i 1V71 ,c i l .vlOS-ANCElfj> 1 1 % e cd 1 3 ^/JJHAlNIHttV 9 ^uAncaa^ I/O I 1 I 1 < S %OJI1V>JO^ ^OF-CAllFOft^ . . s ^ % 4f I jTi ir^ I o :lOS-ANCEt% & ^ 6 g ^UBRARYOc. ^EUNIVER% s e I 1 \\EUNIVEB ^lOS-AHCElfx^ I **v THROUGH EXCUESION j THE SLAVE STATES, WASHINGTON ON TIIE POTOMAC TO ME FROSTIER OF MEXfCO; WITH SKETCHES OF POPDUR MANNERS AND GEOLOGICAL -NOTICES. .* BY G, W, *FEATHERSTONHAUGH, F.R.S., F.G.S - .* * . NEW-YORK:^ PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, No. 82 CLIFF-STREET. 1844. I - CONTENTS. 2.1*0 toTHODDCTiox Page 5 CHAPTER I. Barnum's Hotel at Baltimore Canvas-back Dncks Soft Criibs ; the Process of changing their Shells Railroad to Fredericton in Maryland Impositions practised upon Travel lers Notices of the Geology of the Country Hnrper's-ferrv ; the Shenandoah Valley Nationality of the Germanico- Americans 11 CHAPTER II. Ascent of the first Alleghany Ridges A dandy Rattle- snake Magnificent View across the Alleghanies from Warm Springs Mountain Affecting Reception at the Hotel of the Warm Springs 15 CHAPTER III. A Virginia Hotel in the Mountains A dancing Landlord Incomparable Beauty of the Warm Baths Their gaseous and solid Contents The Hot Springs Curious Effect produced upon them by an Earthquake Geologi- cal Structure of the Ridges View of the Alleghaniea and the Warm Springs Valley 17 CHAPTER IV. The celebrated White Sulphur Springs Mr. Anderson, a Character Description of this Watering Place Beauty of the Alleshany Mountain Our various Adventures at a Blacksmith's Boarding-house and Alatrnna Row An old Lady nnkes a double Somerset Our Removal to Compulsion Row 21 CHAPTER V. State of Society at Compulsion Row Fine Flavour of the Oysters at New Orleans. Priv ite Cabins at the Springs A Cyclopean Kitchen Merciful Plan of Killing Bul- locks with the Rifle Extr lordlnary Performances at Dinner Mr. Wright's Shanty in the Woodsy-Generals who have never been Soldiers The Ferryman and the Traveller without a Title 25 CHAPTER VI. The System of Allegheny Ridges caused hy an Upheaval from below, and the White Sulphur Springs a Conse- quence of the Movement Gaseous Contents of the Waters White Rock Mountains Horizontal Fossil- iferous Strata in place . .... 29 CHAPTER VII. Paying beforehand as bad as not piying all Journey to the Sweet Springs Be-mtv of the Country Gaseous and solid Contents of the Waters Remarkable Dam formed of Travertine Ancient Travertine 350 feet above the Level of the present Spring", probably derived from them before the Valley existed Proofs of" the ancient Surface being lowered 31 CHAPTER VIII. Depart on foot ocross the Mountains to Fincastle Decidu- ous and evergreen Trees alternating with the Soil Fin- cadtle, a V'rginia Town Mr. Jefferson the Confucius of the United States Free thinking and Universal Suffrage Irs grand Nostrums for good Government A patriotic Proposition to blow Virginia "iky-high" to save its Con- stitution Botetourt Sprines A Cmnp of Negto Slave- drivers The Cottie of SUves crosses New Rivf>r 0111- acled and fettered The Negro drivers in mourning . 34 CHAPTER IX. Cane nf some ConfiHon in the Designation of the Alle- ehany Ridges explained A Duck shooting Landlord Arrive at Abinedon Account of Saltville Geology of the Valley and surrounding Country Visit to King's Cove, a singular basin in Clinch Mountain, the residence of an Outlaw His account of the Panthers and Wild Cat Accoucheurs Strata of the Clinch Mountain . 39 CHAPTER X. A plens-iDt Party in a Stage Coach Arrive at Blountsville in the Stnte of Tennessee Fists versus Dirks and Pis- tols Kno.vville Meet President Jackson . . 43 CHAPTER XI. A Negro-driver in mourning for a great Patriot Irrever- ence of a Negro to a White Man's Ghost Bivouac of a Cans of chnineil Slave* An agreenhle and lively fel- low-passenger Cro-w the Cumberland Mountains Ar- rive at Sparri A Driver killed Hickory Valley- Mound* and Graves of the Indians that formerly dwelt here Imaginary Pigmy Race 46 CHAPTER XH. Indian Practice of burning the Underwood to enable the Natives to pursue the Game The Aboriginal Races t be traced by their Mounds General Jackson's Planta- tion, the Hermitage His Character by a Neighbour Arrival at Nashville Page CHAPTER Xni. Description of Nashville The College Professor Troost The Baptist Preacher and the Rattlesnakes Affinity betwixt certain Mexican Idols and others found in Se- quatchee Valley in Tennessee Public Spirit of the lead- ing Men of Tennessee Mr. Ridley, one of the earliest Settlers His Adventures Indian "Attack upon a stock- aded Fort Heroic conduct of Mr. Ridley's Daughter- Murder of White Children by the Savages, and unmiti- gable Hatred of the Whites to them .... 51 CHAPTER XIV. The religious Sect of the Campbellites Order of Priest- hood confined to handsome young Fellows Geology of this part of Tennessee Section of the Country made by the Cumberland River for 300 miles Remsrkable an cient Bed of broken Shells-Harpeth Ridge Unios of the Western Waters 55 CHAPTER XV. Leave Nashville The Barrens of Kentucky The Mam- moth Cave First View of the Ohio River Arrival at Louisville Falls of the Ohio Henry Clay, his great Popularity Captain Jack of the Citizen Steamer, a most catavvampous Navigator Public Indifference to the loss of Life in new Countries Explanation of "a Sin to Crockett" 58 CHAPTER XVI. Leave Louisville, and take to the Stage-Coach again Dif- ference betwixt the Manners of Slave and Free States Vincennes in the State of Illinois Old Race of French. Canadians there Beauty of the Prairies Horizontal Coal Seams in the Bnnks of the Rivers Grouse An- cient Bed of the Mississippi seven miles broad The Town of St. Louis in the State of Missouri Col. Smith of the British Army " Running a Negro" explained Jefferson Barracks ; admirable Management of a regi- mental Fund Vuide Poche and Pain Court A group of thirty Barrows 62 i CHAPTER XVII. A remarkable Barrow The monuments of the Ancient Red People analogous to those of the Old Races in Eu- rope Probable Cause of the Diversity in Indian Dia- lectsA petrified Forest Society at St. Louis More Bolting at the Table d'Hdte Fur-trappers of the Rocky Mountains Excellent Markets at St. Louis Money the real Object of Life . . . . . .66 CHAPTER XVIII. Purchase a Waggon Old French Town of St. Charles on the Missouri Linden Grove Origin of the Mounds- Customs of the Osage Indians 69 CHAPTER XIX. Departure from St. Louis The Comforts of an Indian Matrimonial Alliance Tame Buffiiloes Herculaneu in America Immense flocks of Cranes History of Mr Gallatin Vallee's Mines ..... CHAPTER XX. Taptitt and Perry's Lead Mines Geology of the Lead District System of Galeniferou> Veins Their Struct- ure analogous to the Trap Veins at T">rernNh in Scot- land Farmington Visit to the Iron Mountain . 75 CHAPTER XXI. Mine la Motte Veins of Galena di-aurhed by electric! Matter Earthquake t New Madrid i:, 1811 Freder town A Judge's Encomium on the Mi.-s uri Bar- ther Stories Greenville Fan; at an opulent Mi Fmner's Life of a Squatter How to -bring u( Sovereign People Bear Oil Currency Scene in a ofJuslice CHAPTER XXII. Big Black River First Appearance of Parroqueets- and Buffalo Little Black River A Disa^.-r, and a Niehv in the Woods Ivory -billed wood peckers, a 'id < of the Sovereign |ieple unable to hold the reins of < ernment A Forest on Fire The Currant River. iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER xxm. The " Military Road" Eleven-Mile Point River-Obliging Conduct of Widow Newland The Advantage^ of "camping out" Our front and hind Wheels quarrel; the hind Wheels turn back Mr. and Mrs. Meri wether Two suspicious Travellers Murder of Mr. Childers Extraordinary Spectacle produced by wild Pigeons Bury the remains of Mr. Childers . . . Page 85 CHAPTER XXIV. Description of White River Judge Tucker's Cabin; his Account of the Murder of Childers Account of the first Judge Lynch, and the state of Legal Practice in his Court A successful Speculation in Lead Clock Ped- lars insinuating Persons White River Mountain A Ruffian of the first order 88 CHAPTER XXV. Little Red River A distressed Family of Emigrants A new kind of Grist-mill Black Wolves A wild Ameri- can Scene Reach the Arkansas River A Tavern at Little Rock 92 CHAPTER XXVI. State of Society at Little Rock Don Jonathan The Rev- erend Mr. Stevenson Newspapers versus the Bible Governor Pope and his Lady The Laws of Honour at Little Rock A Duel in the Dark A Bully killed A College of Faro and Rouge et Noir Arkansas Legisla- torsThe Speaker murders a Member in the body of the House His Trial 94 CHAPTER XXVII. Apology for the Manners of Arkansas Manner of living at Little Rock Aversion to Shutting the Doors Ter- tiary Deposit Alluvial Bottoms, and the Species of Plants growing there Visit to the Mauimelles German Emigrants Geology of .the Mammelle Mountain Enter ' an immense Swampy Plain Danger of travelling with- out a Guide Some apprehension of being obliged to treat the Wolves Reach a House . . . . 9 CHAPTER XXVIII. A Concert of Wolves Ancient Bed of the Arkansas An Arkansas Honeymoon Method of crossing a Bayou . Depirt from Little Rock for the Hot Springs of the Washita Explanation of a "Turn-out" Stop at the best Hotel on the Road" Nisby" and her " Missus" Stump Handle and Company A" fastidious Judge Gov- ernor Shannon's Hotel A Jury de circumstantibus 102 CHAPTER XXIX. Arrive at Magnet Cove An interesting Mineral Locality- Strange effects of a Hurricane Reach the Hot Springs Whittington without his Cat Rare Accommodations -Description of the Sprirtgs Fishes in Hot Water- Temperature and Gaseous Contents of the Hot Springs The Travertine presents different Constituents below the Surface 107 CHAPTER XXX. Curious and beautiful Mineral Structure of the adjacent Country Locality whence the Indians procured the Mineral for their Arrow Heads An unsophisticated "Bar-hunter" Panthers fond of Buffalo Tongues Strange single Combat betwixt a Hunter and a male Buffalo Reasoning Power of the Animal State of the Hunter's Nerves after the Battle .... 110 CHAPTER XXXI. Leave the Hot Springs Regain the " Military Road," and cross the Washita How to drink Coffee made of Acorns The Caddo River Mrs. Barkman, her extraordinary Accomplishments A Hunter's House and Family Ter- tiary Deposits A travelling Courthouse A Knot of Gamblers A Paddy going to Texas . . .113 CHAPTER XXXII. Bear-hunting Approach a suhcretaceous Country Judge Cross Dlsh. ;tc ,{ Territory betwixt Mexico and the Uni- : ieu States A Prairie Country and subfeticeous Fossils General Houston Plot to wrest Texas from Mexico Beauty of the Country lw CHAPTER XXXIII. Probable Origin of Prairies Lund most attractive when to be obtained without payi ig for Mr. Prior-Great Abuse of the Government Lai d Sales An Oasis in the Wilderness Contrast between the educated and unedu- cated Classes Two patriotic Members of the Sovereign People. . no CHAPTER XXXIV. Mr. Williams; his Adventures-blunder of the Mexican Government Reach Red River Cross into the Mexican Province of Tevas Lost Prairie, a beautiful tract of Lund Surprising Crop of Cotton in a field of 3IK) acres The Abolition of Slavery a hopeless Case The future Wild Muscadel Grape 123 CHAPTER XXXV. Course and ancient Channels of Red River The Great Raft Method adopted of cutting it out Danger to which New Orleans is exposed Fight betwixt a Man and a Panther Triigical Story of a Hunter-Comical Relation of a Solo played by a Negro to a Gang of Wolves Fos- sil Oysters in the Saline .... Page 125 CHAPTER XXXVI. Reach Little Rock again A pleasant Christmas Eve- Embark in a Steamer for New Orleans A painful Mo- mentStructure of the Banks of the Arkansas Snags and Sawers explained Frequent Change of the Chan- nel of the River Cotton Plantations Cause of the Va- riegated Structure of the Banks explained . . 128 CHAPTER XXXVII. Approximative Method suggested of calculating the Age ot Fluvbtile Deposits Brutal Conduct of the Passen- gersThe Uuapaw Indians a Tribe of the Osages Monsieur Baraque, his Adventures A young Vagabond Post of Arkansas Monsieur Notre be The River en croaching upon the Country 132 CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Steamer boarded by Swindlers Pandemonium afloat Day and Night Orgies A Mysterious Lady Printed Rules to Decoy Passengers White River Reach the Mississippi Arrive at Vicksburg Mr. Vick and his brother Gentlemen Worse and worse Compliments to the Captain of a Steamer by the Gentry of Vicksburg A View of the Grand Gulf Reach Natchez A happy Deliverance of the Swindlers Judge Lynch in the State of Mississippi Arrive at New Orleans . .135 CHAPTER XXXIX. The Delta of the Mississippi Shirtings of the Channel of the River Formation of new Land at its Mouth Visit the Cemeteries Mede of contriving drv Graves Pirati- cal-looking Population Green Peas out of doors, Jan. 1 Li:erature and the Sciences New Orleans American- isedSunday Evening Meetings Faro the principal Business transac:ed in New Orleans The Legislature in Session Good Theatres 139 CHAPTER XL. Quadroon young Ladies, their hard fate Liaisons of a Hal de SucictcAn amiable Father of several Families Good Prospect for the Anglo-Episcopal Church Span- ish Cathedral Depart from New Orleans A Railroad Embark in a Steadier for Mobile A Storm A Bishop on Board Come to an anchor The Bay and River of Mobile Tokens of Commercial Activity Beauty and Cleanliness of the town of Mobile Spanish Creoles The Bolero 141 CHAPTER XLI. Embark in a Steamer, and ascend the Mobile and Ala- li-ima Tertiary Ite|K>sits at Fort Claiborne Great Fer- tility of the State of Alabama Aptitude of the Creek In- dians for Labour Reach Montgomery, in Alab.ima Filthiness of the " principal" Ho:el Engage a carriage to cross the Indian Territory Country inundated Cross the Oakfuskee and enter the Creek Nation . 144 CHAPTER XLII. Description of the Muscogee or Creek People Their Sachem, M'Gillivray Their Treaties with the Ameri- can Government The Chiefs Corrupted hy the Georgi- ans Weathei ford, the Sachem of the Lower Creeks, attacks and massacres the Garrison at Fort Mimms General Jackson takes the Field Fatal Battle of Toho- peka, or the Horse Shoe Weatherford's Heroic Con- duct M'lntosh hetravs his Countrymen, and is shot The Creeks compelled to cede all their Country Apol- ogy for the Whites 145 CHAPTER XLIII. The Ruins of a Nation Kateeliee Swamp A Turkey im- plumis Emigrants with their Slaves Phlebotomy Diamond Rattle Snakes Reach Columbus, in Georgia Falls of the Chatahoochie Leave Columbus Obser- vations upon the Family of Naiades Arrive at Augusta Railroad to Charleston, in South Carolina Reach Columbia, in South Carolina 151 CHAPTER XLIV. The Gentlemen of America The Tariff and Nullification Wise Conduct of Mr. (May and Mr. Ca I houn Warlike Propensities of an Octogenarian philosopher A black animal chained on the roof of a Stage-coach The char- acter of the White Man elevated by the Slavery of the Black one 155 CHAPTER XLV. Inside and Outside Pascengers in Chains Bob Chatwood and the Game of All Fours A social Bottle An Over- turn in the dark Reach Charlotte, in North Carolina Description of the Gold Region in North Carolina and Virginia Richmond, in Virginia The Chesterfield Coal- fieldSpeculations respecting it . . . .158 CONCLUDING CHAPTB .164 INTRODUCTION. THE River Potomac, from its source to its moulh, in the great Bay of Chesapeake, divides the Atlantic frontier of the United States of America into two unequal parts ; and being, with the exception of the State of Maryland, the boundary betwixt the southern slave-holding states and the free states to the north, may be said to form a line of demarcation betwixt their industrial pursuits, their laws, and their manners. To that portion which lies to the south of this line the attenion of travellers has been much less drawn than to that exten- sive division of the American Republic which lies to the north and west ; and it is to supply, to a certain extent, the want of information which exists respecting some portions of the southern states, that the author has drawn up the following pages. It was during an interesting tour in 1834 1835 from the city of Washington to the frontier of Mexico, and whilst in one of the unfrequented and wild parts of the territory of Arkansas, that he communica- ted some account of those remote coun- tries, and the manners of the frontier set- tlers, to a distinguished scientific friend in London, which not long after led to the an- nouncement, by the late Mr. John Murray, of a work substantially the same as the present publication. But the author, who was at that time residing in the United States, had scarcely prepared it for the press, when he was induced, upon the ad- vice of some American friends of great re- spectability, to reconsider his intention of publishing. It was remarked to him, that however sincerely he might wish to avoid giving umbrage in any quarter, yet that the work contained some opinions, and the re- lation of some incidents, which could not at that time fail to irritate a powerful inter- est in the United- States, and might set him at variance with many esteemed friends. As this counsel came from a friendly and judicious quarter, he determined rather to suppress the work for a season, than to ex- punge the passages objected to; and he was the less reluctant to make this sacri- fice, because, intending to return to his na- tive country, he could look forward to a period when he could express with perfect freedom any opinions that were on the side of humanity, of rational liberty, and the moral government of mankind. On his return to England in the spring of 1839, his intention of devoting a portion of his time to the recording of a few of the in cidents of a somewhat adventurous life, thirty-six years of which had been passed in various countries abroad, was again post- poned. Within two months after his ar- rival he was honoured by Her Majesty's government with the appointment of Com- missioner on the then existing boundary dispute betwixt Great Britain and the Uni- ted States of America an appointment, the official duties of which, if they had not engrossed all his attention, would, from ob- vious considerations, have rendered it at that time unadvisable to act upon his first intentions. Freed, at length, from that restraint, the author has again taken up his manuscript, and having well considered the incidents and sentiments contained in it, and finding nothing there that can be deemed objec- tionable by those who are only desirous to have the truth placed before them, he has at length resolved upon its publication ; as- suring his readers that it is a faithful and almost literal transcription from his origi- nal journals, the incidents of the tour hav- ing always been noted from day to day, and the journal having been regularly written, up at least once a week. That some of the opinions these inci- dents elicited at the time may not be re- ceived with the same favour by all those under whose notice they may come, is very likely to be the case ; for, in our day, the field of English literature embraces an ex- tensive and populous region of America, where sentiments are cherished respecting the rights of men, both black and white, that are diametrically opposed to them. The author, nevertheless, ventures to sub- mit to the candour of those transatlantic readers he may not have the good fortune to please, that in all countries where free- dom of opinion is not an illusion, but is real and substantial, there are acknowledged privileges which every fair writer can claim to enjoy, amongst the plainest of which are the describing truly what he sees, and the expressing freely, but not presumptuously, his opinions of what he has seen. Of the enterprise and industry of the peo- ple of the United States, of the wonderful progress they have made in material civi- lization, of the great beauty of their coun- try, and of the many desirable things to be there admired and enjoyed, no one is dis- posed to bear more favourable testimony than the author : yet, however heartily an Englishman may be disposed to commend INTRODUCTION. these excellencies, so national and sensi- tive are the inhabitants of that young coun- try, that if he ventures upon the invidious task of pointing out those peculiarities in the laws and manners of Republican Amer- ica which he cannot be brought to admire, he feels that he may not escape the impu- tation of intending to offend, even when he would express in the most temperate lan- guage his opinions of what neither his taste jior his judgment can approve. This ex- treme sensitiveness which is never awa- kened in America by the remarks of French or German writers had its origin perhaps, with our transatlantic kinsmen, in their anxiety about an ideal perfection, of which, in virtue of their affinity to the mother- country, her laws, literature, and religion, that flattered themselves they had attained the enjoyment. Looking at the delusion from that point, we can only regret that it should have deceived a people endowed with many eminent qualities, into a con- firmed habit of placing an estimate upon themselves, which has yet to receive the sanction of mankind. Sensible and amia- ble as many of the Americans are, the fa- vourable impression they make upon those who visit their country, is too soon over- powered by the characteristic illiberality of others who assume for it an excellence .which admits of no criticism ; and so ex- acting is the tyranny of self-adulation, that, except in the most select society, the stran- ger is often compelled to be either a hypo- crite or a mute. If we were to condemn the American who visits England for denying that the su- perior civilization he witnesses there is to be attributed to our monarchy, our dis- tinctions in society, and the high moral ex- amples which are the result of our social institutions, he might with some reason consider us ill-bred and illiberal. Obvious as these truths might be to ourselves, he could not with propriety be asked to admit these consequences, since it would be to require him tacitly to condemn the coun- try which nursed him, and where he im- bibed all his cherished opinions. In the United States, however, it is not an uncom- mon thing for an Englishman to be told that his government is superannuated, cor- Tupt, and profligate ; and, indeed, the same sentiments are too often expressed in a more offensive manner even in the Con- gress.