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Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 2 (of 2)

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Title: Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 2 (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 2 (OF 2) ***

RETROSPECT

OF

WESTERN TRAVEL.

BY

HARRIET MARTINEAU,

AUTHOR OF "SOCIETY IN AMERICA," "ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY," ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY SAUNDERS AND OTLEY

NEW-YORK:

SOLD BY HARPER & BROTHERS.

1838.




CONTENTS

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.


                                                        Page
  Mississippi Voyage                                      5

  Compromise                                             26

  Cincinnati                                             35

  Probation                                              57

  The Natural Bridge                                     65

  Colonel Burr                                           69

  Villages                                               78

  Cambridge Commencement                                 91

  The White Mountains                                   108

  Channing                                              117

  Mutes and Blind                                       128

  Nahant                                                155

  Signs of the Times in Massachusetts                   159

  Hot and Cold Weather                                  169

  Originals                                             186

  Lake George                                           221

  Cemeteries                                            227




RETROSPECT

OF

WESTERN TRAVEL.


MISSISSIPPI VOYAGE.


    "That it was full of monsters who devoured canoes as well as men;
    that the devil stopped its passage, and sunk all those who ventured
    to approach the place where he stood; and that the river itself at
    last was swallowed up in the bottomless gulf of a tremendous
    whirlpool."--_Quarterly Review._

        "Hic ver purpureum: varios hic flumina circum
        Fundit humus flores: hic candida populus antro
        Imminet, et lentæ texunt umbracula vites."

                                                                 VIRGIL.


About four o'clock in the afternoon of the 6th of May we were convoyed,
by a large party of friends, to the "Henry Clay," on board of which
accommodations had been secured for us by great exertion on the part of
a fellow-voyager. The "Henry Clay" had the highest reputation of any
boat on the river, having made ninety-six trips without accident; a rare
feat on this dangerous river. As I was stepping on board, Judge P. said
he hoped we were each provided with a life-preserver. I concluded he was
in joke; but he declared himself perfectly serious, adding that we
should probably find ourselves the only cabin passengers unprovided with
this means of safety. We should have been informed of this before; it
was too late now. Mr. E., of our party on board, told me all that this
inquiry made me anxious to know. He had been accustomed to ascend and
descend the river annually with his family, and he made his arrangements
according to his knowledge of the danger of the navigation. It was his
custom to sit up till near the time of other people's rising, and to
sleep in the day. There are always companies of gamblers in these boats,
who, being awake and dressed during the hours of darkness, are able to
seize the boats on the first alarm of an accident in the night, and are
apt to leave the rest of the passengers behind. Mr. E. was a friend of
the captain; he was a man of gigantic bodily strength and cool temper,
every way fitted to be of use in an emergency; and the captain gave him
the charge of the boats in case of a night accident. Mr. E. told me
that, as we were particularly under his charge, his first thought in a
time of danger would be of us. He had a life-preserver, and was an
excellent swimmer, so that he had little doubt of being able to save us
in any case. He only asked us to come the instant we were called, to do
as we were bid, and to be quiet. As we looked at the stately vessel,
with her active captain, her two pilots, the crowds of gay passengers,
and all the provision for safety and comfort, it was scarcely possible
to realize the idea of danger; but we knew that the perils of this
extraordinary river, sudden and overwhelming, are not like those of the
ocean, which can be, in a great measure, guarded against by skill and
care. The utmost watchfulness cannot here provide against danger from
squalls, from changes in the channel of the river, and from the _snags_,
_planters_, and _sawyers_ (trunks of trees brought down from above by
the current, and fixed in the mud under water) which may at any moment
pierce the hull of the vessel.

Our New-Orleans friends remained with us upward of an hour, introducing
us to the captain, and to such of the passengers as they knew. Among
these were Mr. and Mrs. L., of Boston, Massachusetts. We little imagined
that afternoon how close an intimacy would grow out of this casual
meeting; how many weeks we should afterward spend in each other's
society, with still-increasing esteem and regard. The last thing one of
my friends said was that he was glad we were going, as there had been
forty cases of cholera in the city the day before.

After five o'clock the company on deck and in the cabins, who had bidden
farewell to their friends some time before, began to inquire of one
another why we were not setting off. We had found the sun too warm on
deck, and had had enough of mutual staring with the groups on the wharf;
we turned over the books, and made acquaintance with the prints in the
ladies' cabin, and then leisurely arranged our staterooms to our
liking; and still there was no symptom of departure. The captain was
obviously annoyed. It was the non-arrival of a party of passengers which
occasioned the delay. A multitude of Kentuckians and other western men
had almost forced their way on board as deck-passengers; men who had
come down the river in flatboats with produce, who were to work their
way up again by carrying wood at the wooding-places, morning and
evening, to supply the engine fire. These men, like others, prefer a
well-managed to a perilous boat, and their eagerness to secure a passage
was excessive. More thronged in after the captain had declared that he
was full; more were bustling on the wharf, and still the expected party
did not come. The captain ordered the plank to be taken up which formed
a communication with the shore. Not till six o'clock was it put down for
the dilatory passengers, who did not seem to be aware of the
inconvenience they had occasioned. They were English. A man on the wharf
took advantage of the plank being put down to come on board in spite of
prohibition. He went with his bundle to the spot on the second deck
which he chose for a sleeping-place, and immediately lay down, without
attracting particular notice from any one.

We braved the heat on the hurricane deck for the sake of obtaining last
views of New-Orleans. The city soon became an indistinguishable mass of
buildings lying in the swamp, yet with something of a cheerful air, from
the brightness of the sun. The lofty Cotton-press, so familiar to the
eye of every one acquainted with that region, was long visible amid the
windings of the river, which seemed to bring us quite near the city
again when we thought we should see it no more.

At seven we were summoned to supper, and obtained a view of the company
in whose society we were to pass the next ten days. There was a great
mixture. There was a physician from New-York, with his wife and a friend
or two; an ultra-exclusive party. There were Mr. and Mrs. B., also from
New-York, amiable elderly people, with some innocent peculiarities, and
showing themselves not the less mindful of other people from taking
great care of each other. There was the party that had kept the captain
waiting, some of them very agreeable; and the L.'s, whom it would have
been a privilege to meet anywhere. There were long trains of young men,
so many as to extinguish all curiosity as to who they were and where
they came from; and a family party belonging to the West, father,
mother, grandmother, and six children, who had a singular gift of
squalling; and their nurses, slaves. These are all that I distinctly
remember among the multitude that surrounded the almost interminable
table in the cabin. This table, long as it was, would not hold all the
company. Many had to wait till seats were vacated, and yet we were to go
on receiving passengers all the way to Natchez.

We took in more this evening. After supper we hastened again to the
hurricane deck, where the air was breathing cool, and, to our great joy,
strong enough to relieve us from moschetoes. The river was lined with
plantations of cotton and sugar, as it continued to be for two hundred
miles farther. Almost every turn of the mighty stream disclosed a
sugarhouse of red brick, with a centre and wings, all much alike. Groups
of slaves, most of them nearly naked, were chopping wood, or at other
kinds of toil along the shore. As the twilight melted into the golden
moonlight of this region, I saw sparkles among the reeds on the margin
of the stream. It did not occur to me what they were till I saw a horse
galloping in a meadow, and apparently emitting gleams of fire. I then
knew that I at length saw fireflies. One presently alighted on the linen
coat of a gentleman standing beside me, where it spread its gleam over a
space as large as the palm of my hand, making the finest of the threads
distinctly visible.

In a dark recess of the shore a large fire suddenly blazed up, and
disclosed a group of persons standing on the brink of the stream. Our
boat neared the shore, for this was a signal from a party who had
secured their passage with us. Night after night I was struck with the
same singular combination of lights which I now beheld; the moonlight,
broad and steady; the blazing brands, sometimes on the shore, and
sometimes on board the flatboats we met; and the glancing fireflies.

When we went down for the night we had our first experience of the
crying of the little H.'s. They were indefatigable children; when one
became quiet, another began; and, among them, they kept up the squall
nearly the twenty-four hours round. Their mother scolded them; their
nurses humoured them; and, between these two methods of management,
there was no peace for anybody within hearing. There was a good deal of
trampling overhead too. Many of the deck passengers had to sleep in the
open air, on the hurricane deck, from their being no room for them
below; and, till they had settled themselves, sleep was out of the
question for those whose staterooms were immediately beneath. At length,
however, all was quiet but the rumbling of the engine, and we slept.

When I went on deck in the morning, before six, I was privately told by
a companion that the man who had last forced his way on board had died
of cholera in the night, and had been laid under a tree at the
wooding-place a few minutes before. Never was there a lovelier morning
for a worn wretch to lie down to his long sleep. The captain
particularly desired that the event should be passed over in entire
silence, as he was anxious that there should be no alarm about the
disease on board the boat. The poor man had, as I have mentioned, lain
down in his place as soon as he came among us. He lay unobserved till
two in the morning, when he roused the neighbour on each side of him.
They saw his state at a glance, and lost not a moment in calling down
the New-York physician; but, before this gentleman could get to him, the
sick man died. His body was handed over to the people at the
wooding-place, and buried in the cheerful morning sunshine. We sped away
from that lonely grave as if we were in a hurry to forget it; and when
we met at breakfast, there was mirth and conversation, and conventional
observance, just as if death had not been among us in the night. This
was no more than a quickening of the process by which man drops out of
life, and all seems to go on as if he had never been: only seems,
however. Even in this case, where the departed had been a stranger to us
all, and had sunk from amid us in eight hours, I believe there were few
or no hearts untouched, either by sorrow for him or fear for themselves.
We were none of us as we should have been if this his brief connexion
with us had never existed.

All the morning we were passing plantations, and there were houses along
both banks at short intervals; sometimes the mansions of planters,
sometimes sugarhouses, sometimes groups of slave-dwellings, painted or
unpainted, standing under the shade of sycamores, magnolias, live oaks,
or Pride-of-India trees. Many dusky gazing figures of men with the axe,
and women with the pitcher, would have tempted the pencil of an artist.
The fields were level and rich-looking, and they were invariably bounded
by the glorious forest. Towards noon we perceived by the number of
sailing-boats that we were near some settlement, and soon came upon
Donaldsonville, a considerable village, with a large unfinished
Statehouse, where the legislature of Louisiana once sat, which was
afterward removed to New-Orleans, whence it has never come back. Its
bayou boasts a steamer, by which planters in the south back-country are
conveyed to their estates on leaving the Mississippi.

We now felt ourselves sufficiently at home to decide upon the
arrangement of our day. The weather was too hot to let the fatigues of
general conversation be endurable for many hours together; and there was
little in the general society of the vessel to make us regret this. We
rose at five or a little later, the early morning being delicious.
Breakfast was ready at seven, and after it I apparently went to my
stateroom for the morning; but this was not exactly the case. I observed
that the laundresses hung their counterpanes and sheets to dry in the
gallery before my window, and that, therefore, nobody came to that
gallery. It struck me that this must be the coolest part of the boat,
such an evaporation as was perpetually going on. I therefore stepped out
of my window, with my book, work, or writing; and, sitting under the
shade of a counterpane, and in full view of the river and western shore,
spent in quiet some of the pleasantest mornings I have ever known. I was
now and then reminded of the poor parson, pitied by Mrs. Barbauld:--

                          "Or crossing lines
    Shall mar thy musings, as the wet cold sheet
    Flaps in thy face abrupt;"

and sometimes an unsympathizing laundress would hang up an impenetrable
veil between me and some object on shore that I was eagerly watching;
but these little inconveniences were nothing in the way of
counterbalance to the privilege of retirement. I took no notice of the
summons to luncheon at eleven, and found that dinner, at half past one,
came far too soon. We all thought it our duty to be sociable in the
afternoon, and, therefore, took our seats in the gallery on the other
side of the boat, where we were daily introduced to members of our
society who before were strangers, and spent two or three hours in
conversation or at chess. It was generally very hot, and the
conversation far from lively, consisting chiefly of complaints of the
heat or the glare; of the children or of the dulness of the river;
varied by mutual interrogation about where everybody was going. A remark
here and there was amusing; as when a lady described Canada as the place
where people row boats, and sing, "Row, brothers, row," and all that.
When the heat began to decline, we went to the hurricane deck to watch
the beauty of evening stealing on; and, as no one but ourselves and our
most esteemed acquaintance seemed to care for the wider view we here
obtained, we had the place to ourselves, except that some giddy boys
pursued their romps here, and kept us in a perpetual panic, lest, in
their racing, they should run overboard. There is no guard whatever, and
the leads overhang the water. Mr. E. said he never allowed his boys to
play here, but gave them the choice of playing below or sitting still on
the top.

After tea we came up again on fine evenings; walked for an hour or two,
and watched the glories of the night, till the deck passengers appeared
with their blankets and compelled us to go down.

Nothing surprised me more than to see that very few of the ladies looked
out of the boat unless their attention was particularly called. All the
morning the greater number sat in their own cabin, working collars,
netting purses, or doing nothing; all the evening they amused themselves
in the other cabin dancing or talking. And such scenery as we were
passing! I was in perpetual amazement that, with all that has been said
of the grandeur of this mighty river, so little testimony has been borne
to its beauty.

On the evening of our first day on the Mississippi, Mr. E. told me of
the imminent danger he and his lady had twice been in on board
steamboats. His stories give an idea of the perils people should make up
their minds to on such excursions as ours. On their wedding journey, the
E.'s, accompanied by their relative, Judge H., went down the Alabama
river. One night, when Mr. E. was just concluding the watch I have
described him as keeping, the boat ran foul of another, and parted in
two, beginning instantly to sink. Mr. E. roused his lady from her sleep,
made her thrust her feet into his boots, threw his cloak over her, and
carried her up to the deck, not doubting that, from her being the only
lady on board, she would be the first to be accommodated in the boat.
But the boat had been seized by some gamblers who were wide awake and
ready dressed when the accident happened, and they had got clear of the
steamer. Mr. E. shouted to them to take in the lady, only the lady; he
promised that neither Judge H. nor himself should enter the boat. They
might have come back for every one on board with perfect safety; but he
could not move them. Judge H., meanwhile, had secured a plank, on which
he hoped to seat Mrs. E., while Mr. E. and himself, both good swimmers,
might push it before them to the shore if they could escape the eddy
from the sinking vessel. Mr. E. heard next the voice of an old gentleman
whom he knew, who was in the boat, and trying to persuade the fellows to
turn back. Mr. E. shouted to him to shoot the wretches if they would not
come. The old gentleman took the hint, and held a pistol (which,
however, was not loaded) at the head of the man who was steering; upon
which they turned back and took in, not only Mrs. E., her party, and
their luggage, but everybody else, so that no lives were lost. Mrs. E.
lost nothing but the clothes she had left by her bedside. She was
perfectly quiet and obedient to directions the whole time. The vessel
sank within a quarter of an hour.

A few years after the E.'s went up the Mississippi with their little
girl. Some fine ladies on board wondered at Mrs. E. for shaking hands
with a rude farmer with whom she had some acquaintance, and it appears
probable that the farmer was aware of what passed. When Mr. E. was going
down to bed, near day, he heard a deck passenger say to another, in a
tone of alarm, "I say, John, look here!" "What's the matter?" asked Mr.
E. "Nothing, sir, only the boat's sinking." Mr. E. ran to the spot, and
found the news too true. The vessel had been pierced by a snag, and the
water was rushing in by hogsheads. The boat seemed likely to be at the
bottom in ten minutes. Mr. E. handed the men a pole, and bade them
thrust their bedding into the breach, which they did with much
cleverness, till the carpenter was ready with a better plug. The horrid
words, "the boat's sinking," had, however, been overheard, and the
screams of the ladies were dreadful. The uproar above and below was
excessive; but through it all was heard the voice of the rough farmer,
saying, "Where's E.'s girl? I shall save her first." The boat was run
safely ashore, and the fright was the greatest damage sustained.

We passed Baton Rouge, on the east Louisiana bank, on the afternoon of
this day. It stands on the first eminence we had seen on these shores,
and the barracks have a handsome appearance from the water. A
summer-house, perched on a rising ground, was full of people, amusing
themselves with smoking and looking abroad upon the river; and, truly,
they had an enviable station. A few miles farther on we went ashore at
the wooding-place, and I had my first walk in the untrodden forest. The
height of the trees seemed incredible as we stood at their foot and
looked up. It made us feel suddenly dwarfed. We stood in a crowd of
locust and cottonwood trees, elm, maple, and live oak; and they were all
bound together by an inextricable tangle of creepers, which seemed to
forbid our penetrating many paces into the forest beyond where the
woodcutters had intruded. I had a great horror of going too far, and was
not sorry to find it impossible; it would be so easy for the boat to
leave two or three passengers behind without finding it out, and no fate
could be conceived more desolate. I looked into the woodcutters'
dwelling, and hardly knew what to think of the hardihood of any one who
could embrace such a mode of life for a single week on any
consideration. Amid the desolation and abominable dirt, I observed a
moscheto bar--a muslin curtain--suspended over the crib. Without this,
the dweller in the wood would be stung almost to madness or death before
morning. This curtain was nearly of a saffron colour; the floor of the
hut was of damp earth, and the place so small that the wonder was how
two men could live in it. There was a rude enclosure round it to keep
off intruders, but the space was grown over with the rankest grass and
yellow weeds. The ground was swampy all about, up to the wall of
untouched forest which rendered this spot inaccessible except from the
river. The beautiful squills-flower grew plentifully, the only relief to
the eye from the vastness and rankness. Piles of wood were built up on
the brink of the river, and were now rapidly disappearing under the
activity of our deck-passengers, who were passing in two lines to and
from the vessel. The bell from the boat tinkled through the wilderness
like a foreign sound. We hastened on board, and I watched the
woodcutters with deep pity as they gazed after us for a minute or two,
and then turned into their forlorn abode.

We were in hopes of passing the junction of the Red River with the
Mississippi before dark, but found that we were not to see the Red River
at all; a channel having been partly found and partly made between an
island and the eastern shore, which saves a circuit of many miles. In
this narrow channel the current ran strong against us; and as we
laboured through it in the evening light, we had opportunity to observe
every green meadow, every solitary dwelling which presented itself in
the intervals of the forest. We grew more and more silent as the shades
fell, till we emerged from the dark channel into the great expanse of
the main river, glittering in the moonlight. It was like putting out to
sea.

Just before bedtime we stopped at Sarah Bayou to take in still more
passengers. The steward complained that he was coming to an end of his
mattresses, and that there was very little more room for gentlemen to
lie down, as they were already ranged along the tables, as well as all
over the floor. So much for the reputation of the "Henry Clay."

The next morning, the 8th, I was up in time to see the scramble for milk
that was going on at the wooding-place. The moment we drew to the land
and the plank was put out, the steward leaped on shore, and ran to the
woodcutters' dwelling, pitcher in hand. The servants of the gentry on
board followed, hoping to get milk for breakfast; but none succeeded
except the servant of an exclusive. This family had better have been
without milk to their coffee than have been tempted by it to such bad
manners as they displayed at the breakfast-table. Two young ladies who
had come on board the night before, who suspected nothing of private
luxuries at a public table, and were not aware of the scarcity of milk,
asked a waiter to hand them a pitcher which happened to belong to the
exclusives. The exclusives' servant was instantly sent round to take it
from them, and not a word of explanation was offered.

