower--View
from its summit--Bachelor establishments--Peculiar state of
society. 178
XVIII.
Saddle horses and accoutrements--Banks--Granite--Church-members
--French mode of dressing--Quadroons--Gay scene and groups in the
streets--Sabbath evening--Duelling ground--An extensive cotton
press--A literary germ--A mysterious institution--Scenery in the
suburbs--Convent--Catholic education. 186
XIX.
Battle-ground--Scenery on the road--A peaceful scene--American
and British quarters--View of the field of battle--Breastworks
--Oaks--Packenham--A Tennessee rifleman--Anecdote--A gallant
British officer--Grape-shot--Young traders--A relic--Leave the
ground--A last view of it from the Levee. 196
XX.
Scene in a bar room--Affaires d'honneur--A Sabbath morning--Host
--Public square--Military parades--Scenes in the interior of a
cathedral--Mass--A sanctified family--Crucifix--Different ways of
doing the same thing--Altar--Paintings--The Virgin--Females
devotees. 207
XXI.
Sabbath in New-Orleans--Theatre--Interior--A New-Orleans audience
--Performance--Checks--Theatre d'Orleans--Interior--Boxes--
Audience--Play--Actors and actresses--Institutions--M. Poydras--
Liberality of the Orleanese--Extracts from Flint upon New-Orleans. 219
XXII.
A drive into the country--Pleasant road--Charming villa--Children
at play--Governess--Diversities of society--Education in
Louisiana--Visit to a sugar-house--Description of sugar-making,
&c.--A plantation scene--A planter's grounds--Children--Trumpeter
--Pointer--Return to the city. 229
XXIII.
Leave New-Orleans--The Mississippi--Scenery--Evening on the water
--Scenes on the deck of a steamer--Passengers--Plantations--
Farm-houses--Catholic college--Convent of the Sacred Heart--Caged
birds--Donaldsonville--The first highland--Baton Rouge--Its
appearance--Barracks--Scenery--Squatters--Fort Adams--Way
passengers--Steamer. 245
THE SOUTH WEST.
I.
A state of bliss--Cabin passenger--Honey-hunting--Sea-life
--Its effects--Green horns--Reading--Tempicide--Monotony--
Wish for excitement--Superlative misery--Log--Combustible
materials--Cook and bucket--Contrary winds--All ready, good
Sirs--Impatient passengers--Signal for sailing--Under weigh.
To be a "Cabin passenger" fifteen or twenty days _out_, in a Yankee
merchantman, is to be in a state as nearly resembling that of a
half-assoilzied soul in purgatory, as flesh and blood can well be placed
in. A meridian sun--a cloudless sky--a sea of glass, like a vast burning
reflector, giving back a twin-heaven inverted--a dry, hot air, as though
exhaled from a Babylonian furnace, and a deck, with each plank heated to
the foot like a plate of hot steel--with the "Horse latitudes," for the
scene, might, perhaps, heighten the resemblance.
Zimmerman, in his excellent essay upon Solitude, has described man, in a
"state of solitary indolence and inactivity, as sinking by degrees, like
stagnant water, into impurity and corruption." Had he intended to
describe from experience, the state of man as "Cabin passenger" after
the novelty of his new situation upon the heaving bosom of the "dark
blue sea," had given place to the tiresome monotony of never-varying,
daily repeated scenes, he could not have illustrated it by a more
striking figure. This is a state of which you are happily ignorant.
Herein, ignorance is the height of bliss, although, should a Yankee
propensity for peregrinating stimulate you to become wiser by
experience, I will not say that your folly will be more apparent than
your wisdom. But if you continue to vegetate in the lovely valley of
your nativity, one of "New-England's yeomanry," as you are wont, not a
little proudly, to term yourself--burying for that distinctive honour
your collegiate laurels beneath the broad-brim of the farmer--exchanging
your "gown" for his frock--"Esq." for plain "squire," and the Mantuan's
Georgics for those of the Maine Farmer's Almanac--I will cheerfully
travel for you; though, as I shall have the benefit of the wear and
tear, rubs and bruises--it will be like honey-hunting in our school-boy
days, when one fought the bees while the other secured the sweet
plunder.
This sea life, to one who is not a sailor, is a sad enough existence--if
it may be termed such. The tomb-stone inscription "Hic jacet," becomes
prematurely his own, with the consolatory adjunct _et non resurgam_. A
condition intermediate between life and death, but more assimilated to
the latter than the former, it is passed, almost invariably, in that
proverbial inactivity, mental and corporeal, which is the well-known
and unavoidable consequence of a long passage. It is a state in which
existence is burthensome and almost insupportable, destroying that
healthy tone of mind and body, so necessary to the preservation of the
economy of the frame of man.--Nothing will so injure a good disposition,
as a long voyage. Seeds of impatience and of indolence are there sown,
which will be for a long period painfully manifest. The sweetest
tempered woman I ever knew, after a passage of sixty days, was converted
into a querulous Xantippe; and a gentleman of the most active habits,
after a voyage of much longer duration, acquired such indolent ones,
that his usefulness as a man of business was for a long time destroyed;
and it was only by the strongest application of high, moral energy,
emanating from a mind of no common order, that he was at length enabled
wholly to be himself again. There is but one antidote for this disease,
which should be nosologically classed as _Melancholia Oceana_, and that
is employment. But on ship-board, this remedy, like many other good ones
on shore, cannot always be found. A meddling, bustling passenger, whose
sphere on land has been one of action, and who pants to move in his
little circumscribed orbit at sea, is always a "lubberly green horn," or
"clumsy marine," in every tar's way--in whose eye the "passenger" is
only fit to thin hen-coops, bask in the sun, talk to the helmsman, or,
now and then, desperately venture up through the "lubber's hole" to look
for _land_ a hundred leagues in mid ocean, or, cry "sail ho!" as the
snowy mane of a distant wave, or the silvery crest of a miniature cloud
upon the horizon, flashes for an instant upon his unpractised vision.
A well-selected library, which is a great luxury at sea, and like most
luxuries very rare, does wonders toward lessening this evil; but it is
still far from constituting a _panacea_. I know not how it is, unless
the patient begins in reality to suspect that he is taking _reading_ as
a prescription against the foe, and converting his volumes into pill
boxes--which by and by gets to be too painfully the truth--but the
appetite soon becomes sated, the mind wearied, and the most fascinating
and favourite authors "pall upon the sense" with a tiresome familiarity.
Reading becomes hateful, for the very reason that it has become
necessary. Amusements are exhausted, invented, changed, varied, and
again exhausted. Every thing upon which the attention fixes itself,
vainly wooing something novel, soon becomes insipid. Chess, back-gammon,
letter-writing, journalizing, smoking, eating, drinking, and sleeping,
may at first contribute not a little to the discomfiture of old Time,
who walks the _sea_ shod with leaden sandals. The last three enumerated
items, however, generally hold out to the last undisabled. But three
Wellingtons could not have won Waterloo unsupported; nor, able and
doughty as are these bold three--much as they prolong the
combat--manfully as they fight, can they hold good their ground for
ever; the obstinate, scythe-armed warrior, with his twenty-four body
guards following him like his shadow, will still maintain the broadest
portion of his diurnal territory, over which, manoeuvre as they may,
these discomfited worthies cannot extend their front.
Few situations are less enviable, than that of the worn voyager, as day
after day "drags its slow length along," presenting to his restless,
listless eyes, as he stretches them wearily over the leaden waste around
him--the same unbroken horizon, forming the periphery of a circle, of
which his vessel seems to be the immovable and everlasting centre--the
same blue, unmeaning skies above--the same blue sea beneath and
around--the same gigantic tracery of ropes and spars, whose fortuitous
combinations of strange geometrical figures he has demonstrated, till
they are as familiar as the diagrams on a turtle's back to an alderman;
and the same dull white sails, with whose patches he has become as
familiar as with the excrescences and other innocent defects upon the
visages of his fellow-sufferers.
On leaving port, I commenced a journal, or rather, as I am in a nautical
atmosphere, a "log," the choicest chips of which shall be hewn off,
basketed in fools-cap, and duly transmitted to you. Like other chips
they may be useful to kindle the fire withal. "What may not warm the
feelings may--the toes," is a truism of which you need not be reminded:
and if you test it practically, it will not be the first time good has
been elicited from evil. But the sameness of a sea-life will by no means
afford me many combustible incidents. Somebody has said "the will is
equal to the deed, if the deed cannot be." Now I have the will to pile a
hecatomb, but if I can pile only a couple of straws, it will be, of
course, the same thing in the abstract. Mine, perchance, may be the fate
of that poor journalist who, in a voyage across the Atlantic, could
obtain but one wretched item wherewith to fill his journal--which he
should have published, by the way. What a rare sort of a book it would
have been! So soon read too! In this age when type-blotted books are
generative, it would immortalize the author. Tenderly handed down from
one generation to another, it would survive the "fall of empires, and
the crash of worlds." "At three and a quarter P. M., ship going
two and a half knots per hour, the cook lost his bucket
over-board--jolly boat lowered, and Jack and Peter rowed after it."
"Half-past three, P. M.--Cook has got his bucket again--and a
broken head into the bargain."
To one who has never "played with Ocean's mane," nor, borne by his
white-winged coursers, scoured his pathless fields, there may be, even
in the common-place descriptions of sea-scenes, something, which wears
the charm of novelty. If my hasty sketches can contribute to your
entertainment "o' winter nights," or, to the gratification of your
curiosity, they will possess an influence which I do not promise or
predict for them.
Unfavourable winds had detained our ship several days, and all who had
taken passage were on the "tiptoe of expectation" for the signal for
sailing. Trunks, boxes, chests, cases, carpet-bags, and all the
paraphernalia of travelling equipage, had long been packed, locked, and
shipped--and our eyes had hourly watched the fickle gyrations of a
horizontal gilt figure, which surmounted the spire of a neighbouring
church, till they ached again. Had the image been Eolus himself, it
could not have commanded more devoted worshippers.
A week elapsed--and patience, which hitherto had been admirably
sustained, began to flag; murmurings proceeded from the lips of more
than one of the impatient passengers, as by twos and threes, they would
meet by a kind of sympathetic affinity at the corners of the streets,
where an unobstructed view could be obtained of some church-vane, all of
which, throughout our city of churches, had taken a most unaccommodating
fancy to kick their golden-shod heels at the Northern Bear.
At precisely twenty minutes before three of the clock, on the afternoon
of the first of November instant, the phlegmatic personage in the gilt
robe, very obligingly, after he had worn our patience to shreds by his
obstinacy, let his head and heels exchange places. At the same moment,
ere he had ceased vibrating and settled himself steadily in his new
position, the welcome signal was made, and in less than half an hour
afterward, we were all, with bag and baggage, on board the ship, which
rode at her anchor two hundred fathoms from the shore.
The top-sails, already loosed, were bellying and wildly collapsing with
a loud noise, in the wind; but bounding to their posts at the command
of their superior officer, the active seamen soon extended them upon the
spars--immense fields of swelling canvass; and our vessel gracefully
moved from her moorings, and glided through the water with the lightness
of a swan.
As we moved rapidly down the noble harbour, which, half a century since,
bore upon its bosom the hostile fleet of the proud island of the north,
the swelling ocean was sending in its evening tribute to the continent,
in vast scrolls, which rolled silently, but irresistibly onward, and
majestically unfolded upon the beach--or, with a hoarse roar, resounded
along the cliffs, and surged among the rocky throats of the promontory,
impressing the mind with emotions of sublimity and awe.
II.
A tar's headway on land--A gentleman's at sea--An agreeable
trio--Musical sounds--Helmsman--Supper--Steward--A truism--
Helmsman's cry--Effect--Cases for bipeds--Lullaby--Sleep.
The motion was just sufficiently lively to inspirit one--making the
blood frolic through the veins, and the heart beat more proudly. The old
tars, as they cruised about the decks, walked as steadily as on land.
This proves nothing, you may say, if you have witnessed Jack's
pendulating, uncertain--"right and left oblique" advance on a shore
cruise.
Our tyros of the sea, in their venturesome projections of their persons
from one given point in their eye to another, in the hope of
accomplishing a straight line, after vacillating most appallingly, would
finally succeed "haud passibus aequis" in reaching the position aimed
for, fortunate if a lee-lurch did not accommodate them with a dry bed in
the "lee scuppers."
Of all laughter-exciting locomotives which most create sensations of the
ludicrously serious, commend me to an old land-crab teaching its young
one to "go _ahead_"--a drunkard, reeling homeward through a broad street
on a Saturday night--and a "gentleman passenger" three days at sea in
his strange evolutions over the deck.
Stretched before me upon the weather hen-coop, enveloped in his cloak,
lay one of our "goodlie companie." If his sensations were such as I
imagined them to be, he must have felt that the simplest chicken under
him wore the stoutest heart.
On the lee hen-coop reposed another passenger in sympathy with his
fellow, to whose feelings I felt a disposition to do equal justice.
Abaft the wheel, coiled up in the rigging, an agreeable substitute for a
bed of down, lay half obscured within the shadow of the lofty stern,
another overdone toper--a victim of Neptune, not of the "jolly god"--but
whose sensations have been experienced by many of the latter's pupils,
who have never tasted other salt water than their own tears.
It has been said or sung by some one, that the "ear is the road to the
heart." That it was so to the stomach, I already began to feel, could
not be disputed; and as certain "guttural sounds" began to multiply from
various quarters, with startling emphasis, lest I should be induced to
sympathize with the fallen novitiates around me, by some _overt_ act, I
hastily glided by the helmsman, who stood alone like the sole survivor
of a battle-field--his weather-beaten visage illuminated at the moment
with a strange glare from the "binnacle-lamp" which, concealed within a
case like a single-windowed pigeon house, and open in front of him,
burned nightly at his feet. The next moment I was in the cabin, now
lighted up by a single lamp suspended from the centre of the ceiling,
casting rather shade than light upon a small table--studiously arranged
for supper by the steward--that non-descript _locum tenens_ for
valet--waiter--chambermaid--shoe-black--cook's-mate, and swearing-post
for irascible captains to vent stray oaths upon, when the wind is
ahead--with a flying commission for here, there, and nowhere! when most
wanted.
But the supper! ay, the supper. Those for whom the inviting display was
made, were, I am sorry to say it, most unhesitatingly "floored" and
quite _hors du combat_. What a deal of melancholy truth there is in that
aphorism, which teaches us that the "brave must yield to the braver!"
As I stood beside the helmsman, I could feel the gallant vessel
springing away from under me, quivering through every oaken nerve, like
a high-mettled racer with his goal but a bound before him. As she
encountered some more formidable wave, there would be a tremendous
outlay of animal-like energy, a momentary struggle, a half recoil, a
plunging, trembling--_onward_ rush--then a triumphant riding over the
conquered foe, scattering the gems from its shivered crest in glittering
showers over her bows. Then gliding with velocity over the glassy
concave beyond, swaying to its up-lifting impulse with a graceful
inclination of her lofty masts, and almost sweeping the sea with her
yards, she would majestically recover herself in time to gather power
for a fresh victory.
Within an hour after clearing the last head-land, whose lights, level
with the plain of the sea, gleamed afar off, twinkling and lessened like
stars, with which they were almost undistinguishably mingled on the
horizon--we had exchanged the abrupt, irregular "seas" of the bay, for
the regular, majestically rolling billows of the ocean.
I had been for some time pacing the deck, with the "officer of the
watch" to recover my sea-legs, when the helmsman suddenly shouted in a
wild startling cry, heard, mingling with the wind high above the booming
of the sea, the passing hour of the night watch.--"Four bells."--"Four
bells," repeated the only one awake on the forecastle, and the next
moment the ship's bell rung out loud and clear--wildly swelling upon the
gale, then mournfully dying away in the distance as the toll ceased,
like the far-off strains of unearthly music--
"----Died the solemn knell
As a trumpet music dies,
By the night wind borne away
Through the wild and stormy skies."
There is something so awful in the loud voice of a man mingling with the
deep tones of a bell, heard at night upon the sea, that familiar as my
ear was with the sounds--the blood chilled at my heart as this "lonely
watchman's cry" broke suddenly upon the night.
When he again told the hour I was safely stowed away in a comfortable
berth, not so large as that of Goliah of Gath by some cubits, yet
admirably adapted to the sea, which serves most discourteously the
children of Somnus, unless they fit their berths like a modern M. D. his
sulkey, lulled to sleep by the rattling of cordage, the measured tread
of the watch directly over me, the moanings, _et caetera_, of sleepless
neighbours, the roaring of the sea, the howling of the wind, and the
gurgling and surging of the water, as the ship rushed through it,
shaking the waves from her sides, as the lion scatters the dew from his
mane, and the musical rippling of the eddies--like a glassichord,
rapidly run over by light fingers--curling and singing under the keel.
III.
Shakspeare--Suicide or a 'fowl' deed--A conscientious fable
--Fishing smacks--A pretty boy--Old Skipper, Skipper junior,
and little Skipper--A young Caliban--An alliterate Man--
Fishermen--Nurseries--Navy--The Way to train up a Child--
Gulf Stream--Humboldt--Crossing the Gulf--Ice-ships--Yellow
fields--Flying fish--A game at bowls--Bermuda--A post of
observation--Men, dwellings, and women of Bermuda--St.
George--English society--Washing decks--Mornings at sea--
Evenings at sea--A Moonlight scene--The ocean on fire--Its
phosphorescence--Hypotheses.
"Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again," was the gentle
oratory of the aspiring Richard, in allusion to the invading
Bretagnes.--
"Lash hence these overweening rags of France."
The interpreter of the heart's natural language--Shakspeare, above all
men, was endowed with human inspiration. His words come ripe to our lips
like the fruit of our own thoughts. We speak them naturally and
unconsciously. They drop from us like the unpremeditated language of
children--spring forth unbidden--the richest melody of the mind. Strong
passion, whether of grief or joy while seeking in the wild excitement of
the moment her own words for utterance, unconsciously enunciates _his_,
with a natural and irresistible energy. There is scarcely a human
thought, great or simple, which Shakspeare has not spoken for his
fellow-men, as never man, uninspired, spake; which he has not embodied
and clothed with a drapery of language, unsurpassable. So--
"Let's whip _this_ straggler o'er the seas again,"
I have very good reason to fear, will flow all unconsciously from your
lips, as most applicable to my barren letter; in penning which I shall
be driven to extremity for any thing of an interesting character. If it
must be so, I am, of all epistlers, the most innocent.
Ship, air, and ocean equally refuse to furnish me with a solitary
incident. My wretched "log" now and then records an event: such as for
instance, how one of "the Doctor's" plumpest and most deliriously
_embonpoint_ pullets, very rashly and unadvisedly perpetrated a
summerset over-board, after she had been decapitated by that sable
gentleman, in certainly the most approved and scientific style. None but
a very silly chicken could have been dissatisfied with the
unexceptionable manner in which the operation was performed. But, both
feathered and plucked bipeds, it seems, it is equally hard to please.
For the last fourteen days we have been foot-balls for the winds and
waves. Their game may last as many more; therefore, as we have as little
free agency in our movements as foot-balls themselves, we have made up
our minds to yield our fretted bodies as philosophically as may be, to
their farther pastime. The sick have recovered, and bask the hours away
on deck in the beams of the warm south sun, like so many luxurious
crocodiles.
To their good appetites let our table bear witness. Should it be blessed
with a conscience, it is doubly blessed by having it cleared thrice
daily by the most rapacious father-confessors that ever shrived
penitent; of which "gentlemen of the _cloth_" it boasts no less than
eight.
The first day we passed through a widely dispersed fleet of those short,
stump-masted _non-descripts_, with swallow-tailed sterns, snubbed bows,
and black hulls, sometimes denominated fishing smacks, but oftener and
more euphoniously, "Chebacco boats," which, from May to October, are
scattered over our northern seas.