* Greatly as these extravagancies are to be deplored, and deserving of cen- * Vide Mr. Archer's speech, March 18, 1844, in the Sen- mte of the United States. "Mr. Archer repeated that he felt grieved and humiliated at the temper and the tone in which gentlemen permitted themselves to speak hereof the Gvernmeut of Great Britain. Mr. A. was not here to vin- dicate that Government, but still less was he here to pour out upon it all the obloquy and vituperation which our lan- guage could express, as the vilest and most faithless Gov- ernment under heaven. The name of England seemed as if it could never be uttered or referred to without some terms f obloquy or reproach." National Intelligencer. sure as they are, yet they do not justify us in cherishing an undiscriminating dislike towards the inhabitants of the country where they are uttered, although they sug- gest many reflections upon the causes which have made the descendants of com- mon ancestors so dissimilar to each other. It is not to be concealed, nevertheless, that this frequent expression of aversion to the mother-country, added to the late noto- rious violations of the most solemn engage- ments from the same quarter, have raised a strong and deep-rooted prejudice on this side of the Atlantic, which, although natu- ral, is to a certain extent unjust, because there is little or no discrimination observed in it. The United States have not always deserved the reproaches they have now drawn upon themselves ; in the early part of the history of their government public decorum was highly valued and universally practised, and American credit only eight years ago stood as high all over the world as the credit of any other country. The change has been a great and an unhappy one both for America and for Europe, and if this were an occasion for tracing its causes step by step, the author, who has long watched its progress, would not de- spair of accomplishing the task. Suffice it to observe, at this time, that the sad degra- dation has been gradually produced through the arts of demagogues operating in the different States, rather than by the action of the federal government, which, although the constant object of political intrigue, has generally been administered with prudence and dignity. To trace all the incidents that character- ise the Americans at the present time to their remote sources, we should have to look, amongst other things, to their geo- graphical position, and to the period when their colonies were planted ; for all com- munities of men are distinguished from each other by peculiarities derived, more or less, from those institutions of govern- ment which local situation as well as ori- gin have imposed upon them. The Amer- icans, though descended from them, are ' very dissimilar to the English, and the de- scendants of our settlers in New Zealand will be far from resembling the Americans. In the early part of the seventeenth centu- ry the exclusive object of the mother-coun- try in colonizing foreign countries, was to open sources of wealth without reference to those principles which make them per- manently conducive to human happiness ; but in our own days the acquisition of that which constitutes real wealth is largely I understood to depend upon just laws and I good government both at home and abroad : : in forming the character, therefore, of a I colonial people with a view to bind them | in interests and in affection to the mother- I country, everything now seems to depend INTRODUCTION. m Tipon the early establishment of wise laws for the protection of the best interests of society, and upon religious education. Where these blessings prevail^ true liberty and tranquil enjoyment of life are most sure to be found ; and where they do not, and human liberty is left to itself, unre- strained by religious feeling, an insolent and bombastic nature is liable to be gen- erated, which makes a, people the tools of their own blind passions, and obliterates all reverence for the great objects which good men believe to be the true end of ex- istence. It is this abuse of liberty which has so greatly changed the character of a peo- ple eminently fitted for greatness by their natural qualities ; has led them to trample ; under foot the wise precepts of the most illustrious founders of -their republic, to re- ject many of the lessons of rational free- dom which have been ever before them, to barter their invaluable privileges with a demagogical despotism, for the magnilo- quent, but empty, designation of " Sover- eign People," and to prepare a future for their country which seems to baffle con- jecture. Those in America who are so prover- bially sensitive at every expression which appears to criticise in the slightest degree the country they love, or which tends to abate the pretensions long set up, and ac- quiesced in by so many of its " never be- ing in the wrong," are always dissatisfied with any thing short of unqualified eulo- gium upon themselves and their country, and are not apt to pardon the truth. This would be matter of some regret to the au- thor, if he did not know that the good and the wise of their own country are united in the condemnation of what he has animadverted upon : amongst them are many to whom he would be very averse to give offence : pain- ful indeed would it be to him if any of those excellent persons, whose friendship he was proud of during a thirty years' residence amongst them as an Englishman, should imagine that he is capable, now or at any time, of passing an indiscriminate censure upon their nation, and of uniting with oth- ers in the condemnation of all, for that which has been conspicuous only with a portion of their countrymen. This too general prejudice, however, does unfortunately exist in Europe, and has grown to a fearful height in conse- quence of the violation of those pecuniary engagements which have been already al- luded to ; delinquencies which, either from want of information or from resentment, have created a strong prejudice against the whole frame of American society. But let us be just! Reprehensible as these acts are, there are exceptions to them which deserve the highest praise, and which in the general indignation have been almost entirely overlooked. The world, it is true, has seen the opulent free State of Pennsylvania, and the productive slave State of Mississippi, two common- . wealths arrogating to themselves the lofty ; distinction of " enlightened Sovereign States," declining in one instance to pro- vide the interest of the moneys they have borrowed from their confiding creditors, and refusing in the other even to acknowl- edge their responsibilities ; not from ina- bility, but because there is no human law to compel them to be honest. Yet when the just scorn of mankind is expressed against them, it ought not to be forgotten that Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and other indebted States, have resolutely maintained their credit un- der the most difficult circumstances, and have placed themselves in honourable con- tradistinction to their unscrupulous neigh- bours. These violations of the confidence which the so-called securities of the fraudulent States had acquired in Europe, in conse- quence of the known resources of these last, and of the specious circumstances un- der which the first had been palmed upon the unsuspecting, were preceded by the plunder and waste of the whole resources of the Bank of the United States, incor- porated by the legislature of Pennsylvania with a capital of thirty-five millions of dol- lars, a great portion of which was owned in Great Britain. Then came Repudiation, or the doctrine that the acts of one legis- lature, and even of one generation, are not binding upon the next ; a doctrine which, though it had its origin with Mr. Jefferson, was first promulgated in Pennsylvania.* Precedents so pernicious, coming from one of the oldest and most opulent States in the Union, unfortunately tempted other members of the Federal Union possessing fewer resources, to follow in the same dis- reputable course ; and thus was com- promised in the end the reputation of the whole republic. Nor is this the only penalty which re- publican America pays for her departure from integrity : these unexpected infringe- ments of public faith, and the manner in which they have been defended, have call- ed forth into greater relief the change of opinion which has been gradually taking place in Europe, in relation to the moral influence which cheap republican govern- ments were supposed likely to acquire with the coming generations of men in all civil- ized countries. Experience, which is the | only safe guide of men, has now shown I that, when ostentatiously applied to great I countries for the purpose of flattering and I leading the many, they call into operation f * A convention was hold there a few years ago to remodel the constitution, at which a very strong party-headed by a leading member of the present Congress apptn rod in fa- vour of cancelling all incorporations, aud all contracts that were opposed to "first principles." INTRODUCTION. more corruption, and lead to a more rapid degeneracy than can be possibly exhibited under governments where power is con- fided to those who have the greatest stake in the preservation of order, and who have been trained to the responsibility of exer- cising it for the benefit of the many. In- deed, so complete has been this change in the public opinion of Europe, that the ex- ample par excellence, which the. admirers of a republican form of government once held up to the admiration of mankind, has al- ready become a beacon to the civilized world, to warn all future generations against those theories of government in which the public welfare is not based upon that solid and enduring foundation for the government of a State a constant selec- tion of men of character and property for its administration. But here again a want of discrimination in the judgment that has been formed of the American people is equally apparent : almost all those who have not known them in their own country attribute to them, alike, a general degeneracy ; than which nothing can be more unjust, since it excludes from well-merited praise those patriotic men who have constantly endeavoured to give a salutary direction to the administration of the public affairs of their country men who have long been, and who yet remain, the victims of those demagogues to whom their peculiar system of government has given a preponderating influence. No respectable person who has travelled much in America is ignorant that in every town, and in almost every part of the coun- try, there are individuals distinguished from the rest by education, manners, hospitali- ty, and the possession of many of those high qualities which make men truly re- spectable in all countries, and render them valuable acquaintances to the stranger who | has the advantage of knowing them. But ' these excellent persons, with exceptions so few that that they are scarcely worth enu- merating, are rarely participators in the gov- ernment of their country ; for, where the popular party predominates, they are ex- cluded by the possession of those very qualifications that fit them for that high purpose ; so seldom is it that a candidate placed before the " Sovereign People," without any other recommendation than his fitness, is not rejected. It would be going too far to assert that this evil condition of things is, without isome qualification, to be necessarily attrib- aited to a republican form of government , because, even in the instance of the United States, it has not always existed. In 1806, when the author first visited that part of America, it was a very happy country. The bright examples which had exercised so beneficent an influence at the origin of the government, were not then forgotten. The moral dignity of Washington, the wis-- dom of Franklin, the integrity of Jay, and; the virtues of many of their contemporaries, some of whom were then living, were yet revered by the people. A breach of de corum in the Congress, if it was not un- known in those days, was at least sure to> be met by public reprobation ; and in the State legislatures there was always a ma- jority of individuals selected by their con- stituents from among the most respecta- ble members of society: at that time, in- deed, in the State of New York, which has always had a preponderating influence in the Union from its population and wealth, a property qualification was required by the constitution both for the Senate and the House of Assembly. In treating of this important subject it is not to be forgotten that in an evil hour (1821) for that Commonwealth, and for the Union, a few experienced demagogues, at a period when the members of the legisla- ture had not been delegated for that pur- pose, contrived the authorisation of a con- vention of the people, to consider some fundamental changes in its constitution. There, playing upon the hopes and fears of some of those from whom an inflexible opposition was expected, and overcoming by their arts the reluctance that was mani- fested to enter upon the never-ending chain of evil consequences which invariably at- tend improvident concessions, these "wily agitators succeeded in converting the mob into a constituency, by establishing " Uni- versal Suffrage," that fatal principle which has been the leading cause of the prevail- ing degeneracy. Those who have been in a highly popu- lous country, where universal suffrage and frequent elections ostensibly held for the preservation of liberty prevail, can best understand how easy it is to make the " Sovereign People," a mere Ochlocratic* machine in the hands of skilful dema- gogues ; or with what facility good men are made odious to the masses, and gov- ernment and society disorganised for the purpose of plundering them. Armed with this irresistible power, demagogues find no difficulty in perverting those principles in free constitutions which are intended for the moral and civil protection of society, or in excluding talents accompanied with, education, integrity, and wealth from the service of the public. It is to the fatal sub- stitution of universal suffrage for character and property, and the general departure from the enlightened and honest intentions of Washington and the other illustrious founders of their republic, that we must at- tribute the introduction into America of that wild, democratic, mannerless, and tyrannical rule, both in the constituency From oxAof, a mob. INTRODUCTION and its leaders, which promises no repose for the present, and little hope for the fu- ture. The friends of order may, indeed, rally from time to time, but it is to be fear- ed that it will be only when the excesses of their opponents have created a tempo- rary disgust : these, indeed, may be driven from power for a while, but as long as uni- versal suffrage exists, the vigilance of demagogues will never sleep, and the same scenes will ever be enacted over and over again. This experiment, therefore, of dignify- ing the masses with the title of " Sovereign People," and of attempting to provide for the well-being of society by cheapjrepubli- can government founded upon a theoretical equality in the privileges of men, if it is to be judged of by the results which have al- ready appeared, is a signal and instructive failure, such as must attend every scheme which permits the ignorant to govern the wise, and transfers the rule which Nature intended for the head to the inferior ex- tremities of the body politic. How instructive is this lesson to the other governments of Christendom ! and how interesting to ourselves, who had hoped for some contributions to the com- mon cause of rational liberty from the hap- py opportunities which America had So long enjoyed ! The melancholy truth seems too apparent, that when a people reject the experience of the past, cast aside the guidance of the wise and the virtuous, and commit their honour and prosperity to the tumultuous passions of the multitude, they are sure to descend in the scale of true civilization more rapidly than they rose. Deep as is the regret which this eminent failure has caused to the sincere friends of civil liberty, it is immensely increased when they see how glorious an opportuni- ty the United States have lost of enlighten- ing the new-born republican governments of South America. The disadvantages un- der which the old Spanish colonies assumed their independence were great, and the struggle to sustain their self-government in an honourable manner was often sin- cere, though seldom successful : if they had been cheered on by a great example of wise government, and scrupulous fideli- ty t n their engagements, on their own con- tinent, the United States might have had the glory of effecting for their sister re- publics what Great Britain has so well done, in the sphere within which she has moved, for the general interests of man- kind T and have shown that " Liberty,' without religion, morality, and honesty to guard it from desecration, is but a delu- sion ; and that extent of territory gives no power to a nation that she can exercise in an efficient manner, unless she cherishes those duties which alone acquire for a peo- ple the respect of mankind. The author is aware that these reflec- ions may appear superfluous to some of lis readers in the introduction to a work which daes not aspire to be of a particu- "arly serious character. He has been led nto them, not from a desire to aggravate ;he discontent which is now so generally expressed, but to abate it by turning the attention of his readers to some circum- stances which have not been sufficiently adverted to, viz., that the American peo- ple were misled at an early period of their self-government :* that whilst the cause of hese evils, which have attracted universal attention, is to be found in that excess of iberty which in America has degenerated nto licence, yet that the good and the wise there have stood up manfully in the cause of rational freedom : that although some of the States have acted in a dishonoura- ble manner, the greater proportion of them have been faithful to taeir engagements ; and, finally, from a wish to state that if we encourage the prejudices which have been excited indiscriminately against all, by re- fusing our sympathies to those who are so eminently entitled to them, we only ncrease the evil, and dispose those to estrange themselves, whom we have the justest reasons to draw near to us. The author also is glad to add his opin- ion, that there are good reasons for believ- ing, that all the States which are defaulters will ere long provide for the due fulfilment of their obligations ; their resources are great and are continually increasing, and the false step they have taken of destroy- ing their own credit is now the main cause of their embarrassments ; this they have been made clearly to feel, so that they have nothing to hope for their credit, either in their own country or in Europe, but by re- turning to the straight road from which they havedeviated. There is also another bright and encour- aging spot on the horizon ; for if any faith is to be placed in prognostics, the United States ere long will come under the ad- ministration of a chief magistrate, the in- fluence of whose character will win back for his country the credit which she has temporarily lost. The whole civilized world is concerned in the wish that that salutary influence may be lasting, and throw into obscurity all the errors of the past. No one is more sincere in that wish than the author. To those in America who may be disposed to put an unfriendly con- struction upon anything that has escaped his pen, he can only say that they do him injustice, for he is beyond that period of life when he could be indifferent to the re- flection that he had purposely uttered opin- ,he last chapter of this work a sketch will be given >{ the fundamental causes of their deviation from. * Ir their ancient character INTRODUCTION. ions which were unjust to any individual, or to any community of men amongst whom he has lived. His justification wjth those to whom the free expression of some of his opinions may not be grateful, is, that errors of government which lead to injuri- ous changes in the conduct and character of a people, form a subject deeply interest- ing to England, especially at a moment when so many new settlements are being planted by her ; and that his remarks not being the result of theoretical considera- tions, he felt that he owed it as a duty to his country to speak of what he had seen, and of what he had carefully observed. TRAVELS IN THE SLAVE STATES NORTH AMERICA. CHAPTER I. Barnum's Hotel at Baltimore Canvas-back Ducks Soft Crabs ; the process of changing their shells Railroad to Fredericton in Maryland Impositions practised upon Travellers Notices of the Geology of the Country Har- -per's-ferry ; the Shenandoah Valley Nationality of the 'Germanico- Americans. ANY one who has endured for many days the filth and discomfort of that caravansary called Gail shy's Hotel at Washington, the city of "mag- nificent distances," will feel exceedingly rejoi- ced when, after a short interval of two or three hours, he finds himself transferred hy the rail- Toad to Barnum's at Baltimore. If there is an hotel-keeper in the United States who merits the commendations of a traveller, the veteran Mr. Barnum may claim to be that person. His neat private parlours and bed-rooms, his quiet house, his excellent table, and the ready and -obliging attendance found there, leave the trav- -eller little to desire. It was' at Barnum's, many, many years ago, in the opening of the winter, that I made rny first essay upon what is universally allowed to he the greatest of all delicacies in the United States, the Canvas-back duck an exemplary bird, which seems to take, sua sponte, the imost indefatigable pains to qualify himself for a favourable reception in the best society : for in the first instance he makes himself exceedingly fat by resorting to the low marshy lands of the Susquehannah and the borders of those streams which are tributary to it, to feed upon the ripe seed of the Zizania aquatiea, a sort of wild rice which abounds there ; and then at the proper season betakes himself to an esculent root growing in the sedgy banks of the rivers, to .give the last finish to the tenderness, the juici- ness, and the delicate flavour which distinguish him above all other birds when brought to table. But justice must be done to him by an able ar- tist, or, great as his intrinsic qualities are, he may be reduced to a condition that entitles him even to be pitied by the humble scavenger-duck. I had heard a great deal of this inestimable 'bird before it was presented to me under the auspices of Barnum, and was somewhat sur- prised and disappointed at seeing him place on the table, with great solemnity, a couple of birds on a dish without a single drop of gravy in it. Now every one knows that a quantum suff. of good gravy is to English rotis what fine sun- ny weather is to the incidents of life, enabling them to pass along smoothly and