The woodcutters' dwelling before us was very different from the one we
had seen the night before. It was a good-sized dwelling, with a
cottonwood tree before it, casting a flickering shadow upon the porch,
and behind it was a well-cleared field. The children were decently
dressed, and several slaves peeped out from the places where they were
pursuing their avocations. A passenger brought me a beautiful bunch of
dwarf-roses which he had gathered over the garden paling. The piles of
wood prepared for the steamboats were enormous, betokening that there
were many stout arms in the household.

This morning we seemed to be lost among islands in a waste of waters.
The vastness of the river now began to bear upon our imaginations. The
flatboats we met looked as if they were at the mercy of the floods,
their long oars bending like straws in the current. They are so
picturesque, however, and there is something so fanciful in the canopy
of green boughs under which the floating voyagers repose during the heat
of the day, that some of us proposed building a flatboat on the Ohio,
and floating down to New-Orleans at our leisure.

Adams Fort, in the state of Mississippi, afforded the most beautiful
view we had yet seen on the river. The swelling hills, dropped with
wood, closed in a reach of the waters, and gave them the appearance of a
lake. White houses nestled in the clumps; goats, black and white,
browsed on the points of the many hills; and a perfect harmony of
colouring dissolved the whole into something like a dream. This last
charm is as striking to us as any in the vast wilderness through which
the "Father of Waters" takes his way. Even the turbid floods, varying
their hues with the changes of light and shadow, are a fit element of
the picture, and no one wishes them other than they are.

In the afternoon we ran over a log; the vessel trembled to her centre;
the ladies raised their heads from their work; the gentlemen looked
overboard; and I saw our yawl snagged as she was careering at the stern.
The sharp end of the log pricked through her bottom as if she had been
made of brown paper. She was dragged after us, full of water, till we
stopped at the evening wooding-place, when I ran to the hurricane deck
to see her pulled up on shore and mended. There I found the wind so high
that it appeared to me equally impossible to keep my seat and to get
down; my feather-fan blew away, and I expected to follow it myself--so
strangling was the gust--one of the puffs which take the voyager by
surprise amid the windings of this forest-banked river. The yawl was
patched up in a surprisingly short time. The deck passengers clustered
round to lend a hand, and the blows of the mallet resounded fitfully
along the shore as the gust came and passed over.

Every one wished to reach and leave Natchez before dark, and this was
accomplished. As soon as we came in sight of the bluff on which the
city is built, we received a hint from the steward to lock our
staterooms and leave nothing about, as there was no preventing the
townspeople from coming on board. We went on shore. No place can be more
beautifully situated; on a bend of the Mississippi, with a low platform
on which all the ugly traffic of the place can be transacted; bluffs on
each side; a steep road up to the town; and a noble prospect from
thence. The streets are sloping, and the drains are remarkably well
built; but the place is far from healthy, being subject to the yellow
fever. It is one of the oldest of the southern cities, though with a
new, that is, a perpetually-shifting population. It has handsome
buildings, especially the Agricultural Bank, the Courthouse, and two or
three private dwellings. Main-street commands a fine view from the
ascent, and is lined with Pride-of-India trees. I believe the
landing-place at Natchez has not improved its reputation since the
descriptions which have been given of it by former travellers. When we
returned to the boat after an hour's walk, we found the captain very
anxious to clear his vessel of the townspeople and get away. The cabin
was half full of the intruders, and the heated, wearied appearance of
our company at tea bore testimony to the fatigues of the afternoon.

In the evening only one firefly was visible; the moon was misty, and
faint lightning flashed incessantly. Before morning the weather was so
cold that we shut our windows, and the next day there was a fire in the
ladies' cabin. Such are the changes of temperature in this region.

The quantity of driftwood that we encountered above Natchez was amazing.
Some of it was whirling slowly down with the current, but much more was
entangled in the bays of the islands, and detained in incessant
accumulation. It can scarcely be any longer necessary to explain that it
is a mistake to suppose this driftwood to be the foundation of the
islands of the Mississippi. Having itself no foundation, it could not
serve any such purpose. The islands are formed by deposites of soil
brought down from above by the strong force of the waters. The
accumulation proceeds till it reaches the surface, when the seeds
contained in the soil, or borne to it by the winds, sprout, and bind the
soft earth by a network of roots, thus providing a basis for a stronger
vegetation every year. It is no wonder that superficial observers have
fallen into this error respecting the origin of the new lands of the
Mississippi, the rafts of driftwood look so like incipient islands; and
when one is fixed in a picturesque situation, the gazer longs to heap
earth upon it, and clothe it with shrubbery.

When we came in sight of Vicksburg the little H.'s made a clamour for
some new toys. Their mother told them how very silly they were; what a
waste of money it would be to buy such toys as they would get at
Vicksburg; that they would suck the paint, &c. Strange to say, none of
these considerations availed anything. Somebody had told the children
that toys were to be bought at Vicksburg, and all argument was to them
worth less than the fact. The contention went on till the boat stopped,
when the mother yielded, with the worst possible grace, and sent a slave
nurse on shore to buy toys. An hour after we were again on our way, the
lady showed me, in the presence of the children, the wrecks of the toys;
horses' legs, dogs' heads, the broken body of a wagon, &c., all, whether
green, scarlet, or yellow, sucked into an abominable daub. She
complained bitterly of the children for their folly, and particularly
for their waste of her money, as if the money were not her concern, and
the fun theirs!

We walked through three or four streets of Vicksburg, but the captain
could not allow us time to mount the hill. It is a raw-looking,
straggling place, on the side of a steep ascent, the steeple of the
Courthouse magnificently overlooking a huge expanse of wood and a deep
bend of the river. It was three months after this time that the
tremendous Vicksburg massacre took place; a deed at which the whole
country shuddered, and much of the world beyond. In these disorders
upward of twenty persons were executed, without trial by jury or
pretence of justice. Some of the sufferers were gamblers, and men of bad
character otherwise; some were wholly innocent of any offence whatever;
and I believe it is now generally admitted that the plot for rousing the
slaves to insurrection, which was the pretext for the whole proceeding,
never had any real existence. It was the product of that peculiar
faculty of imagination which is now monopolized by the slaveholder, as
of old by imperial tyrants. Among the sufferers in this disturbance was
a young farmer of Ohio, I think, who was proceeding to New-Orleans on
business, and was merely resting on the eastern bank of the river on his
way. I have seldom seen anything more touching than his brief letter to
his parents, informing them that he was to be executed the next morning.
Nothing could be quieter in its tone than this letter; and in it he
desired that his family would not grieve too much for his sudden death,
for he did not know that he could ever feel more ready for the event
than then. His old father wrote an affecting appeal to the Governor of
Mississippi, desiring, not vengeance, for that could be of no avail to a
bereaved parent, but investigation, for the sake of his son's memory and
the future security of innocent citizens. The governor did not recognise
the appeal. The excuse made for him was that he could not; that if the
citizens of the state preferred Lynch law to regular justice, the
governor could do nothing against the will of the majority. The effect
of barbarism like this is not to justify the imputation of its excesses
to the country at large, but to doom the region in which it prevails to
be peopled by barbarians. The lovers of justice and order will avoid the
places where they are set at naught.

Every day reminded us of the superiority of our vessel, for we passed
every boat going the same way, and saw some so delayed by accidents that
we wondered what was to become of the passengers; at least, of their
patience. A disabled boat was seen on the morning of this day, the 9th,
crowded with Kentuckians, some of whom tried to win their way on board
the "Henry Clay" by witticisms; but our captain was inexorable,
declaring that we could hold no more. Then we passed the Ohio steamboat,
which left New-Orleans three days before us, but was making her way very
slowly, with cholera on board.

The 10th was Sunday. The children roared as usual; but the black damsels
were dressed; there was no laundry-work going on, nor fancy-work in the
cabin; and there was something of a Sunday look about the place. As I
was sitting by my stateroom window, sometimes reading and sometimes
looking out upon the sunny river, green woods, and flatboats that keep
no Sabbath, a black servant entered to say that Mr. E. desired me "to
come to the preachin'." I thought it unlikely that Mr. E. should be
concerned in the affair, and knew too well what the service was likely
to be in such a company, and conducted by such a clergyman as was to
officiate, to wish to attend. I found afterward that the service had
been held against the wishes of the captain, Mr. E., and many others;
and that it had better, on all accounts, have been omitted. Some
conversation which the young clergyman had thrust upon me had exhibited
not only his extreme ignorance of the religious feelings and convictions
of Christians who differed from him, but no little bitterness of
contempt towards them; and he was, therefore, the last person to conduct
the worship of a large company whose opinions and sentiments were almost
as various as their faces. This reminds me that an old lady on board
asked an acquaintance of mine what my religion was. On being told that I
was a Unitarian, she exclaimed, "She had better have done with that; she
won't find it go down with us." It never occurred to me before to
determine my religion by what would please people on the Mississippi.

Before breakfast one morning, when I was walking on the hurricane deck,
I was joined by a young man who had been educated at West Point, and who
struck me as being a fair and creditable specimen of American youth. He
told me that he was very poor, and described his difficulties from being
disappointed of the promotion he had expected on leaving West Point. He
was now turning to the law; and he related by what expedients he meant
to obtain the advantage of two years' study of law before settling in
Maine. His land-travelling was done on foot, and there was no pretension
to more than his resources could command. His manners were not so good
as those of American youths generally, and he was not, at first, very
fluent, but expressed himself rather in schoolboy phrase. His
conversation was, however, of a host of metaphysicians as well as
lawyers; and I thought he would never have tired of analyzing Bentham,
from whom he passed on, like every one who talks in America about books
or authors, to Bulwer, dissecting his philosophy and politics very
acutely. He gave me clear and sensible accounts of the various operation
of more than one of the United States institutions, and furnished me
with some very acceptable information. After our walk and conversation
had lasted an hour and a half, we were summoned to breakfast, and I
thought we had earned it.

During the morning I heard a friend of mine, in an earnest but amused
tone, deprecating a compliment from two slave women who were trying to
look most persuasive. They were imploring her to cut out a gown for each
of them like the one she wore. They were so enormously fat and
slovenly, and the lady's dress fitted so neatly, as to make the idea of
the pattern being transferred to them most ludicrous. As long as we were
on board, however, I believe they never doubted my friend's power of
making them look like herself if she only would; and they continued to
cast longing glances on the gown.

On the 11th we overtook another disabled steamboat, which had been lying
forty-eight hours with both her cylinders burst; unable, of course, to
move a yard. We towed her about two miles to a settlement, and the
captain agreed to take on board two young ladies who were anxious to
proceed, and a few deck-passengers.

The scenery was by this time very wild. These hundreds of miles of level
woods, and turbid, rushing waters, and desert islands, are oppressive to
the imagination. Very few dwellings were visible. We went ashore in the
afternoon, just for the sake of having been in Arkansas. We could
penetrate only a little way through the young cottonwood and the tangled
forest, and we saw nothing.

In the evening we touched at Helena, and more passengers got on board,
in defiance of the captain's shouts of refusal. He declared that the
deck was giving way under the crowd, and that he would not go near the
shore again, but anchor in the middle of the river, and send his boats
for provisions.

While I was reading on the morning of the 12th, the report of a rifle
from the lower deck summoned me to look out. There were frequent
rifle-shots, and they always betokened our being near shore; generally
under the bank, where the eye of the sportsman was in the way of
temptation from some object in the forest. We were close under the
eastern bank, whence we could peep through the massy beech-trunks into
the dark recesses of the woods. For two days our eyes had rested on
scenery of this kind; now it was about to change. We were approaching
the fine Chickasaw bluffs, below Memphis, in the State of Tennessee. The
captain expressed a wish that none of the passengers would go on shore
at Memphis, where the cholera was raging. He intended to stay only a few
minutes for bread and vegetables, and would not admit a single passenger
on any consideration. We did not dream of disregarding his wishes, if,
indeed, the heat had left us any desire to exert ourselves; but Mr. B.
was so anxious that his lady should mount the bluff, that she yielded
to his request; though, stout and elderly as she was, the ascent would
have been a serious undertaking on a cool afternoon and with plenty of
time. The entire company of passengers was assembled to watch the
objects on shore; the cotton bales piled on the top of the bluff; the
gentleman on horseback on the ridge, who was eying us in return; the old
steamer, fitted up as a store, and moored by the bank, for the chance of
traffic with voyagers; and, above all, the slaves, ascending and
descending the steep path, with trays of provisions on their heads, the
new bread and fresh vegetables with which we were to be cheered. Of
course, all eyes were fixed upon Mr. and Mrs. B. as they attempted the
ascent. The husband lent his best assistance, and dragged his poor lady
about one third of the way up, when she suddenly found that she could
not go a step forward or back; she stuck, in a most finished attitude of
panic, with her face to the cliff and her back to us, her husband
holding her up by one arm, and utterly at a loss what to do next. I hope
they did not hear the shout of laughter which went up from our vessel. A
stout boatman ran to their assistance, and enabled the lady to turn
round, after which she came down without accident. She won everybody's
esteem by her perfect good-humour on the occasion. Heated and flurried
as she was, she was perfectly contented with having tried to oblige her
husband. This was her object, and she gained it; and more, more than she
was aware of, unless, indeed, she found that her fellow-passengers were
more eager to give her pleasure after this adventure than before.

The town of Memphis looked bare and hot; and the bluffs, though a relief
from the level vastness on which we had been gazing for two days, are
not so beautiful as the eminences four or five hundred miles below.

The air was damp and close this night; the moon dim, the lightning blue,
and glaring incessantly, and the woodashes from the chimneys very
annoying. It was not weather for the deck; and, seeing that Mr. E. and
two other gentlemen wanted to make up a rubber, I joined them. In our
well-lighted cabin the lightning seemed to pour in in streams, and the
thunder soon began to crack overhead. Mrs. H. came to us, and rebuked us
for playing cards while it thundered, which she thought very
blasphemous. When our rubber was over, and I retired to the ladies'
cabin, I found that the lady had been doing something which had at
least as much levity in it. After undressing, she had put on her
life-preserver, and floundered on the floor to show how she should swim
if the boat sank. Her slaves had got under the table to laugh. They
little thought how near we might come to swimming for our lives before
morning. I believe it was about three hours after midnight when I was
awakened by a tremendous and unaccountable noise overhead. It was most
like ploughing through a forest, and crashing all the trees down. The
lady who shared my stateroom was up, pale and frightened, and lights
were moving in the ladies' cabin. I did not choose to cause alarm by
inquiry; but the motion of the boat was so strange, that I thought it
must waken every one on board. The commotion lasted, I should think,
about twenty minutes, when I suppose it subsided, for I fell asleep. In
the morning I was shown the remains of hailstones, which must have been
of an enormous size, to judge by what was left of them at the end of
three hours. Mr. E. told me that we had been in the utmost danger for
above a quarter of an hour, from one of the irresistible squalls to
which this navigation is liable. Both the pilots had been blown away
from the helm, and were obliged to leave the vessel to its fate. It was
impossible to preserve a footing for an instant on the top; and the poor
passengers who lay there had attempted to come down, bruised with the
tremendous hail (which caused the noise we could not account for), and
seeing, with the pilot, no other probability than that the hurricane
deck would be blown completely away; but there was actually no standing
room for these men, and they had to remain above and take their chance.
The vessel drove madly from side to side of the dangerous channel, and
the pilots expected every moment that she would founder. I find that we
usually made much more way by night than by day, the balance of the boat
being kept even while the passengers are equally dispersed and quiet,
instead of running from side to side, or crowding the one gallery and
deserting the other.

I was on the lookout for alligators all the way up the river, but could
never see one. A deck passenger declared that a small specimen slipped
off a log into the water one day when nobody else was looking; but his
companions supposed he might be mistaken, as alligators are now rarely
seen in this region. Terrapins were very numerous, sometimes sunning
themselves on floating logs, and sometimes swimming, with only their
pert little heads visible above water. Wood-pigeons might be seen
flitting in the forest when we were so close under the banks as to pry
into the shades, and the beautiful blue jay often gleamed before our
eyes. No object was more striking than the canoes which we frequently
saw, looking fearfully light and frail amid the strong current. The
rower used a spoon-shaped paddle, and advanced with amazing swiftness;
sometimes crossing before our bows, sometimes darting along under the
bank, sometimes shooting across a track of moonlight. Very often there
was only one person in the canoe, as in the instance I have elsewhere
mentioned[1] of a woman who was supposed to be going on a visit twenty
or thirty miles up the stream. I could hardly have conceived of a
solitude so intense as this appeared to me, the being alone on that
rushing sea of waters, shut in by untrodden forests; the slow fishhawk
wheeling overhead, and perilous masses of driftwood whirling down the
current; trunks obviously uprooted by the forces of nature, and not laid
low by the hand of man. What a spectacle must our boat, with its gay
crowds, have appeared to such a solitary! what a revelation that there
was a busy world still stirring somewhere; a fact which, I think, I
should soon discredit if I lived in the depths of this wilderness, for
life would become tolerable there only by the spirit growing into
harmony with the scene, wild and solemn as the objects around it.

[Footnote 1: Society in America, vol. ii., p. 101.]

The morning after the storm the landscape looked its wildest. The clouds
were drifting away, and a sungleam came out as I was peeping into the
forest at the wooding-place. The vines look beautiful on the black
trunks of the trees after rain. Scarcely a habitation was to be seen,
and it was like being set back to the days of creation, we passed so
many islands in every stage of growth. I spent part of the morning with
the L.'s, and we were more than once alarmed by a fearful scream,
followed by a trampling and scuffling in the neighbouring gallery. It
was only some young ladies, with their work and guitar, who were in a
state of terror because some green boughs _would_ sweep over when we
were close under the bank. They could not be reassured by the gentlemen
who waited upon them, nor would they change their seats; so that we
were treated with a long series of screams, till the winding of the
channel carried us across to the opposite bank.

In the afternoon we came in sight of New Madrid, in the State of
Missouri; a scattered small place, on a green tableland. We sighed to
think how soon our wonderful voyage would be over, and at every
settlement we reached repined at being there so soon. While others went
on shore, I remained on board to see how they looked, dispersed in the
woods, grouped round the woodpiles, and seated on logs. The clergyman
urged my going, saying, "It's quite a retreat to go on shore." This
gentleman is vice-president of an educational establishment for young
ladies, where there are public exhibitions of their proficiency, and the
poor ignorant little girls take degrees. Their heads must be so stuffed
with vainglory that there can be little room for anything else.

There were threatenings of another night of storm. The vessel seemed to
labour much, and the weather was gusty, with incessant lightnings. The
pilots said that they were never in such danger on the river as for
twenty minutes of the preceding night. The captain was, however, very
thankful for a few hours of cold weather; for his boat was so
overcrowded as to make him dread, above all things, the appearance of
disease on board. Some of us went to bed early this night, expecting to
be called up to see the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi by
such light as there might be two hours after midnight. Mr. E. promised
to have me called, and on the faith of this I went to sleep at the usual
time. I had impressed him with my earnest desire not to miss this sight,
as I had seen no junction of large rivers, except that of the Tombigbee
with the Alabama. Mrs. B. would not trust to being called, but sat up,
telling her husband that it was now his turn to gratify her, and he must
come for her in good time to see the spectacle. Both she and I were
disappointed, however. When I awoke it was five o'clock, and we were
some miles into the Ohio. Mr. E. had fallen asleep, and awaked just a
minute too late to make it of any use to rouse me. Mr. B. had put his
head into his wife's room to tell her that the cabin floor was so
completely covered with sleepers that she could not possibly make her
way to the deck, and he shut the door before she could open her lips to
reply. Her lamentations were sad. "The three great rivers meeting and
all; and the little place on the point called Trinity and all; and I
having sat up for it and all! It is a bad thing on some accounts to be
married. If I had been a single woman, I could have managed it all for
myself, I know."

