Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 1 (of 2)
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Title: Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 1 (of 2)
Author: Harriet Martineau
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RETROSPECT OF WESTERN TRAVEL, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***
IMPORTANT WORKS
JUST PUBLISHED BY
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW-YORK.
* * * * *
The Works of Charles Lamb. To which are prefixed his Letters, and a
Sketch of his Life, by Thomas Noon Talfourd. 2 vols. 12mo. Portrait.
A Journal of Travels on the Continent of Europe: viz., in England,
Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Switzerland, some Parts of Germany,
and the Netherlands, during the Years 1835 and '36. By Wilbur Fisk, D.D.
8vo. With Engravings.
Memoirs of Aaron Burr. With Miscellaneous Selections from his
Correspondence. 2 vols. 8vo. Portraits.
A New Hieroglyphical Bible, with 400 Cuts, by Adams. 16mo.
Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land. 2 vols.
12mo. _Third Edition._ With Engravings.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Comprising the Details
of a Mutiny and atrocious Butchery on board the American Brig Grampus on
her Way to the South Seas in the Month of June, 1827, &c., &c., &c.
12mo. Engravings.
Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lemuel Haynes, A.M. By
Timothy Mather Cooley, D.D. With some Introductory Remarks by Wm. B.
Sprague, D.D. 12mo. Portrait.
The Economy of Health; or, the Stream of Human Life from the Cradle to
the Grave. With Reflections, Moral, Physical, and Philosophical, on the
Septennial Phases of Human Existence. By James Johnson, M.D. 18mo.
The Monk of Cimiés. By Mrs. Sherwood. 12mo. Engravings. [Vol. XIV. of
her Works.]
Henry Milner. Complete. [Vol. XV. of Mrs. Sherwood's Works.]
Sacred History of the World. By Sharon Turner. Vol. III. [No. 83 of the
Family Library.]
Scenery of the Heavens. By Thomas Dick, LL.D., Author of "Christian
Philosopher," &c. 18mo. Engravings.
Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat. By
Edmund Roberts. 8vo.
Zion's Songster. Compiled by Rev. T. Mason. 48mo.
Leila; or, the Siege of Grenada. By E. L. Bulwer: Esq., Author of "Eugene
Aram," &c. 12mo.
Ernest Maltravers. By the Author of "Pelham," "Rienzi," &c. 2 vols.
12mo.
Attila. By the Author of "Richelieu," "Philip Augustus," "The Gipsy,"
&c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Pelayo: a Story of the Goth. By the Author of "Guy Rivers,"
"Mellichampe," &c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Burton; or, the Sieges. By the Author of "Lafitte," &c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Live and Let Live; or, Domestic Service Illustrated. By the Author of
"The Linwoods," "The Poor Rich Man," &c. 18mo.
A Love Token for Children. By the Author of "Live and Let Live," &c.
18mo.
Cromwell: a Romance. By the Author of "The Brothers," &c. 2 vols. 12mo.
Recollections of a Southern Matron. By the Author of "Recollections of a
New-England Housekeeper." 12mo.
Falkner. By the Author of "Frankenstein," "Lodore," &c. 12mo.
Constance Latimer; or, the Blind Girl. With other Stories. By Mrs. Emma
C. Embury. 18mo.
_Anthon's Series of Classical Works for Schools and Colleges, now in the
course of publication._
--> The following works, already published, may be regarded as specimens
of the whole series, which will consist of about thirty volumes.
Sallust's Jugurthine War and Conspiracy of Catiline, with an English
Commentary, and Geographical and Historical Indexes. By Charles Anthon,
LL.D. Sixth Edition, corrected and enlarged. 12mo. With a Portrait.
Select Orations of Cicero, with an English Commentary, and Historical,
Geographical, and Legal Indexes. By Charles Anthon, LL.D., &c: 12mo.
Third Edition.
Cæsar. With Notes; etc., by Professor Anthon. 12mo. With a Map of
Ancient Gaul, and Plans of Battles, Sieges, &c.
A Grammar of the Greek Language, for the Use of Schools and Colleges,
with Teutonic, Gothic, Sclavonic, Gaelic, Sanscrit, and Zend Analogies.
By C. Anthon, LL.D. 12mo.
A System of Greek Prosody and Metre, with Illustrations of the Choral
Scanning in the Dramatic Writers. By C. Anthon; LL.D. 12mo.
RETROSPECT
OF
WESTERN TRAVEL.
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU,
AUTHOR Of "SOCIETY IN AMERICA," "ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY," ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY SAUNDERS AND OTLEY
NEW-YORK:
SOLD BY HARPER & BROTHERS
1838.
PREFACE.
When I finished my late work on Society in America, I had not the most
remote idea of writing anything more on the subject of the New World. I
have since been strongly solicited to communicate more of my personal
narrative, and of the lighter characteristics of men, and incidents of
travel, than it suited my purpose to give in the other work. It has also
been represented to me that, as my published-book concerns the Americans
at least as much as the English, there is room for another which shall
supply to the English what the Americans do not want--a picture of the
aspect of the country, and of its men and manners. There seems no reason
why such a picture should not be appended to an inquiry into the theory
and practice of their society; especially as I believe that I have
little to tell which will not strengthen the feelings of respect and
kindness with which the people of Great Britain are more and more
learning to regard the inhabitants of the Western Republic. I have,
therefore, willingly acceded to the desire of such of my readers as have
requested to be presented with my Retrospect of Western Travel.
H. MARTINEAU.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
Page
The Voyage 13
First Impressions 35
The Hudson 43
Pine Orchard House 57
Weddings 63
High Road Travelling 71
Fort Erie 90
Niagara 96
Priestley 109
Prisons 123
First Sight of Slavery 139
Life at Washington 143
The Capitol 164
Mount Vernon 186
Madison 189
Jefferson's University 199
Country Life in the South 208
City Life in the South 223
Restless Slaves 242
New-Orleans 254
RETROSPECT
OF
WESTERN TRAVEL.
THE VOYAGE.
"When the sun dawn'd, gay and glad,
We set the sail and plied the oar;
But when the night-wind blew like breath,
For joy of one day's voyage more,
We sang together on the wide sea,
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,
The helm made sure by the twilight star,
And in a sleep as calm as death
We the voyagers from afar
Lay stretched."
_Paracelsus_, Part iv.
The packet-ship in which my passage was taken, the United States,
Captain Nathan Holdrege, was to have sailed from Liverpool on Friday,
the 8th of August, 1834, at eleven o'clock. At half past ten my
fellow-traveller and I, with our friends, were on the way to the dock,
in some doubt about our departure, from the wind being directly against
us, when we met a gentleman interested in the sailing of the vessel, who
told us that we might turn back, as the captain had given up all hope of
getting out of port that day. This was uncomfortable news enough. We had
bidden farewell to many friends, half the pain of parting was over, and
there was little pleasure in having it all to go through again.
We resolved to proceed to the dock, to put our luggage on board, and see
for ourselves the true state of affairs. It was not very agreeable. The
deck was encumbered with water-casks and chests; the captain was
fidgeting about, giving his orders in a voice rather less placid than
ordinary; a great number of inquiring persons, who had come down to see
us off, had to be told that we were not going to-day, and why; and
several of the American passengers were on the spot, looking very
melancholy. They had entered the 8th in their journals as the day of
sailing, brought down their portmanteaus, paid their bills at the hotel,
and taken leave of Boots and chambermaid. Here they were left with
four-and-twenty dreary and expensive hours upon their hands, and who
knew how many more than four-and-twenty? One declared that the wind
appeared as if it had set in against us, and he should not be surprised
if it was a week before we sailed. Their fate was so truly mournful,
that I was ashamed of feeling any discomfiture on my own account,
domesticated as I was in the nearest and dearest of homes next to my
own. Our disconsolate acquaintance among the passengers were invited to
dispose of their evening with us; and we returned to tell the children,
and everybody whom we met, that we were not gone, and wherefore. Of
course, we presently recollected several reasons why it was well that we
had another day. There were two letters which it was highly desirable I
should write from Liverpool rather than from New-York; and the children
had never before found leisure to show me the cupboards and shelves
where they kept their playthings; so that, if the wind had been fair, I
should actually have gone away without seeing them.
We sauntered all the afternoon in the Zoological Gardens, and, as we
returned, caught each other looking up at every weathercock we passed.
In the evening our visiters dropped in, each ready with a speculation as
to how the wind would be to-morrow.
On the morrow the weathercock told no better news; and a note was on the
breakfast-table which informed us that there was no chance of our
sailing that day. I was now really sorry. It was Saturday; and I feared
my host would write no sermon if I remained to keep his household in an
unsettled state. Our seadresses, too, would not serve for a Sunday in
Liverpool, and our books and work were all on board with our wardrobes.
The tidings were therefore welcome which were brought early in the
forenoon, that the captain had engaged a steamboat to tow us out to sea.
By eleven o'clock the carriage of a friend was at the door, with
bouquets of flowers, and baskets of grapes and other acid refreshments,
which it was thought might be welcome at sea.
"Have you _no_ misgivings?" asked an intimate, before whose imagination
the Western World now rose tremendous in its magnitude. "Have you no
misgivings now?" I had none, and it was well. If I had had such as would
have made me draw back in the last moment, what a world of good should I
have foregone! Not only what knowledge, but what a store of imagery!
What intense and varied enjoyment! and, above all, what friendships!
When I now look back upon what I have gained, and at how small an
expense of peril and inconvenience, I cannot but regard my setting foot
on board ship as one of the most fortunate acts of my life.
When we arrived at the dock we found there was really to be no further
delay. The knots of friends, the crowds of gazers were gathering; the
steamer was hissing and puffing in the river, and the song of the
sailors was heard, as they were warping our ship out of the dock. In a
few minutes we and the other passengers were requested to step on board.
I first carried my flowers down to my stateroom, intending to hide them
there till we should be out of sight of land, when an apparition of
fresh flowers upon deck might be more than commonly welcome. I then took
my station by a window of the roundhouse, whence I could see all that
passed on shore without being much seen. Thence I could observe my
brother and sisters speaking to each other, and pointing out things
which I could easily interpret. It occurred to me that I could send them
one more token, by means of the little waves which rolled away from the
sides of our ship, and washed the pier on which the crowd was standing.
I threw out a rose at a moment when I caught a watchful eye; and I saw
it borne, after many vagaries, directly under their feet. Suddenly I
missed them from the spot where they were standing, and supposed they
were quite tired (as they well might have been), and had gone home. But
it was not so. They had withdrawn only in order to secure front places
at the extreme end of the pier, whence they might watch us yet longer
than from their former station. There they stood, as long as we could
distinguish any forms from among the crowd. Then three cheers were
exchanged between the crew and the shore, and the passengers strained
their eyes no more.
The greater number then went below to make arrangements in their
staterooms; and afterward ensued the ceremony of introducing the company
to each other on deck. Our number was twenty-three, six of whom formed
the party to which I belonged; or, rather, so it seemed to ourselves
before we went on board. The distinction was afterward forgotten, for
the company assembled was, with two or three exceptions, so exceedingly
agreeable and so wonderfully congenial, considering how accidentally we
were brought together, that we mingled completely as one party. We had
among us a Prussian physician; a New-England divine; a Boston merchant,
with his sprightly and showy young wife; a high-spirited young South
Carolinian, fresh from a German university; a newly-married couple,
whose station was not exactly discoverable while on board, but who
opened a public-house soon after their arrival in New-York; a Scotch
major, whose peculiarities made him the butt of the young men; an
elderly widow lady; two amiable young ladies; and a Scotch lady, "of no
particular age," but of very particular placidity and good-humour; and a
youth out of Yorkshire, who was leaving his parents' roof for the first
time alone, and who was destined never to return to it. The number was
made up by English and American merchants; young men so accustomed to
pass between Liverpool and New-York, that the voyage was little more to
them than an expedition to Primrose Hill is to a cockney.
The cold dinner and drinking of healths customary on the day of sailing
succeeded. Then there was the library to look over, and trial to be made
of a seat on the rail, whence we could see the dim shores as we glided
smoothly along in the wake of the steamer. By the time it was dusk the
latter had performed her engagement. We saw the payment handed over, and
the shaking of hands of the two captains, and then she disengaged
herself from us, and began ploughing her way to the north coast of
Ireland. We felt very helpless when she was gone, the little wind there
was being unfavourable. There was so little, however, as to allow us
novices a night of sound sleep at the outset.
On Sunday we crept along in almost a calm, having a glimpse of the dim
outline of the Isle of Man in the morning, and being still in sight of
Holyhead in the evening. To me it was a day of luxury; for, jaded as I
had been with business and novelty, there was no circumstance of the
voyage that I valued so highly as the impossibility of receiving letters
or news for three weeks or a month. The gliding on thus in a calm, with
time to think and be still, was all that I wanted; but the Americans,
who had home on the horizon before them, and longed to be at rest
there, looked grave on this inauspicious beginning of their transit. On
Monday, however, they felt, from another cause, a good deal worse. The
wind had freshened, but I believe nobody cared which way or how fast it
blew us. The only meal at which I was not present was that of Monday's
dinner. I can testify to the breakfast and tea being quiet and sad
enough, with a sprinkling of languid passengers at table, and a
knowledge of how wretched all the rest were in their rooms.
On Tuesday began my experience of the pleasures of the sea. The wind had
freshened to a strong breeze, which had so rocked us in our berths that
I rose miserably ill. I was strongly persuaded of the necessity of
exertion in seasickness, of having fresh air, and of getting out of the
way of the sights and sounds of the cabin; and I therefore persevered in
dressing and going up to the deck. There was the captain, with only one
passenger to talk with, and heartily glad at the prospect of another
being convalescent. He seated me on the rail, where I kept my eyes away
from the helpless invalids who were strewed about the deck, and in half
an hour I was quite well. We were careering along in most exhilarating
style. The wind was so strong as to put the wearing a bonnet out of the
question. I had happily been furnished with a sort of cap, which no lady
should go to sea without; a black silk cap, well wadded. With the head
thus defended, and a large warm cloak, a lady may abide almost any
weather, and avoid the _désagremens_ and unwholesomeness of the cabin.
My eye was never weary of watching the dashing and boiling of the dark
green waves, from the gray horizon to the ship's side; and I know of no
motion so gladsome as that of riding the high billows in a brisk breeze.
The captain pointed out to me the first of the monsters of the deep that
I ever saw; a large blackfish, tumbling about joyously by itself in the
stormy sea, now throwing its thick body forward in ungainly gambols, and
now rearing its forked tail perpendicularly as it prepared to dive.
My flowers did not disappoint my expectations. They were still quite
fresh on the Wednesday, when, as we were out of sight of land, I carried
them up to the deck, and gave each passenger one, that being precisely
my supply. I never saw flowers give so much pleasure before, except in
cases of long confinement from illness. Truly they were very like a
message from home.
In two or three days more all but two ladies and one gentleman had
settled themselves into the routine of sea life. It was very desirable
that they should do so, as on the 15th we were still little more than
three hundred miles from Liverpool. It would have been dismal to add
idleness and unsettledness to the discouragement caused by such a
beginning of our voyage. Our mode of life was very simple and quiet; to
me, very delightful. I enjoyed it so much that I delayed beginning my
letters home till we had been a week at sea, lest I should write some
extravagance which I should afterward have to qualify or retract. None
of my subsequent experience, however, has altered my feeling that a
voyage is the most pleasant pastime I have ever known.
The passengers showed themselves upon deck some time between seven and
nine in the morning. Each one either made his way to the binnacle to see
for himself what course we were upon, or learned the important
intelligence from some obliging individual who held the fact at the
general service. We all asked the captain at first, but soon
discontinued the practice when we found that favourable answers were
likely to be rare, and how it must vex him to tell us every morning that
we were scarcely getting on at all.
After a brisk morning's walk upon deck, no one was sorry to hear the
breakfast-bell. Breakfast was the most cheerful meal of the day. If ever
there was any news to tell, it was then. The early risers could
sometimes speak to the sluggards of a big fish, of a passing sail, of a
frolic among the sailors. I was asked once by a passenger, in a tone
whose laziness cannot be conveyed on paper, "What, did ye see the whale
this mornin'?"
"No. It came at four o'clock, when I was asleep; but the captain
promises to have me called next time, whatever the hour may be."
"What, d'ye want to see a whale?"
"Yes, very much."
"Well, but I dare say you have seen a pictur' o' one."
It was not apparent to him that this was not an equally good thing.
After breakfast, the gentlemen who kept journals produced their
writing-cases in the cabin. The ladies sat in sunny or shaded places on
deck, netting, making table-mats, or reading, or mounted the railing to
talk or look abroad. I had a task to do, which is a thing that should
be avoided on board ship. I had a long article to write; and nothing
else would I do, on fine mornings, till it was finished. It is
disagreeable writing in the cabin, with people flitting all about one.
It is unwholesome writing in one's stateroom in the month of August. The
deck is the only place. The first care, after breakfast, of my clerical
friend the New-Englander, was to find me a corner where the wind would
not blow my paper about, where the sun would not dazzle me, and where I
might be quiet; and then he took his seat behind the roundhouse, with a
row of children from the steerage before him to do their lessons. I
wondered at first how he would teach them without books, slates, or any
other visible implements of instruction; but when I saw him get a
potato, and cut it into two and four parts, to show the children what
halves and quarters were, I was assured he would prosper with them. And
so he did. They went to school to excellent purpose; and I dare say they
will send back grateful thoughts all through their lives upon the kind
gentleman who attended to them on the voyage.
For some time I was daily baffled in my purpose of writing by the
observation of persons who seemed not only entirely ignorant of the
process of composition, but very anxious to learn it. Not only did the
children from the steerage spy from behind chests and casks, and peep
over my shoulder, but the inquirer about the whale was wont to place
himself directly in front of me, with his arms akimbo, and his eyes
fixed on the point of my pen. Somebody gave him a hint at last, and I
was left in peace. By two o'clock, when the deck began to fill again
after luncheon, my head and eyes had had enough of writing, and I
joyfully mounted the rail. If I wanted to watch the sea undisturbed, I
held a Shakspeare in my hand. If I carried no book, somebody came to
talk. What fleets of Portuguese men-of-war did we see at those hours! I
hardly know whether these little mariners of the deep are most beautiful
when gliding, rich in their violet hues, along the calm sunny surface of
the summer sea, or when they are tossed about like toys by rough dark
waves. One day, when I was exclaiming on their beauty, a young lady,
industriously working at her table-mats, observed that it was very odd
that she had crossed this ocean three times, and had never seen a
Portuguese man-of-war. I concluded that she had never looked for them,
and asked the favour of her to stand by my side for one half hour. She
did so, and saw three. I strongly suspect that those who complain of the
monotony of the ocean do not use their eyes as they do on land. It seems
to be the custom at sea to sit on deck, looking abroad only when the sun
is setting, or the moon rising, or when there is a sail to be speculated
upon. Some of the most beautiful sights I caught were when no one else
was looking down quite into the deep, the only way to see most of the
creatures that live there. One day I was startled, while thus gazing,
with an excessive radiance, like an expanse of brilliant rainbow, far
down in the sunny deep under our bows. My exclamation brought one
witness to behold, as I did, the distinct form of a dolphin come out of
the light. It was a family of dolphins, the only ones that were seen on
the voyage. Many a flying fish darted from the crest of one wave into
another. Many a minuet did Mother Carey's chickens trip, with their
slender web-feet, on the momentary calm left between two billows. Many a
shining visiter came up from the lowest deep to exchange glances and be
gone. I soon found it was in vain to call people to look. These sights
are too transient to be caught otherwise than by watching. When a shoal
of porpoises came to race with the ship, every one on board was up on
the rail to see; and an exhilarating sight it is, when the ship is going
before the wind in a rough sea, and the porpoises dart visibly through
the midst of a billow, and pitch, and rise, and cross each other's path,
swiftly and orderly, without ever relaxing their speed, till they are
tired of play. It is impossible to help having a favourite among the
shoal, and watching him with an interest and admiration which, upon
consideration, are really ridiculous.