While we dashed by them, one after another, in our lofty vessel, as,
close-hauled on the wind, or "wing and wing," they flew over the foaming
sea, I could not help smiling at the ludicrous scenes which some of
their decks exhibited.
One of them ran so close to us, that we could have tossed a potato into
the "skipper's" dinner-pot, which was boiling on a rude hearth of bricks
placed upon the open deck, under the _surveillance_ of, I think, the
veriest mop-headed, snub-nosed bit of an urchin that I ever saw.
"Keep away a little, or you'll run that fellow down," suddenly shouted
the captain to the helmsman; and the next moment the little fishing
vessel shot swiftly under our stern, just barely clearing the spanker
boom, whirling and bouncing about in the wild swirl of the ship's wake
like a "Massallah boat" in the surf of Madras.
There were on board of her four persons, including the steersman--a
tall, gaunt old man, whose uncovered gray locks streamed in the wind as
he stooped to his little rudder to luff up across our wake. The lower
extremities of a loose pair of tar-coated duck trowsers, which he wore,
were incased, including the best part of his legs, in a pair of
fisherman's boots, made of leather which would flatten a rifle ball. His
red flannel shirt left his hairy breast exposed to the icy winds, and a
huge pea-jacket, thrown, Spanish fashion, over his shoulders, was
fastened at the throat by a single button. His tarpaulin--a little
narrow-brimmed hat of the pot-lid tribe, secured by a ropeyarn--had
probably been thrown off in the moment of danger, and now hung swinging
by a lanyard from the lower button-hole of his jacket.
As his little vessel struggled like a drowning man in the yawning
concave made by the ship, he stood with one hand firmly grasping his
low, crooked rudder, and with the other held the main sheet, which alone
he tended. A short pipe protruded from his mouth, at which he puffed
away incessantly; one eye was tightly closed, and the other was so
contracted within a network of wrinkles, that I could just discern the
twinkle of a gray pupil, as he cocked it up at our quarter-deck, and
took in with it the noble size, bearing, and apparel of our fine ship.
A duplicate of the old helmsman, though less battered by storms and
time, wearing upon his chalky locks a red, woollen, conical cap, was
"easing off" the foresheet as the little boat passed; and a third was
stretching his neck up the companion ladder, to stare at the "big ship,"
while the little carroty-headed imp, who was just the old skipper
_razeed_, was performing the culinary operations of his little kitchen
under cover of the heavens.
Our long pale faces tickled the young fellow's fancy extremely.
"Dad," squalled the youthful reprobate, in the softest, hinge-squeaking
soprano--"Dad, I guess as how them ar' chaps up thar, ha'nt lived on
salt grub long."--The rascal--we could have minced him with his own fish
and potatoes.
"Hold your yaup, you youngster you," roared the old man in reply.--The
rest of the beautiful alliteration was lost in the distance, as his
smack bounded from us, carrying the young _sans-culotte_ out of reach of
the consequences of his temerity. To mention _salt grub_ to men of our
stomachs' capacity, at that moment! He merited impaling upon one of his
own cod-hooks. In ten minutes after, we could just discern the glimmer
of the little vessel's white sails on the verge of the distant horizon,
in whose hazy hue the whole fleet soon disappeared.
These vessels were on a tardy return from their Newfoundland harvests,
which, amid fogs and squalls, are gathered with great toil and privation
between the months of May and October. The fishermen constitute a
distinct and peculiar class--not of society, but of men. To you I need
not describe them. They are to be seen at any time, and in great
numbers, about the wharves of New-England sea-ports in the winter
season--weather-browned, long-haired, coarsely garbed men, with honesty
and good nature stamped upon their furrowed and strongly marked
features. They are neither "seamen" nor "countrymen," in the usual
signification of these words, but a compound of both; combining the
careless, free-and-easy air of the one, with the awkwardness and
simplicity of the other. Free from the grosser vices which characterize
the foreign-voyaged _sailor_, they seldom possess, however, that
religious tone of feeling which distinguishes the ruder _countryman_.
Marblehead and Cape Cod are the parent nurseries of these hardy men.
Portland has, however, begun to foster them, thereby adding a new and
vigorous sinew to her commercial strength. In conjunction with the whale
fisheries, to which the cod are a sort of introductory school, these
fisheries are the principal nurseries of American seamen. I have met
with many American ships' crews, one-half or two-thirds of which were
composed of men who had served their apprenticeship in the "fisheries."
The youth and men whom they send forth are the bone and muscle of our
navy. They have an instinctive love for salt water. Every one who is a
parent, takes his sons, one after another, as they doff their
petticoats, if the freedom of their limbs was ever restrained by such
unnecessary appendages, and places them on the deck of his fishing
smack; teaches them to call the ropes by their names, bait, fling, and
patiently watch the deceptive hook, and dart the harpoon, or plunge the
grains--just as the Indian is accustomed to lead his warrior-boys forth
to the hunting grounds, and teach them to track the light-footed game,
or heavier-heeled foe--wing, with unerring aim, the fatal arrow, or
launch the deadly spear.
The three succeeding days we were delayed by calms, or contending with
gales and head winds. On the morning of the seventh day "out," there was
a general exclamation of surprise from the passengers as they came on
deck.
"How warm!" "What a suffocating air!" "We must have sailed well last
night to be so far south!" They might well have been surprised if this
change in the temperature had been gained by regular "southing." But,
alas, we had barely lessened our latitude twenty miles during the night.
We had entered the Gulf Stream! that extraordinary natural phenomenon of
the Atlantic Ocean. This immense circle of tepid water which revolves in
the Atlantic, enclosing within its periphery, the West India and Western
Islands, is supposed by Humboldt to be occasioned "by the current of
rotation (trade winds) which strikes against the coasts of Veraguas and
Honduras, and ascending toward the Gulf of Mexico, between Cape Caloche
and Cape St. Antoine, issues between the Bahamas and Florida." From this
point of projection, where it is but a few miles wide, it spreads away
to the northeast in the shape of an elongated slightly curved fan,
passing at the distance of about eighty miles from the coast of the
southern states, with a velocity, opposite Havana, of about four miles
an hour, which decreases in proportion to its distance from this point.
Opposite Nantucket, where it takes a broad, sweeping curve toward
Newfoundland, it moves generally only about two miles an hour. Bending
from Newfoundland through the Western Islands, it loses much of its
velocity at this distance from its radiating point, and in the eastern
Atlantic its motion is scarcely perceptible, except by a slight ripple
upon the surface.
This body of water is easily distinguishable from that of the
surrounding blue ocean by its leaden hue--the vast quantity of
pale-yellow gulf-weed, immense fields of which it wafts from clime to
clime upon its ever-rolling bosom, and by the absence of that
phosphorescence, which is peculiar to the waters of the ocean. The water
of this singular stream is many degrees warmer than the sea through
which it flows. Near Cuba the heat has been ascertained to be as great
as 81 deg., and in its course northward from Cuba, it loses 2 deg. of
temperature for every 3 deg. of latitude. Its warmth is easily accounted for
as the production of very simple causes. It receives its original
impulse in the warm tropical seas, which, pressed toward the South
American shore by the wind, meet with resistance and are deflected along
the coast northward, as stated above by Humboldt, and injected into the
Northern Atlantic Ocean--the vast column of water having parted with
very little of its original caloric in its rapid progress.
We crossed the north-western verge of "The Gulf" near the latitude of
Baltimore, where its breadth is about eighty miles. The atmosphere was
sensibly warmer here than that of the ocean proper, and the water which
we drew up in the ship's bucket raised the mercury a little more than
8 deg.. Not knowing how the mercury stood before entering the Gulf, I could
not determine accurately the change in the atmosphere; but it must have
been very nearly as great as that in the denser fluid. Veins of cool air
circled through its atmosphere every few minutes, as welcome and
refreshing to our bared foreheads as the sprinkling of the coolest
water.
When vessels in their winter voyages along our frigid coasts become
coated with ice, so as to resemble almost precisely, though of a
gigantic size, those miniature glass ships so often seen preserved in
transparent cases, they seek the genial warmth of this region to "thaw
out," as this dissolving process is termed by the sailors. We were
nearly three days in crossing the Gulf, at a very acute angle with its
current, which period of time we passed very pleasantly, for voyagers;
as we had no cold weather to complain of, and a variety of objects to
entertain us. Sea, or Gulf-weed, constantly passed us in acres,
resembling immense meadows of harvest wheat, waving and undulating with
the breeze, tempting us to walk upon it. But for the ceaseless roll and
pitching of our ship, reminding us of our where-about, we might, without
much trouble, have been cheated into the conviction that it was real
_terra firma_.
Flocks of flying fish suddenly breaking from a smooth, swelling billow,
to escape the jaws of some voracious pursuer, whose dorsal fin would be
seen protruding for an instant afterward from the surface, flitted
swiftly, with a skimming motion, over the sea, glittering in the sun
like a flight of silver-winged birds; and then as suddenly, with dried
wings, dropped into the sea again. One morning we found the decks
sprinkled with these finned aerial adventurers, which had flown on board
during the night.
Spars, covered with barnacles--an empty barrel marked on the head N. E.
Rum, which we slightly altered our course _to speak_--a hotly contested
_affaire d'honneur_, between two bantam-cocks in the weather-coop--a few
lessons in splicing and braiding sennet, taken from a good-natured old
sailor--a few more in the art of manufacturing "Turks' Heads," not,
however, _a la Grec_--and other matters and things equally important,
also afforded subjects of speculation and chit-chat, and means of
passing away the time with a tolerable degree of comfort, and, during
the intervals of eating and sleeping, to keep us from the blues.
A gallant ship--a limitless sea rolled out like a vast sheet of mottled
silver--"goodlie companie"--a warm, reviving sun--a flowing sheet, and a
courteous breeze, so gently breathing upon our sails, that surly Boreas,
in a gentler than his wonted mood, must have sent a bevy of Zephyrs to
waft us along--are combinations which both nautical amateurs and
ignoramuses know duly how to appreciate.
From the frequency of "squalls" and "blows" off Hatteras, it were easy
to imagine a telegraphic communication existing between that head-land
and Bermuda, carried on by flashes of lightning and tornadoes; or a game
at bowls between Neptune and Boreas, stationed one on either spot, and
hurling thunderbolts over the sea. This region, and that included
between 25 deg. and 23 deg. north latitude termed by sailors the "horse
latitudes," are two of the most unpleasant localities a voyager has to
encounter on his passage from a New-England sea-port to New-Orleans or
Havana. In one he is wearied by frequent calms, in the other, exposed to
sea sickness, and terrified by almost continual storms.
On the eighth day out, we passed Bermuda--that island-sentinel and spy
of Britain upon our shores. The position of this post with regard to
America, forcibly reminds me--I speak it with all due reverence for the
"Lion" of England--of a lap-dog sitting at a secure distance and keeping
guard over an eagle _volant_. How like proud England thus to come and
set herself down before America, and like a still beautiful mother,
watch with a jealous eye the unfolding loveliness of her rival
daughter--build up a battery d'espionage against her shores, and seek to
hold the very key of her seas.
The Bermudas or "Summer islands" so called from Sir George Summer, who
was wrecked here two centuries since--are a cluster of small coral reefs
lying nearly in the form of a crescent, and walled round and defended
from the sea by craggy rocks, which rear their fronts on every side like
battlements:--They are situated about two hundred and twenty leagues
from the coast of South Carolina, and nearly in the latitude of the city
of Charleston.
The houses are constructed of porous limestone, not unlike lava in
appearance. This material was probably ejected by some unseen and
unhistoried volcanic eruption, by which the islands themselves were in
all probability heaved up from the depths of the ocean. White-washed to
resist the rain, their houses contrast beautifully with the
green-mantled cedars and emerald carpets of the islands. The native
Bermudians follow the sea for a livelihood. They make good sailors while
at sea; but are dissipated and indolent when they return to their native
islands, indulging in drinking, gaming, and every species of
extravagance.
The females are rather pretty than otherwise; with good features and
uncommonly fine eyes. Like all their sex, they are addicted to dress, in
which they display more finery than taste. Dancing is the pastime of
which they are most passionately fond. In affection and obedience to
their "lords," and in tenderness to their children, it is said that they
are patterns to all fair ones who may have taken those, seldom
_audibly-spoken_, vows, "to love, honour, and obey"--oft times
unuttered, I verily believe, from pure intention.
St. George, the principal town in the islands, has become a fashionable
military residence. The society, which is English and extremely
agreeable, is varied by the constant arrival and departure of ships of
war, whose officers, with those of the army, a sprinkling of
distinguished civilians, and clusters of fair beings who have winged it
over the sea, compose the most spirited and pleasant society in the
world. Enjoying a remarkably pure air, and climate similar to that of
South Carolina, with handsomely revenued clergymen of the Church of
England, and rich in various tropical luxuries, it is a desirable
foreign residence and a convenient and pleasant haven for British
vessels sailing in these seas.
This morning we were all in a state of feverish excitement, impatient to
place our eyes once more upon land. Visions of green fields and swelling
hills, pleasantly waving trees and cool fountains--groves, meadows, and
rural cottages, had floated through our waking thoughts and mingled with
our dreams.
"Is the land in sight, Captain?" was the only question heard from the
lips of one and another of the expectant passengers as they rubbed their
sleepy eyes, poked their heads from their half-opened state-room doors,
or peeped from their curtained berths. Ascending to the deck, we beheld
the sun just rising from the sea in the splendor of his oriental pomp,
flinging his beams far along the sky and over the waters, enriching the
ocean with his radiance till it resembled a sea of molten gold, gilding
the dew-hung spars, and spreading a delicate blush of crimson over the
white sails. It was a morning of unrivalled beauty. But thanks to
nautical housewifery, its richness could not be enjoyed from the decks.
At sea, the moment the sun rises, and when one feels in the humor of
quitting his hot state-room and going on deck, the officer of the watch
sings out in a voice that goes directly to the heart--"Forard
there--wash decks!" Then commences an elemental war rivalling Noah's
deluge. _That_ was caused by the pouring down of rain in drops--_thie_
by the out-pouring of full buckets. From the moment this flood commences
one may draw back into his narrow shell, like an affrighted snail, and
take a morning's nap:--the deck, for an hour to come, is no place for
animals that are not web-footed.
Fore and aft the unhappy passenger finds no way of escaping the
infliction of this purifying ceremony. Should he be driven aloft, there
"to banquet on the morning," he were better reposing on a gridiron or
sitting astride a handsaw. If below, there the steward has possession,
sweeping, laying the breakfast table and making-up berths, and the air,
a hundred times breathed over, rushes from the opening state-rooms
threatening to suffocate him--he were better engulfed in the bosom of a
stew-pan.
To stand, cold, wet, and uncomfortable upon the damp decks till the sun
has dried both them and him is the only alternative. If after all the
"holy stone" should come in play, he may then quietly jump over-board.
The evenings, however, amply compensate for the loss of the fine
mornings. The air, free from the dust, floating particles and
exhalations of the land, is perfectly transparent, and the sky of a
richer blue. The stars seem nearer to you there; and the round moon
pours her unclouded flood of light, down upon the sea, with an opulence
and mellowness, of which those who have only seen moonlight, sleeping
upon green hills, cities and forests, know nothing. On such nights,
there cannot be a nobler, or prouder spectacle, as one stands upon the
bows, than the lofty, shining pyramid of snow-white canvass which,
rising majestically from the deck, lessens away, sail after sail, far
into the sky--each sheet distended like a drum-head, yet finely rounded,
and its towering summit, as the ship rises and falls upon the billows,
waving like a tall poplar, swaying in the wind. In these hours of
moonlit enchantment, while reclining at full length upon the deck, and
gazing at the diminished point of the flag-staff, tracing devious
labyrinths among the stars, the blood has danced quicker through my
veins as I could feel the ship springing away beneath me like a fleet
courser, and leaping from wave to wave over the sea. At such moments the
mind cannot divest itself of the idea that the bounding ship is instinct
with life--an animated creature, careering forward by its own volition.
To this are united the musical sighing of the winds through the sails
and rigging--the dashing of the sea and the sound of the rushing vessel
through the water, which sparkles with phosphorescent light, as though
sprinkled with silver dust.
A dark night also affords a scene to gratify curiosity and charm the
eye. A few nights since, an exclamation of surprise from one of the
passengers called me from my writing to the deck. As, on emerging from
the cabin, I mechanically cast my eyes over the sea, I observed that at
first it had the appearance of reflecting the stars from its bosom in
the most dazzling splendour, but on looking upward to gaze upon the
original founts of this apparently reflected light, my eyes met only a
gloomy vault of clouds unillumined by a solitary star. The "scud" flew
wildly over its face and the heavens were growing black with a gathering
tempest. Yet beneath, the sea glittered like a "lake of fire." The
crests of the vast billows as they burst high in the air, descended in
showers of scintillations. The ship scattered broken light from her
bows, as though a pavement of mirrors had been shivered in her pathway.
Her track was marked by a long luminous train, not unlike the tail of a
comet, while gleams of light like lighted lamps floating upon the water,
whirled and flashed here and there in the wild eddies of her wake. The
spray which was flung over the bows glittered like a sprinkling of
diamonds as it fell upon the decks, where, as it flowed around the feet,
it sparkled for some seconds with innumerable shining specks. And so
intense was the light shining from the sea that I was enabled to read
with ease the fine print of a newspaper. A bucket plunged into the sea,
which whitened like shivered ice, on its striking it, was drawn up full
of glittering sea-water that sparkled for more than a minute, after
being poured over the deck, and then gradually losing its lustre,
finally disappeared in total darkness.
Many hypotheses have been suggested by scientific men to account for
this natural phenomenon. "Some have regarded it," says Dr. Coates, "as
the effect of electricity, produced by the friction of the waves; others
as the product of a species of fermentation in the water, occurring
accidentally in certain places. Many have attributed it to the
well-known phosphorescence of putrid fish, or to the decomposition of
their slime and exuviae, and a few only to the real cause, the voluntary
illumination of many distinct species of marine animals.
"The purpose for which this phosphorescence is designed is lost in
conjecture; but when we recollect that fish are attracted to the net by
the lights of the fisherman, and that many of the marine shellfish are
said to leave their native element to crawl around a fire built upon the
beach, are we not warranted in supposing that the animals of which we
have been speaking, are provided with these luminous properties, in
order to entice their prey within their grasp?"
IV.
Land--Abaco--Fleet--Hole in the Wall--A wrecker's hut--
Bahama vampyres--Light houses--Conspiracy--Wall of Abaco--
Natural Bridge--Cause--Night scene--Speak a packet ship--A
floating city--Wrecker's lugger--Signal of distress--A
Yankee lumber brig--Portuguese Man-of-War.
"Land ho!" shouted a voice both loud and long, apparently from the
clouds, just as we had comfortably laid ourselves out yesterday
afternoon for our customary _siesta_.
"Where away?" shouted the captain, springing to the deck, but not so
fast as to prevent our tumbling over him, in the head-and-heels
projection of our bodies up the companion-way, in our eagerness to catch
a glimpse, once more, of the grassy earth; of something at least
stationary.
"Three points off the weather bow," replied the man aloft.
"Where is it?"--"which way?" "I see it"--"Is that it captain--the little
hump?" were the eager exclamations and inquiries of the enraptured
passengers, who, half beside themselves, were peering, straining, and
querying, to little purpose.
It was Abaco--the land first made by vessels bound to New Orleans or
Cuba, from the north. With the naked eye, we could scarcely distinguish
it from the small blue clouds, which, resting, apparently, on the sea,
floated near the verge of the southern horizon. But with the spy glass,
we could discern it more distinctly, and less obscured by that vail of
blue haze, which always envelopes distant objects when seen from a great
distance at sea, or on land.