However, junctions became frequent now, and we saw two small ones in the
morning, to make up for having missed the large one in the night. When I
went up on deck I found the sun shining on the full Ohio, which was now
as turbid as the Mississippi, from the recent storms. The stream stood
in among the trees on either bank to a great depth and extent, it was so
swollen. The most enormous willows I ever saw overhung our deck, and the
beechen shades beyond, where the turf and unencumbered stems were
dressed in translucent green, seemed like a palace of the Dryads. How
some of us fixed our eyes on the shores of free Illinois! After nearly
five months of sojourn in slaveland, we were now in sight of a free
state once more. I saw a settler in a wild spot, looking very lonely
among the tall trees; but I felt that I would rather be that man than
the wealthiest citizen of the opposite state, who was satisfied to dwell
there among his slaves.

At eleven o'clock on this the ninth and last day of our voyage we passed
Paducah, in Kentucky, a small neat settlement on the point of junction
of the Tennessee and Ohio. Preparations were going on before our eyes
for our leaving the boat; our luggage and that of the L.'s, who joined
company with us, was brought out; cold beef and negus were provided for
us in the ladies' cabin, the final sayings were being said, and we paid
our fare, fifty dollars each, for our voyage of twelve hundred miles.
Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland river, soon appeared; and, as
we wished to ascend to Nashville without delay, we were glad to see a
small steamboat in waiting. We stepped on shore, and stood there, in
spite of a shower, for some time, watching the "Henry Clay" ploughing up
the river, and waving our handkerchiefs in answer to signals of farewell
from several of the multitude who were clustered in every part of the
noble vessel.

If there be excess of mental luxury in this life, it is surely in a
voyage up the Mississippi, in the bright and leafy month of May.




COMPROMISE.


    "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."

                                                     --_Hosea_ viii., 7.


The greatest advantage of long life, at least to those who know how and
wherefore to live, is the opportunity which it gives of seeing moral
experiments worked out, of being present at the fructification of social
causes, and of thus gaining a kind of wisdom which in ordinary cases
seems reserved for a future life. An equivalent for this advantage is
possessed by such as live in those critical periods of society when
retribution is hastened, or displayed in clear connexion with the origin
of its events. The present seems to be such an age. It is an age in
which the societies of the whole world are daily learning the
consequences of what their fathers did, the connexion of cause and
effect being too palpable to be disputed; it is an age when the active
men of the New World are beholding the results of their own early
counsels and deeds. It seems, indeed, as if the march of events were
everywhere accelerated for a time, so as to furnish some who are not
aged with a few complete pieces of experience. Some dispensation--like
the political condition of France, for instance--will still be centuries
in the working out; but in other cases--the influence of eminent men,
for example--results seem to follow more closely than in the slower and
quieter past ages of the world. It is known to all how in England, and
also in America, the men of the greatest intellectual force have sunk
from a higher to a far lower degree of influence from the want of high
morals. It seems as if no degree of talent and vigour can long avail to
keep a man eminent in either politics or literature, unless his morals
are also above the average. Selfish vanity, double-dealing, supreme
regard to expediency, are as fatal to the most gifted men in these days,
and almost as speedily fatal, as intellectual capacity to a pretender.
Men of far inferior knowledge and power rise over their heads in the
strength of honesty; and by dint of honesty (positive or comparitive)
retain the supremacy, even through a display of intellectual weakness
and error of which the fallen make their sport. This is a cheering sign
of the times, indicating that the days are past when men were possessed
by their leaders, and that the time is coming when power will be less
unfairly distributed, and held on a better tenure than it has been. It
indicates that traitors and oppressors will not, in future, be permitted
to work their will and compass their purposes at the expense of others,
till guilty will and purpose are prostrated on the threshold of
eternity. It indicates that that glorious and beautiful spectacle of
judgment may be beheld in this world which religious men have referred
to another, when the lowly shall be exalted; when, unconscious of their
dignity, they shall, with amazement, hear themselves greeted as the
blessed of the Father, and see themselves appointed to a moral
sovereignty in comparison with whose splendour

                              "Grows dim and dies
    All that this world is proud of. From their spheres
    The stars of human glory are cast down;
    Perish the roses and the flowers of kings,
    Princes, and emperors, and the crowns and palms
    Of all the mighty, withered and consumed."

However long it may be before the last shred of tinsel may be cast into
the fire, and the last chaff of false pretence winnowed away, the
revolution is good and secure as far as it goes. Moral power has begun
its long series of conquests over physical force and selfish cunning,
and the diviner part of man is a guarantee that not one inch of the
ground gained shall ever be lost. For our encouragement, we are
presented with a more condensed evidence of retribution than has
hitherto been afforded to the world. Moral causes seem to be quickened
as well as strengthened in their operation by the new and more earnest
heed which is given to them.

In the New World, however long some moral causes may be in exhibiting
their results, there have been certain deeds done which have produced
their consequences with extraordinary rapidity and an indisputable
clearness. May all men open their eyes to see them, and their hearts to
understand them!

The people of the United States were never under a greater temptation to
follow temporary expediency in preference to everlasting principle than
in the case of the admission of Missouri, with slave institutions, into
the Union. To this temptation they yielded, by a small majority of their
representatives. The final decision rested, as it happened, in the hands
of one man, Mr. Clay; but it is to the shame of the North (which had
abolished slavery) that it did so happen. The decision was made to
prefer custom and expediency to principle; it was hoped that, if the
wind were once got under confinement, something would prevent its
bursting forth as the whirlwind.

The plea of slaveholders, and a plausible one up to the year 1820, was
that slavery was not an institution of their choice or for which they
were answerable: it was an inherited institution. Since the year 1820
this plea has become hypocrisy; for in that year a deliberate vote was
passed by Congress to perpetuate slavery in the Union by admitting a new
state whose institutions had this basis. The new states northwest of the
Ohio were prohibited from introducing slavery by the very act of cession
of the land; and nothing could have been easier than to procure the
exclusion of slavery from Missouri by simply refusing to admit any new
state whose distinguishing institution was one incompatible in principle
with the principles on which the American Constitution was founded.
Missouri would undoubtedly have surrendered slavery, been admitted, and
virtuously flourished, like her neighbour Illinois. But there was
division of opinion; and, because the political device of the Union
seemed in danger, the eternal principles of justice were set aside, and
protection was deliberately pledged to slavery, not only in Missouri,
but, as a consequence, in Arkansas and Florida. The Constitution and
Declaration of Rights of Missouri, therefore, exhibit the following
singular mixture of declarations and provisions. It will be seen
afterward how they are observed.

"The general assembly shall not have power to pass laws,

"1. For the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners; or
without paying them, before such emancipation, a full equivalent for
such slaves so emancipated; and,

"2. To prevent _bonâ fide_ emigrants to this state, or actual settlers
therein, from bringing from any of the United States, or from any of
their territories, such persons as may there be deemed to be slaves, so
long as any persons of the same description are allowed to be held as
slaves by the laws of this state.

"It shall be their duty, as soon as may be, to pass such laws as may be
necessary,

"1. To prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to and settling in
this state, under any pretext whatsoever."

"Schools and the means of education shall for ever be encouraged in this
state.

"That the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.

"That the accused cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property, but
by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land.

"That cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted.

"That the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the
invaluable rights of man, and that every person may freely speak, write,
and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that
liberty."

The consequences of the compromise began to show themselves first in the
difference between the character of the population in Missouri and
Illinois, the latter of which is two years older than the former. They
lie opposite each other on the Mississippi, and both are rich in
advantages of soil, climate, and natural productions. They showed,
however, social differences from the very beginning of their independent
career, which are becoming more striking every day. Rapacious
adventurers, who know that the utmost profit of slaves is made by
working them hard on a virgin soil, began flocking to Missouri, while
settlers who preferred smaller gains to holding slaves sat down in
Illinois. When it was found, as it soon was, that slavery does not
answer so well in the farming parts of Missouri as on the new
plantations of the South, a farther difference took place. New settlers
perceived that, in point of immediate interest merely, the fine lands of
Missouri were less worth having, with the curse of slavery upon them,
than those of Illinois without it. In vain has the price of land been
lowered in Missouri as that in Illinois rose. Settlers go first and look
at the cheaper land; some remain upon it; but many recross the river and
settle in the rival state. This enrages the people of Missouri. Their
soreness and jealousy, combined with other influences of slavery, so
exasperate their prejudices against the people of colour as to give a
perfectly diabolical character to their hatred of negroes and the
friends of negroes. That such is the temper of those who conduct popular
action in the state is shown by some events which happened in the year
1836. In the very bottom of the souls of the American statesmen who
admitted Missouri on unrighteous terms, these events must kindle a
burning comparison between what the social condition of the frontier
states of their honourable Union is and what it might have been.

A man of colour in St. Louis was arrested for some offence, and rescued
by a free man of his own colour, a citizen of Pennsylvania, named
Mackintosh, who was steward on board a steamboat then at St. Louis.
Mackintosh was conveyed to jail for rescuing his comrade, whose side of
the question we have no means of knowing. Mackintosh appears to have
been a violent man, or, at least, to have been in a state of desperation
at the time that he was on his way to jail, guarded by two
peace-officers. He drew a knife from his side (almost every man on the
western frontier being accustomed to carry arms), killed one of the
officers, and wounded the other. He was immediately lodged in the
prison. The wife and children of the murdered officer bewailed him in
the street, and excited the rage of the people against Mackintosh. Some
of the citizens acknowledged to me that his colour was the provocation
which aggravated their rage so far beyond what it had ever been in
somewhat similar cases of personal violence, and that no one would have
dreamed of treating any white man as this mulatto was treated. The
citizens assembled round the jail in the afternoon, demanding the
prisoner, and the jailer delivered him up. He was led into the woods on
the outskirts of the city; and, when there, they did not know what to do
with him. While deliberating they tied him to a tree. This seemed to
suggest the act which followed. A voice cried out, "Burn him!" Many
tongues echoed the cry. Brushwood was rooted up, and a heap of green
wood piled about the man. Who furnished the fire does not seem to be
known. Between two and three thousand of the citizens of St. Louis were
present. Two gentlemen of the place assured me that the deed was done by
the hands of not more than six; but they could give no account of the
reasons why the two or three thousand stood by in silence to behold the
act of the six, further than that they were afraid to interfere!

The victim appears to have made no resistance nor entreaty. He was, some
say twenty minutes, some say half an hour, in dying; during the whole of
which time he was praying or singing hymns in a firm voice. This fact
was the ground of an accusation made by magistrates of his being
"connected with the abolitionists." When his legs were consumed so that
his body dropped into the fire, and he was no longer seen, a bystander
observed to another, "There! it is over with him: he does not feel any
more now." "Yes, I do," observed the man's quiet voice from out of the
flames.

I saw the first notice which was given of this in the St. Louis
newspapers. The paragraph briefly related that a ruffian of colour had
murdered a citizen, had been demanded by the indignant fellow-citizens
of the murdered man, and burned in the neighbourhood of the city; that
this unjustifiable act was to be regretted, but that it was hoped that
the veil of oblivion would be drawn over the deed. Some of the most
respectable of the citizens were in despair when they found that the
newspapers of the Union generally were disposed to grant the last
request; and it is plain that, on the spot, no one dared to speak out
about the act. The charge of Judge Lawless (his real name) to the grand
jury is a sufficient commentary upon the state of St. Louis society. He
told the jury that a bad and lamentable deed had been committed in
burning a man alive without trial, but that it was quite another
question whether they were to take any notice of it. If it should be
proved to be the act of the few, every one of those few ought
undoubtedly to be indicted and punished; but if it should be proved to
be the act of the many, incited by that electric and metaphysical
influence which occasionally carries on a multitude to do deeds above
and beyond the law, it was no affair for a jury to interfere in. He
spoke of Mackintosh as connected with the body of abolitionists. Of
course, the affair was found to be electric and metaphysical, and all
proceedings were dropped.

All proceedings in favour of law and order; others of an opposite
character were vigorously instituted by magistrates, in defiance of some
of those clauses of the constitution which I have quoted above. The
magistrates of St. Louis prosecuted a domiciliary inquisition into the
periodical publications of the city, visiting the newspaper offices,
prying and threatening, and offering rewards for the discovery of any
probability that the institution of slavery would be spoken against in
print. In the face of the law, the press was rigidly controlled.

Information was given, while the city was in this excited state, of
every indication of favour to the coloured people, and of disapprobation
of slavery; and the savages of St. Louis were on the alert to inflict
vengeance. In Marion College, Palmyra (Missouri), two students were
undoubtedly guilty of teaching two coloured boys to read. These boys
were carried by them to the college for service, the one being employed
on the farm, and the other in the college, to clean shoes and wait on
the young men. One afternoon a large number of citizens from St. Louis,
well mounted, appeared on the Palmyra road, and they made no secret of
their intention to Lynch the two students who taught their servants to
read. The venerable Dr. Nelson, who was, I believe, at the head of the
institution, came out of his house to implore the mob with tears not to
proceed, and the ladies of his family threw themselves down in the road
in the way of the horses. The way was forcibly cleared, and the
persecutors proceeded. The young men came forth as soon as summoned.
They were conducted to the edge of the forest where it opens upon a
prairie. There a circle was formed, and they were told that they stood
in a Lynch court.

The younger one was first set in the midst. He acknowledged the act with
which he was charged. He was offered the alternative of receiving twenty
lashes with the horrid cowhide (which was shown him), or of immediately
leaving the state for ever. He engaged to leave the state for ever, and
was set across the river into Illinois.

The elder student made his trial a longer one. He acknowledged the act
of teaching his servant to read, and made himself heard while he
defended it. He pleaded that he was a citizen of Missouri, being of age,
and having exercised the suffrage at the last election. He demanded a
fair trial in a court of law, and pledged himself to meet any accusation
there. At last it came to their binding him to a tree, and offering him
the choice of two hundred lashes with the cowhide, or of promising to
leave the state, and never to return to it. He knew that a sentence of
two hundred lashes meant death by torture (it is so understood in Lynch
courts), and he knew that a promise thus extorted was not binding; so he
promised. He was also set across the river, where he immediately
published a narrative of the whole transaction, and declared his
intention of returning to his state, to resume the duties and privileges
of citizenship, as soon as he could be personally safe.

The St. Louis Lynchers next ordered the heads of Marion College to hold
a public meeting, and declare their convictions and feelings on the
subject of slavery. They were obeyed, and they put pretty close
questions to the professors, especially to Dr. Ely, who was a suspected
man.

Dr. Ely came from one of the Eastern states, and was considered by the
abolitionists of his own religious persuasion to be one of their body.
Some time after he went into Missouri, it appeared incidentally in some
newspaper communications that he had bought a slave. His friends at the
East resented the imputation, and were earnest in his vindication; but
were presently stopped and thrown into amazement by his coming out with
an acknowledgment and defence of the act. He thought that the way in
which he could do most good was by purchasing negroes for purposes of
enlightenment. So he bought his man Abraham, designing to enlighten him
for nine years, and then set him free, employing the proceeds of his
nine years' labour in purchasing two other slaves, to be enlightened and
robbed in the same manner, for the purpose of purchasing four more at
the expiration of another series of years, and so on. It seems
astonishing that a clergyman should thus deliberately propose to confer
his charities through the medium of the grossest injustice: but so it
was. When, at the enforced meeting, he was questioned by the Lynchers as
to his principles, he declared himself opposed to the unchristian
fanaticism of abolitionism; spurned the imputation of being one of the
body, and, in proof of his sincerity, declared himself to be the master
of one slave, and to be already contracting for more.

The Lynchers returned to St. Louis without having committed murder. They
had triumphantly broken the laws, and trodden under foot their
constitution of sixteen years old. If it could be made known at what
expense they were saved from bloodshed; if it could be revealed what
violence they offered to conscience, what feelings they lacerated, what
convictions they stifled, what passions they kindled, what an undying
worm they fixed at the core of many a heart, at the root of many a life,
it might have been clear to all eyes that the halter and the cowhide
would have been mercy in comparison with the tortures with which they
strewed their way.

I have told enough to show what comes of compromise. There is no need to
lengthen out my story of persecutions. I will just mention that the last
news from Missouri that I saw was in the form of an account of the
proceedings of its legislature, but which yet seems to me incredible. It
is stated to have been enacted that any person of any complexion, coming
into or found in the State of Missouri, who shall be proved to have
spoken, written, or printed a word in disapprobation of slavery or in
favour of abolition, shall be sold into slavery for the benefit of the
state. If, in the fury of the moment, such a law should really have been
passed, it must speedily be repealed. The general expectation is that
slavery itself will soon be abolished in Missouri, as it is found to be
unprofitable and perilous, and a serious drawback to the prosperity of
the region.

What a lesson is meantime afforded as to the results of compromise!
Missouri might now have been a peaceful and orderly region, inhabited by
settlers as creditable to their country as those of the neighbouring
free states, instead of being a nest of vagabond slavedealers, rapacious
slavedrivers, and ferocious rioters. If the inhabitants think it hard
that all should be included in a censure which only some have deserved,
they must bestir themselves to show in their legislature, and by their
improved social order, that the majority are more respectable than they
have yet shown themselves to be. At present it seems as if one who might
have been a prophet preaching in the wilderness had preferred the
profession of a bandit of the desert. But it should never be forgotten
whence came the power to inflict injury, by a permission being given
where there should have been a prohibition. Whatever danger there ever
was to the Union from difference of opinion on the subject of the
compromise is now increased. The battle has still to be fought at a
greater disadvantage than when a bad deed was done to avert it.




CINCINNATI.


     "'Sir,' said the custom-house officer at Leghorn, 'your papers are
     forged! there is no such place in the world! your vessel must be
     confiscated!' The trembling captain laid before the officer a map
     of the United States; directed him to the Gulf of Mexico, pointing
     out the mouth of the Mississippi; led him 1000 miles up it to the
     mouth of the Ohio, and thence another 1000 to Pittsburg. 'There,
     sir, is the port whence my vessel cleared out.' The astonished
     officer, before he saw the map, would as soon have believed that
     this ship had been navigated from the moon."

                                                    --CLAY'S _Speeches_.


We reached Cincinnati by descending the Ohio from Maysville, Kentucky,
whence we took passage in the first boat going down to the great City of
the West. It happened to be an inferior boat; but, as we were not to
spend a night on board, this was of little consequence. We were summoned
by the bell of the steamer at 9 A.M., but did not set off till past
noon. The cause of the delay forbade all complaint, though we found our
station in the sun, and out of any breeze that might be stirring,
oppressively hot, in the hottest part of a midsummer day. The captain
had sent nine miles into the country for his mother, whom he was going
to convey to a place down the river, where her other son was lying sick
of the cholera. At noon the wagon with the old lady and her packages
appeared. We were prepared to view her situation with the kindest
feelings, but our pity scarcely survived the attempts she made to ensure
it. I suppose the emotions of different minds must always have different
modes of expression, but I could comprehend nothing of such a case as
this. While there were apartments on board where the afflicted mother
might have indulged her feelings in privacy, it was disagreeable to see
the parade of hartshorn and water, and exclamations and sensibilities,
in the presence of a company of entire strangers. Her son and a
kind-hearted stewardess were very attentive to her, and it was much to
be wished that she had been satisfied with their assiduities.