The most generally interesting sight, perhaps, was a sail; and we were
never a day without seeing one or more. Sometimes three or four seemed
to be peeping at us from the horizon. Sometimes our ship and another
were nearing each other almost all day. Once or twice I was startled
with a sudden apparition of one close at hand, with all her sails set,
black in a streak of moonlight, when I went up to bid the sea
good-night. One morning early I found the deck in a bustle, from a ship
having made signals of distress. "A ship in distress!" everybody began
shouting. "A ship in distress!" cried I to the ladies in the cabin, one
of whom came up muffled in a cloak, and another with her nightcap under
her bonnet, rather than miss the romance of the scene. The hearts of the
novices were all ready to bleed; the faces of the gentlemen began to
wear, in anticipation, an expression of manly compassion, as we hung out
our colours, shortened sail (one of the first times we had been going
right on our course), and wore round, while all the people of both ships
gathered on the decks, and the captains brandished their trumpets. She
was French, and her distress was that she had lost her longitude! Our
good captain, very angry at the loss of time from such a cause, said
they ought to have lost their heads with it, shouted out the longitude,
and turned into our course again. The ladies went back to finish their
toilet in an ordinary mood of sensibility, and the French went on their
way, we may conclude, rejoicing.
A distant sail was one day decided to be a merchant ship from the south
of France, to everybody's apparent satisfaction but mine. I had a strong
persuasion that she was not French, but felt how presumptuous it would
be to say so. I watched her, however; and, at the end of three hours,
directed the captain's attention again to her. He snatched his glass,
and the next moment electrified us all by the vehemence of his
directions to the helmsman and others of the crew. It was a rival
packet-ship, the Montreal, which had left Portsmouth four days before we
sailed. We were in for a race, which lasted three days, after which we
lost sight of our rival, till she reached New-York after us. Our captain
left the dinner-table three times this first day of the race, and was
excessively anxious throughout. It was very exciting to us all. We
concluded, after fair trial, that she beat in a light wind and we in a
strong one. Some weeks after our landing I fell in with two passengers
from the Montreal, who described the counterpart of the scene we had
beheld as having taken place on board their ship. There had been the
same start of surprise on the part of their captain, who had also left
the dinner-table three times; the same excitement among the passengers;
and the same conclusion as to the respective sailing merits of the two
vessels.
From four to six we were dining. Some of us felt it rather annoying to
be so long at table; but it is a custom established on board these
packets, for the sake, I believe, of those who happen to find the day
too long. Such persons need compassion, and their happier companions can
afford to sacrifice something to their ease; so no one objects openly to
devoting two of the best hours of the day to dinner and dessert. The
rush up to the deck, however, when they are over, shows what the taste
of the majority is. One afternoon the ladies were called down again, and
found in their cabin a surprise at least as agreeable as my flowers. A
dessert of pines and grapes had been sent in by a gentleman who found
that a friend had put a basket of choice fruits on board for his use,
but who preferred favouring the ladies with them. He was sent for to
preside at the table he had thus spread, and was not a little rallied by
his brother passengers on his privileges. These things seem trifles on
paper, but they yield no trifling amusement on a voyage. Our afternoons
were delightful; for the greater number of the forty-two days that we
were at sea, the sun set visibly, with more or less lustre, and all eyes
were watching his decline. There was an unusual quietness on board just
about sunset. All the cabin passengers were collected on one side,
except any two or three who might be in the rigging. The steerage
passengers were to be seen looking out at the same sight, and probably
engaged as we were in pointing out some particular bar of reddened
cloud, or snowy mountain of vapours, or the crimson or golden light
spattered on the swelling sides of the billows as they heaved sunward.
Then came the last moment of expectation, even to the rising on tiptoe,
as if that would enable us to see a spark more of the sun; and then the
revival of talk, and the bustle of pairing off to walk. This was the
hour for walking the deck; and, till near teatime, almost the whole
company might be seen parading like a school. I never grew very fond of
walking on a heaving floor, on which you have to turn at the end of
every thirty paces or so; but it is a duty to walk on board ship, and it
is best to do it at this hour, and in full and cheerful company.
After tea the cabin was busy with whist and chess parties, readers, and
laughers and talkers. On damp and moonless evenings I joined a whist
party; but my delight was the deck at this time, when I had it all to
myself, or when I could at least sit alone in the stern. I know no
greater luxury than sitting alone in the stern on fine nights, when
there is no one within hearing but the helmsman, and sights of beauty
meet the eye wherever it turns. Behind, the light from the binnacle
alone gleams upon the deck; dim, shifting lights and shadows mark out
the full sails against the sky, and stars look down between. The young
moon drops silently into the sea afar. In our wake is a long train of
pale fire, perpetually renewed as we hiss through the dark waves. On
such a quiet night, how startling is a voice from the deck, or a shout
of laughter from the cabin! More than once, when I heard the voices of
children and the barking of a dog from the steerage, I wholly forgot for
the moment that I was at sea, and, looking up, was struck breathless at
the sight of the dim, gray, limitless expanse. Never, however, did I see
the march of the night so beautiful over hill, dale, wood, or plain, as
over the boundless sea, roofed with its complete arch. The inexpressible
silence, the undimmed lustre, the steady, visible motion of the sky,
make the night what it can nowhere be on land, unless in the midst of
the Great Desert or on a high mountain-top. It is not the clear still
nights alone that are beautiful. Nothing can be more chilling to the
imagination than the idea of fog, yet I have seen exquisite sights in a
night fog; not in a pervading, durable mist, but in such a fog as is
common at sea, thick and driving, with spaces through which the moon may
shine down, making clusters of silvery islands on every side. This was
an entirely new appearance to me, and the white archipelago was a
spectacle of great beauty. Then, again, the action of the ship in a
strong night-breeze is fine, cutting her steady way through the seething
water, and dashing them from her sides so uniformly and strongly, that
for half a mile on either hand the sea is as a white marble floor gemmed
with stars; just like a child's idea of "the pavement of the heavenly
courts." Such are the hours when all that one has ever known or thought
that is beautiful comes back softly and mysteriously; snatches of old
songs, all one's first loves in poetry and in the phantasmagoria of
nature. No sleep is sweeter than that into which one sinks in such a
mood, when one's spirit drops anchor amid the turbulence of the outward
world, and the very power of the elements seems to shed stillness into
the soul.
There must be many a set-off against such hours, however, or the whole
world would be rushing to sea. There would be parties to the Azores as
there now are to Rome, and people would be doubling the Capes as they
now cross the Simplon. There are disagreeable hours and days at sea;
whole days, when the ship rolls so as to stop employment in the cabin,
and the rain pours down so as to prevent any weary passenger from
putting out his head upon deck; when the captain is to be seen outside
in his seacoat, with the water streaming from nose, chin, hat, and every
projection of his costume; when every one's limbs are aching with
keeping himself from tumbling over his neighbour; when the tea and
coffee are cold, and all that is liquid is spilled, and everything solid
thrown out of its place. The best thing to be done on such days is to
sit in the roundhouse, each one well wedged in between two, the
balustrade in front, and the wall behind; all as loquacious as possible,
talking all manner of sense or nonsense that may occur; those who can
joke, joking; those who can sing, singing; those who know any new games,
teaching them. This is better than the only other thing that can be
done, lying in one's heaving berth; better, not only because it is more
sociable, but because there is a fairer chance of appetite and sleep
after the exercise of laughing (be the laughter about anything or
nothing) than after a day of uncomfortable listlessness.
A calm is a much less disagreeable affair, though it is not common to
say so. A dead calm affords a fine opportunity to the gentlemen for
writing and reading, and to the ladies for the repairs of the wardrobe.
Sewing, which I think a pleasant employment everywhere else, is trying
to the head at sea; and many omissions and commissions may be observed
in the matter of costume, which the parties would be ashamed of on land.
The difference after a calm is remarkable: the cap-borders are spruce;
the bonnets wear a new air; the gloves are whole; the married gentlemen
appear with complete sets of buttons and rectified stocks. The worst
quality of a calm is that it tries tempers a little too far. If there be
an infirmity of temper, it is sure to come out then. At such a time
there is much playing of shuffleboard upon deck, and the matches do not
always end harmoniously. "You touched mine with your foot." "I did not,
I declare." "Now, don't say so," &c., &c. "You are eight." "No, we are
ten." "I can show you you are only eight." "Well, if you can't count any
better than that," and so on. After three days of calm there may be
heard a subdued tone of scolding from the whist party at the top of the
table, and a stray oath from some checkmated person lower down; and
while the ladies are brushing their hair in their cabin, certain items
of information are apt to be given of how Mr. A. looked when the lady's
partner turned up trumps, and how shockingly Mr. B. pushed past Mr. C.
in going up the cabin to dinner. The first breath of favourable wind,
however, usually blows all these offences away, and tempers turn into
their right course with the ship.
I had heard so much at home of the annoyances on board ship, that I
made a list of them at the time for the consolation of my friends at
home, who were, I suspected, bestowing more compassion upon me than I
had any title to. I find them noted down as follows:--
Next to the sickness, an annoyance scarcely to be exaggerated while it
lasts, there is, first, the damp clammy feel of everything you touch.
Remedy, to wear gloves constantly, and clothes which are too bad to be
spoiled. In this latter device nearly the whole company were so
accomplished that it was hard to say who excelled.
Next, want of room. The remedy for this is a tight, orderly putting away
of everything; for which there is plenty of time.
Thirdly, the candles flare, and look untidy from running down twice as
fast as they burn. Remedy, to go out of the way of them; to the stern,
for instance, where there are far better lights to be seen.
Fourthly, the seats and beds are all as hard as boards: a grievance
where one cannot always walk when one's limbs want resting with
exercise. Remedy, patience. Perhaps air-cushions may be better still.
Fifthly, warning is given to be careful in the use of water. Remedy, to
bathe in seawater, and drink cider at dinner.
Sixthly, the cider is apt to get low. Remedy, take to soda-water, ale,
hock, or claret.
Seventhly, the scraping of the deck sets one's teeth on edge. For this I
know of no remedy but patience; for the deck must be scraped.
Eighthly, the rattling, stamping, and clattering overhead when the sails
are shifted in the night. Remedy, to go to sleep again.
Ninthly, sour bread. Remedy, to eat biscuit instead.
Tenthly, getting sunburnt. Remedy, not to look in the glass.
These are all that I can allow from my own experience. Some people talk
of danger, but I do not believe there is more than in travelling on
land. Some have called a ship a prison so often, that the saying seems
to have become current. But, in my idea, the evils of a prison are the
being coerced by another person's will; the being disgraced; the being
excluded from the face of nature; and the being debarred from society,
employment, and exercise. None of these objections apply to a ship as a
residence. As for the one point of resemblance, the being unable to
walk a mile or more out and back again, of how many persons is this the
voluntary choice, who were never either in a prison or a ship? I would
never take the responsibility of recommending any elderly, or nervous,
or untravelled persons to put themselves into a place which will not
keep still, nor anything in it, for a month or six weeks, and from which
they cannot get out; but I cannot think the confinement, by itself,
anything to be much complained of.
A bad captain must be the worst of annoyances, to judge by contrast from
the comfort we enjoyed under the government of an exceedingly good one.
We had all great faith in Captain Holdrege as an excellent sailor; and
we enjoyed daily and hourly proofs of his kindness of heart, and desire
to make everybody about him happy. It was amazing with what patience he
bore the teazings of some who were perpetually wanting to know things
that he could not possibly tell them; when we should be at New-York, and
so forth. The gentleman who unconsciously supplied the most merriment to
the party waylaid the captain one busy morning; one of the first when
there had been anything for the captain to do, and he was in such a
bustle that nobody else dreamed of speaking to him.
"Captain," said the gentleman, "I want to speak to you."
"Another time, sir, if you please. I am in a hurry now."
"But, captain, I want to speak to you very much."
"Speak, then, sir, and be quick, if you please."
"Captain, I am very glad you have a cow on board, because of the milk."
"Hum," said the captain, and went on with his business.
One Sunday morning, when we were on "the Banks," this gentleman came to
me with a doleful face, to tell me that he thought we should have been
at New-York to-day. I found that he had actually expected this up to the
night before, because he had been told, previous to sailing, that we
should probably spend our fourth Sunday at New-York. It was proposed to
tell him that we should probably be in the Pacific by the next morning,
to see whether he would believe it; but I believe the experiment was not
ventured upon. Some of the passengers, talking one day at dinner of
percussion caps, asked him whether they were used in a regiment of
which he had frequently spoken. He replied that he did not know, as he
had not inquired much into the costume of the army.
By the 23d of August we were only about one hundred and twenty miles
N.W. of the Azores. On the 1st of September, when our thoughts wandered
homeward to the sportsmen all abroad in the stubble, to the readers of
monthly periodicals in which we were interested, and to our families,
who were doubtless fancying us on the point of landing, we were not far
from where we were a week ago. We had had beautiful weather, but every
variety of westerly wind with it. The passengers began to flag. The
novels were all read; the ladies' work was all done; and shuffleboard
and chess will not do for ever. The captain began to send up an
occasional whet of cherry bounce to the ladies before dinner. For my own
part, I was finishing my writing, and finding my first leisure for
books; and I found myself forgetting New-York, and losing sight of all I
expected to see beyond it, in the pleasures of the sea. We were now
scarcely half way. The turning point of the voyage came the next day in
the shape of a storm.
Before I went on board I had said that I should like to behold a storm
as fierce as we could escape from without fatal damage. Some passenger
repeated this wish of mine (very common in persons going to sea for the
first time) in the hearing of the mate, who told the sailors; who,
accordingly, were overheard saying one afternoon that I had better come
on deck, and see what I should see. My clerical friend took the hint,
and called me hastily, to observe the crew make ready for a squall. I
ran up, and perceived the black line advancing over the water from the
horizon, the remarkable indication of a coming squall. The sailors were
running up the shrouds to get the sails in. The second mate was aloft,
in the post of danger, his long hair streaming in the wind, while with
us below all was calm. The sails were got in just in time. The captain
did not come down to dinner. Orders were given to "splice the
main-brace;" for the crew had been handling the ropes since four in the
morning. I saw them come for their grog, and then wait for what might
happen next. By sunset the sky was tremendous; the sea rising, the wind
moaning and whistling strangely. When I staggered to the stern, to bid
the sea good-night, according to custom, the waters were splendidly
luminous. Floods of blue fire were dashed abroad from our bows, and
beyond, the whole expanse sparkled as with diamonds.
All night the noises would have banished sleep if we could have lain
quiet. There was a roar of wind; the waves dashed against the sides of
the ship as if they were bursting in; water poured into our cabin,
though the skylight was fastened down. A heavy fall was now and then
heard from the other cabin; some passenger heaved out of his berth.
After five hours I could hold in no longer, and a tremendous lurch
tossed me out upon the floor, where I alighted upon my thimble and
scissors, the ottoman I was working (and which, I had felt confident,
was far enough off), my clothes, books, and the empty water-bottle. All
these things were lying in a wet heap. I traversed the ladies' cabin to
explore, holding by whatever was fastened to the floor. The only dry
place in which I could lie down was under the table, and standing was
out of the question; so I brought a blanket and pillow, laid down with a
firm hold of the leg of the table, and got an hour's welcome sleep, by
which time the storm was enough to have wakened the dead. The state of
our cabin was intolerable; the crashing of glass, the complaining voices
of the sick ladies, the creaking and straining of the ship; and, above
all, the want of air, while the winds were roaring over head. I saw no
necessity for bearing all this; so, sick as I was, I put my clothes on,
swathed myself in one cloak, and carried up another, wherewith to lash
myself to something on deck.
There, all was so glorious that I immediately stumbled down again to
implore the other ladies to come up and be refreshed; but no one would
listen to me. They were too ill. I got the captain's leave to fasten
myself to the post of the binnacle, promising to give no trouble, and
there I saw the whole of the never-to-be-forgotten scene.
We were lying in the trough of the sea, and the rolling was tremendous.
The captain wished to wear round, and put out a sail, which, though
quite new, was instantly split to ribands, so that we had to make
ourselves contented where we were. The scene was perfectly unlike what I
had imagined. The sea was no more like water than it was like land or
sky. When I had heard of the ocean running mountains high, I thought it
a mere hyperbolical expression. But here the scene was of huge wandering
mountains--wandering as if to find a resting-place--with dreary leaden
vales between. The sky seemed narrowed to a mere slip overhead, and a
long-drawn extent of leaden waters seemed to measure a thousand miles;
and these were crested by most exquisite shades of blue and green where
the foam was about to break. The heavens seemed rocking their masses of
torn clouds, keeping time with the billows to the solemn music of the
winds; the most swelling and mournful music I ever listened to. The
delight of the hour I shall not forget; it was the only new scene I had
ever beheld that I had totally and unsuspectingly failed to imagine.
It was impossible to remain longer than noon, unless we meant to be
drowned. When two or three gentlemen had been almost washed off, and the
ship had been once nearly half her length under water, it was time to go
below, sad as the necessity was. The gale gradually abated. In the
afternoon the ladies obtained leave to have their skylight opened, their
cabin mopped, and the carpets taken up and carried away to dry.
The sailors got the mate to inquire how I liked the storm. If I was not
satisfied now, I never should be. I was satisfied, and most thankful.
The only thing that surprised me much was, that there was so little
terrific about it. I was not aware till the next day, when the captain
was found to have set it down a hurricane in the logbook, how serious a
storm it was. The vessel is so obviously buoyant, that it appears
impossible to overwhelm her; and we were a thousand miles from any
rocks. In the excitement of such an hour, one feels that one would as
soon go down in those magnificent waters as die any other death; but
there was nothing present which impressed me with the idea of danger but
the terrors of two of the passengers. Of the poor ladies I can give no
account; but one gentleman pulled his travelling-cap forward over his
eyes, clasped his hands on his knees, and sat visibly shaking in a
corner of the roundhouse, looking shrunk to half his size. The fears of
another I regarded with more respect, because he tried hard to hide
them. He followed me throughout, talking in an artist-like style about
the tints, and the hues, and many other things that were to be noted,
but not talked about at the moment. If he succeeded in covering up his
fears from himself, one may well excuse the bad taste of the means
employed. My clerical friend did better. He was on the watch for others
and for himself. In high exhilaration, he helped everybody, saw
everything, and will, to the end of his days, I will answer for it,
forget nothing of that glorious time.
After the storm we met with few delays. A calm of nine hours enabled the
crew to repair all damage sustained; the rest of the time we were making
progress, though it was sometimes very slow. We went south of "the
Banks," and so missed something besides the fogs; our hoped-for treat of
fresh cod, and the spectacle of the fishermen's boats. Hereabout the dog
in the steerage smelt land, and stood snuffing, with his paws on the
rail. A wild pigeon flew on board, too, supposed to be from
Newfoundland; and the air was sensibly colder, as it becomes on
approaching the shore. The lottery with which the gentlemen had amused
themselves became now very interesting. It consisted of ten tickets, at
a sovereign each, answering to the ten days during which it had been
thought probable that we should land. The two earliest were now sold for
a shilling and eighteenpence; and the Captain gave five pounds for the
last, which bore date the 11th. This seemed to indicate the captain's
expectation that our progress would still be slow; but we were scarcely
more likely to land on the 11th than on the 4th or 5th.
A passenger beckoned the captain out of the cabin one evening about this
time, and asked him to look down into the hold, where a tallow candle,
with a long wick, was seen leaning over the side of a candlestick, which
was standing on a heap of loose cotton! Such are the perils that
careless sailors will expose themselves and others to. The captain took
care to impress his crew with his opinion on the matter.