pleasantly ; and, therefore, as soon as I had a little recover- ed from my alarm, I could not help telling Bar- num that I was afraid I should not like his can- vas-backs. Upon which, asking my permission, lie took up the carving-knife, and making two incisions in the fat breasts of the birds, the dish instantly became filled with the desired fluid. Had I not seen this, I could not have believed it ! Then came the action of the rtr.hauffoirs, the dismemberment of the birds scarcely warm- ed through at the fire, the transference of their delicate flesh to our hot plates, and its recon- coction in their own gravy, with currant jelly, a soupcon of chateau margeaux, and a small quantity of fine loaf sugar. We were three of us to these two birds, and the great Barnum had the satisfaction of hearing us declare that the only defect they had consisted in their not being of the size of turkeys. Certainly this dish well deserves its great reputation, and it is greatly to be regretted that the genius of the hermit of the Chaussee d'An- tin has never been inspired by it. But although the period at which the tour commenced, which will be narrated in these pages, was not that of Canvas-back ducks, still my family and myself, on reaching Barnum's from Washington, towards the end of July, 1834, found that the season for soft crabs was not yet over, and that this is a dish of very great mer- it, and little known in Europe. The crab, in the United States, resorts in the early summer months to the low shores of the rivers and bays between the 38th and 39th degrees of north lat- itude, to discard its shell, in order to take an- other more suited to its increasing size. The process of throwing off its shell is one which I have often witnessed in all its stages, towards the mouth of the Potomac river, and in various parts of that great estuary the Chesapeake bay. There these Crustacea are seen during the sum- mer months in countless numbers, and of all sizes, half buried in the mud, undergoing a se- vere operation, which Nature, consistently with the simplicity of all her works, has curiously and appropriately adapted them to. When the calcareo-mucous matter which exudes from their bodies begins to rise, and to force the shell a little upwards, the animal instinctively seeks the low shores, as a place of refuge against the voracious inhabitants of the rivers, that would otherwise prey upon it when divest- ed of its armour. In a short time the sutures of the shells begin to relax, and the edible parts to be separated from them by the intervention of the mucous matter. When all is ready for the great struggle, the animal makes its exer- tion, and gradually backs out, leaving the shell behind, and sometimes with the loss of a claw or two. The operation being over, the crab ap- pears to be entirely exhausted, and is nothing but a soft unresisting mass, prostrate in the mud. But it gradually reacquires strength ; mucous matter is constantly secreting and com- 12 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. ing to the surface of its body, where it slowly indurates, and takes a crustaceous appearance. In this stage, whilst the shell is exceedingly soft, and the animal is flattering itself with get- ting into a convalescent state, it is too often its fate to be picked up and forwarded to Mr. Bar- num, who serves it up fried with so much nice- ty, that the epicure is able, with peculiar satis- faction, to eat every portion of this savoury dish, especially including the nice crisp shell. This delicacy we found at Barnum's on our ar- rival, and all of us united in expressing our ad- miration of it. At this comfortable hotel, then, my family and myself remained several days, making prepara- tions for a tour to the Virginia Springs, in the Alleghany mountains, which are watering-pla- ces of great celebrity in the Southern States, not only on account of their curative qualities, but because they are resorted to by the families of many opulent planters south and west of the Potomac. Here I proposed leaving my wife a short time for the benefit of her health ; whilst my son and myself, pursuing the eastern flank of the Alleghany mountains as far as we could, should continue our geological tour west of the Mississippi to the Mexican frontier. Everything being ready for our departure, at five o'clock A.M., on the 1st of August, we ex- changed our precious comforts at Barnum's for the confusion of a wretched dirty omnibus that was to convey us to the railroad station, on our way to Fredericton in Maryland, distant sixty miles. In the hurry of the moment, when with our eyes scarcely more than half open there were so many things to look after, a small chest of chemical tests, which I had been pre- paring wjth great care, and some of the materi- als of which I had obtained from Philadelphia, was snatched up by one of the people, and strap- ped on very insecurely behind with the trunks. Before we had proceeded 150 yards from the hotel, I saw this object of my anxieties come tumbling down on the stones, and calling to the Driver, he alighted and brought it to me, adding with his characteristic twang, that it had the " most owconceivable smell I reckon I ever put my nose to." The first look was sufficient ; the whole concern appeared to be smashed, ev- erything was wet, and there was no remedy but to place it on the floor of the omnibus. "There goes the labour of ten days," said I in a piteous tone ; " the whole box dished, and no end to take hold of that is not reeking with muriatic and nitric acid!" This was literally the fact. There was enough in this incident to make a man believe in bad omens : it was Friday, and if we had stopped in Baltimore till Saturday, it was very clear, at any rate, that the accident would not have happened on a Friday. My son somewhat consoled me by suggesting, that per- haps those vials^only were broken which could be the most easily supplied, and I resolved to cling to that hope. On our arrival at the station, we found that the deference which the railroad company af- fected to feel for the ladies and gentlemen who lodged at Barnum's, and for whose especial ac- commodation they had sent a dirty omnibus at an hour when it was impossible to procure a clean one, was in keeping with the other pro- fessions of those disinterested persons who live by conveying ladies and gentlemen to and fro n this bad world : instead of being comfortably placed in a clean car with birds of a like feath- er, we were most unceremoniously emptied into the last car, with a set of as unshaven, unprom- ising looking fellows as ever I was shut up with. Amongst the rest was a horrid, dirty, little humpbacked imp of the male kind, with a most malicious physiognomy, and as pert and forward as those unfortunate beings usually are when they have received their education in the streets. My wife was good naturedly disposed to submit to every inconvenience but this; the sight of this object perfectly horrified her, and she could think of nothing but the misery of sitting in the same car with this creature for sixty miles. Pla- cing myself betwixt him and her, with the un^- fortunate test-box under my seat, this little creature perceiving me rather solicitous about it, ill-naturedly kicked it away, when it occa- sionally came in the way of his feet. ; but I had my revenge without taking much trouble, for he contrived to empty what remained of the acids into a little pool beneath him, and there, to my somewhat satisfaction, he sat with his shoes in them. We stopped to breakfast at Ellicot's mills, a ceremony which gave a turn to our thoughts ; and finding that Humpy Dumpy was not going any farther, and that the weather was going to be fine, we became more reconciled to- our situation : I therefore mounted the top of the rail-car, and kept my ground there in the teeth of a column of smoke loaded with sulphu- retted hydrogen, proceeding from the pyritical coals of the furnace, which the wind frequently urged upon me. This railroad is laid in a very interesting ra- vine, through which the river Patapsco flows over its bed, consisting of granite and other pri- mary beds. I was delighted at being wheeled with the velocity of a locomotive through a sin- gularly picturesque road, where such a variety of primitive rocks presented themselves. At Marriotsville, 13 miles from Ellicot's, the beds became more fissile, and clay slate occasionally appeared, but gneiss was the general rock ; and at Sykesville, four miles farther, where we stop- ped a short time, I found it contained small but very transparent garnets. Farther on, at Mon- rovia, we came upon micaceous slate ; after which the country to Fredericton became less uneven, and we passed many well-cultivated farms, a band of limestone running through the district, of which the farmers are beginning to avail themselves as a manure. At Fredericton we got to a tolerably good inn, and here my first care was to overhaul my case of tests. One large phial of refined alcohol was broken, as well as one flint-glass phial of nitric acid and one of muriatic acid. The labels were obliterated from the other phials, and all the caoutchouc cover- ings to the ground stoppers eaten off. Upon applying to a Mr. Elliot, a druggist of the place, he not only most obligingly assisted me to re- pair my misfortune, but refused to receive any compensation. Considering it, therefore, a good rule to keep up an account-current of good turns and evil turns with mankind, I set off the good deeds of worthy Mr. Elliot against the evil ones of the fellow who had not strapped the case on well, and against the malice of little Humpy, and closed the account. But I had to open it very soon again. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 13 At Baltimore I had paid to the agent of Stock ton and Stokes our fare all the way to Harper's- ferry, on the river Potomac, and had had the prudent precaution to take a receipt, in which it was stated that I was to he forwarded to Harper's ferry on that day. This the agent of the company at Fredericton a forward, imper- tinent lellow now refused to do. He swore it was all a mistake ; that I had not paid enough, and he " reckoned what owder arth I could want him to do it for, when he had no stage nor no horses, no more than if there was no such things to do it with." As I saw he was likely to be as ohstinate as he was insolent, I got the landlord at the inn to send for another fellow, just as great a cheat as the agent ; and having ascertained from him what his lowest terms were for a stage-coach and four horses to Har- per's-ferry, I took him to the agent, and told him if he thought the price too high, he must now say so, as his employers would have to re- fund it to me, for I was determined to go on. This move on rny part brought him, as the landlord very quaintly remarked, "to a non- plush ;" he saw that my remedy against his employers was a good one, and that further ob- stinacy might cost him his place ; so, cursing and swearing and vapouring about, and decla- ring that he never did meet with " sich a (trea- sonable parson" as myself, he at length pro- duced a stage-coach and four horses for the next 20 miles to the Potomac. If I had not ta 7 ken a receipt, stating that I was to be conduct- ed to Harper's-ferry on that same day, there would have been no remedy for me, and I should have been cheated out of the money ; for the agent would have charged his employ- ers for forwarding me, and would have put the money in his own pocket. We had an agreeable drive across the Cotoc- tin mountain, a slaty chain in advance of what is called the Blue Ridge ; and passing the bridge that crosses the Potomac, reached Harper's- ferry before sunset, which gave me time to look at the gorge through which the Potomac has worn its channel, and of which Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, has spoken in some- what extravagant terms. The Potomac is shallow here, and is joined at Harper's-ferry by :- the Shenandoah, a very pretty stream, from the west. It would seem to be a sufficient answer to those who have expressed an opinion that the beds of mountain streams and the 'passages which rivers make through chains of mountains have been originally formed by fissures which preceded the rivers, that the fissures are not found beneath the general level of the bottoms of the streams, and that the bottoms correspond to form one general plane of descent to the ocean. But independent of this objection to .such an hypothesis, it can be shown that al- most all the phenomena connected with these mountain channels bear direct testimony to the opinion that these channels have been worn bv the rivers themselves ; and perhaps there is no district in the world which contains more stri king proofs of this than the Alleghany mount- ains, in which the sources of two great classes of rivers are found, those which empty them- selves into the Atlantic, and those which flow into the Gulf of Mexico. We left Harper's-ferry at the break of day. The issue of the Shenandoah from the gorge through which it flows is very grand. The rocks, composed of talcose slate, greenstone, hornblendic and other very ancient slaty mate- rials, jut over, in bold ledges, from the lofty and craggy sides of the valley. To the left the mountain is covered with forest-trees growing amidst the crags, and beneath runs the pretty river murmuring through the glen, in which the rifle-manufactories of the government of the United States are situated, the wheels of which, were creaking at this early hour, a pleasing proof of the industry that prevails here. As soon as we had got well out of the primary rocks of the Blue Ridge, we came, at about two miles from Harper's-ferry, upon the limestone, occasionally alternating with slate, of the great valley of the Shenandoah, which is in some pla- ces about 30 miles broad. We stopped at Smithsfield, 15 miles from the Potomac, to breakfast ; but I neither found any fossrts in. the rock, nor could learn of any having been found in that neighbourhood. It appears, how- ever, to be contemporaneous with some of the limestone formations of the state of New York, and to belong to the series subjacent to the old red sandstone, which Mr. Murchison is at this time engaged in the classification of in England, with a perseverance and ability that promise the most brilliant and unexpected results respecting that portion of the geological column hitherto only obscurely known to us as the transition, formations.* Just as we had risen from our meal, up drove the stage from Boonsborough, with no less a personage in it than our little hunchback of the day before. He looked so much like an imp in disguise, sent by the father of evil to accompany and annoy me wherever I went, that I felt a sudden compunction come upon me as soon as I saw him, on account of the nitric acid. Per- haps his hoof had been injured by it ! He came up to me, too, with the greatest possible famil- iarity, and with a devilish impudence, that put all sympathy for him out of the question. With this dirty creature we had to travel to Winches- ter, 15 miles, for, to our great dismay, he got 'nto our stage ; and, indeed, if he had got upon my back, as the old man established himself upon the shoulders of Sinbad, I should not have jeen exceedingly surprised, so completely as- funded was I at his unexpected appearance. The road was very rough and knobby, occa- sioned by the cropping out of the edges of the mestone strata, over which we were travelling at right angles, and which dipped very rapidly to the east. The excessive jolting of the stage- coach kept everything upon the rock ; the dri- ver urged his horses as if he were possessed by a fiend, and we were obliged to hold on by the Mr. Murchison's great work, ' The Silurian System,' did not appear until 1839, seven years after he had engaged n the investigation of the strata comprehended in it. But s early as 1833, the year before this tour was made, he ad communicated to me the progress he was making, and is first synopsis of the formations he had succeeded in re- ducing to their natural order ; so that I was enabled, at the earliest moment, to apply the information I received from him to my own geological researches in North America; and subsequently, in 1836. to publish a Tabular View of -locks arranged upon Mr. Murchison *s plan, and point out, for the first time, American localities which justified the extension of the Silurian System to North America. 14 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. stage-coach to keep our seats : as to little Humpy Dumpy, he was tossed up and down like a shuttlecock, and at last got into a perma- nent hideous grin, whether of satisfaction or pain it was impossible to tell ; but it ended by establishing one with us of a less equivocal kind, for we got into a most irrepressible fit of laughter, which I believe broke the spell, and our dread of Gobbo was at length lost in the amusement he afforded us. Winchester is a neat, substantial town, with some good cultivation about it : from thence we continued without Gobbo 13 miles to Middleton to dinner. The crops of Indian corn on the route were good, and the horned cattle larger and in better condition than those I had seen in Maryland ; but they were a mongrel breed, and, indeed, there is nothing like improve- ment visible in this part of the country in any kind of live stock. The Blue Ridge was in sight on our left, and in half an hour after leav- ing Middleton we came abreast of what is call- ed the Massonetto mountain, a singularly beau- tiful elevation of limestone in the shape of a fork, the prongs lying to the north-east and the handle to the south-west, conforming with the general strike of the strata in the Alleghanies. This mountain, which stretches about 70 miles north-east and south-west, sinks at the south into hummocks and slopes. The valley, between the two forks, is somewhat cultivated, as I was informed, and has a small stream running through it, called Passage Creek, which empties into the Shenandoah. Ammonites and trilobites have been procured near this creek. The dis- tance of the two prongs from each other, at the north, is about six miles, and the north and south branches of the Shenandoah run on each side of the mountain, which, towards the south- west, is, as I was told, about two miles broad at the top. I was further informed, that slates alternated with the limestone in parts of this interesting monument of ancient geological ac- tion, which has thus modified the uniformity of this valley. From Middleton to Woodstock, a distance of 17 miles, we travelled across the edges of the strata ; the road being altogether upon the bare rocks, and the violent motion of the stage-coach almost past enduring : the country, however, was picturesque ; we had the Massonetlo on our left, and a broad ridge of the Alleghanies on our right ; but we were extremely glad to arrive at Woodstock, where we found attentive people and tolerable accommodations. At dawn of day we were all in the stage again ; and, after travelling three or four miles, we came to the place called " the Narrow Pas- sage," where the road passes over a natural ter- race of blue compact limestone, with a base about 200 feet wide at the bottom, tapering up to 20 feet in width at the top. On the south cide the wall of this terrace is about 120 feet high, and is washed at the bottom by the north fork of the Shenandoah, whilst the wall on the north side is only 96 feet high, and is washed by a small creek called Narrow Passage Creek, which joins the Shenandoah to the north east of this singular terrace. When standing on the top, the streams on each side can be perceived, and it would be difficult to understand the phe- nomenon without a careful investigation. Hav- ing established a good understanding with the driver, he very obligingly gave me, as he called it, "half an hour's law," which enabled me to examine every part of it. After a drive of 13 miles we stopped at Mount Jackson to breakfast. This valley is principally settled vyith Ger- man people, some of whom are quite opulent. The villagers, too, seemed all well to do in the world, and have abundant means of making travellers comfortable. It is said, however, they have not always the disposition, being very national, and quite indifferent about those who are not of their race. I found the little German which I spoke of great advantage to me heie ; " Wie gents mein lieher," accompanied with a hearty shake of the hand, operated as a talis- man, and we certainly had nothing to complain: of. It produced us a good and welcome break- fast at Mount Jackson, at which we were joined by two actors and two actresses, who were giv- ing entertainments to these little German set- tlements, and grand concerts, according to their bills. They got into the stage-coach after breakfast, and rode with us seven miles to New- market, where they had an engagement to per- form the next day, admittance being 25 cents, or a quarter of a dollar. We found them very civil people, and possessed of a great deal of good sense. They said they succeeded tolera- bly well, that the people were kind to them, and that they managed to save some money. There was also an intelligent sort of person in the stage-coach, who was born in this valley, and was a nephew to one of the richest farmers - r he had had the good fortune, however, to be sent to receive his education at a college in, Pennsylvania, and was now a man of some in- formation. He gave me a deplorable account of the ignorance and superstition of the German settlers of this fine valley, where, according to- his account, human dullness could not be car- ried much further. He said, that with few ex- ceptions, they all believed in witchcraft to this day, and that, only last year, the country people refused to come to Mount Jackson with eggs- and other products of their farms, because a. strange dog, with a wild look, had been hunting in the neighbourhood for some days, and had driven some cattle into the Shenandoah. It was universally agreed by them that this dog^ was the devil ; and a young lawyer, who was. not disposed to tranquillize his neighbours, had gone so far as to say that he had met him one evening in his natural shape, with two eyes of flaming fire, and each of them larger than his, head. Upon this Hans determined not to stir from home, and the markets continued to be bad as long as the dog was known to he about. Our fellow-passenger also told me, that an old uncle of his, who was worth 80,000 dollars, asked him, when he returned from college, what he had learnt there that he could not have learnt at the German school. His nephew told him, that, amongst other things, he had learnt that the sun did not go round the world, but that it stood still, and the world went round it. Upon which the old man said, "You dink so, because de beobles at the college tells you so, hut I doesn't dink so, pecause I knows petter, and I ought to know petter." In the neighbourhood of Mount Jackson we a very beautiful farm, with extensive TRAVELS IN AM URIC A. 15 rich low grounds, owned by a German cattle- feeder and drover, of the name of Sternberger, who is said to be worth 300,000 dollars. These Germans, like their brethren in Pennsylvania, are plodding, frugal persons, who hoard their profits in hard money, entertain a great dislike to bank paper, and a still greater to the pay- ment of taxes ; and as their lands are continu- ally increasing in value, are becoming a very opulent community. Having very little love for their countrymen, the English-talking Ameri- cans, they do not sympathize much with their politics ; and where a German candidate is op- posed to an American, are furious electioneer- ers. In Pennsylvania, where the people of Ger- man origin are very numerous, they control the elections entirely, and have it in their power to put the government into the hands of Germans, which they frequently do with the assistance of a democratic minority of the Americans.