As we approached, its azure vail gradually faded away, and it appeared
to our eyes in its autumnal gray coat, with all its irregularities of
surface and outline clearly visible.
Slightly altering our course, in order to weather its southern
extremity, we ran down nearly parallel with the shores of the island
that rose apparently from the sea, as we neared it, stretching out upon
the water like a huge alligator, which it resembled in shape. Sail after
sail hove in sight as we coasted pleasantly along with a fine breeze,
till, an hour before the sun went down, a large wide-spreading fleet
could be discerned from the deck, lying becalmed, near the extreme
southern point of Abaco, which, stretching out far into the sea, like a
wall perforated with an arched gateway near the centre, is better known
by the familiar appellation of "The Hole in the Wall."
"There is a habitation of some sort," exclaimed one of the passengers,
whose glass had long been hovering over the island.
"Where--where?" was the general cry, and closer inspection from a dozen
eyes, detected a miserable hut, half hidden among the bushes, and so
wild and wretched in appearance, that we unanimously refused it the
honor of
"----A local habitation and a name!"
It was nevertheless the first dwelling of man we had seen for many a
day; and notwithstanding our vote of non-acceptance, it was not devoid
of interest in our eyes. It was evidently the abode of some one of those
demi sea-monsters, called "Wreckers," who, more destructive than the
waves, prey upon the ship-wrecked mariner. The Bahamas swarm with these
wreckers who, in small lugger-sloops, continually prowl about among the
islands,
"When the demons of the tempest rave,"
like birds of ill omen, ready to seize upon the storm-tossed vessel,
should it be driven among the rocks or shoals with which this region
abounds. At midnight, when the lightning for a moment illumines the sky
and ocean, the white sail of the wrecker's little bark, tossing amid the
storm upon the foaming billows, will flash upon the eyes of the toiling
seamen as they labour to preserve their vessel, striking their souls
with dread and awakening their easily excited feelings of superstition.
Like evil spirits awaiting at the bed-side the release of an unannealed
soul, they hover around the struggling ship through the night, and,
flitting away at the break of morning, may be discovered in the
subsiding of the tempest, just disappearing under the horizon with a
sailor's hearty blessing sent after them.
That light-houses have not been erected on the dangerous head-lands and
reefs which line the Bahama channel, is a strange oversight or neglect
on the part of the governments of the United States and England, which
of all maritime nations are most immediately concerned in the object.
Suitable light-houses on the most dangerous points, would annually save,
from otherwise inevitable destruction, many vessels and preserve
hundreds of valuable lives. The profession of these marauders would be,
in such a case, but a sinecure; provided they would allow the lights to
remain. But, unless each tower were converted into a well-manned
gun-battery the piratical character of these men will preclude any hope
of their permanent establishment. Men of their buccaneering habits are
not likely to lie quietly on their oars, and see their means of
livelihood torn from them by the secure navigation of these waters. They
will sound, from island to island, the tocsin for the gathering of their
strength, and concentrate for the destruction of these enemies to their
_honest calling_, before they have cast their cheering beams over these
stormy seas a score of nights.
As we approached the Hole in the Wall, the breeze which we had brought
down the channel, stole in advance and set in motion the fleet of
becalmed vessels, which rolled heavily on the long, ground-swell, about
a league ahead of us. The spur or promontory of Abaco, around which we
were sailing, is a high, wall-like ridge of rock, whose surface
gradually inclines from the main body of the island to its abrupt
termination about a quarter of a league into the sea. As we sailed along
its eastern side we could not detect the opening from which it derives
its name. The eye met only a long black wall of rock, whose rugged
projections were hung with festoons of dark purple sea-weed, and around
whose base the waters surged, with a roar heard distinctly by us, three
miles from the island.
On rounding the extremity of the head-land, and bearing up a point or
two, the arch in the Cape gradually opened till it became wholly
visible, apparently about half the altitude of, and very similar in
appearance to the Natural bridge in Virginia. The chasm is irregularly
arched, and broader at thirty feet from the sea than at its base. The
water is of sufficient depth, and the arch lofty enough, to allow small
fishing vessels to pass through the aperture, which is about one hundred
feet in length through the solid rock. There is a gap which would
indicate the former existence of a similar cavity, near the end of this
head-land. A large, isolated mass of rock is here detached from the main
wall, at its termination in the sea, which was undoubtedly, at some
former period, joined to it by a natural arch, now fallen into the
water, as, probably, will happen to this within a century.
These cavities are caused by the undermining of the sea, which, dashing
unceasingly against the foundations of the wall, shatters and crumbles
it by its constant abrasion, opens through it immense fissures, and
loosens large fragments of the rock, that easily yield and give way to
its increased violence; while the upper stratum, high beyond the reach
of the surge, remains firm, and, long after the base has crumbled into
the sea, arches over like a bridge the chasm beneath. By and by this
falls by its own weight, and is buried beneath the waves.
As the shades of night fell over the sea, and veiled the land from our
eyes, we had a fresh object of excitement in giving chase to the vessels
which, as the sun went down among them, were scattered thickly along the
western horizon far ahead of us--ships, brigs, and schooners, stretching
away under all sail before the evening breeze to the south and west. We
had lost sight of them after night had set in, but at about half past
eight in the evening, as we all were peering through the darkness, upon
the _qui vive_ for the strangers, a bright light flashed upon our eyes
over the water, and at the same moment the lookout forward electrified
us with the cry----
"A ship dead ahead, sir!"
The captain seized his speaking-trumpet, and sprang to the bows; but we
were there before him, and discovered a solitary light burning at the
base of a dark pyramid, which towered gloomily in the obscurity of the
night. The outline of the object was so confused and blended with the
sky, that we could discern it but indistinctly. To our optics it
appeared, as it loomed up in the night-haze, to be a ship of the largest
class. The spy glass was in immediate requisition, but soon laid aside
again.
Let me inform you that "DAY and NIGHT" marked upon the
tube of a spy-glass, signifies that it may be used in the day, and kept
in the beckets at night.
We had been gathered upon the bowsprit and forecastle but a few seconds,
watching in silence the dark moving tower on the water before us, as we
approached it rapidly, when we were startled by the sudden hail of the
stranger, who was now hauling up on our weather bow--
"Ship-ahoy!" burst loudly over the water from the hoarse throat of a
trumpet.
"Ahoy!" bellowed our captain, so gently back again through the ship's
trumpet, that the best "bull of Bashan" might have envied him his roar.
"What ship's that?"
"The Plato of Portland," with a second bellow which was a very manifest
improvement upon the preceding.
"Where bound?"
"New-Orleans!"
Now came our turn to play the querist. "What ship's that?"
"The J. L., eleven days from New-York, bound to New-Orleans."
"Ay, ay--any news?"
"No, nothing particular."
We again moved on in silence; sailing in company, but not always in
sight of each other, during the remainder of the night.
A delightful prospect met our eyes, on coming on deck the morning after
making the Hole in the Wall. The sea was crowded with vessels, bearing
upon its silvery bosom a floating city. By some fortuitous
circumstance, a fleet of vessels, bearing the flags of various nations,
had arrived in the Bahama channel at the same time, and now, were
amicably sailing in company, borne by the same waves--wafted by the same
breeze, and standing toward the same point. Our New-York friend, for
whom, on casting our eyes over the lively scene we first searched, we
discovered nearly two leagues from us to the windward, stretching boldly
across the most dangerous part of the Bahama Banks, instead of taking,
with the rest of the fleet, the farther but less hazardous course down
the "Channel"--if a few inches more of water than the Banks are
elsewhere covered with, may with propriety be thus denominated.
A little to the south of us, rocking upon the scarcely rising billows,
was a rough clumsy looking craft, with one low, black mast, and
amputated bowsprit, about four feet in length, sustaining a jib of no
particular hue or dimensions. Hoisted upon the mast, was extended a dark
red painted mainsail, blackened by the smoke, which, issuing from a
black wooden chimney amidships, curled gracefully upward and floated
away on the breeze in thin blue clouds. A little triangular bit of red
bunting fluttered at her mast head; and, towed by a long line at her
stern, a little green whale-boat skipped and danced merrily over the
waves. Standing, or rather reclining at the helm--for men learn
strangely indolent postures in the warm south--with a segar between his
lips, and his eye fixed earnestly upon the J. L., was a black-whiskered
fellow, whose head was enveloped in a tri-coloured, conical cap,
terminated by a tassel, which dangled over his left ear. A blue flannel
shirt, and white flowing trowsers, with which his body and limbs were
covered, were secured to his person by a red sash tied around the waist,
instead of suspenders. Two others similarly dressed, and as bountifully
bewhiskered, leaned listlessly over the side gazing at our ship, as she
dashed proudly past their rude bark. A negro, whose charms would have
been unquestionable in Congo, was stretched, apparently asleep, along
the main-boom, which one moment swung with him over the water, and the
next suspended him over his chimney, whose azure incense ascended from
his own altar, to this ebony deity, in clouds of grateful odour.
"What craft do you call that?" inquired one of the passengers of the
captain.
"What? It's a wrecker's lugger.--Watch him now!"
At the moment he spoke, the lugger dropped astern of us, came to a few
points--hauled close on the wind, and then gathering headway, bounded
off with the speed of the wind in the direction of the New-York packet
ship, which the wrecker's quicker and more practised eye had detected
displaying signals of distress. Turning our glasses in the direction of
the ship, we could see that she had grounded on the bank, thereby
affording very ample illustration of the truth of the proverb, "The more
haste the less speed."
About the middle of the forenoon the wind died away, and left us
becalmed within half a mile of a brig loaded with lumber. The remaining
vessels of the fleet were fast dispersing over the sea--this Yankee
"fruiterer" being the only one sailing within a league of us.
These lumber vessels, which are usually loaded with shingles, masts,
spars, and boards, have been long the floating mines of Maine. But as
her forests disappear, which are the veins from whence she draws the
ore, her sons will have to plough the earth instead of the ocean. Then,
and not till then, will Maine take a high rank as an agricultural state.
The majority of men who sail in these lumber vessels are both farmers
and sailors; who cultivate their farms at one season, fell its timber
and sail away with it in the shape of boards and shingles to a West
India mart at another. Jonathan is the only man who knows how to carry
on two trades at one time, and carry them on successfully.
For their lumber, which they more frequently _barter_ away than sell,
they generally obtain a return cargo of molasses, which is converted by
our "sober and moral" fellow-countrymen into liquid gunpowder, in the
vats of those numerous distilleries, which, like guide-posts to the
regions of death, line the sea skirts of New-England!
The smooth bottom, above which we were suspended, through the deceptive
transparency of the water, appeared, though eighteen feet beneath us,
within reach of the oar. But there were many objects floating by upon
the surface, which afforded us more interest than all beneath it.
Among these was the little nautilus which, gaily dancing over the waves,
like a Lilliputian mariner,
"Spreads his thin oar and courts the rising gale."
This beautiful animal sailed past us in fleets wafted by a breeze
gentler than an infant's breathing. We endeavoured to secure one of them
more beautiful than its fellows, but like a sensitive plant it instantly
shrunk at the touch, and sunk beneath the surface; appearing beneath the
water, like a little, animated globule tinged with the most delicate
colours. This singular animal is termed by the sailors, "The Portuguee'
man-o'-war," from what imaginary resemblance to the war vessels of His
Most Christian Majesty I am at a loss to determine; unless we resort for
a solution of the mystery to a jack-tar, whom I questioned upon the
subject--
"It's cause as how they takes in all sail, or goes _chuck_ to bottom,
when it 'gins to blow a spankin' breeze,"--truly a fine compliment to
the navarchy of Portugal!
This animal is a genus of the mollusca tribe, which glitters in the
night on the crest of every bursting wave. In the tropical seas it is
found riding over the gently ruffled billows in great numbers, with its
crystalline sail expanded to the light breeze--barks delicate and tiny
enough for fairy "Queen Mab." Termed by naturalists _pharsalia_, from
its habit of inflating its transparent sail, this splendid animal is
often confounded with the _nautilus pompilius_, a genus of marine
animals of an entirely distinct species, and of a much ruder
appearance, whose dead shells are found floating every where in the
tropical seas, while the living animal is found swimming upon the ocean
in every latitude.
Dr. Coates, in describing the Portuguese man-of-war (pharsalia) says,
that "it is an oblong animated sack of air, elongated at one extremity
into a conical neck, and surmounted by a membraneous expansion running
nearly the whole length of the body, and rising above into a
semi-circular sail, which can be expanded or contracted to a
considerable extent at the pleasure of the animal. From beneath the body
are suspended from ten to fifty, or more little tubes, from half an inch
to an inch in length, open at their lower extremity, and formed like the
flower of the blue bottle. These I cannot but consider as proper
stomachs, from the centre of which depends a little cord, never
exceeding the fourth of an inch in thickness, and often forty times as
long as the body.
"The group of stomachs is less transparent, and although the hue is the
same as that of the back, they are on this account incomparably less
elegant. By their weight and form they fill the double office of a keel
and ballast, while the cord-like appendage, which floats out for yards
behind, is called by seamen "the cable." With this organ, which is
supposed by naturalists, from the extreme pain felt, when brought in
contact with the back of the hand, to secrete a poisonous or acrid
fluid, the animal secures his prey." But in the opinion of Dr. C.
naturalists in deciding upon this mere hypothesis have concluded too
hastily. He says that the secret will be better explained by a more
careful examination of the organ itself. "The cord is composed of a
narrow layer of contractile fibres, scarcely visible when relaxed, on
account of its transparency. If the animal be large, this layer of
fibres will sometimes extend itself to the length of four or five yards.
A spiral line of blue, bead-like bodies, less than the head of a pin,
revolves around the cable from end to end, and under the microscope
these beads appear covered with minute prickles so hard and sharp that
they will readily enter the substance of wood, adhering with such
pertinacity that the cord can rarely be detached without breaking.
"It is to these prickles that the man-of-war owes its power of
destroying animals much its superior in strength and activity. When any
thing becomes impaled upon the cords, the contractile fibres are called
into action, and rapidly shrink from many feet in length to less than
the same number of inches, bringing the prey within reach of the little
tubes, by one of which it is immediately swallowed.
"Its size varies from half an inch to six inches in length. When it is
in motion the sail is accommodated to the force of the breeze, and the
elongated neck is curved upward, giving to the animal a form strongly
resembling the little glass swans which we sometimes see swimming in
goblets.
"It is not the form, however, which constitutes the chief beauty of this
little navigator. The lower part of the body and the neck are devoid of
all colours except a faint iridescence in reflected lights, and they are
so perfectly transparent that the finest print is not obscured when
viewed through them. The back becomes gradually tinged as we ascend,
with the finest and most delicate hues that can be imagined; the base of
the sail equals the purest sky in depth and beauty of tint; the summit
is of the most splendid red, and the central part is shaded by the
gradual intermixture of these colours through all the intermediate
grades of purple. Drawn as it were upon a ground-work of mist, the tints
have an aerial softness far beyond the reach of art."
V.
A calm--A breeze on the water--The land of flowers--Juan
Ponce de Leon--The fountain of perpetual youth--An
irremediable loss to single gentlemen--Gulf Stream--New-
Providence--Cuba--Pan of Matanzas--Blue hills of Cuba--An
armed cruiser--Cape St. Antonio--Pirates--Enter the Mexican
Gulf--Mobile--A southern winter--A farewell to the North and
a welcome to the South--The close of the voyage--Balize--
Fleet--West Indiaman--Portuguese polacre--Land ho!--The land
--Its formation--Pilot or "little brief authority"--Light-
house--Revenue cutter--Newspapers--"The meeting of the
waters"--A singular appearance--A morning off the Balize--
The tow-boat.
During the period we lay becalmed under a burning sun, which, though
entering its winter solstice retained the fervour of summer fire, we
passed the most of our time in the little cockle-shell of a yawl, (as
though the limits of our ship were not confined enough) riding
listlessly upon the long billows or rowing far out from the ship, which,
with all her light sails furled, rolled heavily upon the crestless
billows, suggesting the anomalous idea of power in a state of
helplessness.
An hour before sunset our long-idle sails were once more filled by a
fine breeze, which, ruffling the surface of the ocean more than a league
distant, we had discerned coming from the Florida shore, some time
before it reached us; and as it came slowly onward over the sea, we
watched with no little anxiety the agitated line of waves which danced
merrily before it, marking its approach.
A faintly delineated gray bank lining the western horizon, marked the
"land of flowers" of the romantic Ponce de Leon. Can that be Florida!
the _Pasqua de Flores_ of the Spaniards--the country of blossoms and
living fountains, welling with perpetual youth! were our reflections as
we gazed upon the low marshy shore. Yet here the avaricious Spaniard
sought for a mine more precious than the diamonds and gold of the Incas!
a fountain whose waters were represented to have the wonderful property
of rejuvenating old age and perpetuating youth! Here every wrinkled
Castilian Iolas expected to find a Hebe to restore him to the bloom and
vigour of Adonis! But alas, for the bachelors of modern days, the seeker
for fountains of eternal youth wandered only through inhospitable wilds,
and encountered the warlike Seminoles, who, unlike the timorous natives
of the newly discovered Indies, met his little band with bold and
determined resolution. After a long and fruitless search, he returned to
Porto Rico, wearied, disappointed, and no doubt with his brow more
deeply furrowed than when he set out upon his singularly romantic
expedition.
While we glided along the Florida shore, which was fast receding from
the eye, a sudden boiling and commotion of the sea, which we had
remarked some time before we were involved in it, assured us that we had
again entered the Gulf Stream, where it rushes from the Mexican Sea,
after having made a broad sweep of eighteen hundred miles, and in twenty
days after emerging from it in higher latitudes. Our course was now very
sensibly retarded by the strong current against which we sailed, though
impelled by a breeze which would have wafted us, over a currentless sea,
nine or ten miles an hour. In the afternoon the blue hills of Cuba,
elevated above the undulating surface of the island, and stretching
along its back like a serrated spine, reared themselves from the sea far
to the south; and at sunset the twin hills of Matanzas, for which
sailors' imaginations have conjured up not the most pleasing
appellation--could be just distinguished from the blue waves on the
verge of the ocean; and receding from the sea, with an uneven surface,
the vast island rose along the whole southern horizon, not more than
four or five leagues distant. The Florida shore had long before
disappeared, though several vessels were standing toward it, bound
apparently into Key West, between which and Havana we had seen an armed
schooner, under American colours, hovering during the whole afternoon.
Cape St. Antonio, the notorious rendezvous of that daring band of
pirates, which, possessing the marauding without the chivalrous spirit
of the old buccaneers, long infested these seas, just protruded above
the rim of the horizon far to the south-east. We soon lost sight of it,
and in the evening, altering our course a little to avoid the shoals
which are scattered thickly off the southern and western extremity of
Florida, ran rapidly and safely past the Tortugas--the Scylla and
Charybdis of this southern latitude.
We already begin to appreciate the genial influence of a southern
climate. The sun, tempered by a pleasant wind, beams down upon us warm
and cheerily--the air is balmy and laden with grateful fragrance from
the unseen land--and though near the first of December, at which time
you dwellers under the wintry skies of the north, are shivering over
your grates, we have worn our summer garments and palm-leaf hats for
some days past. If this is a specimen of a southern winter, where
quietly to inhale the mellow air is an elysian enjoyment--henceforth
sleighing and skating will have less charms for me.
We are at last at the termination of our voyage upon the _sea_. In three
days at the farthest we expect to land in New-Orleans. But three days
upon the waveless Mississippi to those who have been riding a month upon
the ocean, is but a trifle. After an uncommonly long, but unusually
pleasant passage of thirty-one days, we anchored off the Balize[1] last
evening at sun set.