The scenery was fully equal to my expectations; and when we had put out
into the middle of the river, we found ourselves in the way of a breeze
which enabled us to sit outside, and enjoy the luxury of vision to the
utmost. The sunny and shadowy hills, advancing and retiring, ribbed and
crested with belts and clumps of gigantic beech; the rich bottoms always
answering on the one shore to the group of hills on the other, a perfect
level, smooth, rich, and green, with little settlements sprinkled over
it; the shady creeks, very frequent between the hills, with sometimes a
boat and figures under the trees which meet over it; these were the
spectacles which succeeded each other before our untiring eyes.

We touched at a number of small places on the banks to put out and take
in passengers. I believe we were almost as impatient as the good captain
to get to Richmond, where his sick brother was lying, that the family
might be out of suspense about his fate. A letter was put into the
captain's hand from the shore which did not tend to raise his spirits.
It told him of the death, by cholera, of a lady whom he had just brought
up the river. The captain's brother, however, was better. We were all
committed to the charge of the clerk of the boat; and as we put out into
the stream again, we saw the captain helping his mother up the hill, and
looking a changed man within a few minutes!

The moral plagues consequent on pestilence are an old subject, but one
ever new to the spectator. The selfishness of survivers, the brutality
of the well to the sick in a time of plague, have been held up to the
detestation of the untried from the days of Defoe downward at least; but
it seems as if the full horror of such a paroxysm of society had been
left to be exhibited in America. Not that the ravages of the cholera
were or could be fiercer there than in the plague-seasons of the Old
World; but that, in a country so much more Christianized in a spirit of
helpfulness than any other, examples of selfish desertion show a more
ghastly aspect than elsewhere. The disease was met there, and its
inflictions sustained in the noblest spirit of charity, courage, and
wisdom. A thousand-and-one tales might be told of the devotion of the
clergy to their flocks, of masters to their slaves, of physicians to the
poor, of neighbours to each other; but, in fearful contrast to these,
stood out some of the gloomy facts which belong to such a time. In the
West the disease was particularly fatal, and the panic was not stilled
when I was there, two years after the most destructive season. In the
vicinity of Lexington, Kentucky, I saw a large white house, prettily
placed, and was told of the dismal end of its late occupier, a lady who
was beloved above everybody in the neighbourhood, and who, on account of
her benevolent deeds, would have been previously supposed the last
person likely to want for solace on her dying bed. In this house lived
Mrs. J., with her sister, Miss A. Miss A. died of cholera at nine in the
evening, and was buried in the garden during the night by the servants.
Mrs. J. was taken ill before the next evening, and there was no female
hand near to tend her. The physician, who knew how much he was wanted in
the town, felt it right to leave her when the case became entirely
hopeless. He told the men who were assisting that she could not survive
the night, and directed them to bury her immediately after her death. As
soon as the breath was out of her body, these men wrapped her in the
sheet on which she was lying, put her into a large box, and dug a hole
in the garden, where they laid her beside her sister. Forty-eight hours
before, the sisters had been apparently in perfect health, and busy
providing aid for their sick neighbours. Thus, and thus soon, were they
huddled into their graves.

From the time of our leaving Richmond the boat went on at good speed. We
ceased to wear round, to take in casks and deals at the beck of
everybody on shore. The dinner was remarkably disagreeable: tough beef,
skinny chickens, gray-looking potatoes, gigantic radishes, sour bread,
and muddy water in dirty tumblers. The only eatable thing on the table
was a saucerful of cranberries, and we had a bottle of claret with us.
It was already certain that we should not reach Cincinnati so as to have
a daylight view of it: our hopes were bounded to not being obliged to
sit down to another meal on board.

The western sky faded while we were watching the Hunter pursuing the
Coquette, two pretty little steamboats that were moving along under the
shadow of the banks. Some time after dark we came in sight of long rows
of yellow lights, with a flaring and smoking furnace here and there,
which seemed to occupy a space of nearly two miles from the wharf where
we at length stopped. I had little idea how beautiful this flaring
region would appear in sunshine.

After waiting some time in the boat for the arrival of a hack, we
proceeded up the steep pavement above the wharf to the Broadway Hotel
and Boarding-house. There we were requested to register our names, and
were then presented with the cards of some of the inhabitants who had
called to inquire for us. We were well and willingly served, and I went
to rest intensely thankful to be once more out of sight of slavery.

The next morning was bright, and I scarcely remember a pleasanter day
during all my travels than this 16th of June. We found ourselves in a
large boarding-house, managed by a singularly zealous and kindly master.
His care of us was highly amusing during the whole time of our stay. His
zeal may be judged of by a circumstance which happened one morning. At
breakfast he appeared heated and confused, and looked as if he had a bad
headache. He requested us to excuse any forgetfulness that we might
observe, and mentioned that he had, by mistake, taken a dangerous dose
of laudanum. We begged he would leave the table, and not trouble himself
about us, and hoped he had immediately taken measures to relieve himself
of the dose. He replied that he had had no time to attend to himself
till a few minutes ago. We found that he had actually put off taking an
emetic till he had gone to market and sent home all the provisions for
the day. He had not got over the consequences of the mistake the next
morning. The ladies at the breakfast-table looked somewhat vulgar; and
it is undeniable that the mustard was spilled, and that the relics of
the meal were left in some disorder by the gentlemen who were most in a
hurry to be off to business. But every one was obliging; and I saw at
that table a better thing than I saw at any other table in the United
States, a lady of colour breakfasting in the midst of us!

I looked out from our parlour window, and perceived that we were in a
wide, well-built street, with broad foot-pavements and handsome houses.
A house was at the moment going up the street; a rather arduous task, as
the ascent was pretty steep. There was an admirable apparatus of levers
and pulleys; and it moved on, almost imperceptibly, for several yards,
before our visiters began to arrive, and I had to give up watching its
march. When the long series of callers came to an end, the strolling
house was out of sight.

The first of our visiters was an English gentleman, who was settled in
business in Cincinnati. He immediately undertook a commission of
inquiry, with which I had been charged from England, about a family of
settlers, and sent me a pile of new books, and tickets for a concert
which was to be held in Mrs. Trollope's bazar the next evening but one.
He was followed by a gentleman of whom much will be told in my next
chapter; and by Dr. Drake, the first physician in the place; and Miss
Beecher, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Beecher, head of Lane Seminary, near
Cincinnati, then on his trial for heresy, and justly confident of
acquittal. Miss Beecher is a lady eminent for learning and talents, and
for her zeal in the cause of education. These were followed by several
merchants, with their ladies, sisters, and daughters. The impression
their visits left on our minds was of high respect for the society of
Cincinnati, if these were, in manners, dress, and conversation, fair
specimens. Dr. Drake and his daughter proposed to call for us for an
afternoon's drive, and take us home to tea with them; a plan to which we
gladly agreed.

After dinner, we first arranged ourselves in a parlour which was larger
and better furnished than the one we first occupied, and then walked
down to the river while waiting for Dr. Drake's carriage. The opposite
Kentucky shore looked rich and beautiful; and the bustle on the river,
covered with every kind of craft; the steamboats being moored six or
more abreast, gave us a highly respectful notion of the commerce of the
place.

Dr. Drake took us a delightful drive, the pleasure of which was much
enhanced by his very interesting conversation. He is a complete and
favourable specimen of a Westerner. He entered Ohio just forty-seven
years before this time, when there were not above a hundred white
persons in the state, and they all French, and when the shores were one
expanse of canebrake, infested by buffalo. He had seen the foundations
of the great city laid; he had watched its growth till he was now able
to point out to the stranger, not only the apparatus for the exportation
of 6,000,000 dollars' worth a year of produce and manufactures, but
things which he values far more: the ten or twelve edifices erected for
the use of the common schools, the new church of St. Paul, the two fine
banking-houses, and the hundred and fifty handsome private dwellings,
all the creations of the year 1835. He points to the periodicals, the
respectable monthlies, and the four daily and six weekly papers of the
city. He looks with a sort of paternal complacency on the 35,000
inhabitants, scarcely one of whom is without the comforts of life, the
means of education, and a bright prospect for the future. Though a true
Westerner, and devoutly believing the _buckeyes_ (natives of Ohio) to be
superior to all others of God's creatures, he hails every accession of
intelligent members to his darling society. He observed to me, with his
calm enthusiasm (the concomitant of a conviction which has grown out of
experience rather than books), on the good effects of emigration on the
posterity of emigrants; and told how, with the same apparent means of
education, they surpass the descendants of natives. They combine the
influences of two countries. Thus believing, he carries a cheerful face
into the homes of his Welsh, Irish, English, German, and Yankee
patients; he bids them welcome, and says, from the bottom of his heart,
that he is glad to see them. His knowledge of the case of the emigrant
enables him to alleviate, more or less, with the power which an honest
and friendly physician carries about with him, an evil which he
considers the worst that attends emigration. He told me that, unless the
head of the emigrant family be timely and judiciously warned, the peace
of the household is broken up by the pining of the wife. The husband
soon finds interests in his new abode; he becomes a citizen, a man of
business, a man of consequence, with brightening prospects; while the
poor wife, surrounded by difficulties or vexed with hardships at home,
provided with no compensation for what she has left behind, pines away,
and wonders that her husband can be so happy when she is so miserable.
When there is an end of congeniality, all is over; and a couple who
would in their own land have gone through life cheerily, hand in hand,
become uneasy yoke-fellows in the midst of a much-improved outward
condition or prospect.

Dr. Drake must be now much older than he looks. He appears vigorous as
ever, running beside his stout black gig-horse in difficult bits of
forest road, head uncovered and coat splashed, like any farmer making
his way to market. His figure is spare and active; his face is
expressive of shrewdness, humour, and kindliness. His conversation is of
a high order, though I dare say it never entered his head that
conversation is ever of any order at all. His sentences take whatever
form fate may determine; but they bear a rich burden of truth hard won
by experience, and are illumined by gleams of philosophy which shine up
from the depths of his own mind. A slight degree of western inflation
amuses the stranger; but there is something so much more loving than
vain in the magniloquence, that it is rather winning than displeasing to
strangers, not to Yankees, who resent it as sectional prejudice, and in
whose presence it might be as well forborne. The following
passage, extracted from an address delivered by Dr. Drake before the
Literary Convention of Kentucky, gives some idea of the spirit of the
man in one of its aspects, though it has none of the pithy character of
his conversation:--

"The relations between the upper and lower Mississippi States,
established by the collective waters of the whole valley, must for ever
continue unchanged. What the towering oak is to our climbing winter
grape, the 'Father of Waters' must ever be to the communities along its
trunk and countless tributary streams; an imperishable support, an
exhaust-less power of union. What is the composition of its lower coasts
and alluvial plains, but the soil of all the upper states and
territories, transported, commingled, and deposited by its waters?
Within her own limits Louisiana has, indeed, the rich mould of ten
sister states, which have thus contributed to the fertility of her
plantations. It might almost be said, that for ages this region has sent
thither a portion of its soil, where, in a milder climate, it might
produce the cotton, oranges, and sugar which, through the same channel,
we receive in exchange for the products of our cornfields, workshops,
and mines; facts which prepare the way, and invite to perpetual union
between the West and South.

"The state of Tennessee, separated from Alabama and Mississippi on the
south and Kentucky on the north by no natural barrier, has its southern
fields overspread with floating cotton, wafted from the first two by
every autumnal breeze; while the shade of its northern woods lies for
half the summer day on the borders of the last. The songs and uproar of
a Kentucky _husking_ are answered from Tennessee; and the midnight
racoon-hunt that follows, beginning in one state, is concluded in the
other. The Cumberland, on whose rocky banks the capital of Tennessee
rises in beauty, begins and terminates in Kentucky; thus bearing on its
bosom at the same moment the products of the two states descending to a
common market. Still farther, the fine river Tennessee drains the
eastern half of that state, dips into Alabama, recrosses the state in
which it arose, and traverses Kentucky to reach the Ohio river; thus
uniting the three into one natural and enduring commercial compact.

"Farther north, the cotton-trees, which fringe the borders of Missouri
and Illinois, throw their images towards each other in the waters of the
Mississippi: the toiling emigrant's axe in the depths of the leafless
woods, and the crash of the falling rail-tree on the frozen earth,
resound equally among the hills of both states; the clouds of smoke from
their burning prairies mingle in the air above, and crimson the setting
sun of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio.

"The Pecan-tree sheds its fruit at the same moment among the people of
Indiana and Illinois, and the boys of the two states paddle their canoes
and fish together in the Wabash, or hail each other from opposite banks.
Even villages belong equally to Indiana and Ohio, and the children of
the two commonwealths trundle their hoops together in the same street.

"But the Ohio river forms the most interesting boundary among the
republics of the West. For a thousand miles its fertile bottoms are
cultivated by farmers who belong to the different states, while they
visit each other as friends or neighbours. As the schoolboy trips or
loiters along its shores, he greets his playmates across the stream, or
they sport away an idle hour in its summer waters. These are to be among
the future, perhaps the opposing statesmen of the different
commonwealths. When, at low water, we examine the rocks of the channel,
we find them the same on both sides. The plants which grow above drop
their seeds into the common current, which lodges them indiscriminately
on either shore. Thus the very trees and flowers emigrate from one
republic to another. When the bee sends out its swarms, they as often
seek a habitation beyond the stream as in their native woods. Throughout
its whole extent, the hills of Western Virginia and Kentucky cast their
morning shadows on the plains of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.
The thunder-cloud pours down its showers on different commonwealths; and
the rainbow, resting its extremities on two sister states, presents a
beautiful arch, on which the spirits of peace may pass and repass in
harmony and love.

"Thus connected by nature in the great valley, we must live in the bonds
of companionship or imbrue our hands in each other's blood. We have no
middle destiny. To secure the former to our posterity, we should begin
while society is still tender and pliable. The saplings of the woods, if
intertwined, will adapt themselves to each other and grow together; the
little bird may hang its nest on the twigs of different trees, and the
dewdrop fall successively on leaves which are nourished by distinct
trunks. The tornado strikes harmless on such a bower, for the various
parts sustain each other; but the grown tree, sturdy and set in its way,
will not bend to its fellow, and, when uprooted by the tempest, is
dashed in violence against all within its reach.

"Communities, like forests, grow rigid by time. To be properly trained,
they must be moulded while young. Our duty, then, is quite obvious. All
who have moral power should exert it in concert. The germes of harmony
must be nourished, and the roots of present contrariety or future
discord torn up and cast into the fire. Measures should be taken to
mould a uniform system of manners and customs out of the diversified
elements which are scattered over the West. Literary meetings should be
held in the different states, and occasional conventions in the central
cities of the great valley be made to bring into friendly consultation
our enlightened and zealous teachers, professors, lawyers, physicians,
divines, and men of letters, from its remotest sections. In their
deliberations the literary and moral wants of the various regions might
be made known, and the means of supplying them devised. The whole should
successively lend a helping hand to all the parts on the great subject
of education, from the primary school to the university. Statistical
facts bearing on this absorbing interest should be brought forward and
collected; the systems of common school instruction should be compared,
and the merits of different schoolbooks, foreign and domestic, freely
canvassed. Plans of education, adapted to the natural, commercial, and
social condition of the interior, should be invented; a correspondence
instituted among all our higher seminaries of learning, and an
interchange established of all local publications on the subject of
education. In short, we should foster Western genius, encourage Western
writers, patronise Western publishers, augment the number of Western
readers, and create a Western heart.

"When these great objects shall come seriously to occupy our minds, the
union will be secure, for its centre will be sound, and its attraction
on the surrounding parts irresistible. Then will our state governments
emulate each other in works for the common good; the people of remote
places begin to feel as the members of one family; and our whole
intelligent and virtuous population unite, heart and hand, in one long,
concentrated, untiring effort to raise still higher the social
character, and perpetuate for ever the political harmony of the green
and growing West."

How strange is the feeling to the traveller in wild regions of having
his home associations unexpectedly connected with the scene before him!
Here, in this valley of the Mississippi, to my eye wild and luxuriant in
beauty as I fancy Ceylon or Juan Fernandez, Dr. Drake pointed out to me
two handsome dwellings with gardens, built by artisans from Birmingham,
and he presently alighted to visit a Welsh patient. What a vision of
brassfounding, teaurns, and dingy streets, and then of beaver hats and
mob caps, did these incidents call up! And again, when we were buried in
a beechen wood, where "a sunbeam that had lost its way" streaked the
stems and lighted up the wild vines, Dr. Drake, in telling me of the
cholera season in Cincinnati, praised a medical book on cholera which
happened to be by a brother-in-law of mine. It was an amusing incident.
The woods of Ohio are about the last place where the author would have
anticipated that I should hear accidental praises of his book.

The doctor had at present a patient in Dr. Beecher's house, so we
returned by the Theological Seminary. Dr. Beecher and his daughters were
not at home. We met them on the road in their cart, the ladies returning
from their school in the city, and we spent an evening there the next
week. The seminary (Presbyterian) was then in a depressed condition, in
consequence of the expulsion of most of the pupils for their refusal to
avoid discussion of the slavery question. These expelled youths have
since been founders and supporters of abolition societies; and the good
cause has gained even more than the seminary has lost by the absurd
tyranny practised against the students.

From this the Montgomery road there is a view of the city and
surrounding country which defies description. It was of that melting
beauty which dims the eyes and fills the heart--that magical combination
of all elements--of hill, wood, lawn, river, with a picturesque city
steeped in evening sunshine, the impression of which can never be lost
nor ever communicated. We ran up a knoll, and stood under a clump of
beeches to gaze; and went down, and returned again and again, with the
feeling that, if we lived upon the spot, we could never more see it look
so beautiful.

We soon entered a somewhat different scene, passing the slaughter-houses
on Deer Creek, the place where more thousands of hogs in a year than I
dare to specify are destined to breathe their last. Deer Creek, pretty
as its name is, is little more than the channel through which their
blood runs away. The division of labour is brought to as much perfection
in these slaughter-houses as in the pin-manufactories of Birmingham. So
I was told. Of course I did not verify the statement by attending the
process. In my childhood I was permitted, by the carelessness of a
nursemaid, to see the cutting up of the reeking carcass of an ox, and I
can bear witness that one such sight is enough for a lifetime. But--to
tell the story as it was told to me--these slaughter-houses are divided
into apartments communicating with each other: one man drives into one
pen or chamber the reluctant hogs, to be knocked on the head by another
whose mallet is for ever going. A third sticks the throats, after which
they are conveyed by some clever device to the cutting-up room, and
thence to the pickling, and thence to the packing and branding, a set of
agents being employed for every operation. The exportation of pickled
pork from Cincinnati is enormous. Besides supplying the American navy,
shiploads are sent to the West India Islands and many other parts of the
world. Dr. Drake showed me the dwelling and slaughter-house of an
Englishman who was his servant in 1818, who then turned pork-butcher,
and was, in a few years, worth ten thousand dollars.

The teatable was set out in the garden at Dr. Drake's. We were waited
upon, for the first time for many months, by a free servant. The long
grass grew thick under our feet; fireflies were flitting about us, and I
doubted whether I had ever heard more sense and eloquence at any Old
World teatable than we were entertained with as the twilight drew on.

As we walked home through the busy streets, where there was neither the
apathy of the South nor the disorder consequent on the presence of a
pauper class, I felt strongly tempted to jump to some hasty conclusions
about the happiness of citizenship in Cincinnati. I made a virtuous
determination to suspend every kind of judgment: but I found each day
as exhilarating as the first, and, when I left the city, my impressions
were much like what they were after an observation of twenty-four hours.