I believe a regular piece of amusement on board these packet-ships is
emptying the letter-bags out on the deck. A fine morning is chosen for
this; and to a person who sits on the rail it affords a pretty picture.
The ladies draw their chairs round the immense heap of letters; the
gentlemen lie at length, and scarcely an epistle escapes comment. A
shout of mirth bursts forth now and then at some singular name or mode
of address; commonly at some Irish epistle, addressed to an emigrant in
some out-of-the-way place, which there is scarcely room to insert,
though the direction runs from corner to corner over the whole square.
About this time a pedler, who was among the steerage passengers,
appeared on deck with his wares. His pretence was, that some of his silk
handkerchiefs and gloves had got slightly spotted at sea, and that he
was not so anxious as before to carry them to New-York. However this
might be, the merchant showed himself a shrewd man. He saw that the
pleasure of shopping, after being for some weeks out of sight of land,
would open to him the purse of many a passenger. It was most amusing to
see the eagerness of both gentlemen and ladies, and their pleasure in
purchases which they would have disdained on shore. For the next two or
three days the company was spruce in damaged handkerchiefs, and ribands,
and mildewed gloves, rending in all directions; while the pedler escaped
duties, and stepped ashore with a heavy purse and light pack.
On the 15th we were still between five and six hundred miles from our
port. A sheep had jumped overboard, and so cheated us of some of our
mutton. The vegetables were getting very dry. It was found best not to
look into the dishes of dried fruits which formed our dessert. All was
done that care and cookery could do; but who could have anticipated such
a length of voyage? Open declarations of _ennui_ began to be made by not
a few; and I was almost afraid to own, in answer to questions, that I
was not tired of the sea; but I could not honestly say that I was. The
gentlemen began to spar at table about the comparative merits of England
and America; the Prussian could not find English in which to bemoan
himself sufficiently, and shrugged. The cider, ale, soda-water, and
claret were all gone, and we were taking to porter, which must needs
soon come to an end. Some show of preparation to land was this day made,
and a lively bustle ensued on the first hint from the captain. He went
round to take down the names of the passengers at length, in order to
their being reported on arrival. The ages had to be affixed to the
names; and as the captain could not ask the ladies for their ages, he
committed it to the gentlemen to decide upon each. The ladies, who were
quilling, trimming, and sorting their things in their own cabin, could
not conceive the meaning of the shouts of laughter which came from the
top of the gentlemen's table, till the young Carolinian came and told
what the fun was. The standing joke is to make the young ladies many
years too old, and the old ladies ridiculously young; and this was done
now, the ladies considering the affair no business of theirs. One lady,
who had frequently crossed, told me that ten years before she had been
set down as forty; she stood now as twenty-four.
On the 17th we were surrounded with weed, and Mother Carey's chickens
began to disappear. Soundings were this day taken, and I was called to
see and touch the first American soil, the thimbleful deposited on the
lead. The next day, Thursday, the wind continuing fair, we were within
one hundred miles of our port, and all was liveliness and bustle.
The American divine was requested by all the passengers to propose,
after dinner, the health of Captain and Mrs. Holdrege, using the
opportunity to express our hearty thanks to the captain for the whole of
his conduct towards us. The captain rose to speak in acknowledgment of
the toast, but was so taken by surprise with his lady's name being
hailed with our good wishes, that after two words of thanks he shot out
of the cabin, every one understanding the cause of his brevity. In the
evening we were told that we should see land on rising in the morning;
and some of us requested to be called at five.
At five, on the morning of the 19th, I started up, and at the foot of
the companion-way was stopped by the Scotch lady, who told me I might go
back again, as we were becalmed, and I might see the shore just as well
two hours hence. This was being a little too cool about such a matter. I
saw the dim shore; a long line of the New-Jersey coast, with
distinguishable trees and white houses. By breakfast-time our eyes were
painfully strained, as only one could have the glass at a time, and I
did not like to snatch it from those who were enjoying the pleasure of
recognising familiar objects; tracing the first features of home. I was
taken by surprise by my own emotions. All that I had heard of the
Pilgrim Fathers, of the old colonial days, of the great men of the
Revolution, and of the busy, prosperous succeeding days, stirred up my
mind while I looked upon the sunny reach of land on the horizon. All the
morning I sat dreaming, interrupted now and then by the smiling but
tearful young mother, who expected tidings of her child before the day
was over; or by others, who had less cause for being deeply moved, who
came to describe to me the pleasures of Long Branch (the bathing-place
in view), or to speculate on how long this tedious calm would last. All
the morning I sat on the rail, or played sister Anne to the ladies
below, when once the wind had freshened, and we glided slowly along
towards Sandy Hook. "Now I see a large white house." "Now I see
Neversink. Come up and see Neversink!" "Now I see a flock of sheep on
the side of a hill; and now a fisherman standing beside his boat," and
so forth.
What were the ladies below for? They were dressing for the shore. The
gentlemen, too, vanished from the deck, one by one, and reappeared in
glossy hats, coats with the creases of the portmanteau upon them, and
the first really black shoes and boots we had seen for weeks. The
quizzing which was properly due to the discarded sea-garments was now
bestowed on this spruce costume; and every gentleman had to encounter a
laugh as he issued from the companion-way. We agreed to snatch our meals
as we pleased this day. No one was to remain at table longer than he
liked. Everything looked joyous. The passengers were in the most amiable
mood: we were in sight of a score of ships crossing the bar at Sandy
Hook; the last company of porpoises was sporting alongside, and shoals
of glittering white fish rippled the water. The captain was fidgety,
however. Those vessels crossing the bar might be rival packet-ships, and
no pilot was yet to be seen. "Here he is!" cried a dozen voices at once;
and an elegant little affair of a boat was seen approaching. A
curious-looking old gentleman swung himself up, and seemed likely to be
torn in pieces by the ravenous inquirers for news. He thrust an armful
of newspapers among us, and beckoned the captain to the stern, where the
two remained in a grave consultation for a few minutes, when the captain
called one of the lady passengers aside to ask her a question. What the
pilot wanted to know was, whether George Thomson, the abolition
missionary, was on board. He was to have been, but was not. The pilot
declared that this was well, as he could not have been landed without
the certainty of being destroyed within a week, the abolition riots in
New-York having taken place just before. What the captain wanted to
learn of the lady passenger was, what my opinions on slavery were, in
order to know whether he might safely land me. She told him that I was
an abolitionist in principle; but that she believed I went to America to
learn and not to teach. So the good captain nodded, and said nothing to
me on the subject.
Next arrived a boat from the newspaper office of the Courier and
Enquirer, whose agent would not hear of dinner or any other delay, but
shouldered his bag of news, got the list of our names, and was off. The
American passengers, all by this time good friends of mine, came to show
me, with much mirth, paragraphs in the newspapers the pilot had brought,
exhorting their readers not to chew tobacco or praise themselves in my
presence, under penalty of being reported of in London for these
national foibles.
After dinner we were off Sandy Hook, and the hills of New-Jersey, Long
Island, and Staten Island were growing purple in the cloudy sunset, when
a small shabby steamboat was seen emerging from the Narrows. Oh, the
speculations and breathless suspense as to whether she was coming to us!
In a few minutes there remained no further doubt. Then there was a rush
to the side, and one of the young ladies saw through her tears her two
brothers, and other passengers other relations showing themselves on the
bows of the steamer. They presently boarded us, we strangers having all
retired to the other side. I never liked introductions better than those
which followed. With broad smiles my passenger friends came up, saying,
"I have the great pleasure of introducing to you my brother." "I am sure
you will be glad to hear that my family are all well." These are
occasions when sympathy is very sweet, and when it is always ready.
Then was heard the captain's loudest voice, crying, "All who wish to go
up to the city to-night get ready directly." We had all previously
agreed how much better it was that we should spend this night on board,
as the harbour would be seen to much more advantage by the morning
light; but we forgot all this in a moment, and nobody dreamed of being
left behind. Our little bundles were made up in a trice, and we left our
ship. The crew and steerage passengers assembled on deck, and gave us
three parting cheers, which might be heard all over the harbour. Our
gentlemen returned them, and our hearts yearned towards our beautiful
ship, as she sat dark upon the evening waters, with all her sails
majestically spread. "Does she not look well now?" "Does she not show
herself beautifully now?" exclaimed one and another, in the hearing of
the gratified captain.
The light was failing as we entered the Narrows. The captain and several
other friends pointed out to me every headland, bay, and fortification
as we passed. We were detained a long while at the quarantine ground.
The doctor was three miles off, and nearly an hour elapsed before the
great news reached him that we were all quite well, and we were
therefore allowed to proceed. It now rained heavily, and we were obliged
to crowd into the small cabin of the poorest steamer in the bay. There,
by the light of one dim and dirty lamp, was the question first asked me,
in joke, which has since been repeated in so many moods, "How do you
like America?" The weather cleared up in another half hour. We stood in
the dark on the wet deck, watching the yellow lights and shadowy
buildings of the shore we were rapidly nearing, till we felt the
expected shock, and jumped upon the wharf amid the warm welcomes of many
friends, who, in their own joy at alighting on their native shore, did
not forget to make it at once a home to us strangers.
This was at eight in the evening of the 19th of September, 1834, after a
long but agreeable voyage of forty-two days.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
"Navigia, atque agri culturas, mœnia, leges
Arma, vias, vesteis, et cætera de genere horum
Præmia, delicias quoque vitæ funditus omneis,
Carmina, picturas, ac dædala signa, politus
Usus, et impigræ simul experientia mentis,
Paullatim docuit pedetentim progredienteis."
_Lucretius_, lib. v.
The moment of first landing in a foreign city is commonly spoken of as a
perfect realization of forlornness. My entrance upon American life was
anything but this. The spirits of my companions and myself were in a
holyday dance while we were receiving our first impressions; and
New-York always afterward bore an air of gayety to me from the
association of the early pleasures of foreign travel.
Apartments had been secured for us at a boarding-house in Broadway, and
a hackney-coach was in waiting at the wharf. The moonlight was
flickering through the trees of the Battery, the insects were buzzing
all about us, the catydids were grinding, and all the sounds, except
human voices, were quite unlike all we had heard for six weeks. One of
my companions took the sound of the catydid for a noise in her head for
many hours after coming into their neighbourhood. As we rattled over the
stones, I was surprised to find that the street we were in was Broadway;
the lower and narrower end, however; but nothing that I saw, after all I
had heard, and the panorama of New-York that I had visited in London,
disappointed me so much as Broadway. Its length is remarkable, but
neither its width nor the style of its houses. The trees with which it
is lined gave it, this first evening, a foreign air.
Our hostess at the boarding-house shook hands with us, and ordered tea.
While we were waiting for it, and within ten minutes after I had crossed
the first American threshold, three gentlemen introduced themselves to
me, one of whom was the melancholy politician whom I have mentioned
elsewhere[1] as having forewarned me of the total overthrow of the
United States' institutions which would certainly take place while I was
in the country. This gentleman afterward became a dear and intimate
friend; and we found that politics are, perhaps, the only subject on
which we entertain irreconcilable differences of opinion. We often
amused ourselves with recurring to this our first meeting. This
gentleman afforded me an early specimen of the humour which I think one
of the chief characteristics of the Americans. In the few minutes during
which we were waiting for tea, he dropped some drolleries so new to me,
and so intense, that I was perplexed what to do with my laughter.
Footnote 1: Society in America, vol. i., p. 10.
While we were at tea a few gentlemen dropped in, and read the newspapers
at the long table at which we were seated. One fixed my attention at
once. He had the carriage of a soldier, with an uncommonly fine
countenance, bearing a general resemblance to the great men of the
Revolution with whose portraits the English are most familiar. I think
it is not a mere fancy that there is an air common to Washington,
Jefferson, and Madison. This gentleman reminded me of them all; and the
quietness with which he made his remarks, and his evident high breeding,
piqued the curiosity of a stranger. He was General Mason, the father of
the young governor of Michigan; and the most eminent citizen of
Detroit. From time to time, in my travels, I met various members of his
family, whose kindness always made me thankful that accident had placed
me in the same house with them at the outset.
In our rooms we found beds with four posts, looking as if meant to hang
gowns and bonnets upon; for there was no tester. The washstand was
without tumbler, glass, soap, or brush-tray. The candlestick had no
snuffers. There was, however, the luxury, sufficient for the occasion,
that every article of furniture stood still in its place, and that the
apartment itself did not rock up and down. The first few days after a
voyage go far towards making one believe that some things have a quality
of stability, however one may be metaphysically convinced that the sea
affords a far truer hint of the incessant flux and change which are the
law of the universe. If I had rejoiced in the emblem at sea, I now
enjoyed the deception on land.
At five in the morning I threw up my sash to see what I could see. I
cannot conceive what travellers mean by saying that there is little that
is foreign in the aspect of New-York. I beheld nothing at this moment
that I could have seen at home, except the sky and the grass of the
courtyard. The houses were all neatly and brightly painted, had green
outside blinds to every window, and an apparatus for drying linen on the
roof. A young lady in black silk, with her hair neatly dressed, was
mopping the steps of one house, and a similar young lady was dusting the
parlour of another. A large locust-tree grew in the middle of the
courtyard of the house I was in, and under it was a truly American
woodpile. Two negroes were at the pump, and a third was carrying
muskmelons.
When the breakfast-bell rang the long and cross tables in the
eating-room were filled in five minutes. The cross table, at which our
hostess presided, was occupied by General Mason's family, a party of
Spaniards, and ourselves. The long one was filled up with families
returning southward from the springs; married persons without children,
who preferred boarding to housekeeping; and single gentlemen, chiefly
merchants. I found this mode of living rather formidable the first day;
and not all the good manners that I saw at public tables ever reconciled
me to it.
From a trunk belonging to a lady of our party having been put on board
a wrong ship, we had some immediate shopping to do, and to find a
mantuamaker. We suspected we should soon be detained at home by callers,
and therefore determined to transact our business at once, though our
luggage had not arrived from the custom-house, and we were not "dressed
for Broadway," as the phrase is.
In the streets I was in danger of being run down by the fire-engines, so
busy were my eyes with the novelties about me. These fire-engines run
along the side-pavement, stopping for nobody; and I scarcely ever walked
out in New-York without seeing one or more out on business, or for an
airing. The novelties which amused me were the spruce appearance of all
the people; the pervading neatness and brightness, and the business-like
air of the children. The carmen were all well dressed, and even two poor
boys who were selling matches had clean shirt-collars and whole coats,
though they were barefooted. The stocks of goods seemed large and
handsome, and we were less struck with the indifference of manner
commonly ascribed to American storekeepers than frequently afterward.
The most unpleasant circumstance was the appearance and manner of the
ladies whom we saw in the streets and stores. It was now the end of a
very hot summer, and every lady we met looked as if she were emerging
from the yellow fever; and the languid and unsteady step betokened the
reverse of health.
The heat was somewhat oppressive. We were in the warm dresses we had put
on while yet at sea, as our trunks had not made their appearance. Trains
of callers came in the afternoon and evening; members of Congress,
candidates for state offices, fellow-passengers and their friends, and
other friends of our friends; and still we were not "dressed for
Broadway." In the evening the luggage of my companions was brought up,
but not mine. Special orders had been issued from the custom-house that
my baggage should pass without examination; and it was therefore at this
moment on board ship. To-night it was too late; next morning it was
Sunday, and everything in the hold was under lock and key, and
unattainable till Monday. There seemed no hope of my getting out all
day, and I was really vexed. I wanted to see the churches, and hear the
preaching, and be doing what others were doing; but the heat was plainly
too great to be encountered in any gown but a muslin one. A lady
boarding in the house happened to hear of the case, and sent her
servant to say that she believed her dresses would fit me, and that she
should be happy to supply me with a gown and bonnet till my trunks
should arrive. I accepted her kind offer without any scruple, feeling
that a service like this was just what I should wish to render to any
lady under the same circumstances; so I went to church equipped in a
morning-gown and second-best bonnet of this neighbourly lady's.
The church that we went to was the Unitarian church in Chamber-street.
Its regular pastor was absent, and a professional brother from
Philadelphia preached. We were most deeply impressed by the devotional
part of his service, delivered in a voice which I have certainly never
heard equalled for music and volume. His discourse moved us no less. We
looked at one another in much delight. I warned my companion not to be
too certain that this preaching was all we then felt it to be; we had
been six Sundays at sea, and some of the impression might be owing to
this being the renewal of the privilege of social worship in a church. I
heard much of the same preaching afterward, however; and I am now of the
same opinion that I was this first day; that it is the most true,
simple, and solemn that I ever listened to. The moment the service was
over the minister came down from the pulpit, addressed me as an old
friend, and requested me to accept the hospitality of his house when I
should visit Philadelphia. Under the emotions of the hour it was
impossible to help giving a glad assent; and in his house I afterward
enjoyed many weeks of an intercourse as intimate as can ever exist
between members of the same family. We kept up the most rapid and
copious correspondence the whole time I was in America, and he and his
wife were my American brother and sister, the depositaries of all those
"impressions" on the mind of a stranger about which American society is
so anxious.
General Mason introduced me to Governor Cass, then secretary-at-war, now
ambassador at Paris. Governor Cass is a shrewd, hard-looking man, the
very concentration of American caution. He is an accomplished and an
honest man; but his dread of committing himself renders both his solid
and ornamental good qualities of less value to society than they should
be. The state of Michigan, which is under great obligations to him, is
proud of her citizen; and it is agreed, I believe, on all hands, that
his appointment is more satisfactory and honourable to his country than
that of many who have been sent as ministers to foreign courts.
I feel some doubt about giving any account of the public men of the
United States; I do not mean scruples of conscience; for when a man
comes forward in political or other kind of public life, he makes a
present of himself to society at large, and his person, mind, and
manners become a legitimate subject of observation and remark. My doubts
arise from the want of interest in the English about the great men of
America; a want of interest which arises from no fault in either party,
I believe, but from the baseness of the newspapers, whose revilings of
all persons in turn who fill a public station are so disgusting as to
discourage curiosity, and set all friendly interest at defiance. The
names of the English political leaders of the day are almost as familiar
in the mouths of Americans as of natives, while people in London are
asking who Mr. Clay is, and what part of the Union Mr. Calhoun comes
from. The deeds of Mr. Clay and the aspirations of Mr. Calhoun would be
at least as interesting in London as the proceedings of French and
German statesmen, if they could be fairly placed under observation; but
every man of feeling and taste recoils from wading through such a slough
of rancour, folly, and falsehood as the American newspapers present as
the only medium through which the object is to be attained.
Mr. Gallatin's name is, however, everywhere known and welcome. Mr.
Gallatin did me the honour of calling on me in New-York, having heard
that I desired to learn the precise grounds of the quarrel which was
agitating the country about the bank. I was delighted to listen to his
full and luminous report of the question, and of many other matters, on
which he spoke with a freedom and courtesy which would go far towards
making the current of human affairs run smooth, if they were but
general. He told me something of the early part of his career, which
began in 1787; described his three visits to England, and sketched the
character of the reigns of our last two kings, of Louis Philippe, and of
President Jackson. He entered upon the philosophy of the presidentship;
exhibited the spirit of the three great divisions of the United States,
the north, south, and west; explained the principles on which the
letting of land proceeds; described the Germans and other agricultural
population of the country, and showed the process by which the
aristocratic class rises and is replenished in a democratic republic.
While he was talking I felt as if he was furnishing me with new powers
of observation; and when he was gone I hastened to secure what he had
told me, lest its novelty and abundance should deceive my memory. I
believe Mr. Gallatin was at this time seventy-two; but he did not appear
so old. He is tall, and looks dignified and courteous. He is a native of
Switzerland, and speaks with a very slight foreign accent, but with a
flow and liveliness which are delightful.
