Фредерик Марриет
Diary in America, Series One
Volume Two—Chapter Nine
Left St. Peters. Taking the two varieties in the mass, the Indians must be acknowledged the most perfect gentlemen in America, particularly in their deportment. It was with regret that I parted with my friends in the fort, my kind host, Mr Sibley, and my noble-minded warrior Sioux. I could have remained at St. Peters for a year with pleasure, and could only regret that life was so short, and the Mississippi so long.
There is, however, one serious drawback in all America to life in the woods, or life in cities, or every other kind of life; which is the manner, go where you will, in which you are pestered by the mosquitoes. Strangers are not the only sufferers; those who are born and die in the country are equally tormented, and it is slap, slap, slap, all day and all night long, for these animals bite through everything less thick than a buffalo’s skin. As we ascended the river they attacked us on the crown of the head—a very unusual thing,—and raised swellings as large as pigeons’ eggs. I must have immolated at least five hundred of them upon my bump of benevolence. Whatever people may think, I feel that no one can be very imaginative where these animals are so eternally tormenting them. You meditate under the shady boughs of some forest-king (slap knee, slap cheek), and farewell to anything like concentration of thought; you ponder on the sailing moon (clap again, right and left, above, below), always unpleasantly interrupted. It won’t do at all: you are teased and phlebotomised out of all poetry and patience.
It is midnight, the darkness is intense, not even a star in the heavens above, and the steamboat appears as if it were gliding through a current of ink, with black masses rising just perceptible on either side of it; no sound except the reiterated note of the “Whip poor Will,” answered by the loud coughing of the high-pressure engine. Who, of those in existence fifty years ago, would have contemplated that these vast and still untenanted solitudes would have had their silence invaded by such an unearthly sound? a sound which ever gives you the idea of vitality. It is this appearance of breathing which makes the high-pressure engine the nearest approach to creation which was ever attained by the ingenuity of man. It appears to have respiration, and that short, quick respiration occasioned by exertion; its internal operations are performed as correctly and as mechanically as are our own; it is as easily put out of order and rendered useless as we are; and like us, it can only continue its powers of motion by being well supplied with aliment.
Ran up Fever River to Galena, the present emporium of the Mineral Country. There is an unpleasant feeling connected with the name of this river; it is, in fact, one of the American translations. It was originally called Fève, or Bean River, by the French, and this they have construed into Fever. The Mineral district comprehends a tract of country running about one hundred miles North and South, and fifty miles East and West, from the River Wisconsin to about twenty miles south of Galena. It was purchased by the American Government about fifteen years ago, the northern portion from the Winnebagos, and the southern from the Sioux and Fox Indians. The Indians used to work the diggings to a small extent, bringing the lead which they obtained to exchange with the traders. As may be supposed, they raised but little, the whole work of digging and smelting being carried on by the squaws. After the land was surveyed a portion of it was sold, but when the minerals made their appearance the fact was notified by the surveyors to the government, and the remaining portions were withdrawn from the market. A licence was granted to speculators to dig the ore and smelt it, upon condition of their paying to the government a percentage on the mineral obtained. Those who found a good vein had permission to work it for forty yards square on condition that they carried the ore to a licensed smelter. This occasioned a new class of people to spring up in this speculative country, namely, finders, who would search all over the country for what they called a good prospect, that is, every appearance on the surface of a good vein of metal. This when found they would sell to others, who would turn diggers; and as soon as these finders had spent their money, they would range over the whole country to find another prospect which they might dispose of. But although it was at first supposed that the government had retained all the mineral portion of the district in its own hands, it was soon discovered that nearly the whole country was one continued lead mine, and that there was an equal supply of mineral to be obtained from those portions which had been disposed of. Lead was found not only in the mountains and ravines, but under the surface of the wide prairies. As the lands sold by government had not to pay a percentage for the lead raised from them, those who worked upon the government lands refused to pay any longer, asserting that it was not legal. The superintendent of government soon found that his office was a sinecure, as all attempt at coercion in that half-civilised country would have been not only useless but dangerous. The government have gone to law with their tenants, but that is of no avail, for a verdict against the latter would not induce them to pay. The cause was not attempted to be tried at Galena, for the government knew what the decision of the jury would have been, but it is contested at Vandalia. It is three years since the mines have paid any percentage, and the government are now advised to sell all their reserved lands, and thus get rid of the business. How weak must that government be when it is compelled to submit to such a gross violation of all justice. The quantity of mineral found does not appear to affect the quality of the soil, which is as fine here, if not finer, than in those portions of Wisconsin where the mineral is not so plentiful. The quantity of lead annually smelted is said to amount to from 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 lbs. Galena is a small town, picturesquely situated on the banks of the river, but very dirty.