The greater part of the next morning was occupied with visiters; but we
found an interval to go out, under the guidance of friends, to see a few
things which lay near at hand. We visited the Museum, where we found, as
in all new museums whose rooms want filling up, some trumpery among much
which is worthy to remain. There was a mermaid not very cleverly
constructed, and some bad wax figures, posted like sentinels among the
cases of geological and entomological specimens; but, on the whole, the
Museum is highly creditable to the zeal of its contributors. There is,
among other good things, a pretty complete collection of the currency of
the country, from the earliest colonial days, and some of other
countries with it. I hope this will be persevered in, and that the
Cincinnati merchants will make use of the opportunities afforded by
their commerce of collecting specimens of every kind of currency used in
the world, from the gilt and stamped leather of the Chinese and
Siberians to the last of Mr. Biddle's twenty-dollar notes. There is a
reasonable notion abroad that the Americans are the people who will
bring the philosophy and practice of exchanges to perfection; and theirs
are the museums in which should be found a full history of currency, in
the shape of a complete set of specimens.

We visited Mr. Flash's bookstore, where we saw many good books, some
very pretty ones, and all cheap. We heard there good accounts of the
improved and improving literary taste of the place, shown in the
increasing number of book societies, and the superior character of the
works supplied to their orders. Mr. Flash and his partner are in favour
of the protection of foreign literary property, as a matter of interest
as well as principle.

We next went to the painting-room of a young artist, Mr. Beard, whose
works pleased me more than those of any other American artist. When I
heard his story, and saw what he had already achieved, I could not doubt
that, if he lived, he would run a noble career. The chief doubt was
about his health, the doubt which hangs over the destiny of almost every
individual of eminent promise in America. Two years before I saw him
Beard had been painting portraits at a dollar a head in the interior of
Ohio; and it was only a year since he suddenly and accidentally struck
into the line in which he will probably show himself the Flamingo of the
New World. It was just a year since he had begun to paint children. He
had then never been out of his native state. He was born in the
interior, where he began to paint without having ever seen a picture,
except the daubs of itinerant artists. He married at nineteen, and came
to Cincinnati, with wife, child, an empty purse, a head full of
admiration of himself, and a heart full of confidence in this admiration
being shared by all the inhabitants of the city. He had nothing to show,
however, which could sanction his high claims, for his portraits were
very bad. When he was in extreme poverty, he and his family were living,
or rather starving, in one room, at whose open window he put up some of
his pictures to attract the notice of passengers. A wealthy merchant,
Mr. G., and a gentleman with him, stopped and made their remarks to each
other, Mr. G. observing, "The fellow has talent, after all." Beard was
sitting behind his pictures, heard the remark, and knew the voice. He
was enraged. Mr. G. visited him, with a desire to encourage and assist
him; but the angry artist long resisted all attempts to pacify him. At
his first attempt to paint a child, soon after, all his genius shone
forth, to the astonishment of every one but himself. He has proved to be
one of the privileged order who grow gentle, if not modest, under
appreciation; he forgave Mr. G., and painted several pictures for him. A
few wealthy citizens were desirous of sending him to Italy to study. His
reply to every mention of the subject is, that he means to go to Italy,
but that he shall work his own way there. In order to see how he liked
the world, he paid a visit to Boston while I was there, intending to
stay some time. From a carriage window I saw him in the street, stalking
along like a chief among inferiors, his broad white collar laid over his
coat, his throat bare, and his hair parted in the middle of his
forehead, and waving down the sides of his face. People turned to look
after him. He stayed only a fortnight, and went back to Ohio expressing
great contempt for cities. This was the last I heard of him.

I have a vivid remembrance of three of his pictures of children. One of
a boy trudging through a millstream to school, absolutely American, not
only in the scenery, but in the air and countenance of the boy, which
were exquisitely natural and fresh. Another was a boy about to go
unwillingly to school; his satchel was so slung over his shoulder as to
show that he had not put it on himself; the great bite in the slice of
bread and butter intimated that breakfast was going on in the midst of
the grief; and the face was distorted with the most ludicrous passion.
Thus far all might have been done by the pencil of the mere
caricaturist. The triumph of the painter was in the beauty and grace of
the child shining through the ridiculous circumstances amid which he was
placed. It was obvious that the character of the face, when undisturbed
by passion, was that of careless gayety. The third was a picture of
children and a dog; one beautiful creature astride of the animal, and
putting his cap upon the head of the dog, who was made to look the sage
of the party. I saw and liked some of his pictures of another character.
Any one of his humorous groups might be thought almost worthy of Wilkie;
but there was repetition in them; two favourite heads especially were
popped in, in situations too nearly resembling. The most wonderful,
perhaps, of his achievements was a fine full-length portrait of a
deceased lady whom he had never seen. It was painted from a miniature,
and under the direction of the widower, whom it fully satisfied in
regard to the likeness. It was a breathing picture. He is strongly
disposed to try his hand on sculpture. I saw a bust of himself which he
had modelled. It was a perfect likeness, and had much spirit. All this,
and much more, having been done in a single year by one who had never
seen a good picture, it seems reasonable to expect great things from
powers so rapidly and profusely developed. Beard's name was little, if
at all, known beyond his native state while I was in the country. If he
lives, it will soon be heard of in Europe.

In the afternoon a large party called on us for an expedition into
Kentucky. We crossed the river in the ferryboat without leaving the
carriages, drove through Covington, and mounted slowly through a wood,
till we reached the foot of a steep hill, where we alighted. We climbed
the hill, wild with tall grass and shrubs, and obtained the view of
Cincinnati which is considered the completest. I now perceived that,
instead of being shut in between two hills, the city stands on a noble
platform, round which the river turns while the hills rise behind. The
platform is perfectly ventilated, and the best proof of this is the
healthiness of the city above all other American cities. A physician who
had been seven years a resident told me that he had been very delicate
in health before he came, like many others of the inhabitants; and, like
many others, he had not had a day's illness since his arrival. The
average of deaths in the city during the best season was seven per week;
and, at the worst time of the year, the mortality was less than in any
city of its size in the republic.

There is ample room on the platform for a city as large as Philadelphia,
without encroaching at all on the hill-sides. The inhabitants are
already consulting as to where the Capitol shall stand whenever the
nation shall decree the removal of the general government beyond the
mountains. If it were not for the noble building at Washington, this
removal would probably take place soon, perhaps after the opening of the
great Southern railroad. It seems rather absurd to call senators and
representatives to Washington from Missouri and Louisiana, while there
is a place on the great rivers which would save them half the journey,
and suit almost everybody else just as well, and many much better. The
peril to health at Washington in the winter season is great, and the
mild and equable temperature of Cincinnati is an important circumstance
in the case.

We hurried home to prepare for an evening party, and tea was brought up
to us while we dressed. All the parties I was at in Cincinnati were very
amusing, from the diversity in the company, and in the manners of the
natives of the East and West. The endeavour seems to be to keep up
rather than to disuse distinctive observances, and this almost makes the
stranger fancy that he has travelled a thousand miles between one
evening and the next. The effect is entertaining enough to the foreign
guest, but not very salutary to the temper of the residents, to judge by
the complaints I heard about sectional exclusiveness. It appeared to me
that the thing chiefly to be wished in this connexion was that the
Easterners should make large concessions and allowance. It would be well
for them to remember that it was they who chose the Western city, and
not the city them; and that, if the elderly inhabitants are rather proud
of their Western deeds, and ostentatiously attached to their Western
symbols, this is a circumstance belonging to the place, and deliberately
encountered, with other circumstances, by new residents; and that,
moreover, all that they complain of is an indulgence of the feelings of
a single generation. When the elderly members of the society drop off,
the children of all residents will wear the buckeye, or forget it alike.
And it certainly appeared to me that the cool assumption by Easterners
of the superiority of New-England over all other countries was, whether
just or not, likely to be quite as offensive to the buckeyes as any
buckeye exultation could be to the Yankees.

At one evening party the company sat round the drawing-room,
occasionally changing places or forming groups without much formality.
They were chiefly Yankees, of various accomplishments, from the learned
lawyer who talked with enthusiasm about Channing, and with strong sense
about everything but politics, in which his aristocratic bias drew him
aside into something like nonsense, to the sentimental young widow, who
instantly began talking to me of her dear Mr. ----, and who would return
to the subject as often as I led away from it. Every place was
remarkable for her dear Mr. ---- having been better or worse there; and
every event was measured by its having happened so long before or after
her dear Mr. ---- was buried. The conversation of the society was most
about books, and society and its leaders at home and abroad. The manners
of the lady of the house were, though slightly impaired by timidity,
such as would grace any society of any country. The house, handsomely
furnished, and adorned with some of the best of Beard's pictures, stood
on a terrace beautifully surrounded with shrubbery, and commanding a
fine view of the city.

At another party there was a great variety. An enormous buckeye bowl of
lemonade, with a ladle of buckeye, stood on the hall table, and
symbolical sprigs of the same adorned the walls. On entering the
drawing-room I was presented with a splendid bouquet, sent by a lady by
the hands of her brother, from a garden and conservatory which are the
pride of the city. My first introduction was to the Catholic bishop, my
next to a lady whom I thought then and afterward one of the cleverest
women I met in the country. There was a slight touch of pedantry to be
excused, and a degree of tory prejudice against the bulk of the human
race which could scarcely be exceeded even in England; but there was a
charming good-humour in the midst of it all, and a power both of
observation and reasoning which commanded high respect. One Western
gentleman sidled about in a sort of minuet step, unquestionably a
gentleman as he was in all essential respects; and one young lady, who
was, I fancy, taking her first peep at the world, kept her eyes
earnestly fixed on the guests as they entered, bowing unconsciously in
sympathy with every gentleman who bowed, and courtesying with every lady
who courtesied. She must have been well practised in salutation before
the evening was over, for the party was a large one. All the rest, with
the exception of a forward Scotchman, were well-bred, and the evening
passed off very pleasantly amid brisk conversation, mirth, and excellent
refreshments.

Another party was at the splendid house to which the above-mentioned
garden and conservatory belong. The proprietor has a passion for
gardening, and his ruling taste seems likely to be a blessing to the
city. He employs four gardeners, and toils in his grounds with his own
hands. His garden is on a terrace which overlooks the canal, and the
most parklike eminences form the background of the view. Between the
garden and the hills extend his vineyards, from the produce of which he
has succeeded in making twelve kinds of wine, some of which are highly
praised by good judges. Mr. Longworth himself is sanguine as to the
prospect of making Ohio a wine-growing region, and he has done all that
an individual can to enhance the probability. In this house is West's
preposterous picture of Ophelia, the sight of which amazed me after all
I had heard of it. It is not easy to imagine how it should have obtained
the reputation of being his best while his Cromwell is in existence. The
party at this house was the largest and most elegant of any that I
attended in Cincinnati. Among many other guests, we met one of the
judges of the Supreme Court, a member of Congress and his lady, two
Catholic priests, Judge Hall, the popular writer, with divines,
physicians, lawyers, merchants, and their families. The spirit and
superiority of the conversation were worthy of the people assembled.

The morning of the 19th shone brightly down on the festival of the day.
It was the anniversary of the opening of the Common Schools. Some of the
schools passed our windows in procession, their banners dressed with
garlands, and the children gay with flowers and ribands. A lady who was
sitting with me remarked, "this is our populace." I thought of the
expression months afterward, when _the gentlemen_ of Cincinnati met to
pass resolutions on the subject of abolitionism, and when one of the
resolutions recommended mobbing as a retribution for the discussion of
the subject of slavery; the law affording no punishment for free
discussion. Among those who moved and seconded these resolutions, and
formed a deputation to threaten an advocate of free discussion, were
some of the merchants who form the aristocracy of the place; and the
secretary of the meeting was the accomplished lawyer whom I mentioned
above, and who told me that the object of his life is law reform in
Ohio! The "populace" of whom the lady was justly proud have, in no case
that I know of, been the law-breakers; and in as far as "the populace"
means not "the multitude," but the "vulgar," I do not agree with the
lady that these children were the populace. Some of the patrons and
prizegivers afterward proved themselves "the vulgar" of the city.

The children were neatly and tastefully dressed. A great improvement has
taken place in the costume of little boys in England within my
recollection, but I never saw such graceful children as the little boys
in America, at least in their summer dress. They are slight, active, and
free. I remarked that several were barefoot, though in other respects
well clad; and I found that many put off shoes and stockings from choice
during the three hot months. Others were barefoot from poverty; children
of recent settlers, and of the poorest class of the community.

We set out for the church as soon as the procession had passed, and
arrived before the doors were opened. A platform had been erected below
the pulpit, and on it were seated the mayor and principal gentlemen of
the city. The two thousand children then filed in. The report was read,
and proved very satisfactory. These schools were established by a
cordial union of various political and religious parties; and nothing
could be more promising than the prospects of the institution as to
funds, as to the satisfaction of the class benefited, and as to the
continued union of their benefactors. Several boys then gave specimens
of elocution which were highly amusing. They seemed to suffer under no
false shame, and to have no misgiving about the effect of the vehement
action they had been taught to employ. I wondered how many of them would
speak in Congress hereafter. It seems doubtful to me whether the present
generation of Americans are not out in their calculations about the
value and influence of popular oratory. They ought certainly to know
best; but I never saw an oration produce nearly so much effect as books,
newspapers, and conversation. I suspect that there is a stronger
association in American minds than the times will justify between
republicanism and oratory; and that they overlook the facts of the vast
change introduced by the press, a revolution which has altered men's
tastes and habits of thought, as well as varied the methods of reaching
minds. As to the style of oratory itself, reasoning is now found to be
much more impressive than declamation, certainly in England, and I
think, also, in the United States; and though, as every American boy is
more likely than not to act some part in public life, it is desirable
that all should be enabled to speak their minds clearly and gracefully.
I am inclined to think it a pernicious mistake to render declamatory
accomplishment so prominent a part of education as it now is. I trust
that the next generation will exclude whatever there is of insincere and
traditional in the practice of popular oratory; discern the real value
of the accomplishment, and redeem the reproach of bad taste which the
oratory of the present generation has brought upon the people. While the
Americans have the glory of every citizen being a reader and having
books to read, they cannot have, and need not desire, the glory of
shining in popular oratory, the glory of an age gone by.

Many prizes of books were given by the gentlemen on the platform, and
the ceremony closed with an address from the pulpit which was true, and,
in some respects, beautiful, but which did not appear altogether
judicious to those who are familiar with children's minds. The children
were exhorted to trust their teachers entirely; to be assured that their
friends would do by them what was kindest. Now neither children nor
grown people trust any more than they believe because they are bid.
Telling them to have confidence is so much breath wasted. If they are
properly trained, they will unavoidably have this trust and confidence,
and the less that is said about it the better. If not, the less said the
better, too; for confidence is then out of the question, and there is
danger in making it an empty phrase. It would be well if those whose
office it is to address children were fully aware that exhortation,
persuasion, and dissuasion are of no use in their case, and that there
is immeasurable value in the opposite method of appeal. Make truth
credible, and they will believe it; make goodness lovely, and they will
love it; make holiness cheerful, and they will be glad in it; but remind
them of themselves by threat, inducement, or exhortation, and you impair
(if you do anything) the force of their unconscious affections; try to
put them upon a task of arbitrary self-management, and your words pass
over their ears only to be forgotten.

Before eight o'clock in the evening the Cincinnati public was pouring
into Mrs. Trollope's bazar, to the first concert ever offered to them.
This bazar is the great deformity of the city. Happily, it is not very
conspicuous, being squatted down among houses nearly as lofty as the
summit of its dome. From my window at the boarding-house, however, it
was only too distinctly visible. It is built of brick, and has Gothic
windows, Grecian pillars, and a Turkish dome, and it was originally
ornamented with Egyptian devices, which have, however, all disappeared
under the brush of the whitewasher. The concert was held in a large
plain room, where a quiet, well-mannered audience was collected. There
was something extremely interesting in the spectacle of the first public
introduction of music into this rising city. One of the best performers
was an elderly man, clothed from head to foot in gray homespun. He was
absorbed in his enjoyment; so intent on his violin, that one might watch
the changes of his pleased countenance the whole performance through
without fear of disconcerting him. There was a young girl, in a plain
white frock, with a splendid voice, a good ear, and a love of warbling
which carried her through very well indeed, though her own taste had
obviously been her only teacher. If I remember right, there were about
five-and-twenty instrumental performers, and six or seven vocalists,
besides a long row for the closing chorus. It was a most promising
beginning. The thought came across me how far we were from the musical
regions of the Old World, and how lately this place had been a
canebrake, echoing with the bellow and growl of wild beast; and here was
the spirit of Mozart swaying and inspiring a silent crowd as if they
were assembled in the chapel at Salzburg!

This account of our first three days at Cincinnati will convey a
sufficient idea of a stranger's impressions of the place. There is no
need to give a report of its charitable institutions and its commerce;
the details of the latter are well known to those whom they may concern;
and in America, wherever men are gathered together, the helpless are
aided and the suffering relieved. The most threatening evil to
Cincinnati is from that faithlessness which manifests itself in
illiberality. The sectional prejudice of the two leading classes of
inhabitants has been mentioned, and also the ill-principled character of
the opposition made to abolitionism. The offence against freedom, not
only of opinion, but of action, was in this case so rank, that the
citizens of Louisville, on the slaveholding side of the Ohio, taunted
the citizens of Cincinnati with persecuting men for opinion from
mercenary interest; with putting down free discussion from fear of
injury to their commerce. A third direction in which this illiberality
shows itself is towards the Catholics. The Catholic religion spreads
rapidly in many or most of the recently-settled parts of the United
States, and its increase produces an almost insane dread among some
Protestants, who fail to see that no evils that the Catholic religion
can produce in the present state of society can be so afflictive and
dangerous as the bigotry by which it is proposed to put it down. The
removal to Cincinnati of Dr. Beecher, the ostentatious and virulent foe
of the Catholics, has much quickened the spirit of alarm in that region.
It is to be hoped that Dr. Beecher and the people of Cincinnati will
remember what has been the invariable consequence in America of public
denunciations of assumed offences which the law does not reach; namely,
mobbing. It is to be hoped that all parties will remember that Dr.
Beecher preached in Boston three sermons vituperative of the Catholics
the Sunday before the burning of the Charlestown convent by a Boston
mob. Circumstances may also have shown them by this time how any kind of
faith grows under persecution; and, above all, it may be hoped that the
richer classes of citizens will become more aware than they have yet
proved themselves to be of their republican (to say nothing of their
human) obligation to refrain from encroaching, in the smallest
particulars, on their brethren's rights of opinion and liberty of
conscience.

The roads in the interior of Ohio were in so bad a state from recent
rains that I did not, at this time, attempt to visit the middle or
northern parts of the state, where may be seen those monuments of an
extinct race about which much antiquarian inquiry is going forward. One
of the large mounds, whose uses are yet unexplained, and in which are
found specimens of the arts of life which are considered to show that
their artificers were not of Indian race, still remains within the city.
It was crumbling away when I saw it, being a tempting spot for
children's play. It is a pity it should not be carefully preserved; for
the whole history of evidence, particularly the more recent portion of
it, shows the impossibility of anticipating what revelations may emanate
from a single object of historical interest.