I was assured at the outset that the late abolition riots in New-York
were the work of the Irish emigrants, who feared the increase of a free
black population as likely to interfere with their monopoly of certain
kinds of labour. This I afterward found to be untrue. Some Irish may
have joined in "the row," but the mischief originated with natives. It
is remarkable that I heard no more of abolition for many weeks; I think
not till I was about leaving Philadelphia.
We obtained some "impressions" of the environs of New-York to add to
those we had of the city itself, by going to spend an evening at Mr.
Kings at High Wood, two miles beyond Hoboken, on the New-Jersey side of
the river. The frame cottages, with their thatched verandahs, struck me
as very pretty. I could not say much for the beauty of the corn, whose
plants, long since stripped of their cobs, were standing yellow and dry,
and fast hastening to decay. There were ridges of gray rock,
interspersed with woods, which still flourished in their summer
greenness. Above all was a sunset, which, if seen in England, would
persuade the nation that the end of the world was come. The whole arch
of the sky appeared lined with conflagration. It seemed strange to see
the wagon-driver talking with his bullocks and the old Dutch dame
spinning in the stoop as quietly as if that scarlet sky had been of its
usual summer blue.
I was shown on the way the spot where Hamilton received his death-wound
from Colonel Burr. It was once made a qualification for office that the
candidate should never have fought a duel. Duelling is an institution
not to be reached by such a provision as this. No man under provocation
to fight would refrain from fear of disqualifying himself for office
hereafter; and the operation of the restriction was accordingly found to
be this; that duels were as frequent as ever, and that desirable
candidates were excluded. The provision was got rid of on the plea that
promissory oaths are bad in principle. The cure of duelling, as of every
other encroachment of passion and selfishness on such higher principles
as, being passive, cannot be imbodied in acts, must be the natural
result of the improved moral condition of the individual or of society.
No one believes that the legal penalties of duelling have had much
effect in stopping the practice; and it is an injury to society to
choose out of the ample range of penalties disqualification for social
duty as one.
The view from Mr. King's garden at High Wood is beautiful. From one
opening a reach of twelve miles of the Hudson is commanded, from the
Narrows upward. A soft red light was resting on the waters, the last
tinge from the late flaming sky. The dark sloops moored below were thus
rendered visible, while the twilight shrouded the rocks. Opposite there
was a flare in the woods from a glasshouse; and the lights of the city
twinkled afar off, reflected in the waters.
One of the first impressions of a foreigner in New-York is of the
extreme insolence and vulgarity of certain young Englishmen, who thus
make themselves very conspicuous. Well-mannered Englishmen are scarcely
distinguishable from the natives, and thus escape observation; while
every commercial traveller who sneers at republicanism all day long, and
every impertinent boy, leaving home for the first time, with no
understanding or sympathy for anything but what he has been accustomed
to see at home, obtrudes himself upon the notice, and challenges the
congeniality of such countrymen and countrywomen as he can contrive to
put himself in the way of. I was annoyed this evening, on my return
home, by a very complete specimen of the last-mentioned order of
travellers.
Need I say, after thus detailing the little incidents which followed my
landing in America, that my first impressions of the country were highly
agreeable?
THE HUDSON.
"Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie."
BRYANT.
I went three times up the Hudson; and, if I lived at New-York, should be
tempted to ascend it three times a week during the summer. Yet the
greater number of ladies on board the steamboat remained in the close
cabin among the crying babies, even while we were passing the finest
scenery of the river. They do not share the taste of a gentleman who,
when I was there, actually made the steamboat his place of abode during
the entire summer season, sleeping on board at Albany and New-York on
alternate nights, and gazing at the shores all the day long with
apparently undiminishing delight.
The first time we went up the early part of the morning was foggy, and
the mist hung about the ridge of the Palisades, the rocky western
barrier of the river. There were cottages perched here and there, and
trees were sprinkled in the crevices, and a little yellow strand, just
wide enough for the fisherman and his boat, now and then intervened
between the waters and the perpendicular rock. In the shadowy recesses
of the shore wore sloops moored. Seagulls dipped their wings in the
gleams of the river, and the solitary fishhawk sailed slowly over the
woods. I saw on the eastern bank a wide flight of steps cut in the turf,
leading to an opening in the trees, at the end of which stood a white
house, apparently in deep retirement. Farther on the river widened into
the Tappan Sea, and then the hills rose higher behind the banks, and
wandering gleams lighted up a mountain region here and there. The
captain admitted us, as strangers (of course without any hint from us),
into the wheel-room, which was shady, breezy, roomy, and commanding the
entire view. Hence we were shown Mr. Irvings's cottage, the spot where
André was captured, and the other interesting points of the scenery.
Then the banks seemed to close, and it was matter for conjecture where
the outlet was. The waters were hemmed in by abrupt and dark mountains,
but the channel was still broad and smooth enough for all the steamboats
in the republic to ride in safety. Ridges of rock plunged into the
waters, garnished with trees which seemed to grow without soil; above
them were patches of cultivation on the mountain sides, and slopes of
cleared land, with white houses upon them. Doves flitted among the
nearest trees, and gay rowboats darted from point to point from one
island to another.
West Point, beautiful as it is, was always visible too soon. Yet to
leave the boat was the only way to remain in sight of the Highlands; and
the charms of the place itself are scarcely to be surpassed. The hotel
is always full of good company in the season. Mr. Cozens keeps a table
for the officers, and is permitted to add as many guests as his house
will hold; but, under such circumstances, he takes pains to admit only
such as are fit company for his permanent boarders. The views from the
hotel are so fine, and there is such a provision of comfort and
entertainment, that there would be no hardship in sitting within doors
for a week; but we made the best use we could of our opportunities, and
saw and achieved everything pertaining to the place, except mounting the
Crow's Nest; an expedition which the heat of the weather prevented our
undertaking.
In some solitary spots of this settlement the stranger cannot help
meditating on the vast materials of human happiness which are placed at
the disposal of the real administrators of this great country. How great
is the apparatus to be yet put to use! Here, where life is swarming all
around, how few are the habitations of men! Here are woods climbing
above woods to the clouds and stretching to the horizon, in which
myriads of creatures are chirping, humming, and sporting; clefts whence
the waters gush out; green slopes ready for the plough and the sickle;
flat meadows with a few haycocks lying at the foot of mountains as yet
untouched. Grasshoppers spring at every step one takes in the rich
grass, and many a blue dragon-fly balances itself on the tips of the
strongest blades; butterflies, green, black, white, and yellow, dazzle
the eye that would follow them; yet how few men are near! A gay group on
the steps of the hotel, a company of cadets parading on the green, the
ferryman and his fare, and the owners of this, and that, and the other
house perched upon the pinnacles of the hills; these are all as yet
visible in a region which will hereafter be filled with speech and busy
with thought.
On the steep above the landing-place I was introduced to Mr. Irving,
with whom I had a few minutes' conversation before he stepped into the
ferryboat which was to take him over to the foundry to dinner. Many
other persons with whom I was glad to have the opportunity of becoming
acquainted were at the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Morris were our guides to
Fort Putnam after dinner; walkers as active and resolute as ourselves.
The beauty from this elevated platform is really oppressive to the
sense. One is glad to divert one's attention from its awful radiance by
walking in precipitous places, by visiting the cell in which it is said,
but doubtfully, that André was confined, or even by meditating on the
lot of the solitary cow that has the honour of grazing in the midst of
the only ruins that adorn American scenery.
A lady in the hotel offered to meet me on the housetop at five o'clock
in the morning to see the sun rise. I looked out at three; there was a
solitary light twinkling in the academy, and a faint gleam out of a
cloudy sky upon the river. At five the sky was so thickly overspread
with clouds that the expedition to the housetop had to be abandoned. The
morning afterward cleared, and I went alone down to Kosciusko's Garden.
I loved this retreat at an hour when I was likely to have it to myself.
It is a nook scooped, as it were, out of the rocky bank of the river,
and reached by descending several flights of steps from the platform
behind the hotel and academy. Besides the piled rocks and the vegetation
with which they are clothed, there is nothing but a clear spring, which
wells up in a stone basin inscribed with the hero's name. This was his
favourite retreat; and here he sat for many hours in a day with his book
and his thoughts. After fancying for some time that I was alone, and
playing with the fountain and the leaves of the red beech and the maple,
now turning into its autumnal scarlet, I found, on looking up, that one
of the cadets was stretched at length on a high projection of rock, and
that another was coming down the steps. The latter accosted me, offering
to point out to me the objects of interest about the place. We had a
long conversation about his academical life.
The students apply themselves to mathematics during the first and second
years; during the third, to mathematics, chymistry, and natural
philosophy; and during the fourth, to engineering. There is less
literary pursuit than they or their friends would like; but they have
not time for everything. Their work is from seven in the morning till
four in the afternoon, with the exception of two hours for meals. Then
come drill and recreation, and then the evening parade. During six weeks
(I think) of the summer they camp out, which some of the youths enjoy,
while others like it so much less than living under a roof, that they
take this time to be absent on furlough. The friends of others come to
see them while the pretty spectacle of a camp is added to the
attractions of the place. Every care is used that the proficiency should
be maintained at the highest point that it can be made to reach. The
classes consist of not less than one hundred and forty, of whom only
forty graduate. Some find the work too hard; some dislike the routine;
others are postponed; and by this careful weeding out the choicest are
kept for the public service. This process may go some way towards
accounting for the present unpopularity of the institution, and the
consequent danger of its downfall. The number of disappointed youths,
whose connexions will naturally bear a grudge against the establishment,
must be great. There is a belief abroad that its principle and
administration are both anti-republican; and in answer to an
irresistible popular demand, a committee of Congress has been engaged in
investigating both the philosophy and practice of this national military
academy; for some time previous to which there was difficulty in
obtaining the annual appropriation for its support. I have not seen the
report of this committee, but I was told that the evidence on which it
is founded is very unfavourable to the conduct of the establishment in a
political point of view. The advantages of such an institution in
securing a uniformity of military conduct in case of war, from the young
soldiers of all the states having received a common education; in
affording one meeting point where sectional prejudice may be dissolved;
and in concentrating the attention of the whole union upon maintaining a
high degree of proficiency in science, are so great, that it is no
wonder that an indignant and honest cry is raised against those who
would abolish it on account of its aristocratical tendencies. I rather
think it is a case in which both parties are more than commonly right;
that it is an institution which can scarcely be dispensed with, but
which requires to be watched with the closest jealousy, that there may
be no abuse of patronage, and no such combination as could lead to the
foundation of a military aristocracy.
I saw the well-selected library, consisting of several thousand volumes,
the spacious lecture-rooms, and students' apartments. I often wonder
whether students are at all aware of the wistful longing, the envy, with
which those who are precluded from academical life view the arrangements
of colleges. No library in a private house conveys any idea of the power
of devotion to study which is suggested by the sight of a student's
apartment in a college. The sight of the snug solitary room, the
bookshelves, the single desk and armchair, the larum, and even the
flowerpot or two in the window, and the portrait of some favourite
philosophical worthy; these things send a thrill of envy through the
heart of the thoughtful politician, or man of business, or woman, who
cannot command such facilities for study. I know that the fallacy of
attributing too much to external arrangements enters here; that many
study to as much advantage under difficulties as any academical member
in his retirement; I know, too, that the student shares the human
weakness of finding evil in his lot, and supposing that he should be
better in some other circumstances; I know this by a revelation once
made to me by a college student, for whose facilities I had been
intensely thankful, a revelation of his deep and incessant trouble
because he was living to himself, selfishly studying, and obliged to
wait four or five years before he could bestir himself for his race;
yet, in spite of all this knowledge that the common equality of
pleasures and pains subsists here, I never see the interior of a college
without longing to impress upon its inmates how envied and enviable they
are. It is difficult to remember that the stillness of the cell is of no
avail without the intentness of the mind, and that there is no
efficacious solitude in the deepest retirement if the spirit is roving
abroad after schemes of pleasure or ambition, or even of piety and
benevolence, which are not the appointed duty of the time. But I have
wandered from my new acquaintance in Kosciusko's Garden.
I was surprised to learn the extraordinary high average of health the
place can boast of. The young men enter at the age of from fourteen to
twenty, stay three or four years, and number about three hundred at a
time. The mortality in the seventeen years preceding my visit was only
five. For eight years before the winter of 1834 there had been no death.
Within a few months after, the superintendent's wife, a servant, and a
cadet died; and this was, of course, considered an extraordinary
mortality. I rather wondered at this account, for the young men look
anything but robust, and the use of tobacco among them is very free
indeed. It is prohibited, but not the less indulged in on that account,
nor from the absence of evil example in their superintendents. My new
acquaintance made very frank confessions on this subject. He told me
that he believed the free use of tobacco had extensively and irreparably
injured his health, and that he bitterly mourned his first indulgence in
it.
"Do not you mean to leave it off?" said I.
"No."
"Do you think you could not?"
"I could; but it would take three weeks to cure myself; and during that
time I could do nothing; and I cannot afford that. I could not learn my
lessons without it, and the loss of three weeks would injure all my
prospects in life."
"Hardly so fatally as the ruin of your health, I should think. Is your
case a common one here?"
"Too common. But I assure you I do all I can to prevent the bad
consequences of my own example. I warn my juniors, as they come in, very
seriously."
"Do you find your warnings of much use?"
"I am afraid not much."
"They have the usual fate of mere precept, I suppose?"
"Yes, I am afraid so."
The manners of the cadets are excellent. They are allowed, under
restrictions, to mix with the company at Mr. Cozens's, and thus to be
frequently into ladies' society. There is a book kept at the hotel,
where every cadet must, at each visit, enter his name at length, and the
duration of his stay.
The second time I was at West Point was during the camping-out season.
The artillery drill in the morning was very noisy and grand to the
ladies, who had never seen anything of the "pomp and circumstance of
glorious war." Then the cadets retired to their tents, and the ladies
flitted about all the morning, making calls on each other. When we had
discharged this first of a traveller's duties, we sauntered to the
cemetery. Never did I see such a spot to be buried in. The green hill
projects into the river so that the monumental pillar erected by the
cadets to the comrade who was killed by the bursting of a gun in 1817 is
visible from two long reaches. One other accident had occurred a little
while before; a cadet had been killed by a comrade in fencing. The tombs
are few, and the inscriptions simple. Broad, spreading trees overshadow
the long grass, and the whole is so hemmed in, so intensely quiet, that
no sound is to be heard but the plash of oars from below and the hum of
insects around, except when the evening gun booms over the heights, or
the summer storm reverberates among the mountains.
Such a storm I had beheld the evening before from the piazza of the
hotel. I stayed from the parade to watch it. As the thick veil of rain
came down, the mountains seemed to retire, growing larger as they
receded. As the darkness advanced, the scene became strangely compound.
A friend sat with me in the piazza, talking of the deepest subjects on
which human thought can speculate. Behind us were the open windows of
the hotel, where, by turning the head, we might see the dancing going
on; the gallant cadets and their pretty partners, while all the black
servants of the house ranged their laughing faces in the rear. The music
of the ballroom came to us mingling with the prolonged bursts of
thunder; and other and grander strains rose from the river, where two
large steamboats, with their lights, moved like constellations on the
water, conveying a regiment from Pennsylvania which was visiting the
soldiery of New-York State. They sent up rockets into the murky sky, and
poured new blasts of music from their band as they passed our
promontory. Every moment the lightning burst; now illuminating the
interior of a mass of clouds; now quivering from end to end of heaven;
now shedding broad livid gleams, which suddenly revealed a solitary
figure on the terrace, a sloop on the waters, and every jutting point of
rock. Still the dance went on till the hour struck which abruptly called
the youths away from their partners, and bade them hie to their tents.
On returning from the cemetery we found Mr. and Mrs. Kemble, from the
opposite side of the river, waiting to offer us their hospitality; and
we agreed to visit them in the afternoon. Mr. Kemble's boat awaited us
at the landing-place by three o'clock, and we rowed about some time
before landing on the opposite bank, so irresistible is the temptation
to linger in this scene of magical beauty. The Catholic chapel of
Coldspring is well placed on a point above the river; and the village,
hidden from West Point by a headland, is pretty. From Mr. Kemble's we
were to be treated with a visit to the Indian Fall, and were carried
within half a mile of it by water. We followed the brawling brook for
that distance, when we saw the glistening of the column of water through
the trees. No fall can be prettier for its size, which is just small
enough to tempt one to climb. A gentleman of our party made the attempt;
but the rocks were too slippery with wet weed, and he narrowly escaped a
tumble of twenty feet into the dark pool below. The boys, after bringing
us branches of the black cherry, clustered with the fruit, found a safe
and dry way up, and appeared waving their green boughs in triumph at the
top of the rocks. The tide had risen so that the river was brimming full
as we returned, and soft with the mountain shadows; but we landed at
West Point in time to see the sun set twice, as it happened. At the
landing-place we stood to see it drop behind the mountain; but just
after we had bidden it good-night, I saw that a meditative cadet, lying
at length upon a rock, was still basking in the golden light, and I ran
up the steep to the piazza. There, in a gap between two summits, was the
broad disk, as round as ever; and once more we saw it sink in a
tranquillity almost as grand as the stormy splendour of the preceding
night. Then ensued the evening parade, guitar music in the hotel, and
dancing in the camp.
This evening a lady and her daughter steamed down from Fishkill with a
request to us to spend a few days there; and a clergyman steamed up from
New-York with an invitation from Doctor Hosack to visit him and his
family at Hyde Park. We could not do both; and there was some difficulty
in contriving to do either, anxiously as we desired it; but we presently
settled that Fishkill must be given up, and that we must content
ourselves with two days at Hyde Park.
The next morning I experienced a sensation which I had often heard of,
but never quite believed in; the certainty that one has wakened in
another world. Those who have travelled much know that a frequent
puzzle, on waking from sound sleep in new places, is to know where one
is; even in what country of the world. This night I left my window open
close to my head, so that I could see the stars reflected in the river.
When I woke the scene was steeped in the light of the sunrise, and as
still as death. Its ineffable beauty was all; I remarked no individual
objects; but my heart stood still with an emotion which I should be glad
to think I may feel again whenever I really do enter a new scene of
existence. It was some time before my senses were separately roused;
during the whole day I could not get rid of the impression that I had
seen a vision; and even now I can scarcely look back upon the scene as
the very same which, at other hours, I saw clouded with earth-drawn
vapours, and gilded by the common sun.
At eleven o'clock we left West Point; and I am glad that we felt sure at
the time that we should visit it again; a design which we did not
accomplish, as the place was ravaged by scarlet fever at the season of
the next year that we had fixed for our visit. Mr. Livingston, who had
just returned from his French mission, was on board the boat. My letters
of introduction to him were at the bottom of my trunk; but we did not
put off becoming acquainted till I could get at them.
Mr. Livingston's name is celebrated and honoured in England (as over all
Europe), through its connexion with the Louisiana Code, this gentleman's
great work. He was born and educated in the state of New-York. While
pursuing his studies at Princeton College in 1779 and 1780, he was
subject to strange interruptions, the professors being repeatedly driven
from their chairs by incursions of the enemy, and their scholars on such
occasions forming a corps to go out and fight. The library was
scattered, the philosophical apparatus destroyed, and the college
buildings shared with troops quartered in the establishment; yet young
Livingston left college a good scholar. He was a member of the fourth
Congress, and there made himself remarkable by his exertions to
ameliorate the criminal code of the United States, then as sanguinary as
those of the Old World. In 1801 he returned to the practice of his
profession of the law in New-York, but was not long permitted to decline
public life. He was appointed attorney of the state of New-York, and
mayor of the city. He remained in the city, in the discharge of his
duties, while the yellow fever drove away every one who could remove. He
nearly died of the disease, and was ruined in his private affairs by
his devotion to the public service. In 1804 he resigned his offices, and
retired to Louisiana (then a new acquisition of the United States) to
retrieve his fortunes; and from thence he discharged all his
obligations, paying his debts, with interest upon them, to the last
farthing. He was deprived, by a mistake of President Jefferson's, of an
immense property which he had acquired there, and was involved in
expensive litigation of many years' duration. The law decided in his
favour, and the controversy ended in a manner the most honourable to
both parties; in a reciprocation of hearty good-will.