Ioway, the new district opposite to Wisconsin, on the western banks of the Mississippi, has, in all probability, a large proportion of metal under its surface. When it was in the possession of the Sioux Indians, they used to obtain from it a considerable portion of lead, which they brought down to barter; and I am inclined to think, that to the north of the Wisconsin river, they will find no want of minerals, even as high up as Lake Superior, where they have already discovered masses of native copper weighing many tons: and on the west side of the river, as you proceed south, you arrive at the iron mines, or rather mountains of iron, in the Missouri.
After you proceed south of Prairie du Chien, the features of the Mississippi river gradually change; the bluffs decrease in number and in height, until you descend to Rock Island, below which point they are rarely to be met with. The country on each side now is chiefly composed of variegated rolling prairies, with a less proportion of timber. To describe these prairies would be difficult; that is, to describe the effect of them upon a stranger: I have found myself lost, as it were; and indeed sometimes, although on horseback, have lost myself, having only the sun for my guide. Look round in every quarter of the compass, and there you are as if on the ocean—not a landmark, not a vestige of any thing human but yourself. Instead of sky and water, it is one vast field, bounded only by the horizon, its surface gently undulating like the waves of the ocean; and as the wind (which always blows fresh on the prairies) bows down the heads of the high grass, it gives you the idea of a running swell. Every three or four weeks there is a succession of beautiful flowers, giving a variety of tints to the whole map, which die away and are succeeded by others equally beautiful; and in the spring, the strawberries are in such profusion, that you have but to sit down wherever you may happen to be, and eat as long as you please.
We stopped at Alton, in the State of Missouri, to put on shore three thousand pigs of lead. This town has been rendered notorious by the murder—for murder it was, although it was brought on by his own intemperate conduct—of Mr Lovejoy, who is now raised to the dignity of a martyr by the abolitionists. Alton is a well-built town, of stone, and, from its locality, must increase; it is, however, spoilt by the erection of a penitentiary with huge walls, on a most central and commanding situation. I read a sign put out by a small eating-house, and which was very characteristic of the country—
“Stranger, here’s your chicken fixings.”
Four miles below Alton, the Missouri joins its waters with the Mississippi; and the change which takes place at the mingling of the two streams is very remarkable—the clear pellucid current of the upper Mississippi being completely extinguished by the foul mud of the other turbid and impetuous river. It was a great mistake of the first explorers, when they called the western branch, at the meeting of the two rivers, the Missouri, and the eastern the Mississippi: the western branch, or the Missouri, is really the Mississippi, and should have been so designated: it is the longest and farthest navigable of the two branches, and therefore is the main river.
The Falls of St. Anthony put an end to the navigation of the eastern branch, or present upper Missouri, about nine hundred miles above St. Louis; while the western branch, or present Missouri, is navigable above St. Louis for more than one thousand two hundred miles.
The waters of the present upper Mississippi are clear and beautiful; it is a swift, but not an angry stream, full of beauty and freshness, and fertilising as it sweeps along; while the Missouri is the same impetuous, discoloured, devastating current as the Mississippi continues to be after its junction—like it, constantly sweeping down forests of trees in its wild course, overflowing, inundating, and destroying, and exciting awe and fear.