A volume might presently be filled with descriptions of our drives about
the environs of Cincinnati. There are innumerable points of view whence
the city, with its masses of building and its spires, may be seen
shining through the limpid atmosphere, like a cloud-city in the evening
sky. There are many spots where it is a relief to lose the river from
the view, and to be shut in among the brilliant green hills, which are
more than can be numbered. But there is one drive which I almost wonder
the inhabitants do not take every summer day, to the Little Miami
bottoms. We continued eastward along the bank of the river for seven
miles, the whole scenery of which was beautiful; but the unforgotten
spot was the level about the mouth of the Little Miami river, the
richest of plains or level valleys, studded with farmhouses, enlivened
with clearings, and kept primitive in appearance by the masses of dark
forest which filled up all the unoccupied spaces. Upon this scene we
looked down from a great height, a Niphates of the New World. On
entering a little pass between two grassy hills, crested with wood, we
were desired to alight. I ran up the ascent to the right, and was
startled at finding myself on the top of a precipice. Far beneath me ran
the Little Miami, with a narrow white pebbly strand, arrow-like trees
springing over from the brink of the precipice, and the long evening
shadows making the current as black as night, while the green, up to the
very lips of the ravine, was of the sunniest, in the last flood of
western light.

For more reasons than one I should prefer Cincinnati as a residence to
any other large city of the United States. Of these reasons not the last
would be that the "Queen of the West" is enthroned in a region of
wonderful and inexhaustible beauty.




PROBATION.


     "Small is it that thou canst trample the earth with its injuries
     under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee; thou canst love the
     earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for
     this a greater than Zeno was needed, and he, too, was sent. Knowst
     thou that 'Worship of Sorrow?' The temple thereof, opened some
     eighteen centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle,
     the habitation of doleful creatures. Nevertheless, venture forward;
     in a low crypt, arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the
     altar still there, and its sacred lamp perennially burning."

                                                    --_Sartor Resartus._

     "I will tell you, scholar, I have heard a grave divine say that God
     has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and
     thankful heart."

                                                         --IZAAK WALTON.


Among the strongest of the fresh feelings excited by foreign
travel--those fresh feelings which are an actual re-enforcement of
life--is that of welcome surprise at the sympathy the traveller is able
to yield, as well as privileged to receive. We are all apt to lose faith
in the general resemblance between human beings when we have remained
too long amid one set of circumstances; all of us nearly as weakly as
the schoolgirl who thinks that the girl of another school cannot
comprehend her feelings; or the statesman who is surprised that the
lower classes appear sometimes to understand their own interests; or the
moralist who starts back from the antique page where he meets the
reflection of his own convictions; or the clergyman who has one kind of
truth for his study and another for his pulpit. Intellectual sympathy
comes to the traveller in a distant land like a benignant rebuke of his
narrowness; and when he meets with moral beauty which is a realization
of his deep and secret dreams, he finds how true it is that there is no
nationality in the moral creation, and that, wherever grass grows and
the sun shines, truth springs up out of the earth and righteousness
looks down from heaven. Those who bring home a deep, grateful,
influential conviction of this have become possessed of the best results
of travel; those who are not more assured than before of the essential
sympathy of every human being they meet, will be little the worse for
staying at home all the rest of their lives. I was delighted with an
observation of a Boston merchant who had made several voyages to China.
He dropped a remark by his own fireside on the narrowness which causes
us to conclude, avowedly or silently, that, however well men may use the
light they have, they must be very pitiable, very far behind us, unless
they have our philosophy, our Christianity, our ways of knowing the God
who is the Father of us all, and the Nature which is the home of us all.
He said that his thoughts often wandered back with vivid pleasure to the
long conversations he had enjoyed with some of his Chinese friends on
the deepest themes of philosophy and the highest truths of religion,
when he found them familiar with the convictions, the emotions, the
hopes which, in religious New-England, are supposed to be derivable only
from the Christianity of this region. His observation gave me intense
pleasure at the time I heard it; and now, though I have no such
outlandish friends as the Chinese appear to a narrow imagination, I can
tell him, from a distance of three thousand miles, that his animating
experience is shared by other minds.

The most extensive agreement that I have ever known to exist between
three minds is between two friends of mine in America and myself, Dr. F.
being German, Mrs. F. American, and I English, by birth, education, and
(at least in one of the three) prejudice. Before any of the three met,
all had become as fixed as they were ever likely to be in habits of
thought and feeling; and yet our differences were so slight, our
agreements so extensive, that our intercourse was like a perpetual
recognition rather than a gradual revelation. Perhaps a lively
imagination may conceive something of the charm of imparting to one
another glimpses of our early life. While our years were passing amid
scenes and occupations as unlike as possible, our minds were converging
through foreign regions of circumstance to a common centre of
conviction. We have sat mutually listening for hours, day after day,
week after week, to his account of early years spent in the range of a
royal forester's domain, and of the political struggles of later years;
to her history of a youthful life nourished by all kinds of American
influences; and to mine, as unlike both theirs as each was to the other.

The same sort of experience is yielded by every chapter of human history
which comes under the mind's eye in a foreign country. The indolence of
the speculatist, however, generally prevents his making this use of any
but the most extraordinary and eventful sections of this interminable
history. Such contemplations rouse sympathy, extinguish nationality, and
enlarge the spirit to admit new kindred by an irresistible assurance of
the rightfulness of all claims of brotherhood. Every lovetale has this
effect, for true love is the same all over the wide earth. Most tales of
wo have the same influence, for the deepest woes spring from causes
universally prevalent. But, above all, spectacles of moral beauty work
miracles of reconciliation between foreign minds. The heart warms to
every act of generosity, and the spirit sends out a fervent greeting to
every true expression of magnanimity, whether it be meek intrepidity in
doing or unconscious bravery in suffering.

Many such a heartwarming must the stranger experience in America, where
the diversities of society are as great as over the European Continent,
and where all virtues can find the right soil to thrive in. If there are
in some regions broader exhibitions of vice--of licentiousness and
violence--than can be seen where slavery is not, in other regions or
amid different circumstances there are brighter revelations of virtue
than are often seen out of a primitive state of society. One of these,
one of many, may, I think, be spoken of without risk of hurting any
feelings or betraying any confidence, though I must refrain from
throwing such light and beauty over the story as the letters of the
parties would afford. I was never so tempted to impart a correspondence;
and it is not conceivable that any harm could arise from it beyond the
mischief of violating the sacredness of private correspondence; but this
is not to be thought of.

At Cincinnati I became acquainted with the Rev. E.P., whom I found to be
beloved, fervently but rationally, by his flock, some of whom think him
not a whit inferior, as a preacher, to Dr. Channing. He was from
New-England; and, till he spoke, he might have been taken for one of the
old Puritans risen from an early grave to walk the earth for a while. He
was tall, gaunt, and severe-looking, with rather long black hair and
very large black eyes. When he spoke all the severity vanished; his
countenance and voice expressed gentleness, and his quiet fun showed
that the inward man was no Puritan. His conversation was peculiar. His
voice was somewhat hollow, and not quite manageable, and he was wont to
express himself with schoolboy abruptness and awkwardness of phrase,
letting drop gems of truth and flowers of beauty without being in the
least aware of the inequality of his conversation, or, perhaps, that he
was conversing at all. Occasionally, when he had lighted on a subject on
which he had bestowed much thought, all this inequality vanished, and
his eloquence was of a very high order. He was a man who fixed the
attention at once, and could not, after a single interview, be ever
forgotten. The first time I saw him he told me that his wife and he had
hoped to have made their house my home in Cincinnati, but that she and
the child had been obliged to set out on their summer visit to her
parents in New-England before my arrival. Whenever he spoke of his home
it was in a tone of the most perfect cheerfulness; so that I should not
have imagined that any anxieties harboured there but for the fervent
though calm manner in which he observed in conversation one day, that
outward evils are evils only as far as we think them so; and that our
thinking them so may be wonderfully moderated by a full conviction of
this. This was said in a tone which convinced me that it was not a
fragment of preaching, but of meditation. I found that he had been about
two years married to a pretty, lively, accomplished girl from
New-England. Some of his friends were rather surprised at the match, for
she had appeared hitherto only as a sprightly belle, amiable, but a
little frivolous. It was not, however, that he was only proud of her
beauty and accomplishments, or transiently in love; for his young wife
had soon occasion to reveal a strength of mind only inferior to his own.
Her sight began to fail; it failed more and more rapidly, till, after
the birth of her child, she was obliged to surrender to others all the
nicer cares of maternal management. Her accomplishments became suddenly
useless. Her favourite drawing was first given up; then her needle was
laid aside; then she could neither write nor read, nor bear a strong
light. In her state of enforced idleness (the greatest trial of all to
the spirits), her cheerfulness never failed. Her step was as light, her
voice as gay as ever. She said it was because her husband was as happy
as ever. He aided her in every conceivable way, by doing all that was
possible of what she was prevented from doing, and by upholding her
conviction that the mind is its own place; and he thus proved that he
did not desire for her or for himself indolent submission, but cheerful
acquiescence.

As summer came on, the child sickened in teething, and was sent with its
mother to New-England, in order to escape the greatest heats. They had
set out, under good guardianship, the week before I arrived at
Cincinnati. Mr. P. could not leave his church for many weeks, but was to
follow in August, so as to be in time to deliver a poem before the Phi
Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Harvard commencement
week. I fancied that I saw him meditating this poem more than once
during our drives through the splendid scenery round Cincinnati. I was
uneasy about his health, and expressed some apprehensions to one of his
friends, who, however, made light of what I said. I thought that, made
for strength as he looked, he had little of it. He seemed incessantly
struggling against exhaustion, and I was confident that he often joined
in conversation with his eyes alone, because he was unequal to the
exertion of talking. I was quite sure of all this, and wondered how
others could help seeing it too, on the day of the procession of the
freeschools of Cincinnati, when he was appointed to address the
children. His evident effort in the pulpit and exhaustion afterward made
me fear that there were more trials in store for his young wife. During
their separation she could neither write to him nor read his letters.

When, towards the end of August, I arrived at Cambridge for
commencement, one of my first inquiries was for the P.s. He had joined
his wife, his poem was ready, and they were in cheerful spirits, though
both her sight and the child's health were rather worse than better. I
did not see them among the assemblage on the great commencement day. On
the morrow, when the Phi Beta Kappa Society had marched in to music, and
the oration had been delivered, and we all looked eagerly for Mr. P. and
his poem, a young clergyman appeared, with a roll of MS. in his hand,
and with a faltering voice, and a countenance of repressed grief, told
us that Mr. P. had been seized with a sudden and severe illness, and had
requested from him, as an office of friendship, that he would read the
poem which its author was prevented from delivering. The tidings ran in
a mournful whisper through the assemblage that Mr. P. had broken a
bloodvessel.

The poem was descriptive, with touches of human interest, many and
strong. It related the passage of an emigrant family over the
Alleghanies, and their settlement in the West. It was read with much
modesty, truth, and grace. At one part the reader's voice failed him, at
a brief description of the burial of an infant in the woods; it was too
like a recent scene at which the reader had been present as chief
mourner.

The P.s were next at a country-house within two miles of another where I
was spending ten days. Mr. P. was shut up, and condemned to the trial
which his wife was bearing so well, enforced idleness. His bodily
weakness made him feel it more, and he found it difficult to bear. He
had been unused to sickness, and the only failure I ever saw in him was
in obedience to the necessities of his situation and the orders of his
physician. He could not write a page of a letter, and reading fatigued
his head; but he could not help trying to do what he had been accustomed
to perform with ease; and no dexterity of his visiters could prevent his
clapping on his hat, and being at the carriage door before them. I
thought once that I had fairly shut him into his parlour, but he was
holding my stirrup before I had done my farewell to his wife. I was
commissioned to carry him grapes and peaches from a friend's hothouse;
and I would fain have gone every day to read to him, but I found that he
saw too many people, and I therefore went seldom. Nothing can be
conceived more touching than the cheerfulness of his wife. Many would
have inwardly called it cruel that she could now do almost nothing for
her husband, or what she thought almost nothing. She could neither read
to him, nor write for him the many passing thoughts, the many
remembrances to absent friends, that it would have been a relief to his
now restless mind to have had set down. But their common conviction
completely sustained them both, and I never saw them otherwise than
unaffectedly cheerful. The child was sometimes better and sometimes
worse. I saw him but once, but I should have known him again among a
thousand. The full, innocent gaze of his bright black eyes, the upright
carriage, so striking in a well-tended infant, and the attitude of
repose in which he contemplated from his mother's arms whatever went on
about him, fixed the image of the child in my memory for ever. In
another month I heard, at a distance, of the child's death. For a
fortnight before he had been quite blind, and had suffered grievously.
In the common phrase, I was told that the parents supported themselves
wonderfully.

As the cold weather approached, it became necessary for Mr. P. to remove
southward. It was a weary journey over the Alleghanies into Ohio, but it
had to be performed. Every arrangement of companionship, and about
conveyance, resting-places, &c., was made to lessen the fatigue to the
utmost; but we all dreaded it for him. The party was to touch at
Providence, Rhode Island, where the steamboat would wait a quarter of an
hour. I was in Providence, and, of course, went down to the boat to
greet them. Mr. P. saw me from a distance, and ran ashore, and let down
the steps of the carriage with an alacrity which filled me with joy and
hope. He was not nearly so thin as when I last saw him, and his
countenance was more radiant than ever. "I knew we should see you," said
he, as he led me on board to his wife. She, too, was smiling. They were
not in mourning. Like some other persons in America who disapprove of
wearing mourning, they had the courage to break through the custom. It
would, indeed, have been inconsistent with the conviction which was
animating them all this time--the conviction that the whole disposal of
us is wise, and right, and kind--to have made an external profession
that anything that befell them was to be lamented. I could not but
observe the contrast between their countenances and that of their
maidservant, whose heart was doubtless aching at having to go back
without the child. The mother's feelings were anything but deadened. The
cheerfulness and the heart's mourning existed together. Tears trembled
in her eyes, and her voice faltered more than once; but then came the
bright smile again, and an intimation, given almost in a spirit of
gayety, that it was easy to bear anything while _he_ was always so
strong in spirit and so happy.

This was the last I saw of them. Their travelling companions wrote
cheerlessly of his want of strength, and of the suffering the long
journey caused him. They were taken into the house of a kind friend at
Cincinnati, where there was a room fitted up with green for the sake of
Mrs. P.'s eyes, and every arrangement made in a similar spirit of
consideration. But it would not do; there was yet to be no rest for the
invalid. The excitement of being among his flock, while unable to do
anything in their service, was injurious to him. He was sent down the
river to New-Orleans, and his wife was not allowed to accompany him. The
reasons were sufficient, but the separation at a time when he was nearly
as anxious about her health as she about his was a dreadful trial. I
heard of it, and wrote him a long letter to amuse him, desiring him not
to exert himself to answer it. After a while, however, he did so, and I
shall never part with that letter. He spoke briefly of himself and his
affairs, but I saw the whole state of his mind in the little he did say.
He found himself in no respect better; in many much worse. He often felt
that he was going down the dark valley, and longed intensely for the
voices of his home to cheer him on his way. But, still, his happiest
conviction was the uppermost. He knew that all things were ordered well,
and he had no cares. He wrote more copiously of other things: of his
voyage down the great river, of the state of mind and manners amid the
influences of slavery, which had converted his judgment and his
sympathies to the abolition cause; and of the generous kindness of his
people, the full extent of which he might never have known but for his
present sickness. This letter left me little hope of his recovery; yet
even here the spirit of cheerfulness, predominant through the whole, was
irresistible, and it left me less anxious for them than before.

After this I wandered about for some months, out of reach of any of the
P.'s connexions, and could only procure general accounts of his being
better. Just before I sailed I received from Mr. P. a letter full of
good news, as calmly cheerful in its tone as any written in the depths
of his adversity. He had ascended the river with the first warmth of
spring; was so much better as to be allowed to preach once on the
Sunday, and to be about to undertake it twice; and was now writing
beside the cradle of his newborn daughter, whose mother sent me word
that they were all well and happy.

The power of a faith like theirs goes forth in various directions to
work many wonders. It not only fortifies the minds of sufferers, but
modifies the circumstances themselves from which they suffer, bracing
the nerves in sickness, and equalizing the emotions in sorrow; it
practically asserts the supremacy of the real over the apparent, and the
high over the low; and, among other kindly operations, refreshes the
spirit of the stranger with a revelation of true kindred in a foreign
land: for this faith is the fundamental quality in the brotherhood of
the race.




THE NATURAL BRIDGE.


    "Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still. How fearful
    And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!"

                                                             SHAKSPEARE.

                        "Desperate now
    All farther course; yon beetling brow,
    In craggy nakedness sublime,
    What heart or foot shall dare to climb!"

                                                                  SCOTT.


The shrewd Yankee driver of the "extra exclusive return stage," which
contained four out of six of our travelling-party in Virginia, was
jocose about the approach to the Natural Bridge. Mr. L. and I were on
horseback, and the driver of the stage called after us when we were
"going ahead," to warn us that we should get over the bridge without
knowing it if we went first. We, of course, determined to avoid looking
so foolish as we should do if we passed the Natural Bridge--the little
spot deemed important enough to be put in capital letters in maps of the
American Union--without knowing it. Heads were popped out of the stage
window to shout the warning after us; and the jokes really seemed so
extremely insulting, that we were disposed to push on, and get our sight
of Jefferson's great wonder before our fellow-travellers came up. For
five miles we kept out of sight of the stage; but at this point there
was a parting of the roads, and we could see no possible means of
learning which we were to follow. We were obliged to wait in the shade
till the distant driver's whip pointed out the right-hand road to us. We
were now not far from the object of our expectations. We agreed that we
felt very quiet about it; that we were conscious of little of the
veneration which the very idea of Niagara inspires. The intensity of
force, combined with repose, is the charm of Niagara. No form of rock,
however grand in itself or however beautifully surrounded, can produce
anything like the same impression. Experience proved that we were right.

At a mile from the bridge the road turns off through a wood. While the
stage rolled and jolted along the extremely bad road, Mr. L. and I went
prying about the whole area of the wood, poking our horses' noses into
every thicket and between any two pieces of rock, that we might be sure
not to miss our object, the driver smiling after us whenever he could
spare attention from his own not very easy task of getting his charge
along. With all my attention I could see no precipice, and was
concluding to follow the road without more vagaries, when Mr. L., who
was a little in advance, waved his whip as he stood beside his horse,
and said, "Here is the bridge!" I then perceived that we were nearly
over it, the piled rocks on either hand forming a barrier which prevents
a careless eye from perceiving the ravine which it spans. I turned to
the side of the road, and rose in my stirrup to look over; but I found
it would not do. I went on to the inn, deposited my horse, and returned
on foot to the bridge.

With all my efforts I could not look down steadily into what seemed the
bottomless abyss of foliage and shadow. From every point of the bridge I
tried, and all in vain. I was heated and extremely hungry, and much
vexed at my own weakness. The only way was to go down and look up;
though where the bottom could be was past my imagining, the view from
the top seeming to be of foliage below foliage for ever.

The way to the glen is through a field opposite the inn, and down a
steep, rough, rocky path, which leads under the bridge and a few yards
beyond it. I think the finest view of all is from this path, just before
reaching the bridge. The irregular arch of rock, spanning a chasm of 160
feet in height, and from sixty to ninety in width, is exquisitely tinted
with every shade of gray and brown; while trees encroach from the sides
and overhang from the top, between which and the arch there is an
additional depth of fifty-six feet. It was now early in July; the trees
were in their brightest and thickest foliage; and the tall beeches under
the arch contrasted their verdure with the gray rock, and received the
gilding of the sunshine as it slanted into the ravine, glittering in the
drip from the arch, and in the splashing and tumbling waters of Cedar
Creek, which ran by our feet. Swallows were flying about under the arch.
What others of their tribe can boast of such a home?