The tedious monotony of our passage since leaving Cuba, was more than
cancelled by the scenes and variety of yesterday. We had not seen a sail
for four or five days, when, on ascending to the deck at sunrise
yesterday morning, judge of my surprise and pleasure at beholding a
fleet of nearly fifty vessels surrounding us on every side, all standing
to one common centre; in the midst of which our own gallant ship dashed
proudly on, like a high mettled courser contending for the victory. To
one imprisoned in a companionless ship on the broad and lonely ocean so
many days, this was a scene, from its vivid contrast, calculated to
awaken in the bosom emotions of the liveliest gratification and
pleasure.
A point or two abaft our beam, within pistol shot distance, slowly and
majestically moved a huge, British West Indiaman, her black gloomy hull
wholly unrelieved by brighter colours, with her red ensign heavily
unfolding to the breeze in recognition of the stars and stripes,
floating gracefully at our peak. Farther astern, a taunt-rigged, rakish
looking Portuguese polacca (polaque) carrying even in so light a breeze
a "bone in her teeth," glided swiftly along, every thing set from deck
to truck. We could distinctly see the red woollen caps and dark red
faces of her crew, peering over the bow, as they pointed to, and made
remarks upon our ship. Early in the morning, about a league ahead of
us, we had observed a heavy sailing Dutch ship, as indeed all Dutch
ships are; about eleven o'clock we came up with, and passed her, with
the same facility as if she had been at anchor. On all sides of us
vessels of nearly every maritime nation were in sight; and in
conjectures respecting them, and in admiring their variety of
construction and appearance, we passed most of the day, elated with the
prospect of a speedy termination to our voyage.
Before we had completed dinner, the cry of "Land ho!" was heard from the
main-top, and in the course of half an hour we saw from the deck, not
exactly _land_, but an apology for it, in the form and substance of an
immense marsh of tall, wild grass, which stretched along the horizon
from west to east _ad infinitum_. This soil, if you may term it such, is
formed by the accumulation and deposition of ochreous matter discharged
by the Mississippi, whose turbid waters are more or less charged with
terrene particles, so much so, that a glass filled with its water
appears to deposit in a short time a sediment nearly equal to
one-twelfth of its bulk. The matter discharged by the river, condensed
and strengthened by logs, trees, grass, and other gross substances, is
raised above the ordinary tide waters, upon which a soil is formed of
mingled sand and marl, capable of producing the long grass, which not
only lines the coast in the vicinity of this river, but extends many
miles into the interior, where it unites with the cypress swamps which
cover the greater part of the unreclaimed lowlands of Louisiana. We
coasted along this shore till about three in the afternoon, when the
light-house at the South-East passage, the chief _embouchure_ of the
Mississippi, appeared in sight but a few miles ahead; passing this, we
received a pilot from a fairy-like pilot-boat, which, on delivering him,
bounded away from us like a swift-winged albatross. About four o'clock
the light-house at the South-West passage lifted its solitary head above
the horizon. The breeze freshening, we approached it rapidly, under the
guidance of the pilot, who had taken command of our ship. When nearly
abreast of the light-house, a fierce little warlike-looking revenue
cutter ran alongside of us, and lowering her boat, sent her lieutenant
on board, to see that "all was straight." He cracked a bottle of wine
with the captain, and leaving some late New-Orleans papers, took his
departure. For the next half hour the quarter-deck appeared like a
school-room--buzz, buzz, buzz! till the papers were read and re-read,
advertisements and all, and all were satisfied. About six in the evening
we cast anchor at the mouth of the South-West pass, in company not only
with the fleet in which we had sailed during the day, but with a large
fleet already at anchor, waiting for tide, pilots, wind, or tow-boats.
In approaching the mouth of the river, we observed, to us, a novel and
remarkable appearance--the meeting of the milky, turbid waters of the
Mississippi, with the pale green of the ocean. The waters of the former,
being lighter than the latter, and not readily mingling with it, are
thrown upon the surface, floating like oil to the depth of only two or
three feet. A ship passing through this water, leaves a long, dark
wake, which is slowly covered by the uniting of the parted waters. The
line of demarkation between the yellowish-brown water of the river, and
the clear green water of the sea, is so distinctly defined, that a cane
could be laid along it. When we first discovered the long white line,
about two miles distant, it presented the appearance of a low sand
beach. As we reached it, I went aloft, and seating myself in the
top-gallant cross-trees, beheld one of the most singular appearances of
which I had ever formed any conception. When within a few fathoms of the
discoloured water, we appeared to be rushing on to certain destruction,
and when our sharp keel cut and turned up the sluggish surface, I
involuntarily shuddered; the next instant we seemed suspended between
two seas. Another moment, and we had passed the line of division,
ploughing the lazy and muddy waves, and leaving a dark transparent wake
far astern. We are hourly expecting our tow-boat--the Whale. When she
arrives we shall immediately, in the company of some other ships, move
up for New-Orleans. The morning is delightful, and we have the prospect
of a pleasant sail, or rather _tow_, up the river. A hundred snow-white
sails are reflecting the rays of the morning sun, while the rapid
dashing of the swift pilot-boats about us, and the slower movements of
ships getting under weigh to cross the bar, and work their own way up to
the city--together with the mingling sounds of stern commands, and the
sonorous "heave-ho-yeo!" of the labouring seamen, borne upon the breeze,
give an almost unparalleled charm and novelty to the scene. Our Whale
is now in sight, spouting, not _jets d'eau_, but volumes of dense black
smoke. We shall soon be under weigh, and every countenance is bright
with anticipation. Within an hour we shall be floating upon the great
artery of North America, "prisoners of hope" and of _steam_, on our way
to add our little number to the countless thousands who throng the
streets of the Key of the Great Valley through which it flows.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] French BALISE, Spanish, VALIZA, a _beacon_; once placed at the mouth
of the river, but now superseded by a light-house. Hence the term
"Balize" applied to the mouth of the Mississippi.
PART II.
VI.
The Mississippi--The Whale--Description of tow-boats--A
package--A threatened storm--A beautiful brigantine--
Physiognomy of ships--Richly furnished cabin--An obliging
Captain--Desert the ship--Getting under weigh--A chain of
captives--Towing--New-Orleans--A mystery to be unraveled.
Upon the mighty bosom of the "Father of Waters", our gallant ship now
proudly floats. The Mississippi! that noble river, whose magnificent
windings I have traced with my finger upon the map in my school-boy
days, wishing, with all the adventurous longing of a boy, that I might,
like the good fathers Marquette and Hennepin, leap into an Indian's
birch canoe, and launching from its source among the snows and untrodden
wilds of the far north, float pleasantly away under every climate, down
to the cis-Atlantic Mediterranean; where, bursting from its confined
limits, it proudly shoots into that tideless sea through numerous
passages, like radii from one common centre. My wishes are now, in a
measure, about to be realized. The low, flat, and interminable marshes,
through the heart of which we are rapidly advancing--the ocean-like
horizon, unrelieved by the slightest prominence--the sullen, turbid
waves around us, which yield but slowly and heavily to the irresistible
power of steam--all familiar characteristics of this river--would alone
assure me that I am on the Mississippi. My last letter left us in the
immediate expectation of being taken in tow by the "Whale," then coming
rapidly down the South-West passage, in obedience to the hundred signals
flying at the "fore" of as many vessels on every side of us. In a few
minutes, snorting and dashing over the long ground-swell, and flinging a
cloud of foam from her bows, she ran alongside of us, and sent her boat
on board. While the little skiff was leaping from wave to wave to our
ship, we had time to observe more attentively than when in motion, the
singular appearance of this _unique_ class of steamboats.
Her engine is of uncommon power, placed nearer the centre of the hull
than in boats of the usual construction; her cabin is small, elevated,
and placed near the engine in the centre of the boat. With the exception
of the engine and cabin, she is "flush" from stem to stern; one quarter
of her length abaft the cabin, and the same portion forward of the
boilers being a broad platform, which extends quite around the boat,
forming a very spacious guard on either side.
The after part of this guard is latticed for the purpose of carrying off
the water with facility when thrown back from the wheels. They seldom or
never take passengers up to the city. The usual price for towing is, I
think, about one dollar _per_ ton. Hence the expense is very great for
vessels of large burthen; and rather than incur it, many ships, after
being towed over the bar, which, at this season, cannot be crossed
otherwise, work their own way up to town, which, with a fair wind, may
be effected in twenty-four hours, the distance being but one hundred and
five miles; but it not unfrequently takes them ten or fifteen days. Our
captain informs me that he once lay thirty-six days in the river before
he could reach New-Orleans--but fortunately, owing to the state of the
market, on his arrival, he realized two hundred per cent. more on his
cargo than he would have done had he arrived a month earlier.
The jolly-boat from the steamer was now along side, and the officer in
the stern sheets tossed a small package on our quarter-deck; and then,
with the velocity of an uncaged bird, his little green cockle-shell
darted away from us like a dolphin. The next moment he stood upon the
low deck of the steamer.
"Go ahead!" loudly was borne over the water, and with a plunge and a
struggle, away she dashed from us with her loud, regular _boom_, _boom_,
_boom_! throwing the spray around her head, like the huge gambolling
monster from which she derives her name. With her went our hopes of
speedy deliverance from our present durance. With faces whose
complicated, whimsically-woful expression Lavater himself could not have
analyzed, and as though moved by one spirit, we turned simultaneously
toward the captain, who leaned against the capstan, reading one of the
letters from the package just received. There was a cloud upon his brow
which portended no good to our hopes, and which, by a sympathetic
feeling, was attracted to, and heavily settled upon our own. We turned
simultaneously to the tow-boat: she was rapidly receding in the
distance. We turned again to watch our probable fate in the captain's
face. It spoke as plainly as face could speak, "gentlemen, _no_
tow-boat." We gazed upon each other like school-boys hatching a
conspiracy. Mutual glances of chagrin and dissatisfaction were bandied
about the decks. After so long a passage, with our port almost in sight,
and our voyage nearly ended, to be compelled to remain longer in our
close prison, and creep like a
"Wounded snake, dragging its slow length along,"
winding, day after day, through the sinuosities of this sluggish
Mississippi, was enough to make us ship-wearied wretches verily,
"To weep our spirits from our eyes."
It was a consummation we had never wished. There was evidently a
rebellion in embryo. The storm was rapidly gathering, and the thunders
had already begun "to utter their voices." The whole scene was
infinitely amusing. There could not have been more _feeling_ exhibited,
had an order come down for the ship to ride a Gibraltar quarantine.
The captain, having quietly finished the perusal of his letters, now
changed at once the complexion of affairs.
"I have just received advices, gentlemen, from my consignees in the
city, that the market will be more favourable for my cargo fifteen days
hence, than now; therefore, as I have so much leisure before me, I shall
decline taking the tow-boat, and sail up to New-Orleans. I will,
however, send my boat aboard the brig off our starboard quarter, which
will take steam, and try to engage passage for those who wish to leave
the ship."
There was no alternative, and we cheerfully sacrificed our individual
wishes to the interests of Captain Callighan, whose urbanity, kindness
and gentlemanly deportment, during the whole passage out, had not only
contributed to our comfort and happiness, but won for him our cordial
esteem and good feelings.[2]
In a few minutes one of our quarter-boats was alongside, bobbing up and
down on the short seas, with the buoyancy of a cork-float. The first
officer, myself, and another passenger, leaped into her; and a few dozen
long and nervous strokes from the muscular arms of our men, soon ran us
aboard the brig, whose anchor was already "apeak," in readiness for the
Whale. As we approached her, I was struck with her admirable symmetry
and fine proportions--she was a perfect model of naval architecture.
Though rather long for her breadth of beam, the sharp construction of
her bows, and the easy, elliptical curve of her sides, gave her a
peculiarly light and graceful appearance, which, united with her taunt,
slightly raking taper masts, and the precision of her rigging, presented
to our view a nautical _ensemble_, surpassing in elegance any thing of
the kind I had ever before beheld.
We were politely received at the gangway by the captain, a gentlemanly,
sailor-like looking young man, with whom, after introducing ourselves,
we descended into the cabin. I had time, however, to notice that the
interior of this very handsome vessel corresponded with the exterior.
The capstan, the quarter-rail stanchions, the edge of the companion-way,
and the taffrail, were all ornamented and strengthened with massive
brass plates, polished like a mirror. The binnacle case was of ebony,
enriched with inlaying and carved work. A dazzling array of steel-headed
boarding pikes formed a glittering crescent half around the main-mast.
Her decks evinced the free use of the "holy-stone," and in snowy
whiteness, would have put to the blush the unsoiled floors of the most
fastidious Yankee housewife. Her rigging was not hung on pins, but run
and coiled "man-o'-war fashion," upon her decks. Her long boat,
amidships, was rather an ornament than an excrescence, as in most
merchantmen. Forward, the "men" were gathered around the windlass, which
was abaft the foremast, all neatly dressed in white trousers and shirts,
even to the sable "Doctor" and his "sub," whose double banks of ivories
were wonderingly illuminative, as they grinned at the strangers who had
so unceremoniously boarded the brig.
As I descended the mahogany stair-case, supported by a highly polished
balustrade cast in brass, my curiosity began to be roused, and I found
myself wondering into what pleasure-yacht I had intruded. She was
evidently American; for the "stars and stripes" were floating over our
heads. Independent of this evidence of her nation, her bright, golden
sides, and peculiar American _expression_ (for I contend that there is a
national and an individual expression to every vessel, as strongly
marked and as easily defined as the expression of every human
countenance,) unhesitatingly indicated her country.
My curiosity was increased on entering the roomy, richly wrought, and
tastefully furnished cabin. The fairest lady in England's halls might
have coveted it for her _boudoir_. Here were every luxury and comfort,
that wealth and taste combined could procure. A piano, on which lay
music books, a flute, clarionet, and a guitar of curious workmanship,
occupied one side of the cabin; on the other stood a sofa, most
temptingly inviting a loll, and a centre table was strewed with
pamphlets, novels, periodicals, poetry, and a hundred little unwritten
elegancies. The transom was ingeniously constructed, so as to form a
superb sideboard, richly covered with plate, but more richly _lined_, as
we subsequently had an opportunity of knowing, to our hearts' content.
Three doors with mirrored panelling gave egress from the cabin,
forward, to two state rooms and a dining-room, furnished in the same
style of magnificence.
My companions shared equally in my surprise, at the novelty of every
thing around us. I felt a disposition to return to our ship, fearing
that our proposition to take passage in the brig might be unacceptable.
But before I had come to a decision, Mr. F., our first officer, with
true sailor-like bluntness, had communicated our situation and wishes.
"Certainly," replied the captain, "but I regret that my state-rooms will
not accommodate more than five or six; the others will have to swing
hammocks between decks; if they will do this, they are welcome."
Although this compliance with our request was given with the utmost
cheerfulness and alacrity, I felt that our taking passage with him would
be inconvenient and a gross intrusion; and would have declined saying,
that some other vessel would answer our purpose equally well. He would
not listen to me but in so urgent a manner requested us to take passage
with him, that we reluctantly consented, and immediately returned to our
ship to relate our success, and transfer our baggage to the brig.
Fortunately, but five of our party, including two ladies, were anxious
to leave the ship; the remainder choosing rather to remain on board, and
go up to town in her, as the captain flattered them with the promise of
an early arrival should the wind hold fair.
In less than ten minutes we had bidden farewell, and wished a speedy
passage to our fellow-passengers, who had so rashly refused to "give up
the ship" and were on our way with "bag and baggage" to the brig, which
now and then rose proudly upon a long sea, and then slowly and
gracefully settled into its yielding bosom.
We had been on board but a short time when the Whale, which had already
towed four ships and a brig, one at a time, over the bar, leaving each
half a league up the passage, came bearing down upon us. In an
incredibly short time she brought to ahead of us, and in less than five
minutes had our brig firmly secured to her by two hawsers, with about
fifty fathoms play.
In the course of half an hour, we arrived where the five other vessels,
which were to accompany us in tow, were anchored. More than two hours
were consumed in properly securing the vessels to the tow-boat. Our brig
was lashed to her larboard, and the huge British Indiaman, mentioned in
my last letter, to her starboard side. Two ships sociably followed,
about a cable's length astern, and a Spanish brig and a French ship,
about one hundred yards astern of these, brought up the rear.
These arrangements completed, the command to "go ahead" was given, and
slowly, one after the other, the captive fleet yielded to the immense
power of the high-pressure engine. Gradually our motion through the
water became more and more rapid, till we moved along at the rate of
seven knots an hour. The appearance our convoy presented, was novel and
sublime. It was like a triumph! The wind though light, was fair, and
every vessel was covered with clouds of snowy canvass. The loud, deep,
incessant booming from the tow-boat--the black and dense masses of smoke
rolling up and curling and wreathing around the lofty white sails, then
shooting off horizontally through the air, leaving a long cloudy galaxy
astern, contributed greatly to the novelty of this extraordinary scene.
We are now within twenty miles of the city of Frenchmen and garlic
soups, steamboats and yellow fever, negroes and quadroons, hells and
convents, soldiers and slaves, and things, and people of every language
and kindred, nation and tribe upon the face of the earth. From this
place you will receive my next letter, wherein perchance you may find a
solution of the mystery thrown around our beautiful vessel.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Our ship was not a line-packet: they never delay.
VII.
Louisiana--Arrival at New-Orleans--Land--Pilot stations
--Pilots--Anecdote--Fort--Forests--Levee--Crevasses--Alarms
--Accident--Espionage--A Louisianian palace--Grounds--
Sugar-house--Quarters--An African governess--Sugar cane--
St. Mary--"English Turn"--Cavalcade--Battle ground--Music
--Sounds of the distant city--Land in New-Orleans--An
_amateur_ sailor.
We are at last in New-Orleans, the queen of the South-west--the American
Waterloo, whose Wellington, "General Jackson"--according to the elegant
ballad I believe still extant in the "Boston picture-books,"
---- "quick did go
With Yankee(?) troops to meet the foe;
We met them near to New-Orleans
And made their blood to flow in streams."
New-Orleans! the play-thing of monarchs. "Swapped," as boys swap their
penknives. Discovered and lost by the French--possessed by the
gold-hunting Spaniard--again ceded to the French--exchanged for a
kingdom with the man who traded in empires, and sold by him, for a
"plum" to our government!
We arrived between eight and nine last evening, after a very pleasant
run of twenty-eight hours from the Balize, charmed and delighted of
course with every thing. If we had landed at the entrance of Vulcan's
smithy from so long a sea-passage, it would have been precisely the
same--all would have appeared "_couleur de rose_." To be _on land_, even
were it a sand bank, is all that is requisite to render it in the eyes
of the new landed passenger, a Paradise.
During the first part of our sail up the river, there was nothing
sufficiently interesting in the way of incident or variety of scenery,
to merit the trouble either of narration or perusal. Till we arrived
within forty-five or fifty miles of New-Orleans, the shores of the river
presented the same flat, marshy appearance previously described. With
the exception of two or three "pilot stations," near its mouth, I do not
recollect that we passed any dwelling. These "stations" are situated
within a few miles of the mouth of the river, and are the residences of
the pilots. The one on the left bank of the river, which I had an
opportunity of visiting, contained about sixteen or eighteen houses,
built upon piles, in the midst of the morass, which is the only apology
for land within twenty leagues. One third of these are dwelling houses,
connected with each other for the purpose of intercourse, by raised
walks or bridges, laid upon the surface of the mud, and constructed of
timber, logs, and wrecks of vessels. Were a hapless wight to lose his
footing, he would descend as easily and gracefully into the bosom of the
yielding loam, as into a barrel of soft soap. The intercourse with the
shore, near which this miserable, isolated congregation of shanties is
imbedded, is also kept up by a causeway of similar construction and
materials.