During the invasion of Louisiana by the British Mr. Livingston took a
prominent part in the defence of the state; and, when it was over,
undertook, with two coadjutors, the formidable task of simplifying its
laws, entangled as they were with Spanish prolixities, and all manner of
unnecessary and unintelligible provisions. His system was adopted, and
has been in use ever since. In 1820 the system of municipal law was
revised at New-Orleans under the superintendence of Mr. Livingston, and
his amendments were put in practice in 1823. He was at the same time
engaged, without assistance, in preparing his celebrated penal code.
When it was all ready for the press, in 1824, he sat up late one night
to ascertain finally the correctness of the fair copy; and, having
finished, retired to rest in a state of calm satisfaction at his great
work being completed. He was awakened by a cry of fire. The room where
he had been employed was burning, and every scrap of his papers was
consumed. Not a note or memorandum was saved.
He appeared to be stunned for the hour; but, before the day closed, he
had begun his labours again, and he never relaxed till, in two years
from the time of the fire, he presented his work to the legislature of
Louisiana, improved by the reconsideration which he had been compelled
to give it. Men of all countries who understand jurisprudence seem to
think that no praise of this achievement can be excessive.
He afterward represented Louisiana in both Houses of Congress; became
Secretary of State in 1831; and, in 1833, minister to France. His was a
busy life, of doing, suffering, and, we may confidently add, enjoying;
for his was a nature full of simplicity, modesty, and benevolence. His
industry is of itself exhilarating to contemplate.
During the whole preceding year I had heard Mr. Livingston's name almost
daily in connexion with his extremely difficult negotiations between the
United States and France, or, rather, between President Jackson and
Louis Philippe. I had read his despatches (some of which were made
public that were never designed to be so), and had not been quite
satisfied as to their straightforwardness, but concluded, on the whole,
that he had done as much as human wits could well do in so absurd, and
perplexed, and dangerous a quarrel, where the minister had to manage the
temper of his own potentate as well as baffle the policy of the European
monarch. A desire for peace and justice was evident through the whole of
Mr. Livingston's correspondence; and under all, a strong wish to get
home. Here he was, now ploughing his way up his own beloved river, whose
banks were studded with the country-seats of a host of his relations. He
came to me on the upper deck, and sat looking very placid with his staff
between his knees, and his strong, observing countenance melting into an
expression of pleasure when he described to me his enjoyment in burying
himself among the mountains of Switzerland. He said he would not now
hear of mountains anywhere else; at least not in either his own country
or mine. He gave me some opinions upon the government of the King of the
French which I little expected to hear from the minister of a democratic
republic. We were deep in this subject when a great hissing of the steam
made us look up and see that we were at Hyde Park, and that Dr. Hosack
and a party of ladies were waiting for me on the wharf. I repeatedly met
Mr. Livingston in society in New-York the next spring, when a deafness,
which had been slight, was growing upon him, and impairing his enjoyment
of conversation. The last time I saw him was at the christening of a
grand-niece, when he looked well in health, but conversed little, and
seemed rather out of spirits. Within a month of that evening he was
seized with pleurisy, which would in all probability have yielded to
treatment; but he refused medicine, and was carried off after a very
short illness. Dr. Hosack died some months before him. How little did I
think, as I now went from the one to the other, that both these vigorous
old men would be laid in their graves even before my return home should
call upon me to bid them farewell!
The aspect of Hyde Park from the river had disappointed me, after all I
had heard of it. It looks little more than a white house upon a ridge. I
was therefore doubly delighted when I found what this ridge really was.
It is a natural terrace, overhanging one of the sweetest reaches of the
river; and, though broad and straight at the top, not square and formal,
like an artificial embankment, but undulating, sloping, and sweeping
between the ridge and the river, and dropped with trees; the whole
carpeted with turf, tempting grown people, who happen to have the
spirits of children, to run up and down the slopes, and play
hide-and-seek in the hollows. Whatever we might be talking of as we
paced the terrace, I felt a perpetual inclination to start off for play.
Yet, when the ladies and ourselves actually did something like it,
threading the little thickets and rounding every promontory, even to the
farthest (which they call Cape Horn), I felt that the possession of such
a place ought to make a man devout if any of the gifts of Providence can
do so. To hold in one's hand that which melts all strangers' hearts is
to be a steward in a very serious sense of the term. Most liberally did
Dr. Hosack dispense the means of enjoyment he possessed. Hospitality is
inseparably connected with his name in the minds of all who ever heard
it; and it was hospitality of the heartiest and most gladsome kind.
Dr. Hosack had a good library; I believe, one of the best private
libraries in the country; some good pictures, and botanical and
mineralogical cabinets of value. Among the ornaments of his house I
observed some biscuits and vases once belonging to Louis XVI., purchased
by Dr. Hosack from a gentleman who had them committed to his keeping
during the troubles of the first French Revolution.
In the afternoon Dr. Hosack drove me in his gig round his estate, which
lies on both sides of the high road; the farm on one side and the
pleasure-grounds on the other. The conservatory is remarkable for
America; and the flower-garden all that it can be made under present
circumstances, but the neighbouring country people have no idea of a
gentleman's pleasure in his garden, and of respecting it. On occasions
of weddings and other festivities, the villagers come up into the Hyde
Park grounds to enjoy themselves; and persons who would not dream of
any other mode of theft, pull up rare plants, as they would wild flowers
in the woods, and carry them away. Dr. Hosack would frequently see some
flower that he had brought with much pains from Europe flourishing in
some garden of the village below. As soon as he explained the nature of
the case, the plant would be restored with all zeal and care; but the
losses were so frequent and provoking as greatly to moderate his
horticultural enthusiasm. We passed through the poultry-yard, where the
congregation of fowls exceeded in number and bustle any that I had ever
seen. We drove round his kitchen-garden too, where he had taken pains to
grow every kind of vegetable which will flourish in that climate. Then
crossing the road, after paying our respects to his dairy of fine cows,
we drove through the orchard, and round Cape Horn, and refreshed
ourselves with the sweet river views on our way home. There we sat in
the pavilion, and he told me much of De Witt Clinton, and showed me his
own Life of Clinton, a copy of which he said should await me on my
return to New-York. When that time came he was no more; but his promise
was kindly borne in mind by his lady, from whose hands I received the
valued legacy.
We saw some pleasant society at Hyde Park: among the rest, some members
of the wide-spreading Livingston family, and the Rev. Charles Stewart,
who lived for some years as missionary in the South Sea Islands, and
afterward published a very interesting account of his residence there.
His manners, which are particularly gentlemanly and modest, show no
traces of a residence among savages, or of the shifts and disorder of a
missionary life; nor of any bad effects from the sudden fame which
awaited him on his return into civilized life. I remember with great
pleasure a conversation we had by the river-side, which proved to me
that he understands the philosophy of fame, knowing how to appropriate
the good and reject the evil that it brings, and which deepened the
respect I had entertained for him from the beginning of our
acquaintance.
The Livingston family, one of the oldest, most numerous, and opulent in
the States, has been faithful in the days of its greatness to its
democratic principles. In Boston it seems a matter of course that the
"first people" should be federalists; that those who may be aristocratic
in station should become aristocratic in principle. The Livingstons are
an evidence that this need not be. Amid their splendid entertainments in
New-York, and in their luxurious retirements on the Hudson, they may be
heard going further than most in defence of President Jackson's
idiosyncracy. Their zeal in favour of Mr. Van Buren was accounted for by
many from the natural bias of the first family in the state of New-York
in favour of the first president furnished by that state; but there is
no reason to find any such cause. The Livingstons have consistently
advocated the most liberal principles through all changes; and that they
retain their democratic opinions in the midst of their opulence and
family influence is not the less honourable to them for their party
having now the ascendency.
Dr. Hosack and his family accompanied us down to the wharf to see Mr.
Stewart off by one boat and our party by another, when, on the third day
of our visit, we were obliged to depart. Our hearts would have been more
sorrowful than they were if we had foreseen that we should not enjoy our
promised meeting with this accomplished and amiable family at New-York.
Dr. Hosack was a native American, but his father was Scotch. After
obtaining the best medical education he could in America, he studied in
Edinburgh and London, and hence his affectionate relations with Great
Britain, and the warmth with which he welcomed English travellers. He
practised medicine in New-York for upward of forty years, and filled the
Professorship of Botany and Materia Medica in Columbia College for some
time. He distinguished himself by his successful attention to the causes
and treatment of yellow fever. But his services out of his profession
were as eminent as any for which his fellow-citizens are indebted to
him. He rendered liberal aid to various literary, scientific, and
benevolent institutions, and was always willing and indefatigable in
exertion for public objects. One of the most painful scenes of his life
was the duel in which Hamilton perished. Dr. Hosack was Hamilton's
second, and, probably, as well aware as his principal and others that
the encounter could hardly end otherwise than as it did. Dr. Hosack was
in New-York with his family the winter after my visit to Hyde Park. He
was one day in medical conversation with Dr. M'Vickar of that city, and
observed that it would not do for either of them to have an attack of
apoplexy, as there would be small chance of their surviving it. Within
two weeks both were dead of apoplexy. Dr. Hosack lost property in the
great fire at New-York; he over-exerted himself on the night of the
fire, and the fatigue and anxiety brought on an attack of the disease he
dreaded, under which he presently sank from amid the well-earned
enjoyments of a vigorous and prosperous old age. He was in his 67th
year, and showed to the eye of a stranger no symptom of decline. His eye
was bright, his spirits as buoyant, and his life as full of activity as
those of most men of half his years. I always heard the death of this
enterprising and useful citizen mentioned as heading the list of the
calamities of the Great Fire.
PINE ORCHARD HOUSE.
"But the new glory mixes with the heaven
And earth. Man, once descried, imprints for ever
His presence on all lifeless things; the winds
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,
A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh;
Never a senseless gust now man is born.
The herded pines commune, and have deep thoughts,
A secret they assemble to discuss,
When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare
Like grates of hell; the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head.
* * * * *
The morn has enterprise; deep quiet droops
With evening; triumph when the sun takes rest;
Voluptuous transport when the corn-fields ripen
Beneath a warm moon, like a happy face;
And this to fill us with regard for man,
Deep apprehension of his passing worth."
_Paracelsus_, Part v.
However widely European travellers have differed about other things in
America, all seem to agree in their love of the Hudson. The pens of all
tourists dwell on its scenery, and their affections linger about it like
the magic lights which seem to have this river in their peculiar charge.
Yet very few travellers have seen its noblest wonder. I may be
singular; but I own that I was more moved by what I saw from the
Mountain House than by Niagara itself.
What is this Mountain House? this Pine Orchard House? many will ask; for
its name is not to be found in most books of American travels. "What is
that white speck?" I myself asked, when staying at Tivoli, on the east
bank of the Hudson, opposite to the Catskills, whose shadowy surface was
perpetually tempting the eye. That white speck, visible to most eyes
only when bright sunshine was upon it, was the Mountain House; a hotel
built for the accommodation of hardy travellers who may desire to obtain
that complete view of the valley of the Hudson which can be had nowhere
else. I made up my mind to go; and the next year I went, on leaving Dr.
Hosack's. I think I had rather have missed the Hawk's Nest, the
Prairies, the Mississippi, and even Niagara, than this.
The steamboat in which we left Hyde Park landed us at Catskill
(thirty-one miles) at a little after three in the afternoon. Stages were
waiting to convey passengers to the Mountain House, and we were off in a
few minutes, expecting to perform the ascending journey of twelve miles
in a little more than four hours. We had the same horses all the way,
and therefore set off at a moderate pace, though the road was for some
time level, intersecting rich bottoms, and passing flourishing
farmhouses, where the men were milking, and the women looked up from
their work in the piazzas as we passed. Haymaking was going on in the
fields, which appeared to hang above us at first, but on which we
afterward looked down from such a height that the haycocks were scarcely
distinguishable. It was the 25th of July, and a very hot day for the
season. The roads were parched up, and every exposed thing that one
handled on board the steamboat or in the stage made one flinch from the
burning sensation. The panting horses, one of them bleeding at the
mouth, stopped to drink at a house at the foot of the ascent; and we
wondered how, exhausted as they seemed, they would drag us up the
mountain. We did not calculate on the change of temperature which we
were soon to experience.
The mountain laurel conveyed by association the first impression of
coolness. Sheep were browsing among the shrubs, apparently enjoying the
shelter of the covert. We scrambled through deep shade for three or four
miles, heavy showers passing over us, and gusts of wind bowing the
tree-tops, and sending a shiver through us, partly from the sudden
chillness, and partly from expectation and awe of the breezy solitude.
On turning a sharp angle of the steep road, at a great elevation, we
stopped in a damp green nook, where there was an arrangement of hollow
trees to serve for water-troughs. While the horses were drinking, the
gusts parted the trees to the left, and exposed to me a vast extent of
country lying below, checkered with light and shadow. This was the
moment in which a lady in the stage said, with a yawn, "I hope we shall
find something at the top to pay us for all this." Truly the philosophy
of recompense seems to be little understood. In moral affairs people
seem to expect recompense for privileges, as when children, grown and
ungrown, are told that they will be rewarded for doing their duty; and
here was a lady hoping for recompense for being carried up a glorious
mountainside, in ease, coolness, leisure, and society, all at once. If
it was recompense for the evil of inborn _ennui_ that she wanted, she
was not likely to find it where she was going to look for it.
After another level reach of road and another scrambling ascent I saw
something on the rocky platform above our heads like (to compare great
things with small) an illumined fairy palace perched among the clouds in
opera scenery; a large building, whose numerous window-lights marked out
its figure from amid the thunder-clouds and black twilight which
overshadowed it. It was now half past eight o'clock and a stormy
evening. Everything was chill, and we were glad of lights and tea in the
first place.
After tea I went out upon the platform in front of the house, having
been warned not to go too near the edge, so as to fall an unmeasured
depth into the forest below. I sat upon the edge as a security against
stepping over unawares. The stars were bright overhead, and had
conquered half the sky, giving promise of what we ardently desired, a
fine morrow. Over the other half the mass of thunder-clouds was, I
supposed, heaped together, for I could at first discern nothing of the
champaign which I knew must be stretched below. Suddenly, and from that
moment incessantly, gushes of red lightning poured out from the cloudy
canopy, revealing not merely the horizon, but the course of the river,
in all its windings through the valley. This thread of river, thus
illuminated, looked like a flash of lightning caught by some strong
hand and laid along in the valley. All the principal features of the
landscape might, no doubt, have been discerned by this sulphurous light;
but my whole attention was absorbed by the river, which seemed to come
out of the darkness like an apparition at the summons of my impatient
will. It could be borne only for a short time; this dazzling,
bewildering alternation of glare and blackness, of vast reality and
nothingness. I was soon glad to draw back from the precipice and seek
the candlelight within.
The next day was Sunday. I shall never forget, if I live to a hundred,
how the world lay at my feet one Sunday morning. I rose very early, and
looked abroad from my window, two stories above the platform. A dense
fog, exactly level with my eyes, as it appeared, roofed in the whole
plain of the earth; a dusky firmament in which the stars had hidden
themselves for the day. Such is the account which an antediluvian
spectator would probably have given of it. This solid firmament had
spaces in it, however, through which gushes of sunlight were poured,
lighting up the spires of white churches, and clusters of farm buildings
too small to be otherwise distinguished; and especially the river, with
its sloops floating like motes in the sunbeam. The firmament rose and
melted, or parted off into the likeness of snowy sky-mountains, and left
the cool Sabbath to brood brightly over the land. What human interest
sanctifies a bird's-eye view! I suppose this is its peculiar charm, for
its charm is found to deepen in proportion to the growth of mind. To an
infant, a champaign of a hundred miles is not so much as a yard square
of gay carpet. To the rustic it is less bewitching than a paddock with
two cows. To the philosopher, what is it not? As he casts his eye over
its glittering towns, its scattered hamlets, its secluded homes, its
mountain ranges, church spires, and untrodden forests, it is a picture
of life; an epitome of the human universe; the complete volume of moral
philosophy, for which he has sought in vain in all libraries. On the
left horizon are the Green Mountains of Vermont, and at the right
extremity sparkles the Atlantic. Beneath lies the forest where the deer
are hiding and the birds rejoicing in song. Beyond the river he sees
spread the rich plains of Connecticut; there, where a blue expanse lies
beyond the triple range of hills, are the churches of religious
Massachusetts sending up their Sabbath psalms; praise which he is too
high to hear, while God is not. The fields and waters seem to him
to-day no more truly property than the skies which shine down upon them;
and to think how some below are busying their thoughts this Sabbath-day
about how they shall hedge in another field, or multiply their flocks on
yonder meadows, gives him a taste of the same pity which Jesus felt in
his solitude when his followers were contending about which should be
greatest. It seems strange to him now that man should call anything
_his_ but the power which is in him, and which can create somewhat more
vast and beautiful than all that this horizon encloses. Here he gains
the conviction, to be never again shaken, that all that is real is
ideal; that the joys and sorrows of men do not spring up out of the
ground, or fly abroad on the wings of the wind, or come showered down
from the sky; that good cannot be hedged in, nor evil barred out; even
that light does not reach the spirit through the eye alone, nor wisdom
through the medium of sound or silence only. He becomes of one mind with
the spiritual Berkeley, that the face of nature itself, the very picture
of woods, and streams, and meadows, is a hieroglyphic writing in the
spirit itself, of which the retina is no interpreter. The proof is just
below him (at least it came under my eye), in the lady (not American)
who, after glancing over the landscape, brings her chair into the
piazza, and, turning her back to the champaign, and her face to the
wooden walls of the hotel, begins the study, this Sunday morning, of her
lapful of newspapers. What a sermon is thus preached to him at this
moment from a very hackneyed text! To him that hath much; that hath the
eye, and ear, and wealth of the spirit, shall more be given; even a
replenishing of this spiritual life from that which to others is
formless and dumb; while from him that hath little, who trusts in that
which lies about him rather than in that which lives within him, shall
be taken away, by natural decline, the power of perceiving and enjoying
what is within his own domain. To him who is already enriched with large
divine and human revelations this scene is, for all its stillness,
musical with divine and human speech; while one who has been deafened by
the din of worldly affairs can hear nothing in this mountain solitude.
The march of the day over the valley was glorious, and I was grieved to
have to leave my window for an expedition to the Falls a few miles off.
The Falls are really very fine, or, rather, their environment; but I
could see plenty of waterfalls elsewhere, but nowhere else such a
mountain platform. However, the expedition was a good preparation for
the return to my window. The little nooks of the road, crowded with
bilberries, cherries, and alpine plants, and the quiet tarn, studded
with golden water-lilies, were a wholesome contrast to the grandeur of
what we had left behind us.
On returning, we found dinner awaiting us, and also a party of friends
out of Massachusetts, with whom we passed the afternoon, climbing higher
and higher among the pines, ferns, and blue-berries of the mountain, to
get wider and wider views. They told me that I saw Albany, but I was by
no means sure of it. This large city lay in the landscape like an
anthill in a meadow. Long before sunset I was at my window again,
watching the gradual lengthening of the shadows and purpling of the
landscape. It was more beautiful than the sunrise of this morning, and
less so than that of the morrow. Of this last I shall give no
description, for I would not weary others with what is most sacred to
me. Suffice it that it gave me a vivid idea of the process of creation,
from the moment when all was without form and void, to that when light
was commanded, and there was light. Here, again, I was humbled by seeing
what such things are to some who watch in vain for what they are not
made to see. A gentleman and lady in the hotel intended to have left the
place on Sunday. Having overslept that morning's sunrise, and arrived
too late for that on Saturday, they were persuaded to stay till Monday
noon; and I was pleased, on rising at four on Monday morning, to see
that they were in the piazza below, with a telescope. We met at
breakfast, all faint with hunger, of course.