* Although we are still on the limestone, sand- stone boulders and pebbles begin to abound, evidently the remains of strata once forming an integral part of the adjacent ridges. From Newmarket we continued to Harrisburgh, a distance of 18 miles, where we dined. This is a pretty place, and has a sort of public square with some good bouses, but the most agreeable thing I saw was a public spring of excellent water, which they had had the good taste to build a wall around, in the centre of the square. The landlord of the house where we dined was remarkably obliging and attentive indeed we find them all civil. From hence we proceeded to Mount Crawford, eight miles, in the neigh- bourhood of which there is a spring of water which comes through the sandstone. We next advanced by a very pretty and much less rough road to Mount Sydney, having the Blue Ridge on our left hand, distant about 12 miles. The last stage to-day, still over the limestone, was to Staunton, nine miles, a good town, where we found a decent inn. Here we were very glad to get some repose after a rough ride. CHAPTER II. Ascent of the first Alleghany Ridges A dandy Rattlesnake Magnificent View across the Alleghames from Warm Springs Mountain Affecting Reception at the Hotel of the Warm Springs. WE were called at half-past three A.M., pre- paratory to our crossing the Allegheny ridges, on our way to the Warm Springs, distant from hence about 56 miles ; and were told we should find the road good, which is always a great comfort where a lady is concerned. Keeping with the limestone to Jennings' Gap one of those defiles which penetrate these ridges 12 miles, we came to a clean tavern at the foot of the hills, where we got a comfortable breakfast. We now left the limestone valley, which we had followed 130 mi'es, over a succession of beds of limestone and slate, dipping to the east ; and passing the Little North Mountain which is a sort of advanced-guard of the sandstone lidge called North Mountain where the land- lord told me coal was found near some springs, * The dishonourable conduct of the state of Pennsylva- nia, in relation to the non-payment of its debts, is fairly at- tributable to the Germans we came to the main ridge, and entered it at a passage called Wti/ker'.t Mountain, which has a? mean elevation of about 900 feet. The summit is perhaps two miles wide; and is divided again into smaller ridges, with depressions, or valleys and hummocks, imperfectly separating them. The denseness of the woods, the pleasant air, the refreshing cheerfulness of the mountain streams, and the delight at finding myself once more in the Alleghanies, where I had so often wandered, made this a very pleasant day to me. Travelling in a public vehicle would seem to present singular impediments to a correct in- vestigation of the geology and natural history of a country, as no doubt it does ; and if I had not been already familiar with the structure of the Allegheny ridges immediately west of the Blue Ridge, I should have regretted the very limited opportunity now afforded me of forming accurate opinions. The general principles, however, of what was already known to me of the structure and direction of this remarkable elevated belt were confirmed by what I saw around. The reddish and grey sandstones of the mountain^ the slates and shales that alter- nate with them, the limestones in the valleys, and the general anticlinal structure of the ridg- es, with their strata dipping in contrary direc- tions on each flank, and often rising again, with their imbedded minerals and fossils, on the op- posite side of the valley, sufficiently bespeak, the nature of the movement which has raised up these ridges, and left the valleys like fur- rows between them. Indeed, I was delighted to find this mode of travelling not so barren of opportunity, but that I could derive a great de- gree of enjoyment out of every branch of natu- ral history that fell in my way. The roads were by no means good ; the country was mountainous and rocky; our average pace did not exceed three and a half miles an hour; and the stage-coach stopped so often to water and change horses, that we had an opportunity of walking almost whenever we pleased a privi- lege we were all glad to avail ourselves of. As we were strolling up a hill, we had the good luck to surprise a young dandy of a rattle- snake, who seemed also to have a geological turn, for he was basking at the mouth of his habitat, a warm reddish sandstone, loaded with fine impressions of spirifers. His skin had a beautiful velvety appearance, and attracted ad- miration from us all. Poor fellow ! it was the most unlucky day of his life, for it was his last ; so, after making some fight, he gave it up at length, and I bore away eight rattles from the gentleman's tail. At the end of 21 miles we reached Clover- dale, and stopped to dine at a tavern where we met with very civil people, who gave me all the information they possessed as to the extent of any ridge, about which I inquired, where the, rock changed, where limestone was to be seeai on the hill-sides, and where in the valleys ; where the mountain springs came through fiee- stone, as they call all sandstones ; where min- eral springs existed coal, minerals, or any met- als, they were not acquainted with ; whether any fossil bones had been found in caves or oth- er places; any rattlesnakes, any deer, any bears, any panthers, any wild cats, or any thing queer of any kind whatsoever. To all such inquiries^ 16 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. they gave rational and obliging answers. It is ' always well in the traveller to propound ques- tions of this kind, for the explanations he gives to make them comprehend him set them think- ing, and make them more intelligent sources of information to those who succeed him. There is something very delightful, too, in the racy stories of the old hunters you meet in these mountains ; some of which, however, it is quite as well to receive cum grano salis. The travel- ler who takes such an interest in the country he is passing through, gets through it in a friend- ly manner, and gleans a great deal of informa- tion. At this place we had venison for the first time ; but the haunch was so wretchedly par- boiled, and then put into the oven, which they called roasting, that I was not tempted to taste it, more especially as I saw it was a doe, and had not the least fat upon it ; for the hunters Mil everything they meet, even a doe with a fawn running by her side. We were not alone at this venison feast ; a carriage-full of Ameri- can fashionables from one of the large towns assisted at it, and seemed to relish the wretch- ed stuff surprisingly. They gobbled up and praised the tasteless meat, and the country that produced it, as if nothing better could be ima- gined : but it is one of the amiable weaknesses of the cockney part of this patriotic people, that when they have read in English books of the es- timation in which anything is held in England, they invariably believe that what is good in the Mother Country, from civil liberty down to ven- ison, must be better in America ; and so con- trive to make themselves as happy with the shadow of things, as English people do with the reality. From this place we proceeded to the Warm springs, 21 miles a very interesting drive- passing through a valley extremely uneven, with hummocks of limestone here and there, and made agreeable by a great many charming mountain-streams. On its west side we had to cross another ridge at a point called Warm Springs Mountain, but which was formerly called Jackson's Mountain, after an old settler, whose name is yet preserved in Jackson's Riv- er, the south fork of which rises in the next valley, where the Warm springs are. The mean height of this ridge is about 850 feet, and its summit, like that of Walker's Mountain, is about two miles wide. The road which leads across it, its subordinate ridges, their valleys and hum- mocks, is a very good one, and winds for about five miles from the east to the west base of the mountain. More than two-thirds of this dis- tance being on the east side of the ridge, I walked up it at leisure, and certainly it is dif- ficult to do justice, either with the pencil or language, to the magnificent objects that were continually presenting themselves. Ascending the mountain, a succession of deep precipices and glens presented themselves, environed with dark blue woods and obscure bottoms that no eye could penetrate, the fit habitations of pan- thers and bears ; whilst from the western edge of the summit there was a mighty landscape of the Alleghany ridges, one succeeding to the other, almost without number, until the most distant was shadowed out upon the horizon hy a pale and misty magnitude, that invested the whole picture with sublimity, and created an mpression of grandeur too lofty to be scanned by aught living, save " The lordly eagle when from craggy throne He mounts the storm majestic and alone." With one of the wheels locked, we commenced the descent of the mountain at speed ; the dri- ver dashed down as if he were rnad The road was good, hut curving occasionally, and the precipices were fearful. We had nothing to do jut sit still, hold our breath, and believe that if we got down safe it would be very satisfactory. And we did get down safe. In a very few min- utes we exchanged the tranquil and elevated feelings that are inspired hy the simple honest dignity of nature, for the distrust which ex- perienced travellers entertain of the obsequi- ously cordial reception which in every country graces their arrival at the hotels of watering- places. Until it is determined that you do not go to the rival hotel, the zeal in your service is over- whelming; the landlord brings out his very best politeness, the waiters grin and bow, and the other harpies stand ready to seize upon your luggage, with an apparent disinterestedness that would induce a novice to suppose that the fable of the Prodigal Son was acting over again. What an expenditure of fine feeling it would cost travellers upon observing how deeply in- terested and concerned about them everybody appears to be, if it were not for the rising doubt that their concern is as to how long you are going to stay, and how much money they are likely to get from you ! Covered with dust, and impatient to get out of the stage-coach, we soon announced our intention to stay a few days. Having taken this important step, our luggage was instantly whipped out of sight ; and sup- posing we were following it, we ascended some steps to the portico of a tolerably large hotel. On gaining this, it was a matter that excited our admiration to perceive how suddenly that anxious solicitude, of which we had so lately been the objects, had assumed an abstract po- sition. The landlord had made his bows, the waiters their grimaces, our names had been taken, in limine in libra, and being regularly bag- ged, we were left to provide for ourselves, not a soul coming near us. A fiddle was screaking in one of the rooms ; and we found ourselves on the portico, in the midst of a number of queer-looking ladies, with and without tour- nures, corseted up in all sorts of ways, and their hair dressed in every possible form. The gentlemen, in greater numbers, were chewing, spitting, and smoking, with an ease that evin- ced their superiority, and all staring at us in the most determined manner. Nothing was more certain than that we were out of the woods, had got into fashionable society, and were now going to depend upon the tender mercies of landlords, landladies, and dirty, im- pudent, black waiters. After a good deal of trouble, rooms were assigned to us ; and hav- ing made our toilette and got some refreshment, we entered the public parlour for awhile, to take a look at those who had done us the favour to stare at us on our arrival ; and being soon sat- isfied, retired to get some repose after a fatigu- ing day's journey. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 17 CHAPTER III. A Virginia Hotel in the Mountains A dancing Land.oru Incomparable beauty of the Warm Baths Their gaseous and solid contents The Hot Springs Curious effect produced upon them by an Earthquake Geological Struc- ture of the Ridges View of the Alleghanies and the Warm Springs Valley. HAVING risen much refreshed at the dawn of day, I went to the Thermal bath, and was so struck with the luxury of this unrivalled phe- nomenon, and with the general beauty of the valley and the adjacent neighbourhood, that I determined to remain at least a week. During this period I was very diligent in investigating everything around me, and committing my ob- servations to my note book, all of which were transferred to my journal the day preceding my departure, which was on the 12th of the month. To avoid a formal entry of the proceedings of each day, I shall now give a general narrative of what 1 observed, both of the manners of the place and the structure of the country, with an account of the rare thermal waters of this inter- esting place. And first as to what is personal. Of the ho- tel at the Warm springs not much is to be said in commendation. It is kept by an old inhabi- tant of the valley, a Col. Fry, a very worthy per- sonage, who is much respected here, as he re- ally deserves to be. He ha* a son, a very obli- ging sort of person, who assists him in the man- agement of the hotel, and both father and son are not wanting in attention to their guests, es- pecially to the ladies. These two excellent persons are devoured by a passion for dancing, and it used to be my great deligbt, on my re- turn from excursions in the mountains, to goto the ball-room in the evening to witness the ad- mirable performances of Col. Fry with his old lower extremities. The house is an awkward, ill-finished, ill-furnished building, with all the pretension of a well-established hotel in an old settled country. The black domestics corre- spond with the furniture and everything else. There is a long dining-room with a low ceiling, a small public parlour not capable of containing one-fourth of the company, and a few moderate- sized bed-rooms, in which families are accom- modated indifferently enough. Wood cabins, out of the house, are provided for single people. The portico is the greatest comfort about the place, being long and roomy, and affording a comfortable walk for invalids and ladies in the evening. The number of servants is quite in- adequate to the crowd of company that is some- times assembled there, and there is an eternal bawling going on both in the house and at the doors of the cabins, before breakfast and dinner, from those who have no servants of their own. " Waiter, there ain't not a drop of water in my pitcher." " Waiter, who under arth has taken the towel out of my chammber V " Waiter, I swar you've brought me two odd boots ; one's considerable too little, and the t'other's the most almighty big thing what I never seed." One night there was quite a row out of doors, as late as eleven ; somebody trad abstracted all the pil- lows from a whole line of cabins, if such pin- cushions may bu called by that name, when a Kentuckian won a bet that he would put nine of them into his coat pocket. At length, how- ever, they were found under the mattrass of some one who had probably fancied his bed C was hard, and who had gone off in an early stage coach. But the awful hour of the whole twenty-four is that when dinner is announced, and when the grand movement of ladies and their beaux takes place to the dining-room. There a very good regulation prevails : your name is put on your plate, so that your seat is reserved and no one has a right to take it. The last comers to the hotel are placed at the bot- tom of the table, and as the rest of the company departs are " promoted" higher up towards the top. During our promotion we had many neigh- bours and sat opposite to various persons, some of whom were polite and interesting, others very much the reverse, just as it occurs in al- most every situation in this world. The effect of this constant movement was to bring us at last to the very head of the company, and place me next to the good-natured and fat landlady, who did the honours of that eternal mass of ba- con which is always the head dish at a Virginia table. Besides this huge dish of bacon, which left no room for anything else above, there were the hams of the fat landlady and their appen- dages, which on account of the narrowness of the table were equally in my way below. The meats, which were abundant, were so horribly ruined in the cooking that it was exceedingly difficult to guess what they were composed of. There was, however, always a joint of mutton or meagre venison, which Col. Fry, who was very appropriately dressed in a blue check pina- fore with sleeves to it, carved at a side-table. The pastry was good and abundant, with plen- ty of excellent milk, and lumps, of beautiful transparent ice to put into it, a luxury which is universal in the pleasant state of Virginia from, the mansion of the hospitable planter down to the humblest cottage. As to the servants, they were few in number and bad ; they were all slaves, running up and down the sides of the tables to change plates and serve water to the guests, as rapidly as if they were on horseback, endeavouring to make up by activity for want of numbers, never stopping when they were called to, and giving you no chance of catching one but by sticking a fork into him. I was not often present at this ceremony, hut was told it was the same thing every day, Col. Fry always officiating as high-priest in his blue check robes at the side-table, skipping from it to change the ladies' plates, and if any one of them rose from the dinner table to leave the room, he was in- stantly at her side, armed with the carving-knife in his right hand, and presenting his left arm in his most insinuating manner to conduct her to the door. ^This extreme politeness not having yet travelled to the Ohio, tickles the Kentucky ladies wonderfully, and they are said t rise of- ten from the table for the sake of being escorted by the martial chief carver and his carving-knife of state. There was another exhibition at this house at which I was frequently present, as it took placs in the evening, when my excursions were over. After supper it is the custom at the Warm Springs to adjourn to a place called the Ball- room, which has a few wooden benches round t, and one fiddler. This performer is a Paga- nini in his way, for the great Italian played on one string, and this man plays on one tune, for 18 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. it was always the same. Col. Fry takes the most especial delight in this tune ; he is never known to he tired of it, and with the exception of his son, prides himself upon being the very first gambado in Virginia. He certainly is the most extraordinary dancingtavern-keeper I have seen. Both father and son piquing themselves on their politeness, no sooner is the business of eating over for the day, than they transform themselves every evening into masters of the ceremonies; every lady as she enters the ball- room is whipped up by one of them and dragged to one of the benches, a proceeding which is somewhat amusing the first evening of a lady's arrival, when she does not know who they are or what they are going to do with her. As soon as enough are assembled to make a qua- drille, the Fry firm pounce upon two of the last comers to the hotel, refuse to take " No" for an answer, and literally haul their partners to the dance. Then commences the glory of Col. Fry and his son, in the profound solemnity of his bows, the indescribable flourishes they both make with their legs, and the unremitting at- tention they give to every minutia of the dance. If the lady to whom the Colonel is dancing should be talking to her next neighbour, and does not commence an instantaneous fluttera- tion with her lower extremities, the Colonel skips to her side and raises a preposterous clap- ping close to her ears with the palms of his hands, so that in the course of the first quadrille he brings them to such a state of discipline, that they become as much afraid of him as if he was one of the hears of his own mountains; and when he seizes them by both hands to give them one of his grand whisks round, they sub- mit with all the resignation of a bird in the tal- ons of a hawk. The Colonel loves to hear his son praised, and admits that he dances the modern style better than himself; "but," says the Colonel, " I do more work with my legs than he does, and at any rate he can't spring so high." These peculiarities in an innkeeper appear very odd to those to whom they are altogether new, but the Virginians are accustomed to these manners, and estimate these accomplishments in the landlord highly. The truth is, that he is a very worthy, obliging man, and lived here when visifers could hardly get accommodations of any kind ; so that, being the sole dispenser of all comforts, he has been at all times the most important personage on the spot. Indeed, it behoves every one who is passing through an unsettled district to have some deference for the landlord, especially if there is no other house within twenty or thirty miles ; the, host feels this his.advantage over the traveller, and thus a custom, the reverse of that which obtains in the towns, has grown up in the interior of Amer- ica, of the guests paying attention to thelandlord, instead of the landlord paying attention to the guests. Whilst here I became acquainted