The pilots, of whom there are from twelve to twenty at each station, are
a hardy, rugged class of men. Most of them have been mates of
merchantmen, or held some inferior official station in the navy. The
majority of them, I believe, are English, though Americans, Frenchmen
and Spaniards, are not wanting among their number. The moral character
of this class of men, generally, does not stand very high, though there
are numerous instances of individuals among them, whose nautical skill
and gentlemanly deportment reflect honour upon their profession.
It is by no means an unusual circumstance for the commander of a ship,
on entering a harbour, to resign, _pro tem._, the charge of his vessel
to a pilot, whom a few years before, while a petty officer under his
command, he may have publicly disgraced and dismissed from his ship for
some misdemeanor.
In eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, when off Maldonado, ascending the
La Plata, a Spanish pilot came on board a ship of war; and as he stalked
aft from the gangway, with the assumed hauteur of littleness in power,
the penetrating eye of one of the lieutenants was fixed upon his
countenance with a close and scrutinizing gaze. The eye of the pilot
fell beneath its stern expression for a moment; but he again raised it,
and stealing a quick, furtive, and apparently recognising glance at the
officer, his dark brown face changed suddenly to the hue of death, and
with a fearful cry, he sprang with the activity of a cat into the mizen
rigging; but before he could leap over the quarter, the officer had
seized a musket from a marine, and fired: the ball struck him near the
elbow the instant he had cleared the rigging. A heavy splash was heard
in the water, and as those on deck flew to the stern, a dark spot of
blood upon the water was the only evidence that a human being had sunk
beneath. While they were engaged in looking upon the spot where he had
plunged, and wondering, without knowing the cause, at this summary
method of proceeding on the part of the lieutenant, a cry, "there he
is," was heard and repeated by fifty voices, naval discipline to the
contrary notwithstanding, and about twenty fathoms astern, the black
head of the pilot was seen emerging from the waves--but the next
instant, with a horrible Spanish curse, he dived from their sight, and
in a few minutes, appeared more than a hundred yards astern.
It appeared that during the well-known piratical depredations, a few
years previous, in the vicinity of Key West and Cape St. Antonio, this
officer had the command of a shore expedition against the pirates.
During the excursion he attacked a large band of them in their retreats,
and, after a long and warmly contested conflict, either slew or took the
whole party prisoners. Among those was the redoubtable pilot, who held
the goodly office of second in command among those worthy gentlemen. But
as they proceeded to their schooner, which lay half a league from the
shore, the rover, not liking the prospect which his skill in "second
sight" presented to his fancy, suddenly, with a powerful effort, threw
off the two men between whom he was seated, and leaping, with both arms
pinioned behind him, over the head of the astonished bow oarsman,
disappeared "instanter;" and while a score of muskets and pistols were
levelled in various directions, made his appearance, in a few minutes,
about a furlong astern, and out of reach of shot. It was thought useless
to pursue him in a heavy barge, and he effected his escape. This said
swimmer was recognised by the lieutenant in the person of the pilot; and
as the recognition was mutual, the scene I have narrated followed.
At sunrise, the morning after leaving the Balize, we passed the ruins,
or rather the former location, (for the traces are scarcely perceptible)
of the old Spanish fort Plaquemine, where, while this country was under
Spanish government, all vessels were obliged to heave to, and produce
their passports for the inspection of the sage, big-whiskered Dons, who
were there whilom domesticated.
Toward noon, the perpetual sameness of the shores, (they cannot be
termed _banks_) of the river, were relieved by clumps of cypress and
other trees, which gradually, as we advanced, increased into forests,
extending back to a level horizon, as viewed from the mast-head, and
overhanging both sides of the river. Though so late in the season, they
still retained the green freshness of summer, and afforded an agreeable
contrast to the dry and leafless forests which we had just left at the
north. At a distance, we beheld the first plantation to be seen on
ascending the river. As we approached it, we discovered from the deck
the commencement of the embankment or "Levee," which extends, on both
sides of the river, to more than one hundred and fifty miles above
New-Orleans. This _levee_ is properly a dike, thrown up on the verge of
the river, from twenty-five to thirty feet in breadth, and two feet
higher than high-water mark; leaving a ditch, or fosse, on the inner
side, of equal breadth, from which the earth to form the levee is taken.
Consequently, as the land bordering on the river is a dead level, and,
without the security of the levee, overflowed at half tides, when the
river is full, or within twenty inches, as it often is, of the top of
the embankment, the surface of the river will be _four feet higher_ than
the surface of the country; the altitude of the inner side of the levee
being usually six feet above the general surface of the surrounding
land.
This is a startling truth; and at first leads to reflections by no means
favorable in their results, to the safety, either of the lives or
property of the inhabitants of the lowlands of Louisiana. But closer
observation affords the assurance that however threatening a mass of
water four feet in height, two thousand five hundred in breadth, and of
infinite length, may be in appearance, experience has not shown to any
great extent, that the residents on the borders of this river have in
reality, more to apprehend from an inundation, so firm and efficacious
is their levee, than those who reside in more apparent security, upon
the elevated banks of our flooding rivers of the north. It cannot be
denied that there have been instances where "crevasses" as they are
termed here, have been gradually worn through the levee, by the
attrition of the waters, when, suddenly starting through in a wiry
stream, they rapidly enlarge to torrents which, with the force, and
noise, and rushing of a mill-race, shoot away over the plantations,
inundating the sugar fields, and losing themselves in the boundless
marshes in the rear. But on such occasions, which however are not
frequent, the alarm is given and communicated by the plantation bells,
and before half an hour elapses, several hundred negroes, with their
masters, (who all turn out on these occasions, as at a fire,) will have
gathered to the spot, and at the expiration of another half-hour, the
breach will be stopped, the danger past, and the "Monarch of rivers,"
subdued by the hand of man, will be seen again moving, submissively
obedient, within his prescribed limits, sullenly, yet majestically to
the ocean.
During the afternoon, we passed successively many sugar plantations, in
the highest state of cultivation. Owing to the elevation of the levee,
and the low situation of the lands, we could see from the deck only the
upper story of the planters' residences upon the shore; but from the
main top, we had an uninterrupted view of every plantation which we
passed. As they very much resemble each other in their general features,
a description of one of them will be with a little variation applicable
to all. Fortunately for me, a slight accident to our machinery, which
delayed us fifteen or twenty minutes, in front of one of the finest
plantations below New-Orleans, enabled me to put in practice a short
system of _espionage_ upon the premises, from the main top, with my
spy-glass, that introduced me into the very _sanctum_ of the enchanting
ornamental gardens, in which the palace-like edifice was half-embowered.
The house was quadrangular, with a high steep Dutch roof, immensely
large, and two stories in height; the basement or lower story being
constructed of brick, with a massive colonnade of the same materials on
all sides of the building. This basement was raised to a level with the
summit of the levee, and formed the ground-work or basis of the edifice,
which was built of wood, painted white, with Venetian blinds, and
latticed verandas, supported by slender and graceful pillars, running
round every side of the dwelling. Along the whole western front,
festooned in massive folds, hung a dark-green curtain, which is dropped
along the whole length of the balcony in a summer's afternoon, not only
excluding the burning rays of the sun, but inviting the inmates to a
cool and refreshing _siesta_, in some one of the half dozen network
hammocks, which we discovered suspended in the veranda. The basement
seemed wholly unoccupied, and probably was no more than an over-ground
cellar. At each extremity of the piazza was a broad and spacious flight
of steps, descending into the garden which enclosed the dwelling on
every side.
Situated about two hundred yards back from the river, the approach to it
was by a lofty massive gateway which entered upon a wide gravelled walk,
bordered by dark foliaged orange trees, loaded with their golden fruit.
Pomegranate, fig, and lemon trees, shrubs, plants and exotics of every
clime and variety, were dispersed in profusion over this charming
_parterre_. Double palisades of lemon and orange trees surrounded the
spot, forming one of the loveliest and most elegant rural retirements,
that imagination could create or romantic ambition desire. About half a
mile in the rear of the dwelling, I observed a large brick building with
lofty chimneys resembling towers. This was the sugar-house, wherein the
cane undergoes its several transmutations, till that state of
_perfection_ is obtained, which renders it marketable.
On the left and diagonally from the dwelling house we noticed a very
neat, pretty village, containing about forty small snow-white cottages,
all precisely alike, built around a pleasant square, in the centre of
which, was a grove or cluster of magnificent sycamores. Near by,
suspended from a belfry, was the bell which called the slaves to and
from their work and meals. This village was their residence, and under
the shade of the trees in the centre of the square, we could discern
troops of little ebony urchins from the age of eight years downward, all
too young to work in the field, at their play--under the charge of an
old, crippled _gouvernante_, who, being past "field service," was thus
promoted in the "home department."
This plantation was about one mile and a half in depth from the river,
terminating, like all in lower Louisiana, in an impenetrable cypress
swamp; and about two miles in breadth by the levee. About one half was
waving with the rich long-leafed cane, and agreeably variegated,
exhibiting every delicate shade from the brightest yellow to the darkest
green. A small portion of the remainder was in corn, which grows
luxuriantly in this country, though but little cultivated; and the rest
lay in fallow, into which a portion of every plantation is thrown,
alternately, every two years.
By the time I had completed my observations, spying the richness, rather
than "the nakedness" of the land, the engineer had arranged the
machinery and we were again in motion; passing rapidly by rich gardens,
spacious avenues, tasteful villas, and extensive fields of cane, bending
to the light breeze with the wavy motion of the sea. Just before sunset
we passed the site of the old fort St. Mary, and in half an hour after,
swept round into the magnificent curve denominated the "English
Turn."[3] As we sailed along, gay parties, probably returning from and
going to, the city, on horseback, in barouches and carriages, were
passing along the level road within the levee; their heads and shoulders
being only visible above it, gave to the whole cavalcade a singularly
ludicrous appearance--a strange bobbing of heads, hats and feathers,
suggesting the idea of a new genus of locomotives amusing themselves
upon the green sward.
Much to our regret, we did not arrive opposite the "battle ground" till
some time after sunset. But we were in some measure remunerated for our
disappointment, by gazing down upon the scene of the conflict from
aloft, while as bright and clear a moon as ever shed its mellow radiance
over a southern landscape, poured its full flood of light upon the now
quiet battle field. I could distinguish that it was under cultivation,
and that princely dwellings were near and around it; and my ear told me
as we sailed swiftly by, that where shouts of conflict and carnage once
broke fiercely upon the air, now floated the lively notes of cheerful
music, which were wafted over the waters to the ship, falling pleasantly
upon the ear.
The lights and habitations along the shore now became more frequent.
Luggers, manned by negroes, light skiffs, with a solitary occupant in
each, and now and then a dark hulled vessel, her lofty sails, reflecting
the bright moon light, appearing like snowy clouds in the clear blue
sky, were rapidly and in increasing numbers, continually gliding by us.
By these certain indications we knew that we were not far from the goal
so long the object of our wishes.
We had been anticipating during the morning an early arrival, when the
panorama of the crescent city should burst upon our view enriched, by
the mellow rays of a southern sun, with every variety of light and shade
that could add to the beauty or novelty of the scene. But our sanguine
anticipations were not to be realized. The shades of night had long
fallen over the town, when, as we swiftly moved forward, anxiously
trying to penetrate the obscurity, an interminable line of lights
gradually opened in quick succession upon our view; and a low hum, like
the far off roaring of the sea, with the heavy and irregular tolling of
a deep mouthed bell, was borne over the waves upon the evening breeze,
mingling at intervals with loud calls far away on the shore, and fainter
replies still more distant. The fierce and incessant baying of dogs, and
as we approached nearer, the sound of many voices, as in a tumult;--and
anon, the wild, clear, startling notes of a bugle, waking the slumbering
echoes on the opposite shore, succeeded by the solitary voice of some
lonely singer, blended with the thrumming notes of a guitar, falling
with melancholy cadence upon the ear--all gave indications that we were
rapidly approaching the termination of our voyage.
In a few minutes, as we still shot onward, we could trace a thousand
masts, penciled distinctly with all their network rigging upon the clear
evening sky. We moved swiftly in among them; and gradually checking her
speed, the tow-boat soon came nearly to a full stop, and casting off the
ship astern, rounded to and left us along side of a Salem ship, which
lay outside of a tier "six deep." When the bustle and confusion of
making fast had subsided, we began our preparations to go on shore. So
anxious were we once more to tread "terra firma," that we determined not
to wait for a messenger to go half a mile for a carriage, but to walk
through the gayly lighted streets to our hotel in Canal-street, more
than a mile distant. So after much trouble in laying planks, for the
surer footing of the ladies, from gangway to gangway, we safely reached,
after crossing half a dozen ships, the firm, immoveable Levee. I will
now briefly relate the little history of our truly elegant brig, as I
partially promised to do in my last, and conclude this long, long
letter.
Her commander was formerly an officer of the United States navy. He is a
graduate of Harvard University, and presents in his person the
admirable union of the polished gentleman, finished scholar, and
practical seaman. Inheriting a princely fortune from a bachelor uncle,
he returned to Massachusetts, his native state, and built according to
his own taste the beautiful vessel he now commands. He has made in her
one voyage to India, and two up the Mediterranean, and is now at this
port to purchase a cargo of cotton for the European market. His officers
are gentlemen of education and nautical science; his equals and
companions in the cabin, though his subordinates on the deck.
If the imagination of the lonely sailor, as he mechanically paces his
midnight watch, creates an Utopia in the wide ocean of futurity, if
there be a limit to the enjoyment of a refined seaman's wishes, or a "ne
plus ultra," to his ambition, they must all be realized and achieved, by
the sole command and control of a vessel so correctly beautiful as the
D----; so ably officered and manned, so opulent with every luxury,
comfort, and convenience, and free as the winds to go and come over the
"dark blue sea," obedient alone to the uncontrolled will and submissive
to the lightest pleasure of her absolute commander.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Tradition saith, that some British vessels of war pursuing some
American vessels up the river, on arriving at this place gave up the
pursuit as useless, and _turned_ back to the Balize.
Another tradition saith that John Bull chasing some American ships up
the river, thought, in his wisdom, when he arrived at this bend, that
this was but another of the numerous outlets of the hydra-headed
Mississippi, and supposing the Yankee ships were taking advantage of it
to escape to the sea--he _turned_ about and followed his way back;
again, determined, as school boys say, to "head them!"
VIII.
Bachelor's comforts--A valuable valet--Disembarked at the
Levee--A fair Castilian--Canaille--The Crescent city--
Reminiscence of school days--French cabarets--Cathedral--
Exchange--Cornhill--A chain of light--A fracas--Gens d'Armes
--An affair of honour--Arrive at our hotel.
How delightfully comfortable one feels, and how luxuriantly disposed to
quiet,--after having been tossed, and bruised, and tumbled about, _sans
ceremonie_, like a bale of goods, or a printer's devil, for many long
weary days and nights upon the slumberless sea--to be once more cosily
established in a smiling, elegant little parlour, carpeted, curtained,
and furnished with every tasteful convenience that a comfort loving,
home-made bachelor could covet. In such a pleasant sitting-room am I now
most enviably domesticated, and every thing around me contributes to the
happiness of my situation. A cheerful coal-fire burns in the grate--(for
the day is cloudy, misty, drizzly, foggy, and chilly, which is the best
definition I can give you, as yet, of a wet December's day in
New-Orleans,)--diffusing an agreeable temperature throughout the room,
and adding, by contrast with the dark gloomy streets, seen indistinctly
through the moist glass, to the enjoyment of my comforts. I am now
seated by my writing-desk at a table, drawn at an agreeable distance
from the fire-place--and fully convinced that a man never feels so
comfortably, as when ensconced in a snug parlour on a rainy day.
A statue of dazzling ebony, by name Antoine, to which the slightest look
or word will give instant animation, stands in the centre of the room,
contrasting beautifully in colour with the buff paper-hangings and
crimson curtains. He is a slave--about seventeen years of age, and a
bright, intelligent, active boy, nevertheless--placed at my disposal as
_valet_ while I remain here, by the kind attention of my obliging
hostess, Madame H----. He serves me in a thousand capacities, as
post-boy, cicerone, &c. and is on the whole, an extremely useful and
efficient attache.
Our party having safely landed on the Levee, nearly opposite Rue
Marigny, we commenced our long, yet in anticipation, delightful walk to
our hotel. We had disembarked about a quarter of a league below the
cathedral, from the front of which, just after we landed, the loud
report of the evening gun broke over the city, rattling and
reverberating through the long massively built streets, like the echoing
of distant thunder along mountain ravines. On a firm, smooth, gravelled
walk elevated about four feet, by a gradual ascent from the street--one
side open to the river, and the other lined with the "Pride of China,"
or India tree, we pursued our way to Chartres-street, the "Broadway" of
New-Orleans. The moon shone with uncommon brilliancy, and thousands,
even in this lower faubourg, were abroad, enjoying the beauty and
richness of the scene. Now, a trio of lively young Frenchmen would pass
us, laughing and conversing gayly upon some merry subject, followed by a
slow moving and stately figure, whose haughty tread, and dark
_roquelaure_ gathered with classic elegance around his form in graceful
folds, yet so arranged as to conceal every feature beneath his slouched
_sombrero_, except a burning, black, penetrating eye,--denoted the
exiled Spaniard.
We passed on--and soon the lively sounds of the French language, uttered
by soft voices, were heard nearer and nearer, and the next moment, two
or three duenna-like old ladies, remarkable for their "embonpoint"
dimensions, preceded a bevy of fair girls, without that most hideous of
all excrescences, with which women see fit to disfigure their heads,
denominated a "bonnet"--their brown, raven or auburn hair floating in
ringlets behind them.
There was one--a dark-locked girl--a superb creature, over whose head
and shoulders, secured above her forehead by a brilliant which in the
clear moon burned like a star, waved the folds of a snow-white veil in
the gentle breeze, created by her motion as she glided gracefully along.
She was a Castilian; and the mellow tones of her native land gave
richness to the light elegance of the French, as she breathed it like
music from her lips.
As we passed on, the number of promenaders increased, but scarcely a
lady was now to be seen. Every other gentleman we met was enveloped in a
cloud, not of bacchanalian, but tobacconalian incense, which gave a
peculiar atmosphere to the Levee.
Every, or nearly every gentleman carried a sword cane, apparently, and
occasionally the bright hilt of a Spanish knife, or dirk, would gleam
for an instant in the moon-beams from the open bosom of its possessor,
as, with the lowering brow, and active tread of wary suspicion, he moved
rapidly by us, his roundabout thrown over the left shoulder and secured
by the sleeves in a knot under the arm, which was thrust into his
breast, while the other arm was at liberty to attend to his segar, or
engage in any mischief to which its owner might be inclined. This class
of men are very numerous here. They are easily distinguished by their
shabby appearance, language, and foreign way of wearing their apparel.
In groups--promenading, lounging, and sleeping upon the seats along the
Levee--we passed several hundred of this _canaille_ of Orleans, before
we arrived at the "Parade," the public square in front of the cathedral.
They are mostly Spaniards and Portuguese, though there are among them
representatives from all the unlucky families which, at the building of
Babel, were dispersed over the earth. As to their mode and means of
existence, I have not as yet informed myself; but I venture to presume
that they resort to no means beneath the dignity of "caballeros!"