"Well, Miss M.," said the gentleman, discontentedly, "I suppose you were
disappointed in the sunrise."
"No, I was not."
"Why, do you think the sun was any handsomer here than at New-York?"
I made no answer; for what could one say? But he drove me by questions
to tell what I expected to see in the sun.
"I did not expect to see the sun green or blue."
"What did you expect, then?"
I was obliged to explain that it was the effect of the sun on the
landscape that I had been looking for.
"Upon the landscape! Oh! but we saw that yesterday."
The gentleman was perfectly serious; quite earnest in all this. When we
were departing, a foreign tourist was heard to complain of the high
charges! High charges! As if we were to be supplied for nothing on a
perch where the wonder is if any but the young ravens get fed! When I
considered what a drawback it is in visiting mountain-tops that one is
driven down again almost immediately by one's bodily wants, I was ready
to thank the people devoutly for harbouring us on any terms, so that we
might think out our thoughts, and compose our emotions, and take our
fill of that portion of our universal and eternal inheritance.
WEDDINGS.
"God, the best maker of all marriages,
Combine your hearts in one!"
_Henry V._
I was present at four weddings in the United States, and at an offer of
marriage.
The offer of marriage ought hardly to be so called, however. It was a
petition from a slave to be allowed to wed (as slaves wed) the nursemaid
of a lady in whose house I was staying. The young man could either write
a little, or had employed some one who could to prepare his epistle for
him. It ran from corner to corner of the paper, which was daubed with
diluted wafer, like certain love-letters nearer home than Georgia. Here
are the contents:
"Miss Cunningham it is My wishes to companion in your Present and I
hope you will Be peeze at it and I hope that you will not think Hard
of Me I have Ben to the Doctor and he was very well satafide with Me
and I hope you is and Miss Mahuw all so
"thats all I has to say now wiheshen you will grant Me that honour I
will Be very glad.
"S.B. SMITH."
The nursemaid was granted; and as it was a love-match, and as the girl's
mistress is one of the tender, the sore-hearted about having slaves, I
hope the poor creatures are as happy as love in debasement can make
them.
The first wedding I saw in Boston was very like the common run of
weddings in England. It happened to be convenient that the parties
should be married in church; and in the Unitarian church in which they
usually worshipped we accordingly awaited them. I had no acquaintance
with the family, but went on the invitation of the pastor who married
them. The family connexion was large, and the church, therefore, about
half full. The form of celebration is at the pleasure of the pastor;
but, by consent, the administration by pastors of the same sect is very
nearly alike. The promises of the married parties are made reciprocal, I
observed. The service in this instance struck me as being very beautiful
from its simplicity, tenderness, and brevity. There was one variation
from the usual method, in the offering of one of the prayers by a second
pastor, who, being the uncle of the bridegroom, was invited to take a
share in the service.
The young people were to set out for Europe in the afternoon, the bride
being out of health, the dreary drawback upon almost every extensive
plan of action and fair promise of happiness in America. The lady has, I
rejoice to hear, been quite restored by travel; but her sickness threw a
gloom over the celebration, even in the minds of strangers. She and her
husband walked up the middle aisle to the desk where the pastors sat.
They were attended by only one bridesmaid and one groomsman, and were
all in plain travelling dresses. They said steadily and quietly what
they had to say, and walked down the aisle again as they came. Nothing
could be simpler and better, for this was not a marriage where festivity
could have place. If there is any natural scope for joy, let weddings by
all means be joyous; but here there was sickness, with the prospect of a
long family separation, and there was most truth in quietness.
The other wedding I saw in Boston was as gay a one as is often seen. The
parties were opulent, and in the first rank in society. They were
married in the drawing-room of the bride's house, at half past eight in
the evening, by Dr. Channing. The moment the ceremony was over, crowds
of company began to arrive; and the bride, young and delicate, and her
maidens, were niched in a corner of one of the drawing-rooms to courtesy
to all comers. They were so formally placed, so richly and (as it then
seemed) formally dressed, for the present revived antique style of dress
was then quite new, that, in the interval of their courtesies, they
looked like an old picture brought from Windsor Castle. The bride's
mother presided in the other drawing-room, and the bridegroom flitted
about, universally attentive, and on the watch to introduce all visiters
to his lady. The transition from the solemnity of Dr. Channing's service
to the noisy gayeties of a rout was not at all to my taste. I imagined
that it was not to Dr. Channing's either, for his talk with me was on
matters very little resembling anything that we had before our eyes; and
he soon went away. The noise became such as to silence all who were not
inured to the gabble of an American party, the noisiest kind of
assemblage, I imagine (not excepting a Jew's synagogue), on the face of
the globe. I doubt whether any pagans in their worship can raise any
hubbub to equal it. I constantly found in a large party, after trying in
vain every kind of scream that I was capable of, that I must give up,
and satisfy myself with nodding and shaking my head. If I was rightly
understood, well and good; if not, I must let it pass. As the noise
thickened and the heat grew more oppressive, I glanced towards the poor
bride in her corner, still standing, still courtesying; her pale face
growing paler; her nonchalant manner (perhaps the best she could assume)
more indifferent. I was afraid that if all this went on much longer, she
would faint or die upon the spot. It did not last much longer. By eleven
some of the company began to go away, and by a quarter before twelve all
were gone but the comparatively small party (including ourselves) who
were invited to stay to supper.
The chandelier and mantelpieces, I then saw, were dressed with flowers.
There was a splendid supper; and, before we departed, we were carried up
to a well-lighted apartment, where bride cake and the wedding presents
were set out in bright array.
Five days afterward we went, in common with all her acquaintance, to pay
our respects to the bride. The courtyard of her mother's house was
thronged with carriages, though no one seemed to stay five minutes. The
bridegroom received us at the head of the stairs, and led us to his
lady, who courtesied as before. Cake, wine, and liqueurs were handed
round, the visiters all standing. A few words on common subjects were
exchanged, and we were gone to make way for others.
A Quaker marriage which I saw at Philadelphia was scarcely less showy in
its way. It took place at the Cherrystreet church, belonging to the
Hicksites. The reformed Quaker Church, consisting of the followers of
Elias Hicks, bears about the same relation to the old Quakerism as the
Church of England to that of Rome; and, it seems to me, the mutual
dislike is as intense. I question whether religious enmity ever attained
a greater extreme than among the orthodox Friends of Philadelphia. The
Hicksites are more moderate, but are sometimes naturally worried out of
their patience by the meddling, the denunciations, and the calumnies of
the old Quaker societies. The new church is thinking of reforming and
relaxing a good deal farther, and in the celebration of marriage among
other things. It is under consideration (or was when I was there)
whether the process of betrothment should not be simplified, and
marriage in the father's house permitted to such as prefer it to the
church. The wedding at which I was present was, however, performed with
all the formalities.
A Quaker friend of mine, a frequent preacher, suggested, a few days
previously, that a seat had better be reserved for me near the speakers,
that I might have a chance of hearing "in case there should be
communications." I had hopes from this that my friend would speak, and
my wishes were not disappointed.
The spacious church was crowded; and for three or four hours the poor
bride had to sit facing the assemblage, aware, doubtless, that during
the time of silence the occupation of the strangers present, if not of
the friends themselves, would be watching her and her party. She was
pretty, and most beautifully dressed. I have seldom pitied anybody more
than I did her, while she sat palpitating for three hours under the gaze
of some hundreds of people; but, towards the end of the time of silence,
my compassion was transferred to the bridegroom. For want of something
to do, after suppressing many yawns, he looked up to the ceiling; and in
the midst of an empty stare, I imagine he caught the eye of an
acquaintance in the back seats; for he was instantly troubled with a
most irrepressible and unseasonable inclination to laugh. He struggled
manfully with his difficulty; but the smiles would come, broader and
broader. If, by dint of looking steadfastly into his hat for a few
minutes, he attained a becoming gravity, it was gone the moment he
raised his head. I was in a panic lest we should have a scandalous peal
of merriment if something was not given him to do or listen to. Happily
"there were communications," and the course of his ideas was changed.
Of the five speakers, one was an old gentleman whose discourse was an
entire perplexity to me. For nearly an hour he discoursed on Jacob's
ladder; but in a style so rambling, and in a chant so singularly
unmusical as to set attention and remembrace at defiance. Some
parenthetical observations alone stood a chance of being retained, from
their singularity; one, for instance, which he introduced in the course
of his narrative about Jacob setting a stone for a pillow; "a very
different," cried the preacher, raising his chant to the highest pitch,
"a very different pillow, by-the-way, from any that
we--are--accommodated--with." What a contrast was the brief discourse of
my Quaker friend which followed! Her noble countenance was radiant as
the morning; her soft voice, though low, so firm that she was heard to
the farthest corner, and her little sermon as philosophical as it was
devout. "Send forth thy light and thy truth," was her text. She spoke
gratefully of intellectual light as a guide to spiritual truth, and
anticipated and prayed for an ultimate universal diffusion of both. The
certificate of the marriage was read by Dr. Parrish, an elderly
physician of Philadelphia, the very realization of all my imaginings of
the personal appearance of William Penn; with all the dignity and
bonhommie that one fancies Penn invested with in his dealings with the
Indians. Dr. Parrish speaks with affection of the Indians, from the
experience some ancestors of his had of the hospitality of these poor
people when they were in a condition to show hospitality. His
grandfather's family were shipwrecked, and the Indians took the poor
lady and her children home to an inhabited cave, and fed them for many
weeks or months. The tree stump round which they used to sit at meals is
still standing; and Dr. Parrish says that, let it stand as long as it
will, the love of his family to the Indians shall outlast it.
The matrimonial promise was distinctly and well spoken by both the
parties. At the request of the bride and bridegroom, Dr. Parrish asked
me to put the first signature, after their own, to the certificate of
the marriage; and we adjourned for the purpose to an apartment connected
with the church. Most ample sheets of parchment were provided for the
signatures; and there was a prodigious array of names before we left,
when a crowd was still waiting to testify. This multitudinous witnessing
is the pleasantest part of being married by acclamation. If weddings are
not to be private, there seems no question of the superiority of this
Quaker method to that of the Boston marriage I beheld, where there was
all the publicity, without the co-operation and sanction.
The last wedding which I have to give an account of is full of a
melancholy interest to me now. All was so joyous, so simple, so right,
that there seemed no suggestion to evil-boding, no excuse for
anticipating such wo as has followed. On one of the latter days of July,
1835, I reached the village of Stockbridge; the Sedgwicks' village, for
the second time, intending to stay four or five days with my friends
there. I had heard of an approaching wedding in the family connexion,
and was glad that I had planned to leave, so as to be out of the way at
a time when I supposed the presence of foreigners, though friends, might
be easily dispensed with. But when Miss Sedgwick and I were sitting in
her room one bright morning, there was a tap at the door. It was the
pretty black-eyed girl who was to be married the next week. She stood
only a minute on the threshold to say, with grave simplicity, "I am come
to ask you to join our friends at my father's house next Tuesday
evening." Being thus invited, I joyfully assented, and put off my
journey.
The numerous children of the family connexion were in wild spirits all
that Tuesday. In the morning we went a strong party to the Ice Hole; a
defile between two hills, so perplexed and encumbered with rocks that
none but practised climbers need attempt the passage. It was a good way
for the young people to work off their exuberant spirits. Their laughter
was heard from amid the nooks and hiding-places of the labyrinth, and
smiling faces might be seen behind every shrubby screen which sprang up
from the crevices. How we tried to surpass each other in the ferns and
mosses we gathered, rich in size and variety! What skipping and
scrambling there was; what trunk bridges and ladders of roots! How
valiant the ladies looked with their stout sticks! How glad every one
was to feast upon the wild raspberries when we struggled through the
close defile into the cool, green, breezy meadow on the banks of the
Housatonic! During the afternoon we were very quiet, reading one of
Carlyle's reviews aloud (for the twentieth time, I believe, to some of
the party), and discussing it and other things. By eight o'clock we were
all dressed for the wedding; and some of the children ran over the green
before us, but came back, saying that all was not quite ready; so we got
one of the girls to sing to us for another half hour.
The house of the bride's father was well lighted, and dressed with
flowers. She had no mother; but her elder sisters aided her father in
bidding us welcome. The drawing-room was quite full; and while the
grown-up friends found it difficult to talk, and to repress the
indefinable anxiety and agitation which always attend a wedding, the
younger members of the party were amusing themselves with whispered
mirth. The domestics looked as if the most joyous event of their lives
were taking place, and the old father seemed placid and satisfied.
In a few minutes we were summoned to another room, at the top of which
stood the tall bridegroom, with his pretty little lady on his arm; on
either side, the three gentlemen and three ladies who attended them; and
in front, the Episcopalian minister who was to marry them, and who has
since been united to one of the sisters. It was the first time of his
performing the ceremony, and his manner was solemn and somewhat anxious,
as might be expected.
The bridegroom was a professor in a college in the neighbouring State of
New-York; a young man of high acquirements and character, to whom the
old father might well be proud to give his daughter. His manners were
remarkably pleasing; and there was a joyous, dignified serenity visible
in them this evening, which at once favourably prepossessed us who did
not previously know him. He was attended by a brother professor from the
same college. When the service was over, we all kissed the grave and
quiet bride. I trust that no bodings of the woes which awaited her cast
a shadow over her spirits then. I think, though grave, she was not sad.
She spoke with all her father's guests in the course of the evening, as
did her husband. How often have I of late tried to recall precisely
what they said to me, and every look with which they said it!
We went back to the drawing-room for cake and wine; and then ensued the
search for the ring in the great wedding cake, with much merriment among
those who were alive to all the fun of a festivity like this, and to
none of the care. There was much moving about between the rooms, and
dressing with flowers in the hall; and lively conversation, as it must
needs be where there are Sedgwicks. Then Champagne and drinking of
healths went round, the guests poured out upon the green, all the ladies
with handkerchiefs tied over their heads. There we bade good-night, and
parted off to our several homes.
When I left the village the next morning two or three carriages full of
young people were setting off, as attendants upon the bride and
bridegroom, to Lebanon. After a few such short excursions in the
neighbourhood, the young couple went home to begin their quiet college
and domestic life.
Before a year had elapsed, a year which to me seemed gone like a month,
I was at Stockbridge again and found the young wife's family in great
trouble. She was in a raging fever, consequent on her confinement, and
great fears were entertained for her life. Her infant seemed to have but
a small chance under the circumstances, and there was a passing mention
of her husband being ill. Every one spoke of him with a respect and
affection which showed how worthy he was of this young creature's love;
and it was our feeling for him which made our prayers for her
restoration so earnest as they were. The last I heard of her before I
left the country was that she was slowly and doubtfully recovering, but
had not yet been removed from her father's house. The next intelligence
that I received after my return to England was of her husband's death;
that he had died in a calm and satisfied state of mind; satisfied that
if their reasonable hopes of domestic joy and usefulness had not been
fulfilled, it was for wise and kind reasons; and that the strong hand
which thus early divided them would uphold the gentle surviver. No one
who beheld and blessed their union can help beseeching and trusting,
since all other hope is over, that it may be even thus.
HIGH ROAD TRAVELLING.
"How far my pen has been fatigued like those of other travellers in
this journey of it, the world must judge; but the traces of it,
which are now all set o'vibrating together this moment, tell me it
is the most fruitful and busy period of my life; for, as I had made
no convention with my man with the gun as to time--by seizing every
handle, of what size or shape soever which chance held out to me in
this journey--I was always in company, and with great variety
too."--STERNE.
Our first land travelling, in which we had to take our chance with the
world in general, was across the State of New-York. My account of what
we saw may seem excessively minute in some of its details; but this
style of particularity is not adopted without reasons. While writing my
journal, I always endeavoured to bear in mind the rapidity with which
civilization advances in America, and the desirablness of recording
things precisely in their present state, in order to have materials for
comparison some few years hence, when travelling may probably be as
unlike what it is now, as a journey from London to Liverpool by the new
railroad differs from the same enterprise as undertaken a century and a
half ago.
To avoid some of the fatigues and liabilities of common travelling,
certain of our shipmates and their friends and ourselves had made up a
party to traverse the State of New-York in an "exclusive extra;" a stage
hired, with the driver, for our own use, to proceed at our own time. Our
fellow-travellers were a German and a Dutch gentleman, and the Prussian
physician and young South Carolinian whom I have mentioned in the list
of our shipmates. We were to meet at the Congress Hall hotel in Albany
on the 6th of October.
On our way from Stockbridge to Albany we saw a few objects
characteristic of the country. While the horses were baiting we wandered
into a graveyard, where the names on the tombstones were enough to
inform any observer what country of the world he was in. One inscription
was laudatory of Nelson and Nabby Bullis; another of Amasa and Polly
Fielding. Hiram and Keziah were there too. The signs in the American
streets are as ludicrous for their confusion of Greek, Roman, and Hebrew
names, as those of Irish towns are for the arbitrary divisions of words.
One sees Rudolphus figuring beside Eliakim, and Aristides beside Zerug.
I pitied an acquaintance of mine for being named Peleg, till I found he
had baptized his two boys Peleg and Seth. On a table in a little wayside
inn I found Fox's Martyr's; and against the wall hung a framed sampler,
with the following lines worked upon it:--
"Jesus, permit thine awful name to stand
As the first offering of an infant's hand:
And as her fingers o'er the canvass move,
Oh fill her thoughtful bosom with thy love,
With thy dear children let her bear a part,
And write thy name thyself upon her heart."
In these small inns the disagreeable practice of rocking in the chair is
seen in its excess. In the inn parlour are three or four rocking-chairs,
in which sit ladies who are vibrating in different directions, and at
various velocities, so as to try the head of a stranger almost as
severely as the tobacco-chewer his stomach. How this lazy and ungraceful
indulgence ever became general, I cannot imagine; but the nation seems
so wedded to it, that I see little chance of its being forsaken. When
American ladies come to live in Europe, they sometimes send home for a
rocking-chair. A common wedding-present is a rocking-chair. A beloved
pastor has every room in his house furnished with a rocking-chair by his
grateful and devoted people. It is well that the gentlemen can be
satisfied to sit still, or the world might be treated with the spectacle
of the sublime American Senate in a new position; its fifty-two senators
see-sawing in full deliberation, like the wise birds of a rookery in a
breeze. If such a thing should ever happen, it will be time for them to
leave off laughing at the Shaker worship.
As we approached Greenbush, which lies opposite to Albany, on the east
bank of the Hudson, we met riding horses, exercised by grooms, and more
than one handsome carriage; tokens that we were approaching some centre
of luxury. The view of Albany rising from the river side, with its brown
stone courthouse and white marble capitol, is fine; but it wants the
relief of more trees within itself, or of a rural background. How
changed is this bustling city, thronged with costly buildings, from the
Albany of the early days of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, when the children used
to run up and down the green slope which is now State-street, imposing
from its width and the massiveness of the houses seen behind its rows of
trees! A tunnel is about to be made under the Hudson at Albany; meantime
we crossed, as everybody does, by a horse ferryboat; a device so cruel
as well as clumsy, that the sooner it is superseded the better. I was
told that the strongest horses, however kept up with corn, rarely
survive a year of this work.
We observed that, even in this city, the physicians have not always
their names engraved on brass doorplates. On the most conspicuous part
of their houses, perhaps on the angle of a corner house, is nailed some
glazed substance like floorcloth, with "Dr. Such-an-one" painted upon
it. At Washington I remember seeing "MAGISTRATE" thus affixed to a mere
shed.