with the resident physician, Dr. Strother, a man of good sense, and whom I should think a safe medical advisor. From him I obtained a great deal of interesting information regarding many locali- ties in the neighbourhood, and always found his conversation instructive and agreeable. It is very important to those who use these warm springs as a hath to consult this able physician, as many persons have injured themselves by a too free -use of them. Considering how sur- prisingly beautiful and luxurious they are, this is not surprising. They rise through the lime- stone in a marshy piece of ground, partly over- flowed by the south fork of Jackson's River, which heads about three miles N.E. up the val- ley. Over the main bath a rough octagonal building has been raised, open at the top : the diameter of the bath at the bottom is about thirty-five feet, and the average depth is about five feet. When you enter the door of the- building you feel a heat equal to that of a for- cing-house, but you soon lose all consciousness of it in the contemplation of what is before you. First, you are struck with the unrivalled beauty of the water, which is so enchantingly pellucid, that you think you never saw any water so diaphanous before, not even the wa- ters of the Rhone where they issue from the Lake of Geneva. Then the gaseous matter, which keeps the water in a constant playful stateof ebullition, sometimes sending up streams of large bubbles, then firing offa/e dc joie in a perfect shower of smaller ones. Enter when you will, it is playing and sparkling like a vast reservoir of champagne, and you would be never satisfied with looking on and admiring this un- rivalled spectacle, and would continue for hours to look and admire, if the perspiration trickling down your face did not remind you that such a hot place was not made to remain all day in. But what words can do justice to the luxury of plunging into and playing about in this pool of perfect delight 1 ? Next to Champagne frappi de glace, which is certainly the most glorious in- vention after a hot day's hard geological work, I think this water, frappi de chateur, is the great- est enjoyment in the world, to any one who,, rising with the dawn, has been occupied until noon wading through a burning sun, climbing the rugged mountain's side, hammering rocks, poking his half-willing hand doubtful of the rattle-snake into holes after snail shells, and who has had to trudge back with his pockets and hands full of specimen?, and with feet and arms equally tired. It would be difficult for him to imagine aught that could rival this ex- traordinary bath, where the temperature is about 98 Fahr, and where streams of gas go gently creeping over his body, as if little fishes were nibbling at him ; where he has ample room to flounder about, and entertains no ap- prehensions of a cold shock when he jumps in, or of cold air when he jumps out. I was careful, however, never to pass more than fifteen minutes in it ; that period was suf- ficient to refresh me, and instead of being sleepy and heavy after I came out, I felt more lively and ready for conversation than at any other time. It was fortunate, too, that my leisure hour was the only one during the morning when I could have the large bath to myself. From four in the morning this bath was appropriated every alternate two hours to the two sexes. I was told that sometimes twenty women would be in it altogether, and fine fun no doubt they had, if one might judge from^he laughter and noise that proceeded from the place at such times. The men, too, are not less gregarious, and thus convert the most delicate of luxuries TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 19 into a state of things almost as bad, I should suppose, as that in the Penitentiary. Old sick men, young boys, husbands of charming wives, fathers of beautiful daughters, all in the same pickle together, mingling with the most extra ordinary looking tobacco-chewing, expectora ters. To the left of the road, as you approach the hotel, are several warm springs, as well as a most delicious cold one ; but the Hot-springs, which are used as baths, lie to the right, imme- diately in front of the hotel. A new circular bath has been recently constructed here, with a ting, and villainous looking nondescripts. Where diameter of more than thirty feet, but it pos- are the waters that" could underlie a man after coming out of such a polluted liquid 1 ? When I was not so fortunate as to find the public bath vacant, I used to secure a more modest bath adjacent to the large one, in a very nice, and not a very small private place, where you are privileged to be alone. The marshy ground in which these baths are situated, contains in the three or four acres which it comprehends, a prodigious variety of springs, differing perhaps in nothing but their temperature, which varies a little. Myriads of bubbles are rising in every part of the brook, which will no doubt be enclosed at some future day to increase the number of baths. Near to the modest bath a spring has been enclosed, which is called the " Drinking Spring :" this has been rudely fitted up for the visitors to re- sort to, and is said to be used medicinally with success. The temperature is somewhat lower than that of the large bath, being 94 Fahr, and it evolves a slight quantity of sulphuretted hy- drogen, which is not very disagreeable, leaving a taste in the mouth not stronger than that which is produced by the albumen of a boiled egg. The gaseous contents of these waters were princi- pally nitrogen, carbonic acid, and a little sul- phuretted hydrogen.* The soluble salts are carbonate, and sulphate of lime with magnesia. Small crystals of sulphate of magnesia are some- times found attached to stones where the spray of the water has beaten, and a great deposit of carbonate of lime mixed with a small propor- tion of sulphate is made wherever the stream runs, for, in proportion as it becomes exposed to the air, the carbonic acid forsakes the lime, which is then precipitated. Lower down, where the public road crosses the stream, this ealca- rous deposit is very considerable, and forms a body of travertine upon" which you can walk across the stream. During my residence at this place I walked over to the Hol-spnngs, about five miles distant, in a south-western direction, down the same valley. About half a mile on the road there is a well-defined gap to the right through the Back- water Mountain ; and here it is evident from the scooping out of the bottom, that when the waters anciently' retired from this district, the stream that has contributed to the denudation of the valley has deflected, and caused the gap through which the road to Huntersville now runs. About four and a half miles from this is anoth- er very picturesque gap, scooped, as it were, out of the mountain, the slopes of which have a graceful inclination to the bottom. This gap is the termination of a short valley of about 2500 yards, that here intersects the main val- ley, which, together with thehi^h. road, it cross- es at right angles. In this short valley are the hot-springs, with a small hotel for the reception of persons who come for the benefit of the wa- * Dr. Daubeny. of Oxford, who in 1S3S, found the u.-n, 6 carbonic acid visited the warm springs ous contents to consist of 96 ritro- d 4 oxygen. sees little of that natural beauty which striking in the principal bath at the warm springs, although the water is very transparent. It is also inferior in another respect ; .Dr. Goode, the proprietor, having by a great oversight omit- ted to enclose several very copious springs, with their beautiful jets of gas quite adjacent to the others, and having in their place enclosed a quantity of dead ground. The temperature was 94, but would no doubt have been higher but for this mistake, which has shut out at least one hundred points of ebullition ; for in a con- tiguous bath, called the Spout Bath, from its be- ing brought a short distance in a spout, and made to fall from it into a reservoir, the tem- perature was 102 Fahr. These waters appear Ux be identical with each other as to their con- stitutents, they all produce travertine, and have a different proportion of carbonic acid from that in the waters of the Warm springs.* To the east of the road there is a singularly charming water, such as I have never met with before. It is collected in a section of hollow tree, called a gum (because the liquid-ambar styraaflua, or gum-tree, is generally used for this purpose), which is sunk in the ground; and, although it possesses a temperature of 101 Fahr., it has the property of quenching thirst as well as cool water, at least it produced that effect upon me. Being warmed with my walk, and hearing Dr. Goode talk of a fine spring of cool water rising amidst the other springs which were all hot, my imagination was dwelling upon this cool spring long before we reached it ; but having tasted the water in the gum first, I found it so agreeable that I drank three glasses of it, and allayed my thirst so perfectly, that I had no de- sire to drink from the cool spring when we reached it ; and, indeed, feeling thirsty again, before I went away, I hesitated for sonre time which of the two I should prefer, and was final- ly so pleased with the recollection of the warm water that I gave it the preference, and was very well satisfied that I had done so. This was the first time I ever supposed warm water could produce any effect upon me but that of an. emetic. This is, probably, a very valuable wa- ter, of which time will disclose the great prop- erties ; it is agreeable to the palate, and can be taken into the stomach in large quantities with-, out disgust or inconvenience. It has an agree- able chalybeate flavour, and is slightly acidula- ted with carbonic acid ; and I understand from the proprietor that the country people admired it as much as I had done, and that it had ob- tained the name of the Sweet Spring. Very near to this rises the cool spring, conning through the limestone with a temperature of 60 Fahr. It is a very pure water, and is called the Free- stone Spring, a very common name giverl to rock springs. Whilst I was standing at this spring with Dr. Goode, he related to me that during the last * Dr. Daubeny examined these waters, and found the gaseous matter to be composed of 6 oxygen and 94 nitrogen. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. summer, when sitting one day over the gum which usually is full to within two inches the water in it suddenly rose in a body and over- flowed its edges ; this it continued to do for about two minutes, when a violent ebullition of gas commenced which lasted three or four minutes more. The water now, from a pure transparent state, became suddenly turbid, and remained so for some time. Struck with this unusual phe- nomenon he left the gum, and went to the baths to see if the waters were disturbed there also, but there was no apparent change, and he found no reason to believe that the other waters had been at all disturbed. At his return to the gum he found the waters clear again, and at the or- dinary level. The phenomenon had never been repeated. Some time after this, looking into a newspaper, he read, that on the very day, and at the hour he observed this disturbance, a se- vere earthquake had been felt in the central parts of Virginia. As I remembered this earth- quake very distinctly, I noted Dr. Goode's day and hour, and on my return consulted my Jour- nal of last year, and found that, being on a visit with rriy son to Mr. Madison, the ex-president, at his seat of Montpelier, in Orange County, Virginia, we made an excursion into the Coun- ty of Louisa, and passed a night at the house of a worthy gentleman named Halliday, who related to us that the earthquake took place precisely at the time when Dr. Goode noted the disturbance of the spring ; that the movement was sensibly felt upon his plantation and in his house, and created a general dismay in the neighbourhood. It was the subject of ct>nver- sation a long time after its occurrence, and hav- ing collected information respecting, it from other quarters, Mr. Halliday thought he was warranted in believing that his own residence was a sort of central point, towards which all the rumblings converged that had been heard from within fifteen miles of his plantation. He had taken up the idea that the phenomenon did not proceed from a cause acting subterraneous- ly, but that it had its origin in the atmosphere, and was of the nature of a discharge of electric matter. A very long drought had succeeded to a very rainy season, that had lasted five weeks. This was the same year that the great meteoric discharge took place in November, 1833, and which, though silent as the play of the Aurora Borealis, was singularly brilliant and copious at Fredericsburg, in Virginia, where I happened to be at the time. In regard to the geological structure of this part of the country, most of these ridges have an anticlinal structure exceedingly disturbed, the order of superposition of the rocks being sandstone, limestone, and slate. In many parts the most important beds have been carried away, as appears to have been the case at the Warm Springs Mountain, where there is sufficient evi- dence that the surface of the country was much higher at the first heaving up of this mountain ; the rocks in many places dipping to the east al- most vertically, whilst across they dip to the west, showing that those which covered the in- tervening space must have been rent asunder by the movement. The limestone of the Warm Springs Valley appears to be of the age of that which I had so long followed, of the Valley of Shenandoah, and it is through this that the thermal waters arise, in consequence of the vent which has been given to them by the mighty upheaval and removal of this mass of mineral matter. In this Valley of the Warm Springs, about a quarter of a mile from the ho- tel, up a road on the left of the ascent of the Warm Springs Mountain in a N.E. direction, is a limestone bed containing fine impressions of producta, closely resembling P. Martini, with flustra, cyathophyllum, cellepora, astrea, &c., and I found specimens from this rock so much resembling those of the Dudley limestone in England, and of other calcareous rocks near Lake Erie, that both from the character of the fossils and the interesting groups which are presented, they would seem to be equivalents. From the pinnacle of the Warm Springs Mountain (distant about 3000 feet from the toll- house at the summit of the road), which is, per- haps, about 1100 feet from the valley, and which is formed by a heap of white quartzose sand- stone, there is a splendid and most instructive series of views of the Alleghany ridges. The view to the east is very magnificent, but I se- lected that to the west in order to include the Warm Springs Valley, which is analogous, ac- cording to its extent, to the other valleys which respectively separate the ridges ; and my son made a sketch, which very faithfully represents the character of the landscape. The view across the mountains extends, perhaps, forty miles, the various ridges all appearing very dis- tinctly, holding a parallel course to each other from N.N.E. to N.E., with the exception of a few irregular and transverse ridges that He across the valleys in some parts of the country ; these have generally passages or gaps as they are here called at one end or the other, or in the centre, unless one or more large gaps di- vide the ridges at some point adjacent to them. These gaps are numerous and picturesque, and it frequently happens that when the geolo- gist has been strolling for miles in some narrow valley hemmed in by ridges 600 or 800 feet high, he comes upon one of them wide at the top with a graceful slope, and a talus of detritus to the bottom, like the gap of the Backwater Ridge, which confines the Valley of the Warm Springs to the west, and which suddenly opens, and gives an ample and beautiful peep upon a heavy ridge, which has the distinctive name of the Alleghany Mountain, and sometimes the Backbone Ridge, from its being a watershed for the sources of rivers that flow from its west flank to empty into the Gulf of Mexico, and from its east flank to empty into the Atlantic Ocean. It is through these gaps that the waters have probably escaped which retired from the dis- tricts when these ridges were upheaved from the ocean, the channels by which they retired being most likely governed by the relative soft- ness of the strata. The temperature in these valleys is, of course, much higher than on the ridges. On the 8th of August I observed it at nine o'clock A.M., on the pinnacle of the Warm Springs Mountain, at 74, whilst, by a corre- sponding observation, made in the valley, it was 88 Fahr. At that elevation the westerly winds have their freshness unchanged by the radiation and reflection of heat below, and are, as I have often experienced on sultry days, per- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. fectly refreshing. One day, whilst I was sit- ting on one of the loftiest peaks enjoying the grandeur of the view, a humming-bird flew past me, the only one I saw at that height. Land- shells also are very scarce at this elevation : I found some helices, however, in a cleft of the white sandstone at the top of the ridge. The pines are scrubby at these summits, and the Calmia latifolia and the Vaccinium frondosum or whortleberry, are found at the highest points. The other plants on the slopes of the ridges are chestnut, hickory, walnut, (Juglans), linden, lo- cust (Robinia pseudo-acacia), and oaks red and white. The flies that frequent the tops of the ridges are a very large-sized variety. I met with no snakes except the rattle-snake before mentioned. Animals of chase are rarely found in this part of the country except when mast is plentiful. The bears and deer have generally retreated to situations where man does not tor- ment them so much, and only return when food is scarce in their own districts, and when chest- nuts and the acorns of the white oak, of which the deer are fond, abound here. At such times the panther (Felis discolor), comes for the same reason, not because he eats chestnuts, but be- cause he knows that he shall find deer there. The sportsmen and dogs in the neighbourhood are out of all proportion to the game, and the few deer that remain alive in the vicinity are so worried by the dogs, that their meat is thin and not worth eating. Bears are verv seldom seen. CHAPTER IV. The celebrated White Sulphur Springs Mr. Anderson, a character Description of this Watering Place Beauty of the Alleghany Mountain Our various adventures at a Blacksmith's Boarding-house and Alabama Row An old Lady makes a double somerset Our removal to Compulsion Row. ON the 12th of August, a little after 4 A.M,, we all got into the stage-coach for the White Sulphur Springs, the great point of attraction to all visitors to these mountains. At the end of six miles we came to -a gradual descent through a very romantic woodland ravine, which lasted eight miles, to Shoemates, where we breakfasted. From this place to Callahan's, 13 miles, a sort of outlying mountain is crossed, formed of a decomposing sandstone, which is in some places very ferruginous ; this rock co- heres so little, that at the summit of the hill the sand is quite deep. Callahan's tavern is in a very agreeable valley basin, and has that lofty ridge, which is specially called Alleghany Mountain, in front. The house is neat, and promises some comfort, having a spring of deli- cious cool water near to it. The next stage of 15 miles lies for the greater part over the Alleghany Mountain just mentioned, which ap- peared to consist principally of slate and fissile sandstone. On the summit I found fossiliferous sandstone in place, with the usual spirifers, en- crini, &c. The trees on this ridge are well grown, and here, as well as in most of these mountains, I observed that the ridges on their slopes are not craggy, but are covered with a strong productive arable soil, capable of yield- ing 40 bushels of Indian corn to the acre. Oc- casionally I have observed fields of this corn at an elevation of 700 feet above the valleys, and when these slopes are worked with horizontal ploughing along the sides of the ridges, the soil is not carried away by the rains, as in the red lands of the central counties of Virginia, where vertical ploughing is practised, which creates gulleys and chasms so broad as to lead in many instances to the abandonment of the land. This, therefore, will make a good grazing country in time, and maintain a large population. At pres- ent, lands in a state of nature, not distant from the main roads, can be obtained at from three to five dollars an acre, when in accessible situ- ations ; at greater distances large tracts may be obtained for 50 cents, and even as low as- sixpence sterling an acre, the parties in whom the title lies living at a distance, and wishing to sell it at any price rather than pay taxes for what they derive no benefit from. For a long period the farmers of this part of the country will be obliged to pack all their agricultural pro- ductions into the shape of hogs and cattle capa- ble of carrying themselves to market, but there are many things if managed with prudence and skill would repay the exertions of active men ; fine wools, fat sheep, fat cattle, and even good tobacco, I am persuaded might be raised here. If the rocky surfaces and uncertain cli- mate of New Hampshire, and some parts of Connecticut and New York, afford a heartjr subsistence to industry, and permit prudent men to bring up large families in a happy and honourable manner, certainly these fertile and salubrious hills might do the same. We had heard from various persons at the Warm Springs, who knew the place we were going to, many rumours relating to the White Sulphur Springs, which notwithstanding their great celebrity at a distance were of an un- promising character ; we had been told that the establishment was full to repletion that all persons were refused accommodation, whatever their respectability might be, unless they brought horses and carriages with them to augment the sum total of expenditure. Any little lawyer or storekeeper in Virginia, by rigging out a dirty old vehicle, and travelling with it at the rate of 25 miles a day, could, we were assured, gel in? whilst those who came in the sta^e-coach only got out, for the sober truth was, that if they would not receive you, there was no other place to go to. Persons, therefore, of the greatest worth, seeking relief from the waters, and who came in the stage-coach because they would not destroy a good equipage and horses in a long journey of five or six hundred miles, were