After passing the market on our right, a massive colonnade, about two
hundred and fifty feet in length, we left the Levee, and its endless
tier of shipping which had bordered one side of our walk all the way,
and passing under the China-trees, that still preserved their unbroken
line along the river, we crossed Levee-street, a broad, spacious
esplanade, running along the front of the main body or block of the
city, separating it from the Levee, and forming a magnificent
thoroughfare along the whole extensive river-line. From this high-way
streets shoot off at right angles, till they terminate in the swamp
somewhat less than a league back from the river. I have termed
New-Orleans the crescent city in one of my letters, from its being built
around the segment of a circle formed by a graceful curve of the river
at this place. Though the water, or shore-line, is very nearly
semi-circular, the Levee-street, above mentioned, does not closely
follow the shore, but is broken into two angles, from which the streets
diverge as before mentioned. These streets are again intersected by
others running parallel with the Levee-street, dividing the city into
squares, except where the perpendicular streets meet the angles, where
necessarily the "squares" are lessened in breadth at the extremity
nearest the river, and occasionally form pentagons and parallelograms,
with _oblique_ sides, if I may so express it.
After crossing Levee-street, we entered Rue St. Pierre, which issues
from it south of the grand square. This square is an open green,
surrounded by a lofty iron railing, within which troops of boys, whose
sports carried my thoughts away to "home, sweet home," were playing,
shouting and merry making, precisely as we used to do in days long past,
when the harvest-moon would invite us from our dwellings to the village
green, where many and many a joyful night we have played till the magic
voice of our good old Scotch preceptor was heard from the door of his
little cottage under the elms, "Laads, laads, it's unco time ye were in
bed, laads," warning us to our sleepy pillows. The front of this
extensive square was open to the river, bordered with its dark line of
ships; on each side were blocks of rusty looking brick buildings of
Spanish and French construction, with projecting balconies, heavy
cornices, and lofty jalousies or barricaded windows. The lower stories
of these buildings were occupied by retailers of fancy wares, vintners,
segar manufacturers, dried fruit sellers, and all the other members of
the innumerable occupations, to which the volatile, ever ready Frenchman
can always turn himself and a _sous_ into the bargain. As we passed
along, these shops were all lighted up, and the happy faces, merry
songs, and gay dances therein, occasionally contrasted with the shrill
tone of feminine anger in a foreign tongue, and the loud, fierce, rapid
voices of men mingling in dispute, added to the novelty and amusement of
our walk. I enumerated ten, out of seventeen successive shops or
_cabarets_, upon the shelves of which I could discover nothing but
myriads of claret and Madeira bottles, tier upon tier to the ceiling;
and from this fact I came to the conclusion, that some of the worthy
citizens of New-Orleans must be most unconscionable "wine-bibbers," if
not "publicans and sinners," as subsequent observation has led me to
surmise.
On the remaining side of this square stood the cathedral, its dark
moorish-looking towers flinging their vast shadows far over the water.
The whole front of the large edifice was thrown into deep shade, so that
when we approached, it presented one black mingled mass, frowning in
stern and majestic silence upon the surrounding scene.
Leaving this venerable building at the right, we turned into
Chartres-street, the second parallel with the Levee, and the most
fashionable, as well as greatest business street in the city. As we
proceeded, _cafes_, confectioners, fancy stores, millineries,
parfumeurs, &c. &c., were passed in rapid succession; each one of them
presenting something new, and always something to strike the attention
of strangers, like ourselves, for the first time in the only "foreign"
city in the United States.
At the corner of one of the streets intersecting Chartres-street--Rue
St. Louis I believe--we passed a large building, the lofty basement
story of which was lighted with a glare brighter than that of noon. In
the back ground, over the heads of two or three hundred loud-talking,
noisy gentlemen, who were promenading and vehemently gesticulating, in
all directions, through the spacious room--I discovered a bar, with its
peculiar dazzling array of glasses and decanters containing
"spirits"--not of "the vasty deep" certainly, but of whose potent spells
many were apparently trying the power, by frequent libations. This
building--of which and its uses more anon--I was informed, was the
"French" or "New Exchange." After passing Rue Toulouse, the streets
began to assume a new character; the buildings were loftier and more
modern--the signs over the doors bore English names, and the
characteristic arrangements of a northern dry goods store were
perceived, as we peered in at the now closing doors of many stores by
which we passed. We had now attained the upper part of Chartres-street,
which is occupied almost exclusively by retail and wholesale dry goods
dealers, jewellers, booksellers, &c., from the northern states, and I
could almost realize that I was taking an evening promenade in Cornhill,
so great was the resemblance.
As we successively crossed Rues Conti, Bienville and Douane, and looked
down these long straight avenues, the endless row of lamps, suspended in
the middle of these streets, as well as in all others in New-Orleans, by
chains or ropes, extended from house to house across, had a fine and
brilliant effect, which we delayed for a moment on the flag-stone to
admire, endeavouring to reach with our eyes the almost invisible
extremity of this line of flame. Just before we reached the head of
Chartres-street, near Bienville, in the immediate vicinity of which is
the boarding house of Madame H----, where we intended to take rooms, our
way was impeded by a party of gentlemen in violent altercation in
English and French, who completely blocked up the "trottoir." "Sir,"
said one of the party--a handsome, resolute-looking young man--in a calm
deliberate voice, which was heard above every other, and listened to as
well--"Sir, you have grossly insulted me, and I shall expect from you,
immediately--before we separate--an acknowledgment, adequate to the
injury." "Monsieur," replied a young Frenchman whom he had addressed,
in French, "Monsieur, I never did insult you--a gentleman never insults!
you have misunderstood me, and refuse to listen to a candid
explanation." "The explanation you have given sir," reiterated the first
speaker, "is not sufficient--it is a subterfuge;" here many voices
mingled in loud confusion, and a renewed and more violent altercation
ensued which prevented our hearing distinctly; and as we had already
crossed to the opposite side of the street, having ladies under escort,
we rapidly passed on our way, but had not gained half a square before
the clamour increased to an uproar--steel struck steel--one, then
another pistol was discharged in rapid succession--"guards!" "gens
d'armes, _gens d'armes_," "guards! guards!" resounded along the streets,
and we arrived at our hotel, just in time to escape being run down, or
run through at their option probably, by half a dozen gens d'armes in
plain blue uniforms, who were rushing with drawn swords in their hands
to the scene of contest, perfectly well assured in our own minds, that
we had most certainly arrived at NEW-ORLEANS!
Though affairs of the kind just described are no uncommon thing here,
and are seldom noticed in the papers of the day--yet the following
allusion to the event of last evening may not be uninteresting to you,
and I will therefore copy it, and terminate my letter with the extract.
"An affray occurred last night in the vicinity of Bienville-street, in
which one young gentleman was severely wounded by the discharge of a
pistol, and another slightly injured by a dirk. An "_affaire d'honneur_"
originated from this, and the parties met this morning. Dr. ---- of
New-York, one of the principals, was mortally wounded by his antagonist
M. Le---- of this city."
IX.
Sensations on seeing a city for the first time--Capt. Kidd
--Boston--Fresh feelings--An appreciated luxury--A human
medley--School for physiognomists--A morning scene in New-
Orleans--Canal-street--Levee--French and English stores--
Parisian and Louisianian pronunciation--Scenes in the market
--Shipping--A disguised rover--Mississippi fleets--Ohio
river arks--Slave laws.
I know of no sensation so truly delightful and exciting as that
experienced by a traveller, when he makes his _debut_ in a strange and
interesting city. These feelings have attended me before, in many other
and more beautiful places; but when I sallied out the morning after my
arrival, to survey this "Key of the Great Valley," I enjoyed them again
with almost as much zest, as when, a novice to cities and castellated
piles, I first gazed in silent wonder upon the immense dome which crowns
Beacon Hill, and lingered to survey with a fascinated eye the princely
edifices that surround it.
I shall ever remember, with the liveliest emotions, my first visit to
Boston--the first "CITY," (what a charm to a country lad in the
appellation) I had ever seen. It was a delightful summer's morning,
when, urged forward by a gentle wind, our little, green-painted,
coasting packet entered the magnificent harbour, which, broken and
diversified with its beautiful islands, lay outspread before us like a
chain of lakes sleeping among hills. With what romantic and youthful
associations did I then gaze upon the lonely sea-washed monument, as we
sailed rapidly by it, where the famous pirate, "Nick," murdered his
mate; and a little farther on, upon a pleasant green island, where the
bloody "Robert Kidd" buried treasures that no man could number, or
find!--With what patriotism, almost kindled into a religion, did I gaze
upon the noble heights of Dorchester as they lifted their twin summits
to the skies on our left, and upon the proud eminence far to the right,
where Warren expired and liberty was born!
I well remember with what wild enthusiasm I bounded on shore ere the
vessel had quite reached it, and with juvenile elasticity, ran, rather
than walked, up through the hurry and bustle that always attend Long
Wharf. With what veneration I looked upon the spot, in State-street,
where the first American blood was shed by British soldiers! With what
reverence I paced "Old Cornhill"--and with what deep respect I gazed
upon the venerable "Old South," the scene of many a revolutionary
incident! The site of the "Liberty Tree"--the "KING'S" Chapel,
where LIONEL LINCOLN was married--the wharf, from which the tea
was poured into the dock by the disguised citizens, and a hundred other
scenes and places of interesting associations were visited, and gave me
a pleasure that I fear can never so perfectly be felt again. For then,
my feelings were young, fresh and buoyant, and my curiosity, as in after
life, had never been glutted and satiated by the varieties and novelties
of our variegated world. Even the "cannon-ball" embedded in the tower of
Brattle-street church, was an object of curiosity; the building in which
Franklin worked when an apprentice, was not passed by, unvisited; and
the ancient residence of "Job Pray" was gazed upon with a kind of
superstitious reverence. I do not pretend to compare my present feelings
with those of that happy period. Although my curiosity may not be so
eager as then, it is full as persevering; and though I may not
experience the same lively gratification, in viewing strange and novel
scenes, that I felt in boyhood, I certainly do as much rational and
intellectual pleasure; and obtain more valuable and correct information
than I could possibly gain, were I still guided by the more volatile
curiosity of youth.
In spite of our fatigue of the preceding evening, and the luxury of a
soft, firm bed, wherein one could sleep without danger of being capsized
by a lee-lurch--a blessing we had not enjoyed for many a long and weary
night--we were up with the sun and prepared for a stroll about the city.
Our first place of destination was the market-house, a place which in
almost every commercial city is always worthy the early notice of a
stranger, as it is a kind of "House of Representatives" of the city to
which it belongs, where, during the morning, delegates from almost every
family are found studying the interests of their constituents by
judicious negotiations for comestibles. If the market at New-Orleans
represents that city, so truly does New-Orleans represent every other
city and nation upon earth. I know of none where is congregated so great
a variety of the human species, of every language and colour. Not only
natives of the well known European and Asiatic countries are here to be
met with, but occasionally Persians, Turks, Lascars, Maltese, Indian
sailors from South America and the Islands of the sea, Hottentots,
Laplanders, and, for aught I know to the contrary, Symmezonians.
Now should any philanthropic individual, anxious for the advancement of
the noble science of physiognomy, wish to survey the motley countenances
of these goodly personages, let him on some bright and sunny morning
bend his steps toward the market-house; for there, in all their variety
and shades of colouring they may be seen, and _heard_. If a painting
could affect the sense of hearing as well as that of sight, this market
multitude would afford the artist an inimitable original for the
representation upon his canvass of the "confusion of tongues."
As we sallied from our hotel to commence our first tour of sight seeing,
the vast city was just waking into life. Our sleepy servants were
opening the shutters, and up and down the street a hundred of their
drowsy brethren were at the same enlightening occupation. Black women,
with huge baskets of rusks, rolls and other appurtenances of the
breakfast table, were crying, in loud shrill French, their "stock in
trade," followed by milk-criers, and butter-criers and criers of every
thing but tears: for they all seemed as merry as the morning, saluting
each other gayly as they met, "Bo' shoo Mumdsal"--"Moshoo! adieu," &c.
&c., and shooting their rude shafts of African wit at each other with
much vivacity and humor.
We turned down Canal-street--the broadest in New-Orleans, and destined
to be the most magnificent. Its breadth I do not know, correctly, but it
is certainly one half wider than Broadway opposite the Park.--Through
its centre runs a double row of young trees, which, when they arrive at
maturity, will form the finest mall in the United States, unless the
_esplanade_--a beautiful mall at the south part of the city, should
excel it.
From the head of Canal-street we entered Levee-street, leaving the
custom house, a large, plain, yellow stuccoed building upon our right,
near which is a huge, dark coloured, unshapely pile of brick, originally
erected for a _Bethel church_ for seamen, but never finished, and seldom
occupied, except by itinerant showmen, with their wonders. Levee-street
had already begun to assume a bustling, commerce-like appearance. The
horse-drays were trundling rapidly by, sometimes four abreast, racing to
different parts of the Levee for their loads--and upon each was mounted
a ragged negro, who, as Jehu-like he drove along, standing upright and
unsupported, resembled "Phaeton in the suds"--rather than "Phaeton the
god-like."
The stores on our left were all open, and nearly every one of them, for
the first two squares, was occupied as a clothing or hat store, and kept
by Americans; that is to say, Anglo Americans as distinguished from the
Louisianian French, who very properly, and proudly too, assume the
national appellation, which we of the English tongue have so haughtily
arrogated to ourselves. As we approached the market, French stores began
to predominate, till one could readily imagine himself, aided by the
sound of the French language, French faces and French goods on all
sides, to be traversing a street in Havre or Marseilles. Though I do not
pretend to be a critical connoisseur in French, yet I could discover a
marked and striking difference between the language I heard spoken every
where and by all classes, in the streets, and the Parisian, or
trans-Atlantic French. The principal difference seems to be in their
method of contracting or clipping their words, and consequently varying,
more or less, the pronunciation of every termination susceptible of
change. The vowels _o_ and _e_ are more open, and the _a_ is flatter
than in the genuine French, and often loses altogether its emphatic
fulness; while _u_, corrupted from its difficult, but peculiarly soft
sound, is almost universally pronounced as full and plain as _oo_ in
moon. This difference is of course only in pronunciation; the same
literature, and consequently the same words and orthography, being
common both to the creole and European. The sun had already risen, when
I arrived, after a delightful walk, at the "marche."--This is a fine
building consisting of a long, lofty roof, supported by rows of columns
on every side. It is constructed of brick, and stuccoed; and, either by
intention or an effect of the humid atmosphere of this climate, is of a
dingy cream colour.
A broad passage runs through the whole length of the structure, each
side of which is lined with stalls, where some one, of no particular
colour, presides; and before every pillar, the shining face of a blackee
may be seen glistening from among his vegetables. As I moved on through
a dense mass of negroes, mulattoes, and non-descripts of every shade,
from "sunny hue to sooty," all balancing their baskets skilfully upon
their heads, my ears were assailed with sounds stranger and more
complicated than I ever imagined could be rung upon that marvellous
instrument the human tongue. The "langue des halles"--the true
"Billingsgate" was not only here perfected but improved upon; the gods
and goddesses of the London mart might even take lessons from these
daughters of Afric, who, enthroned upon a keg, or three-legged stool,
each morning hold their _levee_, and dispense their esculent blessings
to the famishing citizens. During the half hour I remained in the
market, I did not see one white person to fifty blacks. It appears that
here servants do all the marketing, and that gentlemen and ladies do
not, as in Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, visit the market-places
themselves, and select their own provision for their tables. The
market-place in Philadelphia is quite a general resort and promenade for
early-rising gentlemen, and it is certainly well worth one's while to
visit it more than once, not only for the gratification of the palate
and the eye, by the inviting display of epicurean delicacies, but to
become more particularly acquainted with the general habits and manners
of the country people, who always constitute the greater portion of the
multitude at a market. Among them are individuals from every little
hamlet and village for ten or fifteen miles around the city, and by
studying these people, a tolerably good idea may be formed by a stranger
of the manners and customs of the inhabitants, (that is, the farming
class) of the vicinity.
But here, there is no temptation of the kind to induce one to visit the
market in the city more than once. He will see nothing to gratify the
spirit of inquiry or observation, in the ignorant, careless-hearted
slaves, whose character presents neither variety nor interest. However
well they may represent their brethren in the city and on the
neighbouring sugar plantations, they cannot be ranked among the class of
their fellow-beings denominated citizens, and consequently, are not to
be estimated by a stranger in judging of this community.
So far as regards the intrinsic importance of this market, it is
undoubtedly equal to any other in America. Vegetables and fruits of all
climates are displayed in bountiful profusion in the vegetable stalls,
while the beef and fish-market is abundantly supplied, though
necessarily without that endless variety to be found in Atlantic cities.
In front, upon the water, were double lines of market and fish-boats,
secured to the Levee, forming a small connecting link of the long chain
of shipping and steamboats that extend for a league in front of the
city. At the lower part of the town lie generally those ships, which
having their cargoes on board, have dropped down the river to await
their turn to be towed to sea. Fronting this station are no stores, but
several elegant private dwellings, constructed after the combined French
and Spanish style of architecture, almost embowered in dark, evergreen
foliage, and surrounded by parterres. The next station above, and
immediately adjoining this, is usually occupied by vessels, which, just
arrived, have not yet obtained a berth where they can discharge their
cargoes; though not unfrequently ships here discharge and receive their
freight, stretching along some distance up the Levee to the link of
market-boats just mentioned.
From the market to the vicinity of Bienville-street, lies an extensive
tier of shipping, often "six deep," discharging and receiving cargo, or
waiting for freight. The next link of the huge chain is usually occupied
by Spanish and French coasting vessels,--traders to Mexico, Texas,
Florida, &c. These are usually polaccas, schooners, and other small
craft--and particularly black, rakish craft, some of them are in
appearance. It would require but little exercise of the imagination,
while surveying these truculent looking clippers, to fancy any one of
them, clothed in canvass and bounding away upon the broad sea, the
"_Black flag_" flying aloft, the now gunless deck bristling with five
eighteens to a side; and her indolent, smoking, dark faced crew
exchanging their jack-knives for sabres and pistols. There was an
instance of recent occurrence, where a ship was boarded and plundered by
a well-armed and strongly manned schooner, in company with which, under
the peaceful guise of a merchantman she had been towed down the river
six days previous.
Next to this station (for as you will perceive, the whole Levee is
divided into _stations_ appropriated to peculiar classes of shipping,)
commences the range of steamboats, or steamers, as they are usually
termed here, rivaling in magnitude the extensive line of ships below.
The appearance of so large a collection of steamboats is truly novel,
and must always strike a stranger with peculiar interest.
The next station, though it presents a more humble appearance than the
others, is not the least interesting. Here are congregated the primitive
navies of Indiana, Ohio, and the adjoining states, manned (I have not
understood whether they are _officered_ or not) by "real
Kentucks"--"Buck eyes"--"Hooshers"--and "Snorters." There were about two
hundred of these craft without masts, consisting of "flat-boats," (which
resemble, only being much shorter, the "Down East" gundalow, (gondola)
so common on the rivers of Maine,) and "keel-boats," which are one
remove from the flat-boat, having some pretensions to a keel; they
somewhat resemble freighting canal-boats. Besides these are "arks,"
most appropriately named, their _contents_ having probably some
influence with their god-fathers in selecting an appellation, and other
non-descript-craft. These are filled with produce of all kinds, brought
from the "Upper country," (as the north western states are termed here)
by the very farmers themselves who have raised it;--also, horses,
cattle, hogs, poultry, mules, and every other thing raiseable and
saleable are piled into these huge flats, which an old farmer and half a
dozen Goliaths of sons can begin and complete in less than a week, from
the felling of the first tree to the driving of the last pin.
When one of these arks is completed, and "every beast that is good for
food" by sevens and scores, male and female, and every fowl of the air
by sevens and fifties, are entered into the ark,--then entereth in the
old man with his family by "males" only, and the boat is committed to
the current, and after the space of many days arriveth and resteth at
this Ararat of all "Up country" Noahs.