As we surmounted the hill leading to our hotel, we saw our two shipmates
dancing down the steps to welcome us. There certainly is a feeling among
shipmates which does not grow out of any other relation. They are thrown
first into such absolute dependance on one another, for better for
worse, and are afterward so suddenly and widely separated, that if they
do chance to meet again, they renew their intimacy with a fervour which
does not belong to a friendship otherwise originated. The glee of our
whole party this evening is almost ridiculous to look back upon.
Everything served to make a laugh, and we were almost intoxicated with
the prospect of what we were going to see and do together. We had
separated only a fortnight ago, but we had as much to talk over as if we
had been travelling apart for six months. The Prussian had to tell his
adventures, we our impressions, and the Southerner his comparisons of
his own country with Europe. Then we had to arrange the division of
labour by which the gentlemen were to lighten the cares of travelling.
Dr. J., the Prussian, was on all occasions to select apartments for us;
Mr. S., the Dutchman, to undertake the eating department; Mr. H., the
American, was paymaster; and Mr. O., the German, took charge of the
luggage. It was proposed that badges should be worn to designate their
offices. Mr. S. was to be adorned with a corncob. Mr. H. stuck a
bankbill in front of his hat; and, next morning, when Mr. O. was looking
another way, the young men locked a small padlock upon his button-hole,
which he was compelled to carry there for a day or two, till his
comrades vouchsafed to release him from his badge.
The hotel was well furnished and conducted. I pointed out, with some
complacency, what a handsome piano we had in our drawing-room; but when,
in the dark hour, I opened it in order to play, I found it empty of
keys! a disappointment, however, which I have met with in England.
Mr. Van Buren and his son happened to be in Albany, and called on me
this afternoon. There is nothing remarkable in the appearance of this
gentleman, whom I afterward saw frequently at Washington. He is small in
person, with light hair and blue eyes. I was often asked whether I did
not think his manners gentlemanly. There is much friendliness in his
manners, for he is a kind-hearted man; he is also rich in information,
and lets it come out on subjects in which he cannot contrive to see any
danger in speaking. But his manners want the frankness and confidence
which are essential to good breeding. He questions closely, without
giving anything in return. Moreover, he flatters to a degree which so
cautious a man should long ago have found out to be disagreeable; and
his flattery is not merely praise of the person he is speaking to, but a
worse kind still; a skepticism and ridicule of objects and persons
supposed to be distasteful to the one he is conversing with. I fully
believe that he is an amiable and indulgent domestic man, and a
reasonable political master, a good scholar, and a shrewd man of
business; but he has the skepticism which marks the lower order of
politicians. His public career exhibits no one exercise of that faith in
men and preference of principle to petty expediency by which a statesman
shows himself to be great.
The consequence is, that, with all his opportunities, no great deed has
ever been put to his account, and his shrewdness has been at fault in
some of the most trying crises of his career. The man who so little
trusts others, and so intensely regards self as to make it the study of
his life not to commit himself, is liable to a more than ordinary danger
of judging wrong when compelled, by the pressure of circumstances, to
act a decided part. It has already been so with Mr. Van Buren more than
once; and now that he is placed in a position where he must sometimes
visibly lead, and cannot always appear to follow, it will be seen
whether a due reverence of men and a forgetfulness of self would not
have furnished him with more practical wisdom than all his "sounding on
his dim and perilous way." Mr. Calhoun is, I believe, Mr. Van Buren's
evil genius. Mr. Calhoun was understood to be in expectation of
succeeding to the presidential chair when Mr. Van Buren was appointed
minister to Great Britain. This appointment of President Jackson's did
not receive the necessary sanction from the Senate, and the new minister
was recalled on the first possible day, Mr. Calhoun being very active in
bringing him back. Mr. Calhoun was not aware that he was recalling one
who was to prove a successful rival. Mr. Calhoun has not been president;
Mr. Van Buren is so; but the successful rival has a mortal dread of the
great nullifier; a dread so obvious, and causing such a prostration of
all principle and all dignity, as to oblige observers to conclude that
there is more in the matter than they see; that it will come out some
day why the disappointed aspirant is still to be propitiated, when he
seems to be deprived of power to do mischief. In "Society in America" I
have given an account of the nullification struggle, and of the
irritation, the mysterious discontent which it has left behind.[2]
Footnote 2: Society in America, vol. i., p. 91.
Perhaps Mr. Van Buren may entertain the opinion which many hold, that
that business is not over yet, and that the slavery question is made a
pretext by the nullifiers of the South for a line of action to which
they are impelled by the disappointed personal ambition of one or two,
and the wounded pride of the many, who cannot endure the contrast
between the increase of the free states of the North and the
deterioration of the slave states of the South. However this may be, to
propitiate Mr. Calhoun seems to have been Mr. Van Buren's great object
for a long time past; an object probably hopeless in itself, and in the
pursuit of which he is likely to lose the confidence of the North far
faster than he could, at best, disarm the enmity of the South.
In the spring of 1836, when Mr. Van Buren was still vice-president, and
the presidential election was drawing near, Mr. Calhoun brought forward
in the Senate his bill (commonly called the Gag Bill) to violate the
postoffice function, by authorizing postmasters to investigate the
contents of the mails, and to keep back all papers whatsoever relating
to the subject of slavery. The bill was, by consent, read the first and
second times without debate; and the Senate was to be divided on the
question whether it should go to a third reading. The votes were equal,
18 to 18. "Where's the vice-president?" shouted Mr. Calhoun's mighty
voice. The vice-president was behind a pillar, talking. He was compelled
to give the casting vote, to commit himself for once; a cruel necessity
to a man of his caution. He voted for the third reading, and there was a
bitter cry on the instant, "The Northern States are sold." The bill was
thrown out on the division on the third reading, and the vice-president
lost by his vote the good-will of the whole body of abolitionists, who
had till then supported him as the democratic and supposed anti-slavery
candidate. As it was, most of the abolitionists did not vote at all, for
want of a good candidate, and Mr. Van Buren's majority was so reduced as
to justify a belief, that if the people had had another year to consider
his conduct in, or if another democratic candidate could have been put
forward, he would have been emphatically rejected. Having once committed
himself, he has gone further still in propitiation of Mr. Calhoun. On
the day of his presidential installation he declared that under no
circumstances would he give his assent to any bill for the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia. This declaration does not arise out
of a belief that Congress has not power to abolish slavery in the
District; for he did, not long before, when hard pressed, declare that
he believed Congress to possess that power. He has therefore hazarded
the extraordinary declaration that he will not, under any circumstances,
assent to what may become the will of the people constitutionally
imbodied. This is a bold intimation for a "non-committal man" to make.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Calhoun, if really dangerous, can be
kept quiet by such fawning as this; and whether the will of the people
may not be rather stimulated than restrained by this sacrifice of them
to the South, so as either to compel the president to retract his
declaration before his four years are out, or to prevent his
re-election.
How strange it is to recall one's first impressions of public men in the
midst of one's matured opinions of them! How freshly I remember the chat
about West Point and Stockbridge acquaintances that I had that afternoon
at Albany, with the conspicuous man about whom I was then ignorant and
indifferent, and whom I have since seen committed to the lowest
political principles and practices, while elected as professing some of
the highest! It only remains to be said, that if Mr. Van Buren feels
himself aggrieved by the interpretation which is commonly put upon the
facts of his political life, he has no one to blame but himself; for
such misinterpretation (if it exists) is owing to his singular reserve;
a reserve which all men agree in considering incompatible with the
simple honesty and cheerful admission of responsibility which democratic
republicans have a right to require of their rulers.
Before breakfast the next morning we walked down to the Padroon's house,
known by reputation, with the history of the estate, to everybody. We
just caught a sight of the shrubbery, and took leave to pass through the
courtyard, and hastened back to breakfast, immediately after which we
proceeded by railroad to Schenectady. There we at once stepped into a
canalboat for Utica. I would never advise ladies to travel by canal,
unless the boats are quite new and clean; or, at least, far better kept
than any that I saw or heard of on this canal. On fine days it is
pleasant enough sitting outside (except for having to duck under the
bridges every quarter of an hour, under penalty of having one's head
crushed to atoms), and in dark evenings the approach of the boatlights
on the water is a pretty sight; but the horrors of night and of wet days
more than compensate for all the advantages these vehicles can boast.
The heat and noise, the known vicinity of a compressed crowd, lying
packed like herrings in a barrel, the bumping against the sides of the
locks, and the hissing of water therein like an inundation, startling
one from sleep; these things are very disagreeable. We suffered under an
additional annoyance in the presence of sixteen Presbyterian clergymen,
some of the most unprepossessing of their class. If there be a duty more
obvious than another on board a canalboat, it is to walk on the bank
occasionally in fair weather, or, at least, to remain outside, in order
to air the cabin (close enough at best) and get rid of the scents of the
table before the unhappy passengers are shut up to sleep there. These
sixteen gentlemen, on their way to a Convention at Utica, could not wait
till they got there to begin their devotional observances, but obtruded
them upon the passengers in a most unjustifiable manner. They were not
satisfied with saying an almost interminable grace before and after each
meal, but shut up the cabin for prayers before dinner; for missionary
conversation in the afternoon, and for scripture reading and prayers
quite late into the night, keeping tired travellers from their rest, and
every one from his fair allowance of fresh air.
The passengers were all invited to listen to and to question a
missionary from China who was of the party. The gentleman did not seem
to have profited much by his travels, however; for he declared himself
unable to answer some very simple inquiries. "Is the religion of the
Christian missionaries tolerated by the Chinese government?" "I am not
prepared to answer that question." "Are the Chinese cannibals?" "I am
not prepared to answer that question." One requested that any brother
would offer a suggestion as to how government might be awakened to the
sinfulness of permitting Sunday mails; during the continuance of which
practice there was no hope of the Sabbath being duly sanctified. No one
was ready with a suggestion, but one offered a story, which every head
was bent to hear. The story was of two sheep-drovers, one of whom feared
God, and the other did not. The profane drover set out with his sheep
for a particular destination two hours earlier than the other, and did
not rest on Sunday like his pious comrade. What was the catastrophe? The
Godfearing drover, though he had stood still all Sunday, arrived at his
destination two hours earlier than the other. "Ah!" "Ah!" resounded
through the cabin in all conceivable tones of conviction, no one asking
particulars of what had happened on the road; of how and where the
profane drover had been delayed. Temperance was, of course, a great
topic with these divines, and they fairly provoked ridicule upon it. One
passenger told me that they were so strict that they would not drink
water out of the Brandywine river; and another remarked that they
partook with much relish of the strong wine-sauce served with our
puddings.
In addition to other discomforts, we passed the fine scenery of Little
Falls in the night. I was not aware what we had missed till I traversed
the Mohawk valley by a better conveyance nearly two years afterward. I
have described this valley in my other work on America,[3] and must
therefore restrain my pen from dwelling on its beauties here.
Footnote 3: "Society in America," vol. ii., p. 188.
The appearance of the berths in the ladies' cabin was so repulsive, that
we were seriously contemplating sitting out all night, when it began to
rain so as to leave us no choice. I was out early in the misty morning,
however, and was presently joined by the rest of my party, all looking
eagerly for signs of Utica being near.
By eight o'clock we were at the wharf. We thought Utica the most
extempore place we had yet seen. The _right-up_ shops, the daubed
houses, the streets running into the woods, all seemed to betoken that
the place had sprung up out of some sudden need. How much more ancient
and respectable did it seem after my return from the West, where I had
seen towns so much newer still! We were civilly received and
accommodated at Bagg's hotel, where we knew how to value cold water,
spacious rooms, and retirement, after the annoyances of the boat.
Our baggage-master was fortunate in securing a neat, clean stage to take
us to Trenton Falls (14 miles), where we promised each other to spend
the whole day, on condition of being off by five the next morning, in
order to accomplish the distance to Syracuse in the course of the day.
The reason for our economy of time was not merely that it was late in
the season, and every day which kept us from the Falls of Niagara,
therefore, of consequence, but that our German friend, Mr. O., was
obliged to be back in New-York by a certain day. We all considered a
little extra haste and fatigue a small tax to pay for the privilege of
his companionship.
We clapped our hands at the sight of the "Rural Retreat," the
comfortable, hospitable house of entertainment at Trenton, standing in
its garden on the edge of the forest, so unlike hotels on the high road.
As no other company was there, we could choose our own hours. We ordered
a late dinner, and proceeded to the Falls. We had only to follow a path
in the pine forest for a few paces, and we were at the edge of the
ravine which encloses the cascades.
It is a pity that the Indian name is not retained. Trenton Falls are
called Cayoharic by the Indians. They are occasioned by the descent of
West Canada Creek through a ravine, where it makes a succession of leaps
from platforms of rock, six of these falls being pretty easily
accessible by travellers. Much has been said of the danger of the
enterprise of ascending the ravine; but I saw no peril to persons who
are neither rash nor nervous. The two accidents which have happened
have, I believe, been owing, the one to extreme rashness, and the other
to sudden terror.
From the edge of the ravine the black water, speckled with white foam,
is seen rushing below with a swiftness which already half turns the head
of the stranger. We descended five flights of wooden steps fixed against
the steep face of the rock, and at the bottom found ourselves at the
brink of the torrent. I never was in so dark and chill a place in the
open air; yet the sun was shining on the opposite face of the rock,
lighting the one scarlet maple which stood out from among the black
cedars and dark green elms. We selected our footing with a care which we
were quite ready to ridicule when we came back; and were not above
grasping the chain which is riveted into the rock where the shelf which
forms the pathway is narrowest, and where the angles are sharpest. The
hollow is here so filled with the voice of many waters, that no other
can be heard; and after many irreverent shouts had been attempted, we
gave up all attempts to converse till we reached a quieter place. Being
impatient to see the first fall, I went on before the rest, and having
climbed the flight of wooden steps, so wetted with the spray of the fall
as to be as slippery as ice, I stood on the platform under a covert of
rock foaming with the thunder of the waters, and saw my companions, one
by one, turn the angle of the path, and pause in front of the sheet of
liquid amber sprinkled with snow. The path on which they stood seemed
too narrow for human foot; and when, discerning me, they waved their
hands, I trembled lest, disregarding their footing, they should be swept
away by the furious torrent. When we found our heads turning with the
rush of the dark waters, we amused ourselves with admiring the little
wells in the rock, and the drip from the roots of a cedar projecting
from the top of the ravine, a never-failing, glittering shower. Between
the fifth and sixth fall there is a long tranquil reach of water; and
here we lingered to rest our bewildered senses before entering upon the
confusion of rocks through which the sixth forces its way. We seesawed
upon a fallen trunk, sent autumn leaves whirling down the stream, and
watched the endless dance of the balls of foam which had found their
way into the tiny creeks and bays opposite, and could not get out again.
Gay butterflies seemed quite at home in this ravine. They flit through
the very spray of the falls. It seemed wonderful that an insect could
retain its frail life in the midst of such an uproar. When the sun, in
its course, suddenly shone full into the glen through a chasm in its
rocky wall, how the cascade was instantly dressed in glory! crowned with
a rainbow, and invested with all radiant hues! How the poor banished
Indians must mourn when the lights of their Cayoharic visit their senses
again in the dreams of memory or of sleep! The recollection of these
poor exiles was an ever-present saddening thought in the midst of all
the most beautiful scenes of the New World.
When we had surmounted the sixth fall, we saw indeed that we could go no
farther. A round projection of rock, without trace of anything that I
could call a foothold, barred us out from the privacy of the upper
ravine. The falls there are said to be as beautiful as any that we saw,
and it is to be hoped that, by blasting a pathway or by some other
means, they also may be laid open to the affections of happy visiters.
They have been seen and reported of. A friend of mine has told me, since
I was there, how Bryant the poet and himself behaved like two
thoughtless boys in this place. Clambering about by themselves one
summer day, when their wives had gone back to the house, they were
irresistibly tempted to pass the barrier, and see what lay beyond. They
got round the rock, I cannot conceive how, by inequalities in its
surface. They met with so many difficulties and so much beauty higher
up, that they forgot all about time, till they found themselves in utter
darkness. They hastened to grope their way homeward through the forest,
and were startled, after a while, by shouts and moving lights. Till that
moment they never recollected how alarmed their wives must be. It was
past ten o'clock, and the poor ladies had been in a state of uneasiness
half the evening, and of mortal terror for the last two hours. They had
got people from the neighbourhood to go out with torches, little
expecting to see their husbands come walking home on their own feet, and
with nothing the matter with them but hunger and shame. I hope the
ladies were exceedingly angry when their panic was over.
The forest at the top of the ravine was a study to me, who had yet seen
but little forest. Moss cushioned all the roots of the trees; hibiscus
overspread the ground; among the pine stems there was a tangle of
unknown shrubs; and a brilliant bird, scarlet except its black wings,
hovered about as if it had no fear of us. I could learn nothing more
about it than that the people call it the red robin. Before we returned
the moon hung like a gem over the darkness of the ravine. I spent
another happy day among these falls some months after, and was yet more
impressed with their singularity and beauty.
When we had exchanged our wet clothes, an excellent dinner was served,
and our host himself waited upon us, sitting down by the window when
nothing was wanted. In the course of dinner Mr. H. related to me some
particulars of the slave insurrection at Charleston a few years before,
when upward of thirty slaves were hanged at once. Some circumstance
which he told led me to observe that I should have done as the thirty
did in their place. "Oh," said he, "so should I." I thanked him for his
response, saying that no defence he could now make of slavery would
stand against such an admission. He did not retract, but a long argument
ensued, in which our host became deeply interested. He moved his chair
forwarder and forwarder, till I saw him leaning over the table between
two of the gentlemen to listen. Everybody had long done eating, and
every dish on the table was quite cold, and the debate concluded, before
our host remembered that we had not had our pudding, and started up to
serve us.
We soon retired to our rooms, being in need of rest after the
discomforts of the canalboat and the fatigues of the day; but it was not
too late for the neighbours to offer their hospitable welcomes. Just
after I was undressed, the cards of visiters were brought me, with a
friendly message; but it was too late to do more than send a message in
return.
We left the place at a little after five in the morning, in a dismal
rain. While breakfasting at Utica, we engaged an "exclusive extra" to
carry us to Buffalo for eighty dollars, the precise route being agreed
upon, and the choice of times and seasons to remain with us. On going
out to our carriage we found the steps of the hotel occupied by a number
of persons, some from Boston, who offered me welcome to the country, and
any information or assistance I might need. One gentleman put into my
hand a letter of introduction to an influential friend of his at
Cincinnati, as it was understood that I was going there. So from this
strange place, where I had not spent above two hours, we drove off amid
a variety of friendly greetings.
This day I first saw a loghouse, and first felt myself admitted into the
sanctuary of the forest. These things made the day full of interest to
me, though the rain scarcely ceased from morning till night.
Well-settled farms were numerous along the road, but in the intervals
were miles of forests; dark thronging trees with their soft gay summits.
Till now the autumn woods had appeared at a distance too red and rusty;
these, when looked into, were the melting of all harmonious colours. As
for the forms, some were drooping, some towering, their tall bare stems
wreathed with crimson creepers. The cleared hollows and slopes, with the
forest ever advancing or receding, are as fine to the imagination as any
natural language can be. I looked for an Indian or two standing on the
forest verge, within a shade as dusky as himself; but for this I had to
wait another day.