We crossed and recrossed the creek on stepping-stones, searching out
every spot to which any tradition belonged. Under the arch, thirty feet
from the water, the lower part of the letters G. W. may be seen carved in
the rock. When Washington was a young man, he climbed up hither, to
leave this record of his visit. There are other inscriptions of the same
kind, and above them a board, on which are painted the names of two
persons, who have thought it worth while thus to immortalize their feat
of climbing highest. But their glory was but transient after all. They
have been outstripped by a traveller whose achievement will probably
never be rivalled, for he would not have accomplished it if he could by
any means have declined the task. Never was a wonderful deed more
involuntarily performed. There is no disparagement to the gentleman in
saying this: it is only absolving him from the charge of foolhardiness.

This young man, named Blacklock, accompanied by two friends, visited the
Natural Bridge, and, being seized with the ambition appropriate to the
place, of writing his name highest, climbed the rock opposite to the
part selected by Washington, and carved his initials. Others had perhaps
seen what Mr. Blacklock overlooked, that it was a place easy to ascend,
but from which it is impossible to come down. He was forty feet or more
from the path; his footing was precarious; he was weary with holding on
while carving his name, and his head began to swim when he saw the
impossibility of getting down again. He called to his companions that
his only chance was to climb up upon the bridge without hesitation or
delay. They saw this, and with anguish agreed between themselves that
the chance was a very bare one. They cheered him, and advised him to
look neither up nor down. On he went, slanting upward from under the
arch, creeping round a projection on which no foothold is visible from
below, and then disappearing in a recess filled up with foliage. Long
and long they waited, watching for motion, and listening for crashing
among the trees. He must have been now 150 feet above them. At length
their eyes were so strained that they could see no more, and they had
almost lost all hope. There was little doubt that he had fallen while
behind the trees, where his body would never be found. They went up to
try the chance of looking for him from above. They found him lying
insensible on the bridge. He could just remember reaching the top, when
he immediately fainted. One would like to know whether the accident
left him a coward in respect of climbing, or whether it strengthened his
confidence in his nerves.

The guide showed us a small cedar, which projected from a shelf of the
rock about two hundred feet above our heads, and along whose stem a
young lady climbed several feet, so as to court destruction in a very
vain and foolish manner. If the support had failed, as might reasonably
have been expected, her immortality of reputation would not have been of
an enviable kind.

We remained in the ravine till we were all exhausted with hunger, but we
had to wait for dinner still another hour after arriving at the inn. By
way of passing the time, one gentleman of our party fainted, and had to
be laid along on the floor; which circumstance, I fancy, rather
accelerated the announcement of our meal. The moment it was over I
hastened to the bridge, and was pleased to find that, being no longer
fatigued and hungry, I could look into the abyss with perfect ease. I
lay down on the rocks, and studied the aspect of the ravine in its
afternoon lights and shadows from five different points of view. While
thus engaged I was called to see a handsome copper-headed snake, but it
had gained its hole before I could reach the spot. We ladies so much
preferred the view of the bridge from the glen to the view of the glen
from the bridge, that we went down for another hour before departing. It
looked most beautiful. The sunshine was slowly withdrawing from under
the arch, and leaving us in the shadows of evening, while all was
glowing like noon in the region to which we looked up from our lowly
seats, the stepping-stones in the midst of the gushing creek.

The Natural Bridge is nearly in the centre of Virginia, and about half
way between Fincastle and Lexington, which are about thirty-seven miles
apart. The main central road of Virginia runs over the bridge, so that
no excuse is left for travellers who neglect to visit this work, framed
by the strong hand of Nature,

                    "By wondrous art
    Pontifical, a ridge of pendant rock
    Over the vex'd abyss,"

vexed, not by the tumults of chaos, but by the screams of caverned
birds, the battles of snakes with their prey, and the chafing of waters
against opposing rocks.




COLONEL BURR.


     "His extraordinary plans and expectations for himself might be of
     such a nature as to depend on other persons for their
     accomplishment, and might, therefore, be as extravagant as if other
     persons alone had been their object."

                                                    --FOSTER'S _Essays_.


The romance of political adventure is generally found to flourish in the
regions of despotism; and it seems a matter of course that there can be
no room for conspiracy in a democratic republic, where each man is a
member of the government, and means are provided for the expression of
every kind of political opinion and desire. Yet the United States can
exhibit a case of conspiracy and a political adventurer such as might
rejoice the souls of the lovers of romance. Scattered notices of Colonel
Aaron Burr and of his supposed schemes are before the English public,
but no connected history which might be depended upon appeared during
his life. He died last year, and has left no relations; so that no
reason now exists why everything that can be learned about him should
not be made known.

In 1795, Aaron Burr had attained to eminence at the New-York Bar. He was
about the same age as Alexander Hamilton, who was born in 1757, and
their professional reputation and practice were about equal. Hamilton
was the leader of the federal party. He was, in countenance, eminently
handsome, in manner engaging, in temper amiable and affectionate, in
eloquence both persuasive and commanding; and his mind was so
comprehensive, and his powers of application and execution so great, as
to cause him to be considered by the federal party the greatest man
their country has produced. Burr was of democratic politics; he had a
fiercely ambitious temper, which he hid under a gentle and seductive
manner. He was usually so quiet and sedate that he might have been
thought indifferent but for the expression of his piercing black eyes.
His face was otherwise plain, and his figure and gait were stooping and
ungraceful. He assumed great authority of manner upon occasion. His
speaking at the bar was brief and to the purpose. His most remarkable
characteristic seems to have been his power of concealment. He not only
carried on a conspiracy before the nation's eyes which they to this day
cannot more or less understand, but lived long years with the tremendous
secret in his breast, and has gone down to the grave without affording
any solution of the mystery. It may be doubted whether, in all the long
private conversations he had with individuals, he ever committed
himself, otherwise than apparently, to anybody. He seems to have been
understood by Hamilton, however, from the beginning, and Hamilton never
concealed his opinion that Burr was an ambitious and dangerous man.

Jefferson put a generous trust in Burr, and for many years they were
intimate correspondents. It is very touching to read, after all that has
since happened, such letters as the following, written shortly after the
two men had been rival candidates for the presidentship, at a time of
unexampled party excitement:--

         "TO COLONEL BURR.

                                          "Washington, February 1, 1801.

     "Dear Sir--It was to be expected that the enemy would endeavour to
     sow tares between us, that they might divide us and our friends.
     Every consideration satisfies me that you will be on your guard
     against this, as I assure you I am strongly. I hear of one
     stratagem so imposing and so base, that it is proper I should
     notice it to you. Mr. Munford, who is here, says he saw at New-York
     before he left it an original letter of mine to Judge Breckinridge,
     in which are sentiments highly injurious to you. He knows my
     handwriting, and did not doubt that to be genuine. I enclose you a
     copy, taken from a press copy of the only letter I ever wrote to
     Judge Breckinridge in my life: the press copy itself has been shown
     to several of our mutual friends here. Of consequence, the letter
     seen by Mr. Munford must be a forgery; and, if it contains a
     sentiment unfriendly or disrespectful to you, I affirm it solemnly
     to be a forgery, as also if it varies from the copy enclosed. With
     the common trash of slander I should not think of troubling you;
     but the forgery of one's handwriting is too imposing to be
     neglected. A mutual knowledge of each other furnishes us with the
     best test of the contrivances which will be practised by the
     enemies of both.

     "Accept assurances of my high respect and esteem.

                                                        "TH. JEFFERSON."

In the presidential election of 1800 there were four candidates,
Jefferson, Burr, John Adams, and Pinckney. The votes were for Jefferson
73, for Burr 73, for Adams 65, for Pinckney 64. The numbers for
Jefferson and Burr being equal, the choice devolved upon the House of
Representatives, which voted to attend to no other business till the
election was settled, and not to adjourn till the decision was effected.
For seven days and nights the ballotting went on, every member being
present. Some who were ill or infirm were accommodated with beds and
couches, and one sick member was allowed to be attended by his wife.
Adams was, as president, on the spot, watching his impending political
annihilation. Jefferson was at hand, daily presiding in the Senate. Burr
was in the State of New-York, anxiously expecting tidings. The federal
party were in despair at having to choose between two republicans (as
the democratic party was at that day called). It is said that Hamilton
was consulted by his party, and that his advice was to choose Jefferson
rather than Burr: a piece of counsel which affected the everlasting
destinies of the country, and cost the counsellor his life. At the end
of the seven days Jefferson was elected president and Burr
vice-president, which office Burr held for a single term, four years.

In the winter of 1804 Burr was proposed at Albany as a candidate for the
office of Governor of the State of New-York. Hamilton, at a public
meeting of his party, strongly opposed the nomination, declaring that he
would never join in supporting such a candidate. About this time Dr.
Chas. D. Cooper wrote a letter, in which he said "General Hamilton
and ---- have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr as a
dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of
government." "I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion
which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." This letter was
published; and on the 18th of June, 1804, Burr sent a copy of it to
Hamilton, with a demand that the expressions it contained should be
acknowledged or denied. The correspondence which ensued is discreditable
to both parties. To use the expression of a great man, "Hamilton went
into it like a Capuchin." He knew that it was Burr's determination to
fix a deadly quarrel upon him; he knew that Burr was an unworthy
adversary; he disapproved of the practice of duelling, but he feared the
imputation of want of courage if he refused to meet his foe. He
therefore explained and corresponded with an amplitude and indecision
which expose his reputation to more danger from harsh judges than a
refusal to fight would have done. As for Burr, he was savage in his
pursuit of his enemy. He enlarged his accusations and demands as he saw
the irresolution of his victim; and I believe there is no doubt that,
though he was a good shot before, he employed the interval of twenty
days which elapsed before the duel took place in firing at a mark,
making no secret of the purpose of his practising.

This interval was occasioned by Hamilton's refusal to go out till the
Circuit Court, in the business of which he was engaged, should have
closed its sittings. The Court rose on Friday, the 6th of July, and Burr
received notice that General Hamilton would be ready at any time after
the following Sunday.

On Wednesday morning, the 11th, the parties crossed the Hudson to the
Jersey shore, arriving on the ground at seven o'clock. Burr was attended
by Mr. Van Ness and a surgeon; Hamilton by Mr. Pendleton and Dr. Hosack.
It was Hamilton's intention not to fire; but when his adversary's ball
struck him on the right side, he raised himself involuntarily on his
toes, and turned a little to the left, his pistol going off with the
movement. He observed to his physician, "This is a mortal wound,
doctor," and then became insensible. He revived, however, in the boat,
in the course of removal home, and cautioned his attendants about the
pistol, which he was not aware of having discharged. He lived in great
agony till two o'clock of the following day.

He left a paper which contained his statement of reasons for meeting
Burr, notwithstanding his conscientious disapproval of the practice of
duelling, and his particular desire to avoid an encounter with such an
adversary, and in such a cause as the present. In this paper he declares
his resolution to reserve and throw away his first fire, and perhaps his
second. His reasons for fighting are now, I believe, generally agreed to
be unsatisfactory. As to the effect of his determination to spare his
adversary, I never could learn that Colonel Burr expressed the slightest
regret for the pertinacity with which he hunted such an enemy--merely a
political foe--to death. Neither did he appear to feel the execration
with which he was regarded in the region of which Hamilton had been the
pride and ornament.

To avoid the legal consequences of his deed he wandered into the West,
and remained so long in retreat that some passing wonder was excited as
to what he could be doing there. He was ensnaring more victims.

In the Ohio river, a few miles below Marietta, there is a beautiful
island, finely wooded, but now presenting a dismal picture of ruin. This
island was purchased, about thirty-five years ago, by an Irish
gentleman, named Herman Blennerhassett, whose name the island has since
borne. This gentleman took his beautiful and attached wife to his new
property, and their united tastes made it such an abode as was never
before and has never since been seen in the United States. Shrubberies,
conservatories, and gardens ornamented the island, and within doors
there was a fine library, philosophical apparatus, and music-room. Burr
seems to have been introduced to this family by some mutual friends at
the East, and to have been received as a common acquaintance at first.
The intimacy grew; and the oftener he went to Blennerhassett's Island,
and the longer he stayed, the deeper was the gloom which overspread the
unfortunate family. Blennerhassett himself seems to have withdrawn his
interest from his children, his books, his pursuits, as Burr obtained
influence over his mind, and poisoned it with some dishonest ambition.
The wife's countenance grew sad and her manners constrained. It is not
known how far she was made acquainted with what was passing between her
husband and Burr.

The object of Burr's conspiracy remains as much a mystery as ever, while
there is no doubt whatever of its existence. Some suppose that he
intended to possess himself of Mexico, an enterprise less absurd than at
first sight it appears. There was great hatred towards the Mexicans at
that period, the period of agitation about the acquisition of Louisiana;
thousands of citizens were ready to march down upon Mexico on any
pretence; and it is certain that Burr was so amply provided with funds
from some unknown quarter, that he had active adherents carrying on his
business from the borders of Maine all down the course of the great
Western rivers. Another supposition is, that he designed the plunder of
New-Orleans in the event of a war with Spain. A more probable one is
that he proposed to found a great Western Empire, with the aid of Spain,
making himself its emperor, and drawing off the allegiance of all the
countries west of the Alleghanies; and, finally, that, as a cover to and
final substitute for other designs, he meant to effect the colonization
of the banks of the river Washita. Such are the various objects assigned
as the end of Burr's movements: but all that is known is that he engaged
a number of men in his service--supposed to be not less than a
thousand--under an assurance that the service required of them was one
approved by the government; that he endeavoured to persuade Latrobe, the
architect, to engage five hundred more labourers on pretext of their
working on the Ohio canal, in which it turned out that he had no
interest; that a guard was mounted round Blennerhassett's Island; that
boats, manned and furnished with arms, set forth from the island on the
night of the 10th of December, 1806; that they were joined by Burr, with
a re-enforcement, at the mouth of the Cumberland; and that they all
proceeded down the Mississippi together.

The government had become aware of secret meetings between Burr, the
Spanish Yruyo, and Dr. Bollman, one of the liberators of Lafayette; and
the proper time was seized for putting forth proclamations which
undeceived the people with regard to Burr's movements, and caused them
to rise against him wherever he had been acting. Orders to capture him
and his party, and, if necessary, to destroy his boats, were eagerly
received. Burr did not venture to New-Orleans. He caused himself to be
put ashore in the territory of Mississippi, and thence found his way,
attended by only one person, to the banks of the Tombigbee, which he
reached on the 19th of February, 1807. At eleven at night the wanderers
passed a settlement called Washington Courthouse: Burr preceded his
companion by some yards, and passed on quietly; but his companion
inquired of a man standing at the door of a public house about the
dwelling of a Major Hinson, and, on receiving his answer, joined Burr.
The person inquired of went to Hinson's with the sheriff, and had his
suspicions so confirmed, that he proceeded to Fort Stoddart, and brought
back an officer and four soldiers, who took Burr into custody. He was
lodged, a prisoner, at Richmond, Virginia, by the end of March.

Burr had previously been brought to trial in Kentucky, on an accusation
of illegal secret practices in that state. He was defended and brought
off by Mr. Clay and Colonel Allen, who were persuaded of his innocence,
and refused a fee. Mr. Clay was for long after his advocate in public
and in private, and asked him, for friendly purposes, for a full
declaration that he was innocent, which Burr gave unhesitatingly and
explicitly, and the note is now among Jefferson's papers. When, some
time subsequently, a letter of Burr's in cipher came to light, Mr. Clay
found how he had been deceived; but his advocacy was, for the time, of
great benefit to Burr.

On the 17th of August Burr was brought to trial at Richmond before
Chief-justice Marshall. He was charged with having excited insurrection,
rebellion, and war, on the 10th of December, 1806, at Blennerhassett's
Island, in Virginia. Secondly, the same charge was repeated, with the
addition of a traitorous intention of taking possession of the city of
New-Orleans with force and arms. The evidence established everything but
the precise charge. The presence of Burr in the island was proved, and
his levies of men and provisions on the banks of the Ohio. The presence
of armed men in the island and the expedition of the 10th of December
were also proved, but not any meeting of these men with Burr. The proof
of the overt act completely failed. He was then tried at the same court
on an indictment for misdemeanour, and acquitted. He was then ordered to
be committed to answer an indictment in the State of Ohio. He was
admitted to bail, and it does not appear that the State of Ohio meddled
with him at all.

Bollman was one of the witnesses on the side of the prosecution. His
certificate of pardon was offered to him in court by the counsel for the
prosecution. He refused to accept it, but was sworn, and his evidence
received.

It is impossible to suppose any bias on the part of the court in favour
of the prisoner. His acquittal seems to have arisen from unskilfulness
in deducing the charges from the evidence, and to the trial having taken
place before all the requisite evidence could be gathered from distant
regions.

Blennerhassett and others were tried on the same charges as Burr; but
what became of them I do not remember, farther than that Blennerhassett
was utterly ruined and disgraced.

Burr repaired to England. His connexion with Bentham appears wholly
unaccountable. The story is that he was in a bookseller's shop one day
when Bentham entered, and fixed his observation; that he wrote a letter
to Bentham as soon as he was gone, expressive of his high admiration of
his works; that Bentham admitted him to an interview, invited him to
stay with him, and urged the prolongation of his visit from time to
time, till it ended in being a sojourn of two years. It is difficult to
conceive how an agreeable intercourse could be kept up for so long a
time between the single-minded philosopher and the crafty yet boastful,
the vindictive yet smooth political adventurer.

In October, 1808, Jefferson wrote to a friend,

"Burr is in London, and is giving out to his friends that that
government offers him two millions of dollars the moment he can raise an
ensign of rebellion as big as a handkerchief. Some of his partisans will
believe this because they wish it. But those who know him best will not
believe it the more because he says it."[2] He returned to America in
1812, being sent away from England on account of his too frequent and
very suspicious political correspondence with France.

Footnote 2: Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iv., p. 115.

He settled quietly at New-York, and resumed practice at the bar, which
he continued as long as his health permitted. He owed such practice as
he had to his high legal ability, and not to any improved opinion of his
character. When Mr. Clay arrived in New-York from his English mission,
he went the round of the public institutions, attended by the principal
inhabitants. In one of the courts he met Burr, and, of course, after the
affair of the cipher letter, cut him. Burr made his way to him, declared
himself anxious to clear up every misapprehension, and requested to be
allowed half an hour's private conversation. Mr. Clay readily agreed to
this, and the hour was named. Burr failed to keep his appointment, and
never afterward appeared in Mr. Clay's presence.

One pure light, one healthy affection, illumined and partially redeemed
the life of the adventurer. He had an only child, a daughter, whom he
loved with all the love of which he was capable, and which she fully
deserved. She was early married to a Mr. Alston, and lived at
Charleston. I believe she was about five-and-twenty when she fell into
ill health, and the strong soul of her father was shaken with the terror
of losing her. He spared no pains or expense to obtain the best opinions
on her case from Europe; and the earnestness of his appeals to the
physicians to whom he wrote full statements of her case are very moving.
While awaiting a decision as to what measures should be taken for her
restoration, it was decided that she must leave Charleston before the
summer heats, and he summoned her to his home at New-York. To avoid
fatigue, she went by sea with her child and the nurse. Her father had
notice of her departure, and watched hour after hour for her arrival.
The hours wore away, and days, and weeks, and years. The vessel never
arrived, nor any tidings of her. She must have foundered, or, far worse,
fallen into the hands of pirates. A pang went through the heart of every
one for many years, as often as the thought recurred that Mrs. Alston
and her child might be living in slavery to pirates in some place
inaccessible to the inquiries of even her wretched father. When all had
been done that could be devised, and every one had ceased to hope, Burr
closed his lips upon the subject. No one of the few who were about him
ever heard him mention his daughter.