As soon as you arrive at St. Louis, you feel that you are on the great waters of Mississippi. St. Louis is a well-built town, now containing about twenty thousand inhabitants, and situated on a hill shelving down to the river. The population increases daily; the river a-breast of the town is crowded with steamboats, lying in two or three tiers, and ready to start up or down, or to the many tributary navigable rivers which pour their waters into the Mississippi.
In point of heat, St. Louis certainly approaches the nearest to the Black Hole of Calcutta of any city that I have sojourned in. The lower part of the town is badly drained, and very filthy. The flies, on a moderate calculation, are in many parts fifty to the square inch. I wonder that they have not a contagious disease here during the whole summer; it is, however, indebted to heavy rains for its occasional purification. They have not the yellow-fever here; but during the autumn they have one which, under another name, is almost as fatal—the bilious congestive fever. I found sleep almost impossible from the sultriness of the air, and used to remain at the open window for the greater part of the night. I did not expect that the muddy Mississippi would be able to reflect the silver light of the moon; yet it did, and the effect was very beautiful. Truly it may be said of this river, as it is of many ladies, that it is a candle-light beauty. There is another serious evil to which strangers who sojourn here are subject—the violent effects of the waters of the Mississippi upon those who are not used to them. The suburbs of the town are very pretty; and a few miles behind it you are again in a charming prairie country, full of game, large and small. Large and small are only so by comparison. An American was asked what game they had in his district? and his reply was, “Why, we’ve plenty of baar (bear) and deer, but no large game to count on.”
There is one great luxury in America, which is the quantity of clear pure ice which is to be obtained wherever you are, even in the hottest seasons, and ice-creams are universal and very cheap. I went into an establishment where they vended this and other articles of refreshment, when about a dozen black swarthy fellows, employed at the iron-foundry close at hand, with their dirty shirt-sleeves tucked up, and without their coats and waistcoats, came in, and sitting down, called for ice-creams. Miss Martineau says in her work, “Happy is the country where factory-girls can carry parasols, and pig-drivers wear spectacles.” She might have added, and the sons of Vulcan eat ice-creams. I thought at the time what the ladies, who stop in their carriages at Gunter’s, would have said, had they behold these Cyclops with their bare sinewy arms, blackened with heat and smoke, refreshing themselves with such luxuries; but it must be remembered that porter is much the dearer article. Still the working classes all over America can command not only all necessary comforts, but many luxuries; for labour is dear and they are very well paid. The Americans will point this out and say, behold the effects of our institutions; and they fully believe that such is the case. Government has, however, nothing to do with it; it is the result of circumstances. When two years’ exertion will procure a clever mechanic an independence, the effects will be the same, whether they labour under a democratic or a monarchical form of government.
Bear cubs (I mean the black bear) are caught and brought down to the cities on this side of the river, to be fattened for the table. I saw one at Alton about a year old, which the owner told me was to be killed the next day, having been bespoken for the feast of the 4th of July. I have eaten old bear, which I dislike; but they say that the cub is very good. I also saw here a very fine specimen of the grizzly bear (Ursus Horridus of Linnaeus). It was about two years old, and although not so tall, it must have weighed quite as much as a good-sized bullock. Its width of shoulder and apparent strength were enormous, and they have never yet been tamed: Mr Van Amburgh would be puzzled to handle one of them. The Indians reckon the slaying of one of these animals as a much greater feat than killing a man, and the proudest ornament they can wear is a necklace of the grizzly bear’s claws.
I for myself, must confess, that I had rather be attacked by, and take my chance with, three men than by one of these animals, as they are seldom killed by the first or even the second bullet. It requires numbers to overcome them. The largest lion, or Bengal tiger, would stand but a poor chance, if opposed to one of these animals full grown. One of the gentlemen employed by the Fur Company told me, that he once saw a grizzly bear attack a bull buffalo, and that, at the first seizure, he tore one of the ribs of the buffalo out of his side, and eventually carried away the whole carcass, without much apparent effort. They are only to be found in the rocky mountains, and valleys between them, when the game is plentiful.