said to be turned away without ceremony, or directed to farm-houses in the neighbourhood, under strong promises to provide quarters for them the next day ; and were thus kept de die in diem with renewed promises and lying excu- ses until their patience was exhausted. In ad- dition to this, we were told that if you did get in, you were poisoned and embittered by a filth, a confusion, a want of common honesty, and a total want of personal comfort, that rendered the days and nights equally horrible. We were ill prepared for such a state of things, for our friend Colonel Fry had certainly done his best for us both in the way of comfort and dancing, and we had left him with the kindliest feelings. On our approach to the White Sul- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. phur Springs, therefore, my mind was some- what disturbed as to what our fate would be. I had a lady with me who was an invalid, and who had come expressly to drink the waters, and I began to be afraid of meeting with diffi- culties beyond my control. It was true I had taken the precaution to write to a well-known friend who had gone there in his carriage, and with his own horses, and who was supposed to have great influence with the proprietor, Mr. Caldwell. I had therefore a friend at court, and that friend had written to me that Mr. An- derson, the prime minister of the proprietor, had promised to provide accommodations for us against our arrival. But unfortunately I had heard a great deal of Mr. Anderson at the Warm Springs ; the impartial world there seemed dis- posed to agree in doing him justice, and a lady from Kentucky, whom he had not been too at- tentive to, told me that " if Anderson warn't the biggest liar that ever was to bejong to Vir- ginny, then there was a great one to be born yet." The stage-coach in which we were was full of people, agitated by the same hope? and fears as ourselves, all anxious to get the first interview with this Mr. Anderson, a personage now grown into the highest importance with us all ; when, unluckily, as we were approach- ing the place, another stage-coach whipped past us full of people, which threw us all in de- spair, and we suspended for the moment our secret contrivances to anticipate each other, to unite in reproaches against our driver for per- mitting the other coach to pass us. The moment our vehicle stopped I jumped out, and immediately found a group of people talking to a person who was answering the va- rious eager inquiries they were putting to him. This was a short, thick-set fellow, with a filthy black hat hanging on one side of his head, at an angle of about 45, his garments as unpromis- ing as his beaver, his arms a-kimbo, and his whole appearance vivified with a fierce, cool, and brazen-faced strut, that made a perfect character of him. I had been cherishing some faint hope that the great Mr. Anderson, the Metternich of this wonderful establishment, might have a touch of the gentleman in him, and be disposed to assist me in my need : this animal, thought' I, cannot be Mr. Anderson ; but, considering the levee about this matchless in- dividual, my mind somewhat misgave me, and I doubtingly inquired of him where I could see Mr. Anderson 1 The answer was not long in coming, and to my somewhat dismay, I heard the important declaration, " I reckon I am Mr. Anderson." I then mentioned my name and the reasons I had for supposing that an apart- ment had been reserved for me ; upon which, without the least circumlocution, he said, " Look ye, Mister, I han't room for a cat, to say no- thing about your family." If ever individuals were in ' a considerable particular fix," we now might claim to be in the rare situation which would deserve so felicitous a paraphrase, for the driver of the stage-coach having thrown our luggage on the ground, ordered my family to get out, as he was going to take his vehicle away : here, then, we were without friends or lodgings, or sympathy from any one. Address- ing myself to this Anderson again, I told him we had been induced to come on, by assurances that he had engaged to procure us lodgings, and that he must do it, for we could not stay out of doors all night. The fellow now advised me to go to a house two miles distant until the morning, when he said he would do his very best for me, admitting that much interest had been used to procure lodgings for us in the es- tablishment, and assuring me that he had the best dispositions to serve me. The question was now how to get to this house, and whilst I was endeavouring to arrange this, a little lame man, with a very Jewish face who seemed to belong to the establishment, and who hobbled about with a stick brought an unshaven but civil spoken man to me, who said his name was Servoy, that he lived only half a mile from the Springs, in a cottage I had observed as we -drove up, and that he would accommodate us with a room to ourselves until we removed to the Springs. I immediately closed with this offer. Mr. Servoy undertook to procure a sort of carriage to convey us to his place, and whilst these matters were arranging I took an oppor- tunity of looking around me with a mind some- what more at ease, which I was too busy to do before, even if I had not been prevented by a dense crowd, principally composed of dirty, spitting, smoking, queer-looking creatures, that had assembled upon our arrival. The establishment of the White Sulphur Springs seemed to consist of a pack of unprom- sing-looking huts, or cabins, as they are called, surrounding an oblong square, with a foot walk in the centre, railed off from a grassy plot on each side of it. At the entrance into the estab- lishment which has very much the air .of a permanent Methodist camp-meeting you have on the left a miserable-looking sort of barrack, badly constructed of wood, with a dilapidated portico. Nothing can exceed the frowsy ap- pearance of this building, which contains the grand dining saloon, where daily between three and four hundred persons assemble to a kind of scramble for breakfast, dinner, and supper. A few of the cabins had a comfortable-looking ap- pearance, and these were the private property of genteel families residing in various parts of Virginia, but who have a right to occupy them only in person, and not by proxy. This oblong square descends rather rapidly, towards the south-west to the spring, which is surrounded by a small colonnade, with seats around it, gen- erally filled by persons, many of whom are in- differently dressed, and are constantly smoking and spitting. Others are quietly waiting, with emaciated sallow faces, made ghastly with fev- er ^nd ague, until the time comes to drink another glass of the sulphuretted water, the gaseous effluvium of which extends far around. A few paces from this is another reservoir of the water, surrounded with a curb-stone, where the negro servants assemble and drink in imitation of their masters, and out of which water is dip- ped for the use of the horses in the contiguous stables. From these springs other rows of cab- ins are visible, of an inferior kind, but all having a very unprepossessing -look. One of these rows is called Fly Row, from the myriads of flies which constantly infest it. Other rows have still more objectionable names. Some of them have received names from the visitors, such as Probation Row, an inferior locality, where fam- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 23 ilies are placed until they can be better provided j brought to table in such a state that it was im- for. possible to divine whether it had been roasted We found Mr. Servoy's house exceedingly in- or boiled, or what had been done to it ; it was, commodious, and their manner of living rude a*nd irregular. This man, who was really an obliging person, was a country blacksmith, and -having perceived during the past season that the accommodations at the springs were insuf- ficient, and having discovered a moist puddle on his own premises, which encouraged him to be- lieve it might become a spring, had made an addition to his house, and had abandoned the anvil for the vocation of entertaining company, lor which he was as much fitted as we were for making horse-shoes. The good people did their very best to entertain us ; but the meat and the cooking were alike detestable ; the bread and the butter were both bad ; and only the milk tolerable, of which, fortunately there was an abundance. There was a fine spring of cold water, too, on the premises, which was an in- valuable luxury. Nature, however, always attractive in this in- teresting country, compensated as far as she could for all these inconveniences. The house was situated upon a charming knoll on the west side of Howard's Creek a tributary oi the great Kanhaway River that discharges into the Ohio which meandered at its foot. In front there was an enchanting view of the Alleghany moun- tains, the spurs of which, clothed with noble woods, sometimes projected into the valley, and sometimes ran parallel with the flanks of the mountains, whose beautiful and picturesque ser- raled summits, sometimes undulating in round- ed .hummocks, like the Resegone of the moun- tains of the Lake of Como, in the Milanese, and at others presenting acute ridges and peaks, bore every where a rich velvety appearance, from the depth and luxuriance of their forests. "With these sweet views around us, with the agreeable excursions we made, with bread and milk and good water, and occasional visits to the White Sulphur Springs, to remind Mr. Anderson of his engagement with me, we got over five 'days at our host's the blacksmith. He, on the other hand, took in every body who would come; and many were the unfortunates who, like our- selves had reached the end of their journey with- out finding a home there. Unfortunately, whilst iiis house was full having crammed sixteen people into a space not sufficient for half that number the "help" he had engaged to assist his wife and children in cooking and waiting upon the guests went away, because " sich a power of folks it was onpossible to sarve ;" and not being able to procure another in the imme- diate neighbourhood, he was obliged to go to Lewisburg, a small town about nine miles off, to get one. During his absence, Mrs Black- smith having to make all the beds, cook all the ^victuals, and wait upon every body in the bar- gain, came to the same conclusion that her "help" had done; and as various significant flints were thrown out by some of the company that it was likely she understood blowing the bellows better than making people comfortable, she very sensibly thought that the best way of diminishing the quantum of dissatisfaction was to get rid of some of her guests. During her husband's absence, the dinner the first day con- . sisted of a hunch of something she called beef. moreover, so tough and stringy, that after vari- ous unhappy attempts, it was found out of the question to hope to masticate it ; whereupon all the guests in utter dismay grounded their arms, " gave it up," and rose from the table. Never was the chief of a state more puzzled with an insurrection than she was when her child, who was waiting on the table, went and told her mammy that the company " wouldn't touch the beef no how." This being an overt act that directly involved the authority of the govern- ment, she met it in the true Cyclopian spirit. Flying into the room, without a moment's delay, she gave notice, in the most intelligible man- ner, " I aint a-going to work myself to death to please nobody. I reckon, if you are so nice, you know where to get better ; so go as soon as you like, for you shan't stay here no longer." This proclamation produced the effect that all energetic measures timely adopted by govern- ments usually do, and was felt to be particularly cutting in that part where we were told to p,o as soon as we liked, as if we, poor devils ! could like to go when there was no place for us to go to. At length the blacksmith returned, and without any " help," and in an ill humour, which was an unusual occurrence. We had a speci- men of it in the evening. One of the company, who had gone without dinner, observed to him that it was past eight o'clock ; that he had had no dinner ; and that he wanted his tea, which ought to have been ready at six. Upon which Mr. Servoy observed that " the folks was doing the best they could for the boarders ; and if the boarders warn't satisfied with that, why there was no sich thing as satisfying the boarders, for folks couldn't do nothing more than their best that every body knowed ; and if any of the boarders warn't satisfied with his folks, why he didn't want their company." This speech, which was instantly produced in place of tea, showed us that we ought not to be very partic- ular as to what we got as long as we stayed here, and effectually put us upon our good behaviour. In the mean time I was forming a very close acquaintance with the premier, Mr. Anderson. Two or three days I visted the springs, to see if it was possible to soften his obdurate heart, and get admission into the paradise of filth and con- fusion over which he presided : each time he made me the most grave promises to take me in the next morning, which, when it came, he as regularly broke, alleging all sorts of excuses, and bringing all sorts of defensive armour out of his inexhaustible stock of subterfuges and lies, to meet the rather critical cross-examina- tions I found it necessary to submit his reasons to. At length it became too bad ; he had taken others in who came subsequently to us, and could no longer plead that they were on the list before us. My friends now complained to Mr. Caldwell, the proprietor, who promised to inter- cede in our favour ; and upon this Anderson en- gaged positively to receive us the next day at twelve o'clock, but when that hour arrived he again broke his word. Being now utterly tired out with his prevari- cations, lies, and subterfuges, I walked over with my son and told him, that as he had ad- 21 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. milled lhal I had borne with his conduct wilh good temper and moderation, my anger was likely lo be proporlionably violenl ; lhal I could no longer stay al Ihe blacksmith's, and that if I was not taken in forthwilh, I should leave the Whit". Sulphur altogether ; but I desired him to understand that it was my fixed purpose to leave such a memorandum 1 upon his shoulders as would be talked of by all who visited the moun- tains for generations to come. Upon this Mr. Anderson scratched his head, and said, "I'll tell you what, Mr. F., I can do for you ; I can give you No. 29 now directly, if you choose to go into it, but I can't give you a whole cabin for two or three days to come." Five minutes before this he had sworn he had not a hole to put a cat in. We now moved to No. 29, which was a single room, with two beds, in a row of inferior cabins called Alabama Row ; my son having procured a dingy-looking hole to pass the night in, at the public tavern where the post-office was kept. Here, in the adjoin- ing rooms, we found numerous acquaintances who had been in quarantine like ourselves. The room was an oblong about 12 feet long, and very narrow, consequently very inconvenient. This row was built against the side of a hill ; and the room, which extended the whole width of the row, had two doors. The western one opened upon the hill, and you could step out upon it immediately ; but the eastern and prin- cipal entrance was by a steep flight of broken and dangerous wooden steps. Furniture there was none inside, except two low bedsteads coarsely put together with rough planks ; and the narrow wooden frame on which I was to sleep was so broken-backed that it tilted up in the middle. Finding it utterly impossible to sleep there, I had to get up again after I had lain down, and make a tolerably even surface by filling up the inequalities with articles from my own wardrobe. The mattress was full of knots, and what was in the thing that was in- tended to be my pillow I never ascertained ; but a gentleman informed me that he and his wife having, after the usual vexatious delays, got into some room resembling ours, as soon as they laid down for the night, found their pillow not only very disagreeable from a sickening odour that came from it, hut gifted with some curious hard knobs in it that were moveable. As it was out of the question to sleep upon it, he threw it on one side, and had the curiosity to examine it in the morning, when he discovered that they had not only bountifully put a handful or two of dirty live feathers into it, but the necks, with the heads to them, of two chickens and a duck. I have not the least doubt of the truth of this, for the slaves who attend to such matters have entirely their own way, and there is no one to examine their conduct. The next morning I made loud complaints, and we were moved into No. 31, where the beds were much better, and we certainly gained by the exchange. This No. 31 was south of our first room, and more down hill, consequently the wooden steps at the entrance were much steeper and higher. They were ten in number, sharp, jagged, wooden things, a fall from which would in most cases produce a broken limb, as they were at an inclination of about 55. It was not long before an instance was afforded of the danger attending such contrivances. A respectable old lady, stout, and slow in her movements, who inhabited a cabin below ours, hearing the tea-bell ring, and hurrying to oboy the summons, thought srie could get quicker down by going out at the eastern than, at the western door ; and the poor dear lady was not mistaken in her conjecture, for having reached the steps, she prudently thought she would take hold of the knob of the door and see if it was well shut ; but, unluckily, taking hold of the key instead of the knob, and giving it a jerk, it came out, and she made a regular somerset be- fore she got to the bottom, happily without break- ing any limb. This and other inconveniences induced me to apply again to Mr. Anderson, who had taken rather a complaisant turn ; he ac- cordingly moved us to Compulsion Row, a line of cottages made with frames instead of squared logs, the roofs of which were not quite finished. Their exterior looked tolerably well, and at any rate they were new and would be sweet ; be- sides, they had a small private portico bafore them which afforded some shade. The sound of the carpenters' hammers and saws presented an objection to our emigrating to this colony ; but we saw advantages in the change which de- termined us to move, especially as the cottage offered to us actually contained two rooms, the precious privileges of which were beyond all estimation. Taking, therefore, an affecting leave of our friends in Alabama Row, we gath- ered our household gods and goods together, and made a grand movement across the whoje establishment of the White Sulphur. In thrle or four trips with my papers, fossils, &c., and the slaVes carrying our trunks, in the course of an hour we were established in No. 3, Compul- sion Row. It was a very pretty, lively young lady who gave this name to the place. Mr. Anderson had put some families into private cabins, the pro- prietors of which suddenly appeared to claim Lheir rights, and this brought him, as he feeling- ly said, " to a h'll of a nonplush." The weath- er was setting in very bad, and the proprietors not only insisted upon coming in, but had made their own servants carry their luggage into the cabins, so that it seemed to him as if he had no place to put the actual possessors in but the Land of Promise. The family that had to sur- render was in great distress, when suddenly Mr. Anderson's countenance beamed with that sort of satisfaction which sometimes illumines the features of genius, and which could hardly be surpassed by that of Newton when the discove- ry of gravitation relieved him from so many difficulties. "I have it," exclaimed he: '-you shall go to the new buildings ; they are not quite finished, but you will be comfortable. Boys, take the luggage over directly." The parties followed their trunks, came to the buildings, which were ceiled tightly in, with clap boards, the doors were hung, and things looked quite nice outside. But when they got in, they found that half of the roof not seen from the road without any covering whatever, except the raft rs that were waiting for the shingles or wood- en tiles ; the floors also were full of chips and shavings, and the hearths were not laid. Very soon after they got into the house and its inter- esting secrets, it began to rain hard ; and them TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 25 being only half a roof, they might as well al- most have been out of doors. Then came loud complaints and remonstrances to the grand func- tionary, who declared that this was quite (treas- onable ; that he could not stop it raining ; that nobody but the carpenter could do that ; and he promised that he should do that to-morrow. Un- der these circumstances the family, not liking to take up their abode on the high road, made the best they could of it, and stayed in the half cottage by compulsion. This is one of the in- stances of the confusion produced by a fraudu- lent system of pretending to accommodate ev- ery body, when there is only room for a few. CHAPTER V. State of Society at Compulsion Row Fine flavour of the Oysters at New Orleans. Private Cabins at the Springs A Cyclopean Kitchen Merciful Plan of Killing Bul- locks with the Rifle Extraordinary performances at Dinner Mr. Wright's Shanty in the Woods Generals who have never been Soldiers The Ferryman and the Traveller without a title. IF I had heard this story before we moved into Compulsion Row, we should certainly have never been inhabitants of it. Our portico was common to two cottages united by one roof. Each cottage had two rooms of a sufficient size, and as far as space went we were satisfied ; the roof also was tight, but there was no ceiling to either of the rooms, and we looked up upon the rafters. On examining our premises a little more particularly, we were sorry to perceive that the partition-wall, which was common to us and the next cottage, was only carried up part of the way to the roof; all above the line where a ceiling was intended to be placed to di- vide the lower from the upper room, was entirely open space, except where the rough brick chim- ney reared itself up in a rather uncomely man- ner, so that if a quarrel had existed betwixt us and our neighbours, we could have carried on the war by throwing missiles at each other, with almost as much facility as if there had been no wall at all. The inconvenience arising from this " bad state of the fences" soon mani- fested itself. We heard the door of the adjoin- ing cabin open, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps of several coarse men, as we soon dis- covered, by the loud, drawling, unceasing vulgar conversation they got into. We had, however, no blaspheming, and this I was grateful to them for ; but in its place we had such a torrent of ungrammatical holdings forth about temperance societies, Sunday schools, tracts, and tbe utter wickedness and lost state of everybody but them- selves, that at times many persons would, I dare say, have felt it quite a relief if they had taken to cursing and swearing. When we re- turned to our cottage for the night, these self- righteous persons seemed to be still labouring to express their spite against their fellow-creatures. More stupid, disgusting stuff I never listened to, than that which came from these conceited, self-sanctified, canting jackasses, nor in my opinion can anything tend more to suppress true religious feeling than such contemptible trash as they uttered. They were all democrats, too, to a man, which made them quite perfect. In the morning we were awoke by their hawking and D spitting, and beginning to talk as insipidly and disgustingly as ever. During the next day, these farthing candles to lighten the Gentiles were exchanged for an- other set of a different kind, equally low and vulgar, but without their canting. This new company, four in number, with two very small beds to sleep in, were constantly engaged in dis- putes about bacon not Bacon, the great philos- opher of England, but salt bacon of Virginia. One of them maintained that in "the hull woorld there was no sich bacon as Virginia bacon.' r Another, who was a Kentuckian, felt himself hurt by this observation, and put in an immedi- ate rejoinder, saying, "I allow the Virginians do flog all mankind at praising themselves, and their bacon might be pretty good, but it war'nt to be compared, no, not for a beginning of a thing, to the bacon of the western country,, where the land was an almighty sight finer, pro- duced better corn, and, of course, made better hogs." The Virginian now became nettled, and swore they had " more reel luxuries in old Vir- ginia than they had in the hull woorld," and ask- ed the Kentuckian if they had " oysters in Ken- tucky, and clams, and sich-like ;" finishing with a declaration that the finest land in the "hull woorld" was in Southampton County. These oysters silenced the Kentuckian, who, living far in the interior, had never seen any ; but a resi- dent of the state of " Massasippi," who could not stand this boast of fine land, put it to the Virginian whether they could grow sugar in Southampton County, and added that he had " always heer'n that the hawysters of New Or- le^ns had sich a onaccountable fine flavour, that they would knock the hawysters of Old Virginny into their ninety-ninth year any day." " I reckon they get that from the yellow fever," re- joined the Virginian. This is pretty much at specimen of the conversation of these noisy fel- lows, who having come together in the stage coach, Anderson, to our great discomfort, had crammed into this room. I had opportunities afterwards of seeing these persons in the porti- co, and their external appearance corresponded to their conversation ; they were ill-dressed, vulgar-looking fellows, drawn from the class of slave-dealers and land speculators. Language cannot do justice to the scenes we witnessed, and through which we had to pass at the White Sulphur Springs. It must appear in- credible to those who have heard so much of the celebrity of this watering-place, but who have never been here, to be told that this, the most filthy, disorderly place in the United States, with less method and cleanliness about it than be- longs to the common jails of the country, and where it is quite impossible to be comfortable, should from year to year be flocked to by great numbers of polite and well-bred people who have comfortable homes of their own, and who con- tinue to remain amidst all this discomfort, which, from the nature of things, they know is un- changeable. This requires some explanation. The waters of this region have been frequent- ed by the Virginians during a long period, for relief from the liver complaints and debilitated constitutions occasioned by the annual unhealth- iness of all those low parts of Virginia which extend as far as the tide-water penetrates up the Atlantic rivers. The bilious and intermit- 26 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. tent fevers general to that flat country, compel almost all the proprietors who can afford to leave their planiations, to fly to the salubrious air of the mountains, where they usually remain from July until the first frosts set in in Octoher. When these waters first became known, and be- fore roads were made, everybody came on horseback, rude huts were constructed for their personal accommodation by those who came, and the game with which the country abounded, venison, partridges, and bear's-meat, supplied their tables. In time roads were opened, and families were enabled to come with greater comfort, and to bring articles of furniture and a few of the luxuries of life with them : this grad- ually led to settlements, and to a market at the springs for the productions of the settlers. The waters soon acquired a deserved celebrity, and were annually resorted to by many of the most distinguished persons of Virginia. At length this part of the district became private property, and some of the visitors, to ensure themselves the greatest possible degree of personal comfort, entered into an agreement with the proprietor that he should build for them small wooden cab- ins, to contain two or three rooms. The ex- pense of erecting each of these cabins, not ex- ceeding 200 dollars, was to be defrayed by the person for whom it was built, the privilege being reserved to him and his family of occupying it whenever he or they came in preference to any body else, he being bound to leave the key with the proprietor when he went away, who had then -the right to put other persons into it. These privileged visitors pay the same weekly charge per head for their board that all others do, and some of them bring their cooks and make an ar- rangement for a private table, so that they, not being obliged to mingle with the heterogeneous mass, have a degree of enjoyment that others cannot participate in. At present, the increased population and wealth of Virginia cause great numbers to resort to these celebrated waters ; but it so happens that the proprietor, Mr. Cald- well, is a man of a simple indolent, and inactive character, who pays no attention to his own af- fairs ; the consequence is, that he is unceasingly plundered by those who do look after them. It would be impossible for such a state of things to exist if the establishment were under the management of a person gifted with good sense and activity. The place might be made a mine of wealth to such a man. Everything con- curs to make the speculation both profitable and permanent. The wide celebrity of the curative properties of the water, the beauty and salubrity of the country, the prevalence of the opinion that it is necessary to drink the waters at least, a fortnight, the residence during the whole of the summer months of so many genteel families, the affluence of intelligent individuals from every part of the Union abounding with pleasant and instructive information, are a sufficient guaran- tee for the certainty of the returns that would reward the exertions of the right sort of man. Indeed, if cleanliness and order only prevailed, it would he the most delightful watering-place I have visited in the United States. To a lover of nature the country abounds in attractions, and when the day's excursions are over, what with social visits to families backwards and forwards, agreeable evening walks when the sun has de- clined, the news by a regular daily mail, the general and particular intercourse maintained amongst those who are acquainted with each other, and the re-union at night of the company in the ball-room, this establishment, situated in a romantic and plentiful country, might be con- verted into a refined rural residence, during the summer, for a thousand persons ; whilst the poor invalids who hie to this Bethesda, uniting the use of the waters with temperate exercise, a fine mountain air, and the pleasures of society, would bless the place to the latest day of their existence. If the proprietor were capable of accomplishing so much good, he would not only double his profits, which are said to exceed thirty thousand dollars per annum, but receive the praises of every one ; but abandoning the concern to Anderson and a pack of worthless free black servants, one-half of everything is wasted, and he is thus driven to contract for the cheapest things he can procure, and to give his guests the worst things that can be procured in the country. Milk, which is so plentiful at the Warm Springs, is not to be had here. The kitchen, which opens into the dining-hall, is a dark cavernous-looking place, resembling a sub- terranean furnace, with dirt and offal of every sort thrown upon the floor, whilst human beings are obscurely seen, some of them standing at the great fires and others running about as if they were so many Cyclops ; all of them are negroes, a circumstance of great importance to the one hundred and fifty private black servants in at- tendance here, who are thus enabled to get the choicest morsels to themselves, an advantage they avail themselves of to its fullest extent. Hence the prodigious waste, for they and the dingy Dinahs consume more meat, bread, sugar, and butter, than their masters three times over, and only pay half-price ; so that the practice of turning white visitors away who have no ser- vants, and taking in those who have black ones, is a losing one to the proprietor, though he does not see it. A beeve and eight sheep are killed every day after dinner, and either wasted or consumed within the twenty-four hours. Con- tracts for these are made with cattle-drovers, who drive twenty or fifty, as the case may be ; the usual price paid being three cents, or about three halfpence a pound for the meat when dressed, the hide and tallow being thrown in. When the lot is brought by the drover an aver- age animal is selected, killed, dressed, and weighed, and the whole lot paid for, per head, at the same rate. The rest are put into a field of thirty acres, closely fed, and one of them is killed every day. When the servants have dined, the butcher, with his attendants, goes to the field, selects an animal, has it shot with a rifle, and brings away the carcase in his waggon. These black fellows, who have very little feel- ing for dumb animals, or for anything but them- selves, one day put several balls into a poor bul- lock, which being furious, tore down the fences, and took to the woods: hearing of this, my son, who is an admirable marksman, went to the place, took the rifle from the negro, and the animal being overtaken, put a ball into its head at a distance of upwards of 100 yards, which cut the spinal marrow, and killed it instanter. The next day the people apprehending some similar difficulty from the cattle being very wild TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 27 in consequence of having been chased the day before, came to rny son and asked him to offici- ate again. Being curious to see the operation, I accompanied him to the field, where we found some difficulty in getting sufficiently near to them ; at length they drew up into a group, and the butcher having designated a black one with a small white spot on its forehead, which was in the midst of them, my son waited till it pre- sented its head towards him, when he fired at about 150 yards, and the animal immediately dropped on its knees, and rolled over. It was dead before the butcher could run up to let the blood out. This is certainly a merciful way of killing horned cattle when the shot is a sure one. The ball upon this occasion went in about two inches from the top of the forehead, exactly in the centre, and from thence passed into and cut the spine. I never saw a neater shot fired. The animal was now skinned, dressed in a rude manner, and carried to the house, where part of it was cooked for supper the same evening. People seem always to be eating meat here, and to have no choice whether it is tough or tender, fat or lean at least yon hear nothing which induces you to suppose so ; and, indeed, those who have a gross taste and voracious stomachs must fare well here, for there is any quantity of nasty looking dishes of animal food placed three times a day before them. But in this establishment, that might be as unrivalled in its comforts as it is in its natural advantages and beauty, everything is alike, a scene of dirt and confusion ; and a charming rural retreat from the heats of the summer is thus disgraced with all the filth and nastiness of a badly conducted hospital. Into the details of his affairs the proprietor never enters. His orders are to take everybody in, and never were orders more faithfully executed. The manner in which this over-peopled and under-fed place is daily provided for, is certainly unique. At six in the morning the first bell rings, and a little before seven the second bell announces that breakfast is on the table in the dining-hall. Now the doors of the cabins are thrown open, and the polite and the vulgar are seen converging from every quarter to a scene of indescribable confu- sion and filth. On the dirty portico, in front of the hall, all assemble in a dense crowd as if some extraordinary exhibition was to be pre- sented, and there are three doors of entrance. Suddenly these doors are opened from within, and then it is important for every gentleman to take care of the lady under his charge. Having forced yonr way inside after a desperate squeeze, the next thing is to find your seat. Where three hundred have to sit in a place which scarce affords room for two hundred, it is better to be first than last. A single man stands no chance for a place if he is not on the alert ; yet I must do the visitors the justice to say, that although the motto is of necessity, sauve qui peut, perd, qui vcut, yet the claims of a lady seemed to be always promptly admitted. The only thing like system which is in favour of the visitors, is the having your name placed on your plate, as at the Warm Springs a cus- tom absolutely necessary to avoid a general scramble for seats. We always found our names on our plates, which were placed in front of a dirty bench without a back to it. I But who can describe the noise, the confusion incident to a grand bolting operation conducted I by three hundred American performers, and a I hundred and fifty black slaves to help them 1 It seemed to me that almost every man at table I considered himself at job-work against time, stuffing sausages and whatever else he could cram into his throat. But the dinner-scene pre- sented a spectacle still more extraordinary than the breakfast. And, first, as to the cooking, which was after this mode. Bacon, venison, beef, and mutton, were all boiled together in the same vessel ; then those pieces that were to represent roast meat were taken out and put into an oven for awhile ; after which a sort of dirty gravy was poured from a huge pitcher indiscriminate- ly upon roast and boiled. What with this strange banquet, and the clinking of knives and forks, the rattling of plates, the confused running about of troops of dirty slaves, the numerous cries for this, that, and the other, the exclama- tions of the new comers, " Oh, my gracious ! I reckon I never did see sich a dirty table-cloth," the nasty appearance of the incomprehensible dishes, the badness of the water brought from the creek where the clothes were washed, and the universal feculence of everything around, the scene was perfectly astounding. Twice I tried to dine there, but it was impossible. I could do nothing but stare, and before my won- der was over everything was gone, people and all, except a few slow eaters. I never could become reconciled to the universal filth, as some told me they had got to be, and my wife would literally have got nothing to eat if I had not given a douceur to the cook, and another to one of the black servants, to provide her every day a small dish of fried venison or mutton, for which we waited until it was placed before her; this, with very good bread and it always was good was her only resource. Much squeezed as we were at first, there was a sen- sible relaxation and more elbow-room in a very few minutes, in consequence of the great num- bers who. had the talent of bolting their " feed" in five minutes. A gentleman drew my atten- tion to one of these quick feeders, who had been timed by himself and others, and who had been observed to bolt the most extraordinary quanti- ties of angular pieces of bacon, beef, and mut- ton, in the short period of two minutes and a half. This was a strange, meagre, sallow-look- ing man, with black hair and white whiskers and beard, as if his jaws had done more work than his brains. All the bolters went at it just as quick feeders do in a kennel of hounds, help- ing themselves to a whole dish without cere- mony, cutting off immense long morsels, and then presenting them with a dexterous turn of the tongue to the anxious oesophagus, would launch them down by the small end foremost, with all" the confidence that an alligator swal- lows a young nigger, into that friendly asylum where roast and boiled, baked and stewed, pud- ding and pie, all that is good, and too often what is not very good, meet for all sons of no- ble and ignoble purposes. These quick feeders, with scarce an exception, were gaunt, sallow, uncomely-looking persons, incapable of inspiring much interest out of their coffins, always ex- cepting, however, the performer with the white whiskers, whose unrivalled talent in the present 28 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. state of the drama, might, perhaps, be turned to great account in some of the enlightened capi- tals of Europe. Chemical solutions, to be made perfect from solid materials in the proper time, require first a little mechanical aid, that the greatest possi- ble quantity of surface may be presented to the solvent power. If men would reason thus about the faculties of the stomach, the gastric juices would perhaps have a better chance of fair play. Nature has provided us with teeth for the me- chanical purpose, and if men will not assist her they must pay the penalty, and continue to be taxed with dyspepsia, and the ghastly physiog- nomies that not only afflict themselves, but those innocent persons who are compelled to look upon their unearthly visages. The consequences of this pernicious habit of quick feeding which is so general in America, I never perceived more stri- kingly than at this place. The proprietor of this watering-place, in addi- tion to his plan of over-trading, has had recourse to another scheme which deserves the strongest reprobation. He lets one of his houses to a set of sharpers, who keep a public gaming-table, that is open day and night, where faro, roulette, rouge et noir, and other desperate games are played. Thus every direct encouragement is given to vice, and inducements held out to the vilest fellows in the country to flock to the place for the express purpose of preying upon the com- pany who support his establishment. Inconsid- erate and ingenious young men, who accompa- ny their families here, are thus exposed to the worst temptations, and frequently acquire habits that render them miserable for life. I can speak with more satisfaction of the ball- room, where the company has an opportunity of assembling every evening, and where young per- sons who love to dance can amuse themselves very well : for the musicians are far above the ordinary rate of those found at American water- ing-places. The refreshments too, which are handed about, appeared clean and very fair, a remarkable departure from the usual course of things here. Some flashy-dressed men whom I saw in this room, not connected with known families, but who merely appeared as bystand- ers, were pointed out to me as members of the co-fraternity of gamblers, who drop in here to sieze opportunities of inveigling the young men away to rouge et noir. Being an Englishman, I was asked by some ladies if I knew Colonel Smith of the British army, who had served at Waterloo, and answering in the negative, he was pointed out to me waltzing with a young lady. The colonel, for an Englishman, had a most suspicious-looking beard from ear to ear, a prodigious display of gold watchguard, a gait that did not look very much like Waterloo, and a face with a pair of hairy jowls to it, so remark- able for low expression, that I could not help forming a very unfavourable opinion of him. Soon after, drawing up to where he was stand- ing talking to his partner, not to hear what he was talking about, hut to hear the sound of his voice, I detected my fine friend in a moment, for his language, which came out by mouthfuls, was of a low, flowery kind, quite unknown to gentle- 1 men, and what more especially blew him up, J was his attempt to keep down the drawling ver- j nacular of the State of Mississippi ; in attempt- ! ing to save himself at that point he lost himself and Waterloo altogether. I now advised the brother of one of the ladies he had made dancing acquaintance with, to ask him what regiment he had served in, but the fellow equivocated so much that I had no longer any hesitation in giving my opinion of the true character of this swell, who, soon after perceiving the wind was no longer fair for him, ceased to come to the ball-room. This place was the only part of the establishment where cleanliness and decorum prevailed, for the reason, I suppose, that the ..enteel families who had their private cabins always attended it. But there, as well as every- where, a never-failing topic was the general dis- order, and dirt, and utter want of personal com- fort. For the last two days of our stay my stomach, was so entirely overcome by the disgusting fecu- lence of the dining-hall, that I absented myself at every meal, getting something occasionally to eat at a very odd fellow's, who had run up a shanty in the woods not far from the Springs, and which I had accidentally met with in my rambles. This man was named Wright, and he had formerly kept an oyster-cellar affialtimore. Any one who knows how to fry oysters, gener- ally knows how to fry anything else ; and as Baltimore is a place that not only contains a class of jolly citizens, but captains and no cap- tains without number, of slave-ships and pirati- cal vessels, who live in oyster-Cellars when they