Just after dark we arrived at Syracuse, in time for the common supper. I
was surprised at the size and style of the hotel. Land and building
material being cheap, and there being no window-tax, there is little
inducement to economize space in the American houses, and the new hotels
have the ambitious air which is given by spaciousness. The deficiency
lies in furniture, and yet more in attendance; but I really think, that
if travellers will trouble themselves to learn a little of the ways of
the house, so as not to run into opposition to other people's
convenience, much more comfort may be enjoyed in these places than
unaccommodating tourists will believe. Our chambers were quite
sufficiently furnished here; and I never in any place found difficulty
in obtaining as large a supply of water as I wished by simply asking for
it in good time. I observed that the hotel parlours in various parts of
the country were papered with the old-fashioned papers, I believe
French, which represent a sort of panorama of a hunting-party, a fleet,
or some such diversified scene. I saw many such a hunting-party, the
ladies in scarlet riding-habits, as I remember the landlord of the inn
at Bray, near Dublin, to have been proud of in his best parlour. At
Schenectady, the bay of Naples, with its fishing-boats on the water and
groups of lazzaroni on the shore, adorned our parlour walls. It seems
to be an irresistible temptation to idle visiters, English, Irish, and
American, to put speeches into the mouths of the painted personages; and
such hangings are usually seen deformed with scribblings. The effect is
odd, in wild places, of seeing American witticisms put into the mouths
of Neapolitan fishermen, ancient English ladies of quality, or of
tritons and dryads.
There is taste quite as bad as this in a matter of far more importance,
the naming of places. Syracuse in the State of New-York! I often wonder
whether it is yet too late to revert to the Indian names, to undo the
mischief which has been done by boys fresh from their smattering of the
classics, who have gone into the forest to hew out towns and villages. I
heard many Americans say that the State of New-York ought to be called
Ontario, and the city Manhattan. But, so far from bringing back the
nomenclature to a better state, we not only find Utica, Syracuse,
Manlius, and Camillus, and the village of Geneva on Seneca Lake, with
Ithaca at its other extremity, but the village of Chittenango actually
baptized into Sullivan; and all this in the neighbourhood of the lakes
Onondago, Cayuga, and Owasco. It is as bad as the English in Van
Diemen's Land, who, if I remember rightly, have got Palmyra, Richmond,
and Jericho all in a line.
Some curious associations arise from a new nation using the language of
the old. While speculating sometimes on what the classical conceptions
can be in the minds of youths who hear every day, in the most sordid
connexion, of Rome, Utica, Carthage, Athens, Palmyra, and Troy, it
occurred to me that some of our commonest English writing must bear a
different meaning to the Americans and to us. All that is written about
cornfields, for instance, must call up pictures in their minds quite
unlike any that the poets intended to create. "Waving corn" is not the
true description to them; and one can scarcely bring one's tongue to
explain that it means "small grain." Their poetical attachments are
naturally and reasonably to their Indian corn, which is a beautiful
plant, worthy of all love and celebration. But the consequence is, that
we have not their sympathy about our sheaves, our harvest wain, our
gleaners; for though they have wheat, their harvest, _par excellence_,
is of corncobs, and their "small grain" bears about the same relation to
poetry with them as turnips with us. Then, again, there is the month of
May, about which we lose their sympathy. Over a great proportion of the
country May is one of their worst months, damp, drizzly, with intervals
of biting winds, as little fit for the climate of a poem as our windy
and dusty March. Many other such particulars might be mentioned, which
it would be a new employment to trace out.
When I traversed New-York State at a subsequent period with another
party of friends, we saw many Indians before reaching Syracuse. It was
at Oneida Castle, a village on the borders of the Oneida territory,
which was once fortified after the Indian fashion, whence its formidable
name. We saw in such close neighbourhood as to cause many strange
reflections, the Episcopalian church built for the Indians of the
vicinity, who are declared to be reclaimed from idolatry and their
ancient Council Grove, where they met to think their own thoughts and
say their own sayings. This grove is a fine clump of twenty-seven
butternut-trees. We passed through the village on the day when the
Indians had all come in to receive their annual government allowance of
seven dollars a head. Two men were drunk; the rest looked sober enough.
The squaws were neatly dressed in blue pantaloons edged with white, and
had clean blankets over their shoulders. The babies looked fat and
lively. One squaw had her infant lashed to a board at her back. When we
stopped to water the horses we saw several boys with bows and arrows,
and Dr. F. made them understand by signs that any one who could strike a
quarter dollar which he would fix on a post should have it. He made a
notch in the post of a shed, and placed his coin, and forthwith the
arrows flew like hail. One struck deep into a post, and we saw how
easily fatal this weapon might be. An old Indian or two watched the
sport, and assumed the superintendence. The coin fell, and Dr. F. was
going to deliver it to the claimant, when an old Indian came forward
with "No, no." He showed by signs that the coin had fallen, not from its
being struck, but from the post having been shaken. The quarter dollar
was put up again, and soon after struck and bent in the middle by the
arrow of a youth, who looked as happy with his prize as if he had
regained a tract of his native wood. The party gave us some very bright
looks as we drove away.
In a hotel on this road I found a Sabbath-school history of Lady Jane
Grey, compiled obviously for the purpose of prejudicing the reader's
mind against the Catholics. Among other wise things in it there was an
explanation that the heroine was called "Lady" because she was related
to the king; and people are sometimes called so in England. A clear idea
to give the American youth of our English peerage!
We left Syracuse at dawn; and this was the morning when, finding
ourselves too hungry to proceed to Skaneatles without food, we were
treated to that abundant breakfast, so characteristically served, which
I have described in my other book.[4] No one likes to breakfast twice
over in description any more than in reality; and I therefore say
nothing about Elbridge here. The greater part of this day, and some of
the next, was spent at Auburn in viewing the prison, walking about the
town, and driving down the shores of the pretty Owasco Lake.
Footnote 4: "Society in America," vol. iii., p. 87.
The cultivation of the country now began to show the improvement which
increases all the way to Buffalo. At the head of Cayuga Lake we
travelled over the longest bridge I ever saw, even a mile and eight rods
long. It is wooden, of course, laid upon piles, and more conspicuous for
usefulness than beauty. The great ornament of this route is the village
of Geneva, reared on a terrace which overhangs Seneca Lake. The Northern
States abound in beautiful villages; but I know none more captivating
than this. A long row of handsome white and red houses, each with its
sloping garden, fronts the lake; and behind the dwellings the road is
bordered with locust-trees, which seem to imbower the place. The gardens
are more carefully cultivated than is at all common in America, and they
well repay the trouble bestowed on them. There is a college standing on
high ground above the lake, to which a natural lawn steeply descends
from the open space in front of the building. Holstein, aiddecamp to
Bolivar, was professor of modern languages in this college when I was
first at Geneva. Before my second visit he had removed to Albany. To
crown the temptations of Geneva as a place of residence, it has rather a
choice society. It has been charged with not being healthy, but I
believe this is not true. It seems to be well and speedily supplied with
literature. I saw a placard outside a bookseller's store, "Two Old Men's
Tales, price 80 cents," that is, four shillings. One of my last
interests, before I left England, had been watching over the publication
of this work; and now here it was selling at four shillings, in the back
of the State of New-York! I remarked two things more about this village;
that all the women I saw were pretty, and that a profusion of azalea
grew wild in the neighbourhood.
The road to Canandaigua ascends for a considerable distance after
leaving Geneva, and the last view of the place from above was exquisite,
imbosomed as it lay in the autumn woods, and with its blue lake
stretched behind it in the sunny atmosphere. One element in the
exhilaration of such scenes in America is the universal presence of
competence. The boys who gather about the stage do not come to beg, or
even to sell, but to amuse themselves while eating their bread and meat,
or on their way to the field. The young women all well dressed, the men
all at work or amusement, the farms all held in fee-simple, the stores
all inadequate to their custom; these things are indescribably cheering
to behold, and a never-failing source of pleasure to the traveller from
Europe. It may be a questionable comfort, but it is a comfort to think,
"if these people are not happy, it is their own fault." Whether their
minds are as easy as their fortunes, it may not be safe to affirm; but
at least the sin and sorrow of social injustice in regard to the first
necessities of life are absent.
The moon was gleaming over Canandaigua Lake when we came in sight of it,
and a golden planet dropped beneath the horizon when we took the turn
towards the village. We found that Blossom's hotel did not answer to the
favourable description which had been given us of it. This had been a
training day, and the house was so noisy with drunken soldiers, that,
when we had attained the drawing-room, we locked ourselves in till the
house should be cleared, which happened as early as nine o'clock; but we
still found the inn less comfortable than most upon the road.
The pretty village of Canandaigua is noted for its good society. It
would have given me pleasure to have been able to accept the kind
invitation of some of its inhabitants to prolong my stay now, or to
revisit it the next year; but we had promised Mr. O. to cause no delay
in getting to Niagara; and we engaged, in return for his agreeing to
stop this day, to travel all night; and I never was able to allot any
future time to this place. We saw as much of it, however, as we could in
one day.
There are many families of Scotch extraction at Canandaigua, and to this
the village owes its superiority in gardens to almost any place in the
country. We spent the greater part of the day with a gentleman who was
born in Scotland, but had settled at Canandaigua thirty-four years
before, when the place was almost a desert. He now sees himself
surrounded by handsome dwellings, trim gardens, and a highly-cultivated
society, able to command resources of books and other intellectual
luxuries to almost any extent, from the directness and ease of
communication with New-York. He had just taken possession of a splendid
new dwelling, and had presented his old one to the Episcopalian church
for a parsonage. He showed me from the top of the house, where his
dwelling had stood, where it stood now, and how it had been moved entire
in a day and a half. I think the distance could not have been much under
a mile.
After our early breakfast we were engaged till church-time in receiving
and making calls, as there was no time to be lost. We went to the
Episcopalian church with our friends, and heard a sermon which could not
please us, it was so full of dogmatism and bitterness. Our friends
insisted on entertaining the whole of our large party, and invited some
agreeable guests in addition, so that we spent a very profitable as well
as pleasant afternoon. We walked over the grounds, enjoyed the view of
the lake from the housetop, and picked up a good deal of information
about the place and neighbourhood, which might seem to the inhabitants
scarcely worthy of the name of knowledge, but which is inestimable to
the stranger as opening new departments of inquiry, and explaining much
which he did not understand before.
The stage was ordered for nine, and we returned to Blossom's for an
hour's rest before setting out on our rough night's journey.
We reached Batavia to breakfast, and soon after found ourselves on the
first piece of corduroy road we had encountered in the country. I
mention this because corduroy roads appear to have made a deep
impression on the imaginations of the English, who seem to suppose that
American roads are all corduroy. I can assure them that there is a
large variety in American roads. There are the excellent limestone roads
which stretch out in three directions from Nashville, Tennessee, and
some like them in Kentucky, on which the tourist might sketch almost
without difficulty while travelling at a rapid rate. There is quite
another sort of limestone road in Virginia, in traversing which the
stage is dragged up from shelf to shelf, some of the shelves sloping so
as to throw the passengers on one another, on either side alternately.
Then there are the rich mud roads of Ohio, through whose deep red
sloughs the stage goes slowly sousing after rain, and gently upsetting
when the rut on the one or the other side proves to be of a greater
depth than was anticipated. Then there are the sandy roads of the
pine-barrens, of an agreeable consistency after rain, but very heavy in
dry weather. Then there is the ridge road, running parallel with a part
of Lake Ontario, and supposed to be the edge of what was once its basin.
The level terrace thus provided by Nature offered the foundation of an
admirable road, one of the best in the states. Lastly, there is the
corduroy road, happily of rare occurrence, where, if the driver is
merciful to his passengers, he drives them so as to give them the
association of being on the way to a funeral, their involuntary sobs on
each jolt helping the resemblance; or, if he be in a hurry, he shakes
them like pills in a pillbox. But the American drivers are a class of
men marked by that merciful temper which naturally accompanies genius.
They are men who command admiration equally by their perfection in their
art, their fertility of resource, and their patience with their
passengers. I was never upset in a stage but once during all my travels;
and the worse the roads were, the more I was amused at the variety of
devices by which we got on, through difficulties which appeared
insurmountable, and the more I was edified at the gentleness with which
our drivers treated female fears and fretfulness.
By this time a solitary Indian might be frequently seen standing on a
heap of stones by the roadside, or sleeping under a fence. There is
something which rivets the eye of the stranger in the grave gaze, the
lank hair, the blanket-wrapped form of the savage, as he stands
motionless. We were generally to be seen leaning out of every opening in
the stage as long as the figure remained in sight.
We issued from the corduroy road upon one on which we could easily have
performed twelve miles an hour. Houses with porches of Ionic pillars
began to be scattered by the roadside. We were obviously approaching
Buffalo. Soon the lake was visible, and then we entered the long main
street, and stopped at the entrance of the Eagle hotel.
FORT ERIE.
"That night a child might understand
The de'il had business on his hand."
BURNS.
On consulting a good map, a little promontory may be seen jutting out
into Lake Erie on the Canada shore, nearly opposite to Black Rock.
Perhaps it may be marked Fort Erie, for there Fort Erie stood.
A lady of Buffalo, who happens to be a good walker, proposed that she
and I should indulge in a ramble to Fort Erie one fine day towards the
end of October. She showed me that she was provided with stout boots, in
case of our having to cross swampy ground; and she said she believed we
might trust to getting some sort of a dinner on the Canada side, and
might therefore go unencumbered with provisions.
We set out from Buffalo soon after breakfast, and made our way over a
waste, through brush, over fences, along a natural terrace once planted
with guns, down to the ferry at Black Rock. On the way I saw one of the
less prepossessing abodes of settlers so frequently described; its
desolate appearance on the verge of the wood; its untidy garden, and the
cool, uncomfortable manners, and the lank hair, and pale, dingy
countenance of its mistress. I also heard, during our walk, some things
which make me think that Buffalo is as undesirable a place of residence
as any in the free States. It is the rendezvous of all manner of
persons; the passage through which fugitives pass from the States to
Canada, from Canada to the States, and from Europe and the Eastern
States into the wild West. Runaway slaves come here, and their owners
follow in hopes of recapturing them. Indian traders, land speculators,
and poor emigrants come here, and the most debased Indians, the
half-civilized, hang about the outskirts. No influence that the mass of
respectable inhabitants can exert can neutralize the bad effects of a
floating population like this; and the place is unavoidably a very
vicious one. A sufficient proof of this is, that ladies cannot walk
beyond the streets without the protection of a gentleman. Some excellent
English ladies opened a school in Buffalo, and, not being aware of the
peculiarities of the place, followed, with their pupils, the English
practice of taking country walks. They persevered for some time, hoping
to obtain countenance for the wholesome practice; but were compelled,
after a time, not only to give up walking, but to leave the place. It
will be understood that I do not give this as any specimen of American
towns. The corruption of Buffalo is owing chiefly to its frontier
position, and consequent liability to a vicious, transient population.
After crossing the ferry at Black Rock we pursued our walk in a
southwest direction, sometimes treading a firm sand and sometimes a
greensward washed by the fresh waters of the lake. Though we were on
British ground, we were entertained by an American woman who lived on
the lake shore close by the fort. She treated us with negus and cake
while preparing to get a dinner for us, and amused us with accounts of
how butter and eggs are smuggled into Buffalo from her neighbourhood,
these articles not being allowed to pass the custom-house. My eyes never
rested on the Canada shore without my feeling how absurd it was that
that poor country should belong to us, its poverty and hopeless
inactivity contrasting, so much to our disgrace, with the prosperous
activity of the opposite shore; but here was the climax of absurdity,
the prohibition of a free traffic in butter and eggs! What a worthy
subject of contention between two great nations, the one breaking the
laws to provide Buffalo with butter and eggs, and the preventive force
of the other exercised in opposition!
Our hostess was sewing when we went in, amusing herself meanwhile with
snatches of reading from "Peter Parley," which lay open before her. She
put away her work to cook for us, conversing all the while, and by no
means sorry, I fancy, to have the amusement of a little company. She
gave us tea, beefsteak, hot rolls and butter, honeycomb, and preserved
plums and crab-apples. Immediately after dinner I went out to the fort,
my friend promising to follow.
The thickness of the remaining fragments of the walls shows the fort to
have been substantially built. It was held by the Americans to the last
extremity in the war of 1814, and then blown up by a brave man to
prevent its falling into the hands of the British. He remained alone in
the fort to do the deed; and as I now beheld the desolation of the
solitude in which it stands, I felt as if I could enter into what his
feelings must have been on the last day of his life. At one moment all
had been dead silence; at the next the windows in Buffalo were blown out
by the explosion.
I sat alone beside a pool in the middle of the fort. Fragments of the
building lay tumbled around, overgrown with tall grass, and bristling
with shrubbery. Behind me was the grim forest, with the ruins of a
single deserted house standing within its shadow. Before me lay the
waste of waters, with gulls dipping and sailing. A single birch overhung
the pool beside me, and a solitary snipe, which seemed to have no fear
of me, vibrated on the top of a bulrush. I do not know that I was ever
so oppressed with a sense of solitude; and I was really glad soon to see
my friend standing on a pinnacle of the ruined wall, and beckoning me to
come up.
This afternoon she told me her wonderful story; a part of which, that
part in which the public may be said to have an interest, I am going to
relate.
At the time of the war of 1812 Mrs. W. lived in Buffalo with her father,
mother, brothers, and sisters. In 1814, just when the war was becoming
terrific on the frontier, her father and eldest brother were drowned in
crossing the neighbouring ferry. Six months after this accident the
danger of Buffalo was so great that the younger children of the family
were sent away into the country with their married sister, under the
charge of their brother-in-law, who was to return with his wagon for the
mother and two daughters who were left behind, and for the clothes of
the family. For three weeks there had been so strong an apprehension of
a descent of the Indians, the barbarous allies of the British, that the
ladies had snatched sleep with their clothes on, one watching while the
others lay down. It was with some difficulty, and after many delays,
that the wagon party got away, and there were still doubts whether it
was the safer course to go or stay. Nothing was heard of them before
night, however, and it was hoped that they were safe, and that the wagon
would come for the remaining three the next morning.
The ladies put out their lights early, as they were desired; and at
eight two of the three lay down to sleep, Mrs. W., then a girl of
sixteen, being one. At nine she was called up by the beating of a drum,
the signal that the Indians were at hand. No description can give an
idea of the loathing with which these savages were then regarded; the
mingled horror, disgust, dread, and hatred. The Indians were insidious,
dangerous, and cruel beyond example, even in the history of savage
warfare. These poor ladies had been brought up to hate them with a
deadly hatred; they were surrounded with persons burning with the
injuries inflicted by Indian revenge and barbarity; for weeks they had
lived in hourly dread of death by their hands; their strength was worn,
and their nerves shaken by the long suspense; and now the hoarse drum
woke them up with news that the hour was come. A deadly sickness
overspread their hearts as they started from their beds. They looked
from their windows, but could see nothing through the blank darkness.
They listened, but they knew that if the streets had been quiet as
death, the stealthy tread of the savages would have been inaudible.
There was a bustle in the town. Was the fight beginning? No. It was an
express sent by the scouts to say that it was a false alarm. The wornout
ladies composed their spirits, and sank to sleep again. At four they
were once more awakened by the horrid drum, and now there was a
mustering in the streets which looked as if this were no false alarm. In
the same moment the sister who was watching what passed in the street
saw by torchlight the militia part asunder and fly; and Mrs. W., who was
looking through the back window, perceived in the uncertain glimmer that
a host of savages was leaping the garden fence; leaping along the walks
to the house like so many kangaroos, but painted, and flourishing their
tomahawks. She cried out to her mother and sister, and they attempted to
fly; but there was no time. Before they could open the front door the
back windows came crashing in, and the house was crowded with yelling
savages. With their tomahawks they destroyed everything but the ladies,
who put on the most submissive air possible. The trunks containing the
clothing of the whole family stood in the hall, ready to be carried away
when the wagon should arrive. These were split to fragments by the
tomahawk. These wretches had actually met the wagon with the rest of
the family, and turned it back; but the brother-in-law, watching his
opportunity, wheeled off from the road when his savage guards were
somehow engaged, and escaped.
The ladies were seized, and, as Mrs. W. claimed protection, they were
delivered into the charge of some squaws to be driven to the British
camp. It was unpleasant enough the being goaded on through such a scene
by savage women, as insolent
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