Visited the museum. There were once five large alligators to be seen alive in this museum; but they are now all dead. One demands our sympathy, as there was something Roman in his fate. Unable to support such a life of confinement, and preferring death to the loss of liberty, he committed suicide by throwing himself out of a three-storey-high window. He was taken up from the pavement the next morning; the vital spark had fled, as the papers say, and, I believe, his remains were decently interred.
The other four, never having been taught in their youth the hymn, “Birds in their little nests agree,” fought so desperately, that one by one they all died of their wounds. They were very large, being from seventeen to twenty-one feet long. One, as a memorial, remains preserved in the museum, and to make him look more poetical, he has a stuffed negro in his mouth.
Volume Two—Chapter Ten
Thank Heaven I have escaped from St. Louis; during the time that I remained in that city, I was, day and night, so melting away, that I expected, like some of the immortal half-breeds of Jupiter, to become a tributary stream to the Mississippi.
As you descend the river the land through which it flows becomes more level and flat, while the size of the forest trees increases; the log houses of the squatters, erected on the banks under their trunks, appear, in contrast with their size, more like dog-kennels than the habitations of men. The lianes, or creeping plants, now become plentiful, and embrace almost every tree, rising often to the height of fifty or sixty feet, and encircling them with the apparent force of the boa-constrictor. Most of them are poisonous; indeed, it is from these creeping parasites that the Indians, both in North and South America, obtain the most deadly venom. Strange that these plants, in their appearances and their habits so similar to the serpent tribe, should be endowed with the same peculiar attributes, and thus become their parallels in the vegetable kingdom—each carrying sudden death in their respective juices. I hate the Mississippi, and as I look down upon its wild and filthy waters, boiling and eddying, and reflect how uncertain is travelling in this region of high-pressure, and disregard of social rights, I cannot help feeling a disgust at the idea of perishing in such a vile sewer, to be buried in mud, and perhaps to be rooted out again by some pig-nosed alligator.
Right glad was I when we turned into the stream of the Ohio, and I found myself on its purer waters. The Ohio is a splendid river, running westward from the chain of Alleghany mountains into the Mississippi, dividing the States of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio on its northern bank from Kentucky, and Virginia on its south; the northern being free, and the southern slave States. We stopped at the month of the Cumberland river, where we took in passengers. Among others were a slave-dealer and a runaway negro whom he had captured. He was secured by a heavy chain, and followed his master, who, as soon as he arrived on the upper deck, made him fast with a large padlock to one of the stancheons.
Here he remained looking wistfully at the northern shore, where every one was free, but occasionally glancing his eye on the southern, which had condemned him to toil for others, I had never seen a slave-dealer, and scrutinised this one severely. His most remarkable feature was his eye; it was large but not projecting, clear as crystal, and eternally in motion. I could not help imagining, as he turned it right and left from one to the other of the passengers, that he was calculating what price he could obtain for them in the market. The negro had run away about seven months before, and not having a pass, he had been secured in goal until the return of his master, who had been on a journey with a string of slaves, to the State of Arkansas: he was about to be sold to pay expenses, when his master saw the advertisement and claimed him. As may be supposed, a strong feeling exists on the opposite shores of the river as to slavery and freedom. The Abolitionists used to assist the slaves to escape, and send them off to Canada; even now many do escape; but this has been rendered more difficult by a system which has latterly been put in practice by a set of miscreants living on the free side of the river. These would go to the slave states opposite, and persuade the negroes to run away, promising to conceal them until they could send them off to Canada; for a free state is bound to give up a slave when claimed. Instead of sending them away, they would wait until the reward was offered by the masters for the apprehension of the slaves, and then return them, receiving their infamous guerdon. The slaves, aware of this practice, now seldom attempt to escape.