These boats, on arriving here, are taken to pieces and sold as lumber,
while their former owners with well-lined purses return home as deck
passengers on board steamboats. An immense quantity of whiskey from
Pittsburg and Cincinnati, besides, is brought down in these boats, and
not unfrequently, they are crowded with slaves for the southern market.
The late excellent laws relative to the introduction of slaves, however,
have checked, in a great measure, this traffic here, and the
Mississippi market at Natchez has consequently become inundated, by
having poured into it, in addition to its usual stock, the Louisianian
supply. I understand that the legislature of this rich and enterprising
state is about to pass a law similar to the one above mentioned, which
certainly will be incalculably to her advantage.
The line of flats may be considered the last link of the great chain of
shipping in front of New-Orleans, unless we consider as attached to it a
kind of dock adjoining, where ships and steamers often lie, either worn
out or undergoing repairs. From this place to the first station I have
mentioned, runs along the Levee, fronting the shipping, an uninterrupted
block of stores, (except where they are intersected by streets,) some of
which are lofty and elegant, while others are clumsy piles of French and
Spanish construction, browned and blackened by age.
X.
First impressions--A hero of the "Three Days"--Children's
ball--Life in New-Orleans--A French supper--Omnibuses--
Chartres-street at twilight--Calaboose--Guard-house--The
vicinage of a theatre--French cafes--Scenes in the interior
of a cafe--Dominos--Tobacco-smokers--New-Orleans society.
The last three days I have spent in perambulating the city, hearing,
seeing, and visiting every thing worthy the notice of a Yankee, (and
consequently an inquisitive) tourist.
As I shall again have occasion to introduce you among the strange and
motley groups, and interesting scenes of the Levee, I will not now
resume the thread of my narrative, broken by the conclusion of my last
letter, but take you at once into the "terra incognita" of this city of
contrarieties.
The evening of my visit to the market, through the politeness of
Monsieur D., a young Frenchman who distinguished himself in the great
"Three Days" at Paris, and to whom I had a letter of introduction, was
passed amid the gayety and brilliancy of a French assembly-room. The
building in which this ball was held, is adjacent to the Theatre
d'Orleans, and devoted, I believe, exclusively to public parties, which
are held here during the winter months, or more properly, "the season,"
almost every night. The occasion on which I attended, was one of
peculiar interest. It was termed the "Children's ball;" and it is given
at regular intervals throughout the gay months. I have not learned the
precise object of this ball, or how it is conducted; but these are
unimportant. I merely wish to introduce to you the dazzling crowd
gathered there, so that you may form some conception of the manner and
appearance of the lively citizens of this lively city, who seem disposed
to remunerate themselves for the funereal and appalling silence of the
long and gloomy season, when "pestilence walketh abroad at noon-day," by
giving way to the full current of life and spirits. Adopting, literally,
"Dum vivimus vivamus," for their motto and their "rule of faith and
practice," they manage during the winter not only to make up for the
privations of summer, but to execute about as much dancing, music,
laughing, and dissipation, as would serve any reasonably disposed,
staid, and sober citizens, for three or four years, giving them withal
from January to January for the perpetration thereof.
After taking a light supper at _home_, as I already call my hotel, which
consisted of claret, macaroni, cranberries, peaches, little plates of
fresh grapes, several kinds of cakes and other bonbons, spread out upon
a long polished mahogany table, resembling altogether more the display
upon a confectioner's counter than the _table d'hote_ of a hotel, in
company with Monsieur D. I prepared to walk to the scene of the
evening's amusement. But on gaining the street we observed the
"omnibus" still at its stand at the intersection of Canal and Chartres
streets. The driver, already upon his elevated station, with his bugle
at his lips, was sounding his "signal to make sail," as we should say of
a ship; and thereupon, being suddenly impressed with the advantages the
sixteen legs of his team had over our four, in accomplishing the mile
before us, we without farther reflection, sprang forthwith into the
invitingly open door at the end of the vehicle, and the next instant
found ourselves comfortably seated, with about a dozen others, "in
omnibus."
There are two of these carriages which run from Canal-street through the
whole length of Chartres-street, by the public square, and along the
noble esplanade between the Levee and the main body of the city, as far
as the rail-road; the whole distance being about two miles. The two
vehicles start simultaneously from either place, every half-hour, and
consequently change stands with each other alternately throughout the
day. They commence running early in the morning, and are always on the
move and crowded with passengers till sun-down. For a "bit"
(twelve-and-a-half cents) as it is denominated here, one can ride the
whole distance, or if he choose, but a hundred yards--it is all the same
to the knight of the whip, who mounted on the box in front, guides his
"four-in-hand" with the skill of a professor.
As we drove through the long, narrow and dusky street, the wholesale
mercantile houses were "being" closed, while the retail stores and fancy
shops, were "being" brilliantly lighted up. Carriages, horsemen, and
noisy drays, with their noisier draymen, were rapidly moving in all
directions, while every individual upon the "trottoirs" was hurrying, as
though some important business of the day had been forgotten, or not yet
completed. All around presented the peculiar noise and bustle which
always prevail throughout the streets of a commercial city at the close
of the day.
Leaving our omniferous vehicle with its omnifarious cargo--among whom,
fore and aft, the chattering of half a dozen languages had all at once,
as we rode along, unceasingly assailed our ears--at the head of Rue St.
Pierre, we proceeded toward Orleans-street. Directly on quitting the
omnibus we passed the famous Calaboos, or Calabozo, the city prison, so
celebrated by all seamen who have made the voyage to New-Orleans, and
who, in their "long yarns" upon the forecastle, in their weary watches,
fail not to clothe it with every horror of which the Calcutta black
hole, or the Dartmoor prison--two horrible bugbears to sailors--could
boast. Its external appearance, however, did not strike me as very
appealing. It is a long, plain, plastered, blackened building, with
grated windows, looking gloomy enough, but not more so than a common
country jail. It is built close upon the street, and had not my
companion observed as we passed along, "That is the Calaboos," I should
not probably have remarked it. On the corner above, and fronting the
"square," is the guard-house, or quarters of the gens d'armes. Several
of them in their plain blue uniforms and side arms, were lounging about
the corner as we passed, mingling and conversing with persons in
citizens' dress. A glance _en passant_ through an open door, disclosed
an apparently well-filled armory. A few minutes walk through an obscure
and miserably lighted part of Rues St. Pierre and Royale, brought us
into Orleans-street, immediately in the vicinity of its theatre. This
street for some distance on either side of the assembly-room, was
lighted with the brightness of noon-day; not, indeed, by the solitary
lamps which, "few and far between," were suspended across the streets,
but by the glare of reflectors and chandeliers from coffee-houses,
restaurateurs, confectionaries and fancy stores, which were clustered
around that nucleus of pleasure, the French theatre.
We were in the French part of the city; but there was no apparent
indication that we were not really in France. Not an American ("Anglo")
building was to be seen, in the vicinity, nor scarcely an American face
or voice discoverable among the numerous, loud-talking, chattering crowd
of every grade and colour, congregated before the doors of the ball-room
and cafes adjoining. Before ascending to the magnificent hall where the
gay dancers were assembled, we repaired to an adjoining cafe, _a la
mode_ New-Orleans, with a pair of Monsieur D.'s friends--whom we
encountered in the lobby while negotiating for tickets--to overhaul the
evening papers, and if need there should be, recruit our spirits. A
French coffee-house is a place well worth visiting by a stranger, more
especially a Yankee stranger. I will therefore detain you a little
longer from the brilliant congregation of beauty and gallantry in the
assembly room, and introduce you for a moment into this cafe and to its
inmates. As the coffee houses here do not differ materially from each
other except in size and richness of decoration, though some of them
certainly are more fashionable resorts than others, the description of
one of them will enable you perhaps to form some idea of other similar
establishments in this city. Though their usual denomination is
"coffee-house," they have no earthly, whatever may be their spiritual,
right to such a distinction; it is merely a "_nomme de profession_,"
assumed, I know not for what object. We entered from the street, after
passing round a large Venetian screen within the door, into a spacious
room, lighted by numerous lamps, at the extremity of which stood an
extensive bar, arranged, in addition to the usual array of glass ware,
with innumerable French decorations. There were several attendants, some
of whom spoke English, as one of the requirements of their station. This
is the case of all _employes_ throughout New-Orleans; nearly every store
and place of public resort being provided with individuals in attendance
who speak both languages. Around the room were suspended splendid
engravings and fine paintings, most of them of the most licentious
description, and though many of their subjects were classical, of a
voluptuous and luxurious character. This is French taste however. There
are suspended in the Exchange in Chartres-street--one of the most
magnificent and public rooms in the city--paintings which, did they
occupy an equally conspicuous situation in Merchant's Hall, in Boston,
would be instantly defaced by the populace.
Around the room, beneath the paintings, were arranged many small tables,
at most of which three or four individuals were seated, some alternately
sipping negus and puffing their segars, which are as indispensable
necessaries to a Creole at all times, as his right hand, eye-brows, and
left shoulder in conversation. Others were reading newspapers, and
occasionally assisting their comprehension of abstruse paragraphs, by
hot "coffee," alias warm punch and slings, with which, on little
japanned salvers, the active attendants were flying in all directions
through the spacious room, at the beck and call of customers. The large
circular bar was surrounded by a score of noisy applicants for the
liquid treasures which held out to them such strong temptations. Trios,
couples and units of gentlemen were promenading the well sanded floor,
talking in loud tones, and gesticulating with the peculiar vehemence and
rapidity of Frenchmen. Others, and by far the majority, were gathered by
twos and by fours around the little tables, deeply engaged in playing
that most intricate, scientific, and mathematical of games termed
"Domino." This is the most common game resorted to by the Creoles. In
every cafe and cabaret, from early in the morning, when the luxurious
mint-julep has thawed out their intellects and expanded their organ of
combativeness, till late at night, devotees to this childish amusement
will be found clustered around the tables, with a tonic, often renewed
and properly sangareed, at their elbows. Enveloped in dense clouds of
tobacco-smoke issuing from their eternal segars--those inspirers of
pleasant thoughts,--to whose density, with commendable perseverance and
apparent good will, all in the cafe contribute,--they manoeuvre their
little dotted, black and white parallelograms with wonderful pertinacity
and skill. The whole scene forcibly reminds one, if perchance their fame
hath reached him, of a brace of couplets from a celebrated poem (a
choral ode I believe) composed upon the ship-wreck of its author. The
lines are strikingly applicable to the present subject by merely
substituting "cafe" for "cabin," and negus-drinkers for "hogsheads and
barrels."
"The cafe filled with thickest smoke,
Threat'ning every soul to choke:
Negus-drinkers crowding in,
Make a most infernal din."
There are certainly one hundred coffee-houses in this city--how many
more, I know not,--and they have, throughout the day, a constant ingress
and egress of thirsty, time-killing, news-seeking visiters. As custom
authorises this frequenting of these popular places of resort, the
citizens of New-Orleans do not, like those of Boston, attach any
disapprobation to the houses or their visiters. And as there is, in
New-Orleans, from the renewal of one half of its inhabitants every few
years, and the constant influx of strangers, strictly speaking no
exclusive _clique_ or aristocracy, to give a tone to society and
establish a standard of propriety and respectability, as among the
worthy Bostonians, one cannot say to another, "It is not genteel to
resort here--it will injure your reputation to be seen entering this or
that cafe." The inhabitants have no fixed criterion of what is and what
is not "respectable," in the northern acceptation of the term. They are
neither guided nor restrained from following their own inclinations, by
any laws of long established society, regulating their movements, and
saying "thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." Consequently, every man
minds his own affairs, pursues his own business or amusement, and lets
his neighbours and fellow-citizens do the same; without the fear of the
moral lash (not law) before his eyes, or expulsion from "caste" for
doing that "in which his soul delighteth."
Thus you see that society here is a perfect democracy, presenting
variety and novelty enough to a stranger, who chooses to mingle in it
freely, and feels a disposition impartially to study character. But a
truce to this subject for the present, as I wish to introduce you into
the presence of the fair democrats, whose fame for beauty is so well
established.
Forcing our way through the press around the door, we entered the lobby,
from which a broad flight of steps conducted us to a first, and then a
second platform, through piles of black servants in attendance upon
their masters and mistresses in the ball-room. At the second landing our
tickets were received, and we toiled on with difficulty toward the hall
door, with our hats (which the regulations forbid our wearing even in
the entrance) elevated in the air, for if placed under the arm they
would have been flattened in the squeeze to the very respectable
similitude of a platter, as one unlucky gentleman near me had an
opportunity of testing, to his full conviction. We were soon drawn
within the current setting into the ball-room, and were borne onward by
the human stream over which a score or two of chapeaux waved aloft like
signals of distress.--But I have already spun out my letter to a
sufficient length, and lest you should cry "hold, Macduff," I will defer
your introduction to the _beau monde_ of New-Orleans till my next.
XI.
Interior of a ball-room--Creole ladies--Infantile dancers
--French children--American children--A singular division--
New-Orleans ladies--Northern and southern beauty--An
agreeable custom--Leave the assembly-room--An olio of
languages--The Exchange--Confusion of tongues--Temples of
Fortune.
I have endeavoured to give you, in my hastily written letters, some
notion of this city--its streets, buildings, inhabitants and various
novelties, as they first struck my eye; and I apprehend that I have
expanded my descriptions, by minuteness of detail, to a greater length
than was necessary or desirable. But the scenes, individuals, and
circumstances I meet with in my erranting expeditions through the city,
are such as would attract, from their novelty, the attention of a
traveller from the North, and, consequently, a description of them is
neither unworthy a place in his letters, nor too inconsiderable to
detain the attention of an inquisitive northern reader, vegetating "at
home."
On entering, from the dimly lighted lobby, the spacious and brilliant
hall, illuminated with glittering chandeliers, where the beauty, and
fashion, and gallantry of this merry city were assembled, I was struck
with the spirit, life, and splendour of the scene. From alcoves on every
side of the vast hall, raised a few steps from the floor, and separated
from the area for dancing by an estrade of slender columns which formed
a broad promenade quite around the room, bright eyes were glancing over
the lively scene, rivalling in brilliancy the glittering gems that
sparkled on brow and bosom.
There were at least five hundred persons in the hall, two-thirds of whom
were spectators. On double rows of settees arranged around the room, and
bordering the area, were about one hundred ladies, exclusive of half as
many, seated in the alcoves. In addition to an almost impenetrable body
of gentlemen standing in the vicinity of the grand entrance, the
promenade above alluded to was filled with them, as they lounged along,
gazing and remarking upon the beautiful faces of the dark-eyed
Creoles,[4] as their expressive and lovely features were lighted up and
instinct with the animation of the moment; while others, more enviable,
were clustered around the alcoves--most of which were literally and
truly "bowers of beauty,"--gayly conversing with their fair occupants,
as they gracefully leaned over the balustrade. There were several
cotillions upon the floor, and the dancers were young masters and
misses--I beg their pardon--young gentlemen and ladies, from four years
old and upward--who were bounding away to the lively music, as
completely happy as innocence and enjoyment could make them. I never
beheld a more pleasing sight. The carriage of the infantile gentlemen
was graceful and easy: and they wound through the mazes of the dance
with an air of manliness and elegance truly French. But the tiny
demoiselles moved with the lightness and grace of fairies. Their
diminutive feet, as they glided through the figure, scarcely touched the
floor, and as they sprang flying away to the livelier measures of the
band, they were scarcely visible, fluttering indistinctly like humming
birds' wings. They were dressed with great taste in white frocks, but
their hair was so arranged as completely to disfigure their heads. Some
of them, not more than eight years of age, had it dressed in the extreme
Parisian fashion; and the little martyrs' natural deficiency of long
hair was amply remedied by that sovereign mender of the defects of
nature, Monsieur le friseur. The young gentlemen were dressed also in
the French mode; that is, in elaborately embroidered coatees, and richly
wrought frills. Their hair, however, was suffered to grow long, and fall
in graceful waves or ringlets (French children always have beautiful
hair) upon their shoulders; very much as boys are represented in old
fashioned prints. This is certainly more becoming than the uncouth
round-head custom now prevalent in the United States, of clipping the
hair short, as though boys, like sheep, needed a periodical sheering;
and it cannot be denied that they both--sheep and boys--are _equally_
improved in appearance by the operation.
Turning from the bright and happy faces of the children, we met on every
side the delighted looks of their parents and guardians, or elder
brothers and sisters, who formed a large portion of the spectators.
As I promenaded arm in arm with Monsieur D. through the room, I noticed
that at one end of the hall many of the young misses (or their
guardians) were so unpardonably unfashionable as to suffer their hair to
float free in wild luxuriance over their necks, waving and undulating at
every motion like clouds; and many of the cheerful joyous faces I gazed
upon, forcibly reminded me of those which are to be met with, trudging
to and from school, every day at home.
"These are the American children," observed my companion; "one half of
the hall is appropriated to them, the other to the French." "What!" I
exclaimed, "is there such a spirit of rivalry, jealousy, or prejudice,
existing between the French and American residents here, that they
cannot meet even in a ball-room without resorting to so singular a
method of expressing their uncongeniality of feeling, as that of
separating themselves from each other by a line of demarcation?"
"By no means," he replied; "far from it. There is, I believe, a
universal unanimity of feeling among the parties. There is now no other
distinction, whatever may have existed in former days, either known or
admitted, than the irremediable one of language. This distinction
necessarily exists, and I am of opinion ever will exist in this city in
a greater or less degree. It is this which occasions the separation you
behold; for, from their ignorance of each other's language,--an
ignorance too prevalent here, and both inexcusable and remarkable, when
we consider the advantages mutually enjoyed for their acquisition,--were
they indiscriminately mingled, the result would be a confusion like that
of Babel, or a constrained stiffness and reserve, the natural
consequence of mutual inability to converse,--instead of that regularity
and cheerful harmony which now reign throughout the crowded hall."
During our promenade through the room I had an opportunity of taking my
first survey of the gay world of this city, and of viewing at my leisure
the dark-eyed fascinating Creoles, whose peculiar cast of beauty and
superb figures are everywhere celebrated. Of the large assembly of
ladies present,--and there were nearly two hundred, "maid, wife, and
widow,"--there were many very pretty, if coal-black hair, regular
features, pale, clear complexions, intelligent faces, lighted up by
"Eyes that flash and burn
Beneath dark arched brows,"
and graceful figures, all of which are characteristic of the Creole,
come under this definition. There were others who would be called
"handsome" anywhere, except in the Green Mountains, where a pretty face
and a red apple, a homely face and a lily, are pretty much synonymous
terms. A few were eminently beautiful; but there was one figure, which,
as my eye wandered over the brilliant assembly, fixed it in a moment. I
soon learned that she was the most celebrated belle of New-Orleans.
I have certainly beheld far more beauty among the same number of ladies
in a northern ball-room, than I discovered here. Almost every young lady
in New-England appears pretty, with her rosy cheeks, intelligent face,
and social manners. The style of beauty at the south is of a more
passive kind, and excitement is requisite to make it speak to the eye;
but when the possessor is animated, then the whole face, which but a few
moments before was passionless and quiet, becomes radiant and
illuminated with fire and intelligence; and the indolent repose of the
features becomes broken by fascinating smiles, and brilliant flashes
from fine dark eyes. Till this change is produced, the face of the
southern lady appears plain and unattractive; and the promenader through
a New-Orleans assembly-room, where there was no excitement, if such
could be the case, would pronounce the majority of the ladies decidedly
wanting in beauty; but let him approach and enter into conversation with
one of them, and he would be delighted and surprised at the magical
transformation,
"From grave to gay, from apathy to fire."