While I was in America a foreign sailor died in a hospital, my memory
fails me as to where it was. When near death, he made a confession which
was believed to be true by all whom I heard speak on the subject. He
confessed himself to have been a pirate, and to have served on board the
vessel which captured that which was conveying Mrs. Alston. He declared
that she was shut up below while the captain and crew were being
murdered on deck. She was then brought up, and was present at the
decision that it would not be safe to spare her life. She was ordered to
walk the plank, with her child in her arms; and, finding all quiet
remonstrance vain, she did it without hesitation or visible tremour. The
recollection of it was too much for the pirate in his dying moments.

About a year before his death Colonel Burr sanctioned the publication of
a so-called life of himself; a panegyric which leaves in the reader's
mind the strongest conviction of the reality of his Western adventures,
and of the justice of every important charge against him. He died last
year; and it will probably be soon known with exactness whether he took
care that his secrets should be buried with him, or whether he made
arrangements for some light being at length thrown on his eventful and
mysterious history.




VILLAGES.


                            "These ample fields
    Nourished their harvests: here their herds were fed,
    When haply by their stalls the bison lowed,
    And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke.
                              From the ground
    Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
    Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
    Of Sabbath worshippers."

                                                                 BRYANT.


The villages of New-England are all more or less beautiful, and the most
beautiful of them all is, I believe, Northampton. They have all the
graceful weeping elm; wide roads overshadowed with wood; mounds or
levels of a rich verdure; white churches, and comfortable and
picturesque frame dwellings. Northampton has these beauties and more. It
lies in the rich meadows which border the Connecticut, beneath the
protection of high wooded hills. The habitations of its gentry crown the
green knolls and terraces on which the village stands, or half buried in
gay gardens, or hidden under clumps of elm. The celebrated Mount Holyoke
and Mount Tom are just at hand, and the Sugarloaf is in view; while the
brimming Connecticut winds about and about in the meadows, as if
unwilling, like the traveller, to leave such a spot.

The pilgrims were not long in discovering the promise of the rich
alluvial lands amid which Northampton stands; and their descendants
established themselves here, as in the midst of a wilderness, long
before there were any settlements between the spot on which they had sat
down and the coast. The perils of such an abode were extreme, but so
were its temptations; and here, for many years, did a handful of whites
continue to live, surrounded by red neighbours; now trafficking, now
fighting; sometimes agreeing to render mutual service, but always on the
watch against mutual injury. So early as 1658 the township of
Northampton (then called Nonotuc) was purchased at the price set upon it
by the Indians, viz., for ninety square miles of land the sellers
demanded one hundred fathom of wampum by tale, and ten coats; and that
the purchasers should plough for the Indians sixteen acres of land on
the east side of the river the next summer. The making the purchase was
the smallest part of the settlers' business; the defending themselves in
the wilderness, surrounded as they were by numerous tribes of Indians,
was a far more serious matter. The usual arrangement of a village was
planned with a regard to safety from plunder and massacre. The surviving
effect is that of beauty, which the busy settlers cannot be supposed to
have much regarded at the time. The dwellings were erected in one long
street, each house within its own enclosure, and, in many cases,
fortified. The street was bordered with trees, and in the midst stood
the "meeting-house," often fortified also. This street was, when it was
possible, built across the neck of a peninsula formed by the windings of
the river, or from hill to hill in the narrowest part of a valley. The
cattle which grazed during the day in the peninsula or under the eye of
the owners were driven at night into the area between the rows of
houses. Here and there a village was surrounded with palisades. But no
kind of defence availed for any long period. From time to time disasters
happened to the most careful and the most valiant. Fire was an agent of
destruction which could not be always defied. When the village was
burned its inhabitants were helpless. The women and children were
carried off into captivity, and the place lay desolate till a new party
of adventurers arrived to clear away the ruins and commence a fresh
experiment.

Traditions of the horrors of the Indian wars spring up at every step in
this valley, and make the stranger speculate on what men and women were
made of in the days when they could voluntarily fix their abode among
savage foes, while there were safer places of habitation at their
command on the coast. The settlers seem, by the testimony of all
history, to have been possessed of spirit proportioned to their needs.
We hear of women being employed in the cellars casting bullets, and
handing them to their husbands during an onset of the savages; and of a
girl plucking a saddle from under the head of a sleeping Indian,
saddling a horse, and galloping off, swimming rivers, and penetrating
forests till she reached her home. The fate of the family of the Rev.
John Williams, who were living in the valley of the Connecticut at the
end of the seventeenth century, and were broken up by the Indians in an
attack on the village of Deerfield, is a fair specimen of the chances to
which residents in such lodges in the wilderness were exposed.

The enemy came over the snow, which was four feet deep, and hard enough
to bear them up, and thus were enabled to surmount the palisades. Not
being expected at that time of year, they met with no opposition. The
inhabitants had not time to rouse themselves from sleep before they were
tomahawked or captured. Out of a population of two hundred and eighty,
forty-seven were killed, and one hundred and twelve made prisoners. Mr.
Williams was the minister of the settlement. Two of his children were
killed on the threshold of his own door. His son Eleazer escaped, and
was left behind. Mrs. Williams was one of the Mathers of Northampton.
She was marched off, with her husband and several remaining children, in
the direction of Canada; but they were not allowed to be together and
comfort each other. It was a weary march for sufferers who carried such
heavy hearts into so horrible a captivity. Over wastes of snow, through
thawing brooks, among rugged forest-paths, they were goaded on, not
permitted to look back, or to loiter, or to stop, except at the pleasure
of their captors. Mrs. Williams presently fell behind. She was in
delicate health, and unused to hardship like this. When her husband had
passed Green River, he looked back and saw her faltering on the bank,
and then stumbling into the water. He turned to implore the savage who
guarded him to allow him to go back and help his wife. He was refused,
and when he looked again she had disappeared. Having fallen into the
water through weakness, an Indian had buried his tomahawk in her scull,
stepped over her body, and passed on. Her remains were discovered and
carried back to Deerfield for interment.

For a few moments the captives had been tantalized with a hope of
release. The Indians were attacked during their retreat by a small body
of settlers, and pressed hard. At this moment an Indian runner was
despatched to the guard, with orders to put all the prisoners to death.
A ball laid him low while he was on his errand; and the settlers being
compelled to give way, the order about the prisoners was not renewed.

At night they encamped on the snow, digging away spaces to lie down in,
and spreading boughs of the spruce-fir for couches. During the first
night one of the captives escaped; and in the morning Mr. Williams was
ordered to tell his companions, that if any more made their escape, the
rest of the prisoners should be burned.

At the close of a day's march, when they had advanced some way on their
long journey, a maidservant belonging to Mr. Williams's family came to
the pastor, requested his blessing, and offered her farewell. He
inquired what she meant. She replied, with great quietness of manner,
that she perceived that all who lagged in the march were tomahawked;
that she had kept up with great difficulty through this day; and that
she felt she should perish thus on the morrow. Mr. Williams examined
into her state of body, and was convinced that she was nearly exhausted.
He gave his blessing, and this was all he could do for her. He watched
her incessantly the next day. He saw her growing more feeble every hour,
but still calm and gentle. She kept up till late in the afternoon, when
she lagged behind; being urged, she fell, and was despatched with the
tomahawk. Two of the prisoners were starved to death on the road, and
fifteen others were murdered like Mrs. Williams and her servant.

The pastor, with his remaining children, reached Canada, where he
remained, suffering great hardships, for two years and a half. He was
ransomed, with sixty-one others, and returned to Boston, where he was
waited upon by a deputation from his old parish, and requested to resume
his duties among the remnant of his people. He actually returned, and
died in peace there twenty-three years afterward. It appears that all
his captive children but one were redeemed. Two besides Eleazer were
educated at Harvard College. His little daughter Eunice was six years
old when she was carried away. She grew up to womanhood among the
Indians, and married a red man, retaining the name of Williams, and
adopting the Romish faith. Being brought to Deerfield to see her family,
she could not be persuaded to remain; nor would she accommodate herself
to the habits of civilized life, preferring to sleep on the floor on a
blanket to using a bed. Some half-breed descendants of hers are living
on the borders of Lake Michigan.

The sufferers seemed to have consoled themselves with turning their
disasters into verse; sometimes piously, in hymns, and sometimes in a
lighter ballad strain, like the following:--

    "'Twas nigh unto Pigwacket, on the eighth day of May,
    They spied a rebel Indian, soon after break of day;
    He on a bank was walking, upon a neck of land,
    Which leads into a pond, as we're made to understand.

       *       *       *       *       *

    Then up spoke Captain Lovewell, when first the fight began,
    'Fight on, my valiant heroes! you see they fall like rain.'
    For as we are inform'd, the Indians were so thick,
    A man could scarcely fire a gun, and some of them not hit."

Many of the half-breeds who have sprung from the wars between the
settlers and the natives have been missionaries among the savages. Much
doubt hangs over the utility of Indian missions: if good has been done,
it seems to be chiefly owing to the offices of half-breeds, who modify
the religion to be imparted so as to suit it to the habits of mind and
life of the new converts. As far as I could learn, the following
anecdote is no unfair specimen of the way in which missionaries and
their religion are primarily regarded by the savages to whom they are
sent.

Mr. K., a missionary among a tribe of northern Indians, was wont to set
some simple refreshment--fruit and cider--before his converts when they
came from a distance to see him. An old man, who had no pretensions to
being a Christian, desired much to be admitted to the refreshments, and
proposed to some of his converted friends to accompany them on their
next visit to the missionary. They told him he must be a Christian
first. What was that? He must know all about the Bible. When the time
came, he declared himself prepared, and undertook the journey with them.
When arrived, he seated himself opposite the missionary, wrapped in his
blanket, and looking exceedingly serious. In answer to an inquiry from
the missionary, he rolled up his eyes, and solemnly uttered the
following words, with a pause between each:

"Adam--Eve--Cain--Noah--Jeremiah--Beelzebub--Solomon--"

"What do you mean?" asked the missionary.

"Solomon--Beelzebub--Noah--"

"Stop, stop. What do you mean?"

"I mean--cider."

This is one way in which an unintelligible religion is received by
savages. Another resembles the mode in which they meet offers of traffic
from suspicious parties: "the more you say bow and arrows, the more we
won't make them." Where Christianity is received among them with any
efficacy, it appears to be exactly in proportion to the skill of the
missionary in associating the new truth he brings with that which was
already sanctified in their hearts; in proportion as the new religion is
made a sequel of the old one, instead of a substitution for it.

The dusky race was in my mind's eye as we followed the windings of the
river through the rich valley from Springfield to Northampton. The very
names of the places, the hamlet of Hoccanum, at the foot of Mount
Holyoke, and that of Pascommuc, lying below Mount Tom, remind the
traveller how the possessors have been displaced from this fair land,
and how their descendants must be mourning their lost Quonnecticut. Such
sympathies soon wither away, however, amid the stir and loveliness of
the sunny village.

We had letters of introduction to some of the inhabitants of
Northampton, and knew that our arrival was expected; but we little
anticipated such eagerness of hospitality as we were met with. The stage
was stopped by a gentleman who asked for me. It was Mr. Bancroft, the
historian, then a resident of Northampton. He cordially welcomed us as
his guests, and ordered the stage up the hill to his house; such a
house! It stood on a lofty terrace, and its balcony overlooked first the
garden, then the orchard stretching down the slope, then the delicious
village, and the river with its meadows, while opposite rose Mount
Holyoke. Far off in the valley to the left lay Hadley, half hidden among
trees; and on the hills, still farther to the left, was Amherst, with
its college buildings conspicuous on the height.

All was in readiness for us, the spacious rooms with their cool
arrangements (it was the 7th of August), and the ladies of the family
with their ready merry welcome. It was past noon when we arrived, and
before the early dinner hour we were as much at home as if we had been
acquainted for months. The American mirth, common everywhere, was
particularly hearty in this house; and as for us, we were intoxicated
with the beauty of the scene. From the balcony we gazed as if it was
presently to melt before our eyes. This day, I remember, we first tasted
green corn, one of the most delicious of vegetables, and by some
preferred to green peas. The greatest drawback is the way in which it is
necessary to eat it. The cob, eight or ten inches long, is held at both
ends, and, having been previously sprinkled with salt, is nibbled and
sucked from end to end till all the grains are got out. It looks awkward
enough: but what is to be done? Surrendering such a vegetable from
considerations of grace is not to be thought of.

After dinner we walked in the blooming garden till summoned within doors
by callers. My host had already discovered my taste for rambling, and
determined to make me happy during my short visit by driving me about
the country. He liked nothing better himself. His historical researches
had stored his memory with all the traditions of the valley, of the
state, and, I rather think, of the whole of New-England. I find the
entries in my journal of this and the next two days the most copious of
any during my travels.

Mr. Bancroft drove me to Amherst this afternoon. He explained to me the
construction of the bridge we passed, which is of a remarkably cheap,
simple, and safe kind for a wooden one. He pointed out to me the seats
and arrangements of the villages we passed through, and amused and
interested me with many a tale of the old Indian wars. He surprised me
by the light he threw on the philosophy of society in the United States;
a light drawn from history, and shed into all the present relations of
races and parties to each other. I had before been pleased with what I
knew of the spirit of Mr. Bancroft's History of the United States,
which, however, had not then extended beyond the first volume. I now
perceived that he was well qualified, in more ways than one, for his
arduous task.

We mounted the steep hill on which Amherst stands, and stopped before
the red brick buildings of the college. When the horse was disposed of,
Mr. Bancroft left me to look at the glorious view, while he went in
search of some one who would be our guide about the college. In a minute
he beckoned me in, with a smile of great delight, and conducted me into
the lecture-room where Professor Hitchcock was lecturing. In front of
the lecturer was a large number of students, and on either hand as many
as forty or fifty girls. These girls were from a neighbouring school,
and from the houses of the farmers and mechanics of the village. The
students appeared quite as attentive as if they had had the room to
themselves. We found that the admission of girls to such lectures as
they could understand (this was on geology) was a practice of some
years' standing, and that no evil had been found to result from it. It
was a gladdening sight, testifying both to the simplicity of manners
and the eagerness for education. I doubt whether such a spectacle is to
be seen out of New-England.

The professor showed us the Turkey Tracks, the great curiosity of the
place; and distinct and gigantic indeed they were, deeply impressed in
the imbedded stone. Professor Hitchcock's name is well known among
geologists from his highly-praised work, A Report on the Geology,
Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts. We ascended to the
observatory, whence we saw a splendid variety of the view I had been
admiring all day, and we pronounced this college an enviable residence.

It is a Presbyterian college, and is flourishing, as Presbyterian
colleges of New-England do, under the zeal of professors who are not
content with delivering courses of lectures, but who work with the
students, as much like companions as teachers. The institution had been
at work only ten years, and at this time it contained two hundred and
forty undergraduates, a greater number than any in the state, except,
perhaps, Harvard.

The next day was a busy one. We were called away from gazing from the
balcony after breakfast, the carriage being at the door. Two more
carriages joined us in the village, and we proceeded in the direction of
Mount Holyoke. Our road lay through rich unfenced cornfields and meadows
where the mowers were busy. There was a great contrast between the
agriculture here and in other parts of the state. Here an annual
inundation spares much of the toil of the tiller. It seems as if little
more were necessary than to throw in the seed and reap the produce;
while, in less-favoured regions, the farmer may be seen ploughing round
the rocks which protrude from the soil, and bestowing infinite pains on
his stony fields. The carriages conveyed us a good way up the far-famed
hill. When it became too steep for the horses, we alighted, and found
the ascent easy enough. There are rude but convenient ladders, broad and
strong, at difficult turns of the path, and large stones and roots of
trees afford a firm footing in the intervals. The most wayward
imagination could not conjure up the idea of danger, and children may be
led to the top in perfect safety.

On the summit is a building which affords shelter in case of rain, and
lemonade and toddy in case of thirst. There is a fine platform of rock
on which the traveller may rest himself while he looks around over a
space of sixty miles in almost every direction. The valley is the most
attractive object, the full river coiling through the meadows, and the
spires of village churches being clustered at intervals along its banks;
but smokes rise on the hillsides, from the Green Mountains in the north
to the fading distance beyond Springfield in the south. To the east the
view extends nearly to New-Haven (Connecticut), seventy miles off. Mount
Holyoke is eleven hundred feet above the river.

While I was absorbed in the contemplation of this landscape I was tapped
on the shoulder. When I turned a shipmate stood smiling behind me. She
highly enjoyed the odd meeting on this pinnacle, and so did we. The face
of a pleasant shipmate is welcome everywhere, but particularly in a
scene which contrasts so strongly with those in which we have lived
together, as a mountain-top with the cabin of a ship. Some person who
loves contrast has entered a remarkable set of names in the album on
Mount Holyoke as having just visited the spot, Hannah More, Lord Byron,
Martin Luther, &c.

We returned by a shorter, but equally pretty road to dinner; and
presently after, as we were not at all tired, we set off again for the
Sugarloaf, ten miles up the valley. We had a warm ride and a laborious
scramble up the Sugarloaf; but we were rewarded by a view which I think
finer than the one we saw in the morning, though not so various. It
commanded the whole valley with its entire circle of hills. White dots
of buildings on the hillsides spoke of civilization; Amherst, with its
red buildings, glowed in the sun; and the river below was of a dark
gray, presenting a perfect reflection of its fringed banks, of the
ox-team on the margin, and of boys fishing among the reeds. Smokes rose
where brush was burning, indicating the foundation of new settlements.
In one of these places which was pointed out to me an accident had
happened the preceding spring, which affords another hint of what the
hearts of emigrant mothers have sometimes to bear. A child of two years
old wandered away one afternoon from its parents' side, and was missing
when the day's work was done. The family and neighbours were out in the
woods for hours with torches, but they only lost their own way without
discovering the little one. In the morning it was found, at a
considerable distance from home, lying under a bush as if asleep. It was
dead, however: the cold of the night had seized it, and it was quite
stiff.

The sun set as we returned homeward with all speed, having to dress for
an evening party. While the bright glow was still lingering in the
valley, and the sky was beginning to melt from crimson to the pale
seagreen of evening, I saw something sailing in the air like a
glistening golden balloon. I called the attention of my party to it just
in time. It burst in a broad flash and shower of green fire. It was the
most splendid meteor I ever saw. We pitied a quiet-looking couple whom
we met jogging along in a dearborn, and whose backs had, of course, been
turned to the spectacle. They must have wondered at the staring and
commotion among our party. I saw an unusual number of falling-stars
before we reached home.

The parties, on all the three evenings when I was at Northampton, were
like the village parties throughout New-England. There was an over
proportion of ladies, almost all of whom were pretty and all well
dressed. There was a good deal of party spirit among the gentlemen, and
great complaints of religious bigotry from the ladies. One inhabitant of
the place, the son of a Unitarian clergyman, was going to leave it,
chiefly on account, he told me, of the treatment his family received
from their Calvinistic neighbours. While he was at home they got on
pretty well; but he had to go from home sometimes, and could not bear to
leave his wife to such treatme

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