Louisville is the largest city in Kentucky; the country about is very rich, and every thing vegetable springs up with a luxuriance which is surprising. It is situated at the falls of the Ohio, which are only navigable during the freshets; there is no river in America which has such a rise and fall as the Ohio, sometimes rising to sixty feet in the spring; but this is very rare, the general average being about forty feet. The French named it La Belle Riviere: it is a very grand stream, running through hills covered with fine timber and underwood; but a very small portion is as yet cleared by the settlers. At the time that I was at Louisville the water was lower than it had been remembered for years, and you could walk for miles over the bed of the river, a calcareous deposite full of interesting fossils; but the mineralogist and geologist have as much to perform in America as the agriculturist.
Arrived at Cincinnati. How rapid has been the advance of this western country. In 1803, deer-skin at the value of forty cents per pound, were a legal tender; and if offered instead of money could not be refused—even by a lawyer. Not fifty years ago, the woods which towered where Cincinnati is now built, resounded only to the cry of the wild animals of the forest, or the rifle of the Shawnee Indian; now Cincinnati contains a population of 40,000 inhabitants. It is a beautiful, well built, clean town, reminding you more of Philadelphia than any other city in the Union. Situated on a hill on the banks of the Ohio, it is surrounded by a circular phalanx of other hills; so that look up and down the streets, whichever way you will, your eye reposes upon verdure and forest trees in the distance. The streets have a row of trees on each side, near the curb-stone; and most of the houses have a small frontage, filled with luxuriant flowering shrubs, of which the Althea Frutex is the most abundant. It is, properly speaking, a Yankee city, the majority of its inhabitants coming from the East; but they have intermarried, and blended with the Kentuckians of the opposite shore, a circumstance which is advantageous to the character of both.
There are, however, a large number of Dutch and German settlers here; they say 10,000. They are not much liked by the Americans but have great influence, as may be conceived when it is stated that, when a motion was brought forward, in the Municipal Court, for the city regulations to be printed in German as well as English, it was lost by one vote only.
I was told a singular fact, which will prove how rapidly the value of land rises in this country as it becomes peopled. Fifty-six years ago, the major part of the land upon which the city of Cincinnati stands, and which is now worth many millions of dollars, was swapped away by the owner of it for a pony!! The man who made this unfortunate bargain is now alive, and living in or near Cincinnati.
Cincinnati is the pork-shop of the Union; and in the autumnal, and early winter months, the way they kill pigs here is, to use a Yankee phrase, quite a caution. Almost all the hogs fed in the oak forests of Ohio, Kentucky, and Western Virginia, are driven into this city, and some establishments kill as many as fifteen hundred a day; at least so I am told. They are despatched in a way quite surprising; and a pig is killed upon the same principle as a pin is made,—by division, or, more properly speaking, by combination of labour. The hogs confined in a large pen are driven into a smaller one; one man knocks them on the head with a sledge hammer, and then cuts their throats; two more pull away the carcase, when it is raised by two others, who tumble it into a tub of scalding water. His bristles are removed in about a minute and a half by another party; when the next duty is to fix a stretcher between his legs. It is then hoisted up by two other people, cut open, and disembowelled; and in three minutes and a half from the time that the hog was grunting in his obesity, he has only to get cold before he is again packed up, and reunited in a barrel to travel all over the world. By the by, we laugh at the notion of pork and molasses. In the first place, the American pork is far superior to any that we ever have salted down; and, in the next, it eats uncommonly well with molasses. I have tasted it, and “it is a fact.” After all, why should we eat currant jelly with venison, and not allow the Americans the humble imitation of pork and molasses?
Mrs Trollope’s bazaar raises its head in a very imposing manner: it is composed of many varieties of architecture; but I think the order under which it must be classed is the preposterous. They call it Trollope’s folly; and it is remarkable how a shrewd woman like Mrs Trollope should have committed such an error. A bazaar like an English bazaar is only to be supported in a city which has arrived at the acme of luxury; where there are hundreds of people willing to be employed for a trifle; hundreds who will work at trifles, for want of better employment; and thousands who will spend money on trifles, merely to pass away their time. Now, in America, in the first place, there is no one who makes trifles; no one who will devote their time, as sellers of the articles unless well compensated; and no one who will be induced, either by fashion or idleness, to give a halfpenny more for a thing than it is worth. In consequence, nothing was sent to Mrs Trollope’s bazaar. She had to furnish it from the shops, and had to pay very high salaries to the young women who attended; and the people of Cincinnati, aware that the same articles were to be purchased at the stores for less money, preferred going to the stores. No wonder then that it was a failure. It is now used as a dancing academy, and occasionally as an assembly-room.