It is certain, that beauty of features and form is more general in
New-England; though in grace and expression, the south has the
superiority.
The difference is usually attributed to climate; but this never has been
demonstrated, and the cause is still inexplicable. You are probably
aware that the human form, more particularly the female, is here matured
three or four years sooner than at the north. At the age of thirteen or
fourteen, before their minds are properly developed, their habits
formed, or their passions modified, the features of young girls become
regular, their complexions delicate, and their figures attain that
_tournure_ and womanly grace, though "beautifully less" in their
persons, found only in northern ladies, at the age of seventeen or
eighteen. The beauty of the latter, though longer in coming to maturity,
and less perfect, is more permanent and interesting than the infantile
and bewitching loveliness of the former. In consequence of this early
approach to womanhood, the duration of their personal loveliness is of
proportional limitation. Being young ladies at an age that would entitle
them to the appellation of children in colder climates, they must
naturally retire much sooner than these from the ranks of beauty. So
when northern ladies are reigning in the full pride and loveliness of
their sex--every feature expanding into grace and expression--southern
ladies, of equal age, are changing their premature beauty for the faded
hues of premature old age.
The joyous troops of youthful dancers, before ten o'clock arrived,
surrendered the floor to the gentlemen and ladies, who, till now, had
been merely spectators of the scene, and being resigned into the hands
of their nurses and servants in waiting, were carried home, while the
assembly-room, now converted into a regular ball-room, rang till long
past the "noon of night" with the enlivening music, confusion, and
revelry of a complete and crowded rout. Introductions for a partner in
the dance were not the "order of the day," or rather of the night. A
gentleman had only to single out some lady among the brilliant
assemblage, and though a total stranger, solicit the honour of dancing
with her. Such self-introductions are of course merely _pro tem._, and,
like fashionable intimacies formed at Saratoga, never after recognised.
Still, to a stranger, such absence of all formality is peculiarly
pleasant, and, though every face may be new to him, he has the grateful
satisfaction of knowing that he can make himself perfectly at home, and
form innumerable delightful acquaintances for the evening, provided he
chooses to be sociable, and make the most of the enjoyments around him.
We left the hall at an early hour on our return to the hotel.
Crowds of mulatto, French and English hack-drivers were besieging the
door, shouting in bad French, worse Spanish, and broken English--
"Coachee, massas! jontilhomme ridee!" "Caballeros, voulez vous tomer me
carriage?" "Wooly woo querie to ride sir?" "Fiacre Messieurs!" "By St.
Patrick jintilmen--honie, mounseers, woulee voo my asy riding
coach?"--et cetera, mingled with execrations, heavy blows, exchanged in
the way of friendship, laughter, yells and Indian whoops, composing a
"concord of sweet sounds" to be fully appreciated only by those who have
heard similar concerts. We, however, effected our escape from these
pupils of Jehu, who, ignorant of our country, in a city where all the
nations of the earth are represented, wisely addressed us in a Babelic
medley of languages, till we were out of hearing.
Returning, as we came through Rues Royale and St. Pierre, past the
quarter of the "gens d'armes," we entered Chartres-street, which was now
nearly deserted. Proceeding through this dark, narrow street on our way
home, meeting now and then an individual pursuing his hasty and solitary
way along the echoing pave, we arrived at the new Exchange alluded to in
my first letter, which served the double purpose of gentlemen's public
assembly-room and _cafe_. As we entered from the dimly lighted street,
attracted by the lively crowd dispersed throughout the spacious room,
our eyes were dazzled by the noon-day brightness shed from innumerable
chandeliers. Having lounged through the room, filled with smokers,
newspaper-readers, promenaders, drinkers, &c. &c., till we were stunned
by the noise of the multitude, who were talking in an endless variety of
languages, clattering upon the ear at once, and making "confusion worse
confounded," my polite friend suggested that we should ascend to "the
rooms," as they are termed. As I wished to see every thing in
New-Orleans interesting or novel to a northerner, I readily embraced the
opportunity of an introduction into the penetralium of one of the
far-famed temples which the goddess of fortune has erected in this, her
favourite city. We ascended a broad flight of steps, one side of which
exhibited many lofty double doors, thrown wide open, discovering to our
view an extensive hall, in which stood several billiard tables,
surrounded by their "mace and cue" devotees.
But as my letter is now of rather an uncharitable length, I will defer
till my next, farther description of the deeds and mysteries and
unhallowed sacrifices connected with these altars of dissipation.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] There is at the North a general misconception of the term "CREOLE."
A friend of mine who had visited Louisiana for his health, after a
residence of a few months gained the affections of a very lovely girl,
and married her. He wrote to his uncle in Massachusetts, to whose large
estate he was heir-expectant, communicating the event, saying that he
"had just been united to an amiable _Creole_, whom he anticipated the
pleasure of introducing to him in the Spring." The old gentleman, on
receiving the letter, stamped, raved, and swore; and on the same evening
replied to his nephew, saying, that as he had disgraced his family by
marrying a _Mulatto_, he might remain where he was, as he wished to have
nothing to do with him, or any of his woolly-headed, yellow skinned
brats, that might be, henceforward. My friend, however, ventured home,
and when the old gentleman beheld his lovely bride, he exclaimed, "The
d--l, nephew, if you call this little angel a _Creole_, what likely
chaps the real ebony Congos must be in that country." The old gentleman
is not alone in his conception of a _Creole_. Where there is one
individual in New England correctly informed, there are one hundred who,
like him, know no distinction between the terms _Creole_ and _Mulatto_.
"Creole" is simply a synonym for "native." It has, however, only a
local, whereas "native" has a general application. To say "He is a
_Creole_ of Louisiana," is to say "He is a _native_ of Louisiana."
Contrary to the general opinion at the North, it is seldom applied to
coloured persons, _Creole_ is sometimes, though not frequently, applied
to Mississippians; but with the exception of the West-India Islands, it
is usually confined to Louisiana.
XII.
The Goddess of fortune--Billiard-rooms--A professor--
Hells--A respectable banking company--"Black-legs"--
Faro described--Dealers--Bank--A novel mode of franking
--Roulette-table--A supper in Orcus--Pockets to let--
Dimly lighted streets--Some things not so bad as they
are represented.
My last letter left me on my way up to "the rooms" over the Exchange,
where the goddess of fortune sits enthroned, with a "cue" for her
sceptre, and a card pack for her "magna charta," dispensing alternate
happiness and misery to the infatuated votaries who crowd in multitudes
around her altars. Proceeding along the corridor, we left the
billiard-room on our left, in which no sound was heard (though every
richly-carved, green-covered table was surrounded by players, while
numerous spectators reclined on sofas or settees around the room) save
the sharp _teck! teck!_ of the balls as they came in contact with each
other, and the rattling occasioned by the "markers" as they noted the
progress of the game on the large parti-coloured "rosaries" extended
over the centre of the tables. Lingering here but a moment, we turned an
angle of the gallery, and at the farther extremity came to a glass door
curtained on the inner side, so as effectually to prevent all
observation of the interior. Entering this,--for New-Orleans,--so
carefully guarded room, we beheld a scene, which, to an uninitiated,
ultra city-bred northerner, would be both novel and interesting.
The first noise which struck our ears on entering, was the clear ringing
and clinking of silver, mingled with the technical cries of the
gamblers, of "all set"--"seven red"--"few cards"--"ten black," &c.--the
eager exclamations of joy or disappointment by the players, and the
incessant clattering of the little ivory ball racing its endless round
in the roulette-table. On one side of the room was a faro-table, and on
the opposite side a roulette. We approached the former, which was
thronged on three sides with players, while on the other, toward the
wall, was seated the dealer of the game--the "gentleman professeur." He
was a portly, respectable looking, jolly-faced Frenchman, with so little
of the "black-leg" character stamped upon his physiognomy, that one
would be far from suspecting him to be a gambler by profession. This is
a profession difficult to be conceived as the permanent and only pursuit
of an individual. Your conception of it has probably been taken, as in
my own case, from the fashionable novels of the day; and perhaps you
have regarded the character as merely the creation of an author's brain,
and "the profession" _as_ a profession, existing nowhere in the various
scenes and circumstances of life.
There are in this city a very great number of these _infernos_,
(_anglice_ "hells") all of which--with the exception of a few private
ones, resorted to by those gentlemen who may have some regard for
appearances--are open from twelve at noon till two in the morning, and
thronged by all classes, from the lowest blackguard upward. They are
situated in the most public streets, and in the most conspicuous
locations. Each house has a bank, as the amount of funds owned by it is
termed. Some of the houses have on hand twenty thousand dollars in
specie; and when likely to be hard run by heavy losses, can draw for
three or four times that amount upon the directors of the "bank
company." The establishing of one of these banks is effected much as
that of any other. Shares are sold, and many respectable moneyed men, I
am informed, become stockholders; though not ambitious, I believe, to
have their names made public. It is some of the best stock in the city,
often returning an enormous dividend. They are regularly licensed, and
pay into the state or city treasury, I forget which, annually more than
sixty thousand dollars. From six to twelve well-dressed, genteel looking
individuals, are always to be found in attendance, to whom salaries are
regularly paid by the directors; and to this salary, and this
occupation, they look for as permanent a support through life as do
members of any other profession. It is this class of men who are
emphatically denominated "gamblers and black legs." The majority of
them are Frenchmen, though they usually speak both French and English.
Individuals, allured by the hope of winning, are constantly passing in
and out of these houses, in "broad noon," with the same indifference to
what is termed "public opinion," as they would feel were they going into
or out of a store.
Those places which are situated in the vicinity of Canal-street and
along the Levee, are generally of a lower order, and thronged with the
_canaille_ of the city, sailors, Kentucky boatmen, crews of steamboats,
and poor Gallic gentlemen, in threadbare long-skirted coats and huge
whiskers. The room we were now visiting was of a somewhat higher order,
though not exclusively devoted to the more genteel adventurers, as, in
the very nature of the thing, such an exclusion would be impossible. But
if unruly persons intrude, and are disposed to be obstreperous, the
conductors of the rooms, of course, have the power of expelling them at
pleasure.
Being merely spectators of the game, we managed to obtain an
advantageous position for viewing it, from a vacant settee placed by the
side of the portly dealer, who occupied, as his exclusive right, one
side of the large table. Before him were placed in two rows thirteen
cards; the odd thirteenth capping the double file, like a militia
captain at the head of his company, when marching "two by two;" the
files of cards, however, unlike these martial files of men, are
_straight_. You will readily see by the number, that these cards
represent every variety in a pack. The dealer, in addition, has a
complete pack, fitting closely in a silver box, from which, by the
action of a sliding lid, he adroitly and accurately turns off the cards
in dealing. The players, or "betters," as they are termed, place their
money in various positions as it respects the thirteen cards upon the
table, putting it either on a single card or between two, as their
skill, judgment, or fancy may dictate.
As I took my station near the faro-board, the dealer was just shuffling
the cards for a new game. There were eleven persons clustered around the
table, and as the game was about to commence, arm after arm was reached
forth to the prostrate cards, depositing one, five, ten, twenty, or
fifty dollars, according to the faith or depth of purse of their owners.
On, around, and between the cards, dollars were strewed singly or in
piles, while the eyes of every better were fixed immoveably, and, as the
game went on, with a painful intensity, upon his own deposit, perhaps
his last stake. When the stakes were all laid, the dealer announced it
by drawling out in bad English, "all saat." Then, damping his forefinger
and thumb, by a summary process--not quite so elegant as common--he
began drawing off the cards in succession. The card taken off does not
count in the game; the betters all looking to the one turned up in the
box to read the fate of their stakes. As the cards are turned, the
winners are paid, the money won by the bank swept off with a long wand
into the reservoir by the side of the banker, and down go new stakes,
doubled or lessened according to the success of the winners--again is
drawled out the mechanical "all set," and the same routine is repeated
until long past midnight, while the dealers are relieved every two or
three hours by their fellow-partners in the house.
At the right hand of the dealer, upon the table, is placed what is
denominated "the bank," though it is merely its representative. This is
a shallow, yet heavy metal box, about twenty inches long, half as many
wide, and two deep, with a strong network of wire, so constructed as to
cover the box like a lid, and be secured by a lock. Casting my eye into
this receptacle through its latticed top, I noticed several layers of
U.S. bank notes, from five to five hundred dollars, which were kept down
by pieces of gold laid upon each pile. About one-fifth of the case was
parted off from the rest, in which were a very large number of gold
ounces and rouleaus of guineas. The whole amount contained in it, so far
as I could judge, was about six thousand dollars, while there was more
than three thousand dollars in silver, piled openly and most temptingly
upon the table around the case, in dollars, halves, and quarters, ready
for immediate use. From policy, five franc pieces are substituted for
dollars in playing; but the winner of any number of them can, when he
ceases playing, immediately exchange them at the bank for an equal
number of dollars. It often happens that players, either from ignorance
or carelessness, leave the rooms with the five franc pieces; but should
they, five minutes afterward, discover their neglect and return to
exchange them, the dealer exclaims with an air of surprise--
"Saar! it will be one mistake, saar. I nevair look you in de fas before,
saar!" Thousands of dollars are got off annually in this manner, and a
very pretty interest the banks derive from their ingenious method of
_franking_.
Having seen some thousands of dollars change hands in the course of an
hour, and, with feelings somewhat allied to pity, marked the expression
of despair, darkening the features of the unfortunate loser, as he
rushed from the room with clenched hands and bent brow, muttering
indistinctly within his teeth fierce curses upon his luck; and observed,
with no sympathizing sensations of pleasure, the satisfaction with which
the winners hugged within their arms their piles of silver, we turned
from the faro, and crossed the room to the roulette table. These two
tables are as inseparable as the shark and the pilot fish, being always
found together in every gambling room, ready to make prey of all who
come within their influence. At faro there is no betting less than a
dollar; here, stakes as low as a quarter are permitted. The players were
more numerous at this table than at the former, and generally less
genteel in their appearance. The roulette table is a large, long,
green-covered board or platform, in the centre of which, placed
horizontally upon a pivot, is a richly plated round mahogany table, or
wheel, often inlaid with ivory and pearl, and elaborately carved, about
two feet in diameter, with the bottom closed like an inverted box cover.
Around this wheel, on the inner border, on alternate little black and
red squares, are marked numbers as high as thirty-six, with two squares
additional, in one a single cipher, in the other two ciphers; while on
the green cloth-covered board, the same numbers are marked in squares.
The dealer, who occupies one side of the table, with his metal, latticed
case of bank notes and gold at his right hand, and piles of silver
before him, sets the wheel revolving rapidly, and adroitly spins into it
from the end of his thumb, as a boy would snap a marble, an ivory ball,
one quarter the size of a billiard ball. The betters, at the same
instant, place their money upon such one of the figures drawn upon the
cloth as they fancy the most likely to favour them, and intently watch
the ball as it races round within the revolving wheel. When the wheel
stops, the ball necessarily rests upon some one of the figures in the
wheel, and the fortunate player, whose stake is upon the corresponding
number on the cloth, is immediately paid his winning, while the stakes
of the losers are coolly transferred by the dealer to the constantly
accumulating heap before him; again the wheel is set revolving, the
little ball rattles around it, and purses are again made lighter and the
bank increased.
As we were about to depart, I noticed in an interior room a table spread
for nearly a dozen persons, and loaded with all the substantials for a
hearty supper. The dealers, or conductors of the bank, are almost all
bachelors, I believe, or ought to be, and keep "hall" accordingly, in
the same building where lies their theatre of action, in the most
independent and uproarious style. After the rooms are closed, which is
at about two in the morning, they retire to their supper table, inviting
all the betters, both winners and losers, who are present when the
playing breaks up, to partake with them. The invitations are generally
accepted; and those poor devils who in the course of the evening have
been so unfortunate as to have "pockets to let," have at least the
satisfaction of enjoying a good repast, _gratis_, before they go home
and hang themselves.[5]
Having satisfied our curiosity with a visit to this notable place, we
descended into the Exchange, which was now nearly deserted; a few
gentlemen only were taking their "night caps" at the bar, and here and
there, through the vast room, a solitary individual was pacing backward
and forward with echoing footsteps.
Leaving the now deserted hall, which at an earlier hour had resounded
with the loud and confused murmur of a hundred tongues, and the tramping
of a busy multitude, we proceeded to our hotel through the silent and
dimly lighted streets,[6] without being assassinated, robbed, seized by
the "_gens d'armes_," and locked up in the guard-house, or meeting any
other adventure or misadventure whatever; whereat we were almost tempted
to be surprised, remembering the frightful descriptions given by
veracious letter-writers, of this "terrible city" of New-Orleans.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Exertions have been made from time to time by the citizens of
Louisiana for the suppression of gambling, but their efforts have until
recently, been unavailing. During the last session of the legislature of
Louisiana, however, a bill to suppress gambling-houses in New-Orleans,
passed both houses, and has become a law. One of the enactments provides
that the owners or occupants of houses in which gambling is detected,
are liable to the penalties of the law. For the first offence, a fine of
from one to five thousand dollars; for the second, from ten to fifteen
thousand, and confinement in the penitentiary from one to five years, at
the discretion of the court. Fines are also imposed for playing at any
public gaming table, or any banking game. The owners of houses where
gaming tables are kept, are liable for the penalty, if not collected of
the keeper; unless they are able to show that the crime was committed so
privately that the owner could not know of it. It also provides for the
recovery of any sums of money lost by gaming.
To make up the deficiency in the revenue arising from the abolition of
gaming-houses, a bill has been introduced into the legislature providing
for the imposition of a tax on all passengers arriving at, or leaving
New-Orleans, by ships or steamboats.
[6] Since the above paragraph was penned, the huge swinging lamps have
been superseded by gas lights, which now brilliantly illuminate all the
principal streets of the city.
XIII.
A sleepy porter--Cry of fire--Noises in the streets--A wild
scene at midnight--A splendid illumination--Steamers wrapped
in flames--A river on fire--Firemen--A lively scene--Floating
cotton--Boatmen--An ancient Portuguese Charon--A boat race--
Pugilists--A hero.
At the commendable hour of one in the morning, as was hinted in my last
letter, we safely arrived at our hotel, and roused the slumbering porter
from his elysian dreams by the tinkling of a little bell pendant over
the private door for "single gentlemen,--_belated_;" and ascended
through dark passages and darker stairways to our rooms, lighted by the
glimmer of a solitary candle fluttering and flickering by his motion, in
the fingers of the drowsy "guardian of doors," who preceded us.
We had finished our late supper, and, toasting our bootless feet upon
the burnished fender, were quietly enjoying the agreeable warmth of the
glowing coals, and relishing, with that peculiar zest which none but a
smoker knows, a real Habana,--when we were suddenly startled from our
enjoyment by the thrilling, fearful cry, of "Fire! fire!" which, heard
in the silence of midnight, makes a man's heart leap into his throat,
while he springs from his couch, as if the cry "To arms--to arms!" had
broken suddenly upon his slumbers. "Fire! fire! fire!" rang in loud
notes through the long halls and corridors of the spacious hotel,
startling the affrighted sleepers from their beds, and at the same
instant a fierce, red glare flashed through our curtained windows. The
alarm was borne loudly and wildly along the streets--the rapid
clattering of footsteps, as some individual hastened by to the scene of
the disaster, followed by another, and another, was in a few seconds
succeeded by the loud, confused, and hurried tramping of many men, as
they rushed along shouting with hoarse voices the quick note of alarm.
We had already sprung to the balcony upon which the window of our room
opened. For a moment our eyes were dazzled by the fearful splendour of
the scene which burst upon us. The whole street,--lofty buildings,
towers, and cupolas--reflected a wild, red glare, flashed upon them from
a stupendous bod
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