Whatever the society of Cincinnati may have been at the time that Mrs Trollope resided there, I cannot pretend to say; probably some change may have taken place in it; but at present it is as good as any in the Union, and infinitely more agreeable than in some other cities, as in it there is a mixture of the southern frankness of character. A lady, who had long resided at Cincinnati, told me that they were not angry with Mrs Trollope for having described the society which she saw, but for having asserted that that was the best society; and she further remarked,—“It is fair to us that it should be understood that when Mrs Trollope came here, she was quite unknown, except inasmuch as that she was a married woman, travelling without her husband. In a small society, as ours was, it was not surprising, therefore, that we should be cautious about receiving a lady who, in our opinion was offending against les bienséances. Observe, we do not accuse Mrs Trollope of any impropriety; but you must be aware how necessary it is, in this country, to be regardful of appearances, and how afraid every one is of their neighbour. Mrs Trollope then took a cottage on the hill, and used to come down to the city to market, and attend to the erection of her bazaar. I have now told you all that we know about her, and the reason why she did not receive those attentions, the omission of which caused her indignation.” I think it but fair that the lady’s explanation should be given, as Mrs Trollope is considered to have been very severe and very unjust by the inhabitants of Cincinnati.
The fact is, that Mrs Trollope’s representation of the manners and custom of Cincinnati, at the period when she wrote, was probably more correct than the present inhabitants of the city will allow: that it would be a libel upon the Cincinnatians of the present day is certain; whether it was one at the time she wrote, and the city was, comparatively speaking, in its infancy, is quite another affair. However, one thing is certain, which is, that the Americans have quite forgiven Mrs Trollope, and if she were again to cross the water, I think she would be well received. Her book made them laugh, though at their own expense; and the Americans, although appearances are certainly very much against it, are really, at the bottom, a very good tempered people.
The heat has been this year very remarkable all over the Western country, and the drought equally uncommon, the thermometer standing from 100 degrees to 106 degrees, in the shade, every where from St. Peters to New Orleans. It is very dangerous to drink iced water, and many have died from yielding to the temptation. One young man came into the bar of the hotel where I resided, drank a glass of water, and fell down dead at the porch. This reminds me of an ingenious plan put in practice by a fellow who had drunk every cent out of his pocket, and was as thirsty as ever. The best remedy, in case of a person being taken ill from drinking cold water, is to pour brandy down his throat immediately. Aware of this, the fellow used to go to one of the pumps, pump away, and pretend to drink water in large quantities; he would then fall down by the pump, as if he had been taken suddenly ill; out would run people from every house, with brandy, and pour it down his throat till even he had had enough; he would then pretend gradually to recover, thank them for their kindness, and walk away. When he required another dose, he would perform the same farce at another pump; and this he continued to do for some time, before his trick was discovered.
I had two good specimens of democracy during my stay in this city. I sent for a tailor to take my measure for a coat, and he returned for answer, that such a proceeding was not republican, and that I must go to him.
A young lady, with whom I was acquainted, was married during the time I was there, and the marriage-party went a short tour. On their return, when but a few miles from the city, they ordered the driver of the carriage to put his horses to, that they might proceed; he replied that he would take them no further. On inquiring the cause of his refusal, he said that he had not been treated as a gentleman; that they had had private meals every day, and had not asked him to the table; that they had used him very ill, and that he would drive no more. Things appear to be fast verging to the year 1920, or thereabouts, as described by Theodore Hook. A duchess wishing for a drive, the old mare sends an answer from the stable, that “She’ll be d—d if she’ll go out today.”