are on shore, it may be presumed that Mr. Wright came here to show his talent in that line. In fact he told me that having been for a short time last year to the White Sulphur, " the doings there was sich as he never seen afore," and perceiving an opening for his own talent, he first secured the right to a small piece of land in the woods near to the road, without any body suspecting his object, then ran up a slight log- hut by way of experiment, and afterwards- brought from Baltimore various kinds of confec- tionary, with Champagne, Madeira, claret, bot- tled ale, rum, brandy, gin, lemons, sugar, and indeed all the appliances of a jolly existence. He had also secured a quantity of ice, and had set up some rough tables, with leafy bowers over them, at which I have, upon various occa- sions, after a hard day's work in the mountains, had the justest cause to admire his skill in veni- son steaks, mutton chops, and in the concoction of inimitable ice punch. Here, too, when the thermometer was at 90, we were always sure of getting a delicious glass of ice lemonade. At the period of my departure Mr. Wright was becoming a formidable rival to the bar-room of the White Sulphur, where cock tails, gin slings, gum ticklers, mint juleps, phlegm cutters, and other American sherbets, were brewed from morn to night for the crowds of spitting and swearing, cursing and coughing, smoking and stinking reel gentlemen that passed their time there ; and such was his success that his inten- tion was to extend his operations the succeed- ing year. One of the advantages I had derived from my residence here consisted in a great variety of designations that were given to me by different people. If we are to believe the professions ot Republicans, they abhor titles of every kind, yet they seem constantly to betray a confirmed ban- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 29 kering after them; upon the principle, I sup pose, that things which are very rare always have a high value placed upon them, and that when diamonds are not to be had, weak people will gratify their vanity by wearing paste. In Massachusetts and the New England States the plainest farmer, as soon as he is elected to the State Legislature, is metamorphosed into 11 The Honourable Mr. Slick." In New York a young lawyer, for political services, is named Inspector-General of the Militia an office with- out duties and without emolument, as the militia never assembles in a body and so becomes dubbed General for life, although he may be turned out of his office the next election. A General Officer of the United States army once told me that he dined with the Governor of New York by invitation, and that whilst at table, hearing repeatedly, " Shall I have the honour of a glass of wine with you, General ]" he at first took the compliment to himself, filled his glass, and looked for his man ; but as he always failed in catching his eye, he began to be more cautious, and at length perceived to his surprise, that instead of being the only General at the table, there was a very con- siderable sprinkling of them, not one of whom had ever been a soldier. But here, in Virginia, the rage for titles is greater even than at the north. Almost every person of the better class is at least a Colonel, and every tavern-keeper is at least a Major. Occasionally a few Kaplins are met with amongst the stage-drivers, but such an animal as a Letctenant only exists on the muster-roll of the Militia, for I never heard of any one having seen a live one in Republican America. A well known gentleman of Win- chester, in this State, related an amusing anec- dote to me on this subject. Crossing the Po- tomac into Virginia, with his horse, in a ferry- boat, the ferryman said, " Major, I wish you would lead your horse a little forward," which he immediately did, observing to the man, " I am not a Major, and you need not call me one." To this the ferryman replied, " Well, Kurnel, I ax your pardon, and I'll not call you so no more." Being arrived at the landing-place he led his horse out of the boat, and said, " My good friend, I am a very plain man, I am neither a Colonel nor a Major, I have no title at all, and I don't like them. How much have I to pay you 1" The ferryman looked at him, and said, " You are the first white man I ever cross- ed this ferry that warn't jist nobody at all, and I swar I'll not charge you nothing." . If the various people I had dealings with at this place had acted upon this principle with me, I should have saved a good deal of money ; for Mr. Wright, seeing me curious about rocks and shells, always called me Doctor; most of the people at the Springs, with' whom I had formed an acquaintance, called me Colonel; and some of the blackeys that waited upon me, called me Judge, CHAPTER VI. The system of Alleghany Ridges caused by an upheaval from below, and the White Sulphur Spriijgs a conse- quence of the movement Gaseous contents of the Waters White Rock Mountains Horizontal Fossii- iferous Strata in place. THE Alleghany Mountain, or Backbone Ridge, mentioned at page 20, is the central part of this broad elevated belt which traverses so great a portion of North America. We had now cross- ed it, and found a sensible change in the general dip of the strata, a circumstance of itself suffi- ciently indicative of the origin of this great belt, a very brief account of which will now be given. The Alleghanies, which is the general name the ridges of this belt have obtained in North America, have their south-western termination not more than 200 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, and run through the continent in a general direction of north-east, far into that part of Canada which lies north of the St. Lawrence ; for although the distinct manner in which the various ridges are separated from each other in the more southern parts of the belt is often all but lost in those northern parts, yet the great limestone valley, which more or less accompanies it throughout its extent, and which is most conspicuous in Pennsylvania, and that valley of Shenandoah in Virginia which has been spoken of at page 13, distinctly ap- pears in the vicinity of Lake St. John, near the heads of the Saguenay River. The length, therefore, of this elevated belt cannot be far short of 1700 miles, and its breadth may be estimated from 80 to 120. That the whole series of ridges has been raised from a lower level, and that the maximum upheaving force has been in the direction of this Backbone Ridge, which is the most elevated of them all, is apparent from the general structure of the ridges ; for although the more highly com- plicated fractures and arrangement of the beds of the eastern ridges, where every form of dy- namic action appears to have been exerted, shows that a singular intensity of lorce pre- vailed there ; yet the general movement ap- pears to have been a simultaneous and undu- latory one, evidences of an anticlinal and syn- clinal bending being common to the entire belt. This movement, whether it commenced from the west of the east, was evidently less pa- roxysmal in the central part of the belt, for the rocks at the Backbone Ridge begin to dip west- wardly instead of easterly as they did before ; and in advancing in a westerly direction to- wards the Mississippi, they gradually lose their inclination, and come more or less to the hori- zontal level. It is probable, therefore, that the mineral water of the White Sulphur has been liberated from its subterranean abode by the same sort of movement that has brought the waters of the Warm Springs to the surface. The White Sulphur Springs, so called not from any efflorescence of sulphur, but from the pale yellowish colour of the confervse that you see around the sides of the spring, are on the south side of Howard's Creek, a pretty stream that rises to the north-east, and flows into the Green Briar river. In various parts of the valley, and in the vicinity of this stream, I observed that the waters were tainted with sulphuretted hy- drogen, as well as those at the White Sulphur Springs ; it is probable therefore, that if the stream were diverted a little from its course, other mineral springs equivalent in value to those now in use would be discovered. The gaseous contents of the waters are nitro- 30 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. gen, sulphuretted hyJrogen, with perhaps small portions of carbonic acid ; hence they resemble the Harrogate waters in England, and like them, are not particularly agreeable to the taste, the sulphuretted hydrogen being nauseous, and the sulphate of magnesia and other constituents in them very bitter. I only drank of them once, and not being fond of nasty things, never had the curiosity to taste them again. The tempe- rature is moderate ; after a long rain it ranges from 61 to 63, and is somewhat higher in dry weather ; but as perhaps it never rises higher than 65, the waters cannot be said to be ther- mal in the sense that those are in the Warm Springs Valley, and only so in proportion to their excess over the atmospheric mean. The valley in which the sulphuretted waters are situated is very beautiful ; the outlines of the hills also are pleasingly rounded off, as decom- posing sandstones often are. In the dry beds of mountain brooks which abound here, quan- tities of fossil impressions on sandstone are found, producta, encrinites, &c., the bed of which, until the 23rd, I had not been able to find in situ. On that day my son and myself made a rather fatiguing excursion up the White Rock Mountain, one of the most conspicuous eminences in this part of the country, lying about west by south from the While Sulphur. The base of this mountain comes down to the Lewisburgh turnpike, about three miles from the spa, but hearing it was not very ac- cessible on this side, we began the ascent under the farthest peak to the south ; and getting en- tangled in a hunter's path, we at last "thought we were too far to the south, and were ascend- ing the skirts of the main Alleghany ridge. In order to see where we were, we clambered up a very steep ridge on our right, at an angle of about 60, and with great difficulty reached the top. On the other side there was a deep gloomy dell, thickly clothed with a forest that had yet been respected by man, and which seemed to be the proper abode of panthers during the heat of the day. From hence w saw the White Rock Mountain, which was the object of our excursion, distant at least two miles, and tower- ing above the little hills below. We had be- come so exhausted in clambering up the ridge where we were now .standing, that our day's undertaking began to assume an importance we had not invested it with before ; and, afraid to waste our strength, which we should have done if we had attempted the mountain by way of so intricate a dell, we determined to retrace our steps, so that we lost three hours before we reached the point where we thought it advis- able to commence the ascent. There was a house about a mile from us, kept by a person called Dixon, and thither my son went to get some water and acquire informa- tion. On his return he reported that there was no path, that the mountain was excessively steep, and that if we got up as his informant stated we should not be worth sixpence when we got down. It is remarkable how incurious and indolent the white people of this district are ; they never enter upon any occupation un- less there is money to be made by it, or unless they are compelled to do so. Every man has a horse, hence you never see any one but a negro on foot ; and they cannot comprehend why individuals shouiu wander from the high road, and place themselves in difficult and dan- gerous situations, especially when they are with- out arms to kill game, or to defend themselves with ; the difficulties, therefore, that present themselves to any little enterprise that is out of the common way, are very much magnified by them, and they always discourage rather than comfort you. After resting a short time, we determined to finish the adve.nture, and be- gan the ascent. We were two hours and a half before we reached the highest peak, which ap- pears to be about 800 feet above the level of the valley. The ascent commenced by a very rough slope, and a small ridge leading to the base of the main peak : its inclination in many places was near 60, and every part of the soil and herbage was so glossy and slippery, as well as the soles of our boots, that we were continually falling, and could never have got up without the aid of the branches and twigs that we held on, by. We were constantly obliged to take breath, in order to make a rush at any other shoot above which appeared strong enough to hold us. The view from the summit of the peak, which is a rather flat level of about half an acre, is ex- ceedingly fine : the entire length of the valley is distinctly seen, but distance destroys the beau- ties of its details. Farther to the west you see the mountainous ridges that run through Green Briar Valley. We remained at the top only long enough to make a sketch of the scene, the geological features of which are less distinctly marked than those presented in the view of the Alleghany ridges from the Warm Springs Mount- ain. On our descent we deviated a little to the right, finding it so extremely steep as to be rath- er dangerous ; but seeing a rock projecting there, the beds of which appeared nearly horizontal, I went to it ; and it turned out to be the red fer- ruginous sandstone with fossils in situ, of which I had previously found specimens in the dry brooks. This rock is about 100 feet from the summit of the mountain. Having often found fragments of this fossiliferous rock midway in the valley, it is evident there has been a great destruction of the ancient surface. From this point we let ourselves, with the aid of the twigs, down a slope, which had a very sharp inclina- tion, and if it had terminated in a mural escarp- ment, our situation would have been somewhat precarious : as it was, we had a dark gloomy dell beneath us, and evening was approaching. Had any accident happened to either, or to both of us, we should have been very much embar- rassed, for men provided with nothing but port- folios, hammers, thermometers, and instruments for observation, would find them of very little use on breaking a limb. We had left our lodg- ings as early as nine A.M. ; we had been told it was but four miles to the top of the mountain, were unprovided with any thing, and night was setting in. Water was what we most suffered the want of. Afraid of getting entangled in the dell beneath us, we retraced part of our steps, until we reached a point from which we could proceed on a horizontal line along the mountain side, until we regained that by which we as- cended. The thorny Robinia pseudo-acacia abounded so much that my clothes were torn to tatters ; and, being at length brought into as bad a situa- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 31 tion as Humphry Clinker was, I was obliged to tie them up with my pocket handkerchief, and exchange my short roundabout jacket for my son's longer shooting coat. When we reached the first peak, which we had called Little White Rock, we again deviated to the right, and, leav- ing the line of our ascent, plunged into the dell in search of water, about which we both of us felt very anxious. I soon perceived an unusual dampness in the air, which bore the smell of water, and, following a small dry brook some distance, we, to our great joy, found a spring of delicious water. Here we refreshed our- selves most luxuriously; and, reinvigorated, at length extricated ourselves from the dell, and reached the high road. It was night when we reached our lodgings, exhausted and worn out, but supper was over, and we could not procure even a piece of bread. Dressing ourselves in haste, we got again in motion, and dragging our reluctant limbs to the place where Wright's shanty was, we sat down to a venison steak and a bottle of ale ; having finished which, we tramp- ed back again to the White Sulphur, and made our appearance at the ball-room, where our friends were beginning to inquire for us. We had been incessantly in motion for eleven hours. During my stay at this place I remarked that the adjacent hills, as well as the establishment of the Spring, were generally covered with fog until past eight in the morning, after which hour it is dispersed by the sun. In rainy weather the fog is unusually heavy, and then a little fire is acceptable both morning and evening. It rained on the 20th of August, and on the 21st I found the thermometer at seven A.M. gave 62 Fahr. for the temperature of the water, and 56 for the atmosphere. When the sun broke out, the thermometer rose immediately to 82, and at noun to 91. As to the curative properties of the waters of the White Sulphur Springs, they appear to be universally and justly admitted. I had various opportunities of conversing with intelligent phy- sicians who annually attend them, and they all concurred in stating their great efficacy in re- lieving persons afflicted with obstructions of the liver, dyspepsia, and the derangements arising from those bilious and intermittent fevers to which people who inhabit low marshy lands on the large rivers are subject. This opinion seems to be sustained, as well by the successful cures which they annually perform, as by reasoning founded on medicinal theories. These sulphur- etted waters have also obtained a reputation for being useful in cutaneous complaints. I had an evidence of this in my son, who arrived in this region troubled with large ringworms in various parts of his face, which were soon, by the use of the waters, successfully cured. But the most active causes, which perhaps concur with the waters to the restoration of health, are the jour- ney to the mountains, the exchange of a low in- fected atmosphere for the invigorating air of a salubrious region, the fine exercise enjoyed in the hills, and a relief from the cares of business. The inhabitants of the marshy lands of the tide- water districts live there at an expense of health both fearful and unavoidable, hut the fertility of the land makes the temptation irresistible. Since man, therefore, will go and increase and multi- ply under such unfavourable circumstances, ex- I changing health for wealth, it ought to be sidered a providential dispensation that t con- there should be a mountainous region containing so many precious resources so happily situated midway, as it were, between the inhabitants of the low lands of the Atlantic Ocean, and those of the basin of the Mississippi. Here they can annually congregate, reinvigorate their sickly frames, and by communicating to each other the information they bring from their respective countries, reciprocally enlarge their minds, carry home useful information, and become, in every sense of the word, more united as citizens of the same nation. CHAPTER VII Paying beforehand as bad as not paying all Journey to the Sweet Springs Beauty of the country Gaseous and solid Contents of the Waters Remarkable dam formed of Travertine Ancient Travertine 350 feet above the level of the present Springs, prohnbly derived from them before the Valley existed Proofs of the ancient Surface being lowered. THIS morning, August 27th, found us stand- ing, at five A.M., by the road side, with our lug- gage, ready to get into the stage coach, in which our places had been taken to the Sweet Springs, and paid for two days before. Prudent people, who wish to be quite sure of getting away from this Tophet, will of course secure their places several days beforehand by paying for them. We had now to learn that this was insufficient. When the coach stopped, I perceived it had its full complement of nine passengers inside. As it was perfectly clear that I had a right to places there, I immediately opened the door, when a general growl informed me there was no room. The greater part of the passengers were men, not of whom seemed disposed to stir. Those Americans who are underbred, rather plume themselves upon their deference to ladies when travelling, and I have often seen them somewhat officious in their politeness, ar far as trifles went ; as if they wanted to show that they knew it was not usual to be rude when it could be avoided, or to spit upon ladies' gowns when they could do the same thing over the side of a steamer. But as to their giving up any good substantial thing they were in possession of without an equivalent, that was a virtue that did not seem. to enter at least into the contem- plation of this stage coachful of animals, for not one of them offered to resign his seat to my wife, though I told them my places had been paid for two days, whilst scarce one of them* had engaged his place previous to the preceding evening. I now appealed to the driver, who re- fused to interfere, and said we might get on the top. The very idea of putting a lady on the top >f such a preposterous machine as that stage coach, was an absurdity. Looking more nar- rowly into the inside, to see if there was any lecent person that I could hope to prevail upon, I espied a dark ill-looking mulatto, and asked lim civilly to ride on the top, but Mr. Gamboge iked his place as well as the rest, and refused ; ipon which I called rny son, and told the fellow, that if he did not without further delay evacu- ate the premises, we would instantly drag him out neck and heels. Seeing we were in earn- est, he got out sulkily, and my wife get in. I mounted the top, and my son wisley prefeied 32 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. walking the whole 18 miles, for a cold bleak fog covered the Alleghany mountain, and I suffered very much outside, having put on nothing but a light dimity round-about jacket, expecting to ride inside. The road was very good, and led, in a southern direction, through many romantic dells and defiles of the Alleghany mountains into a broad valley, where the Sweet Springs are situated, at the foot of an inferior ridge, here called Peter's Mountain, and which is probably a continuation of the ridge called Warm Springs Mountain, distant from hence about 50 miles in a north east direction. This ample valley is most agreeably diversi- fied with hummocks, spurs, and knobs jutting out from the mountains, all of them well wood- ed, and interspersed with numerous sequestered coves and wild looking little vales which sepa- rate them. At 11 miles from the White Sulphur we came to an enterprising settler's called Crow who keeps a tolerably clean tavern, and here a small stream, in front of his house, runs on the limestone. Three miles from this place, and four from the Sweet Springs, the country opens, the mountains recede, luxuriant crops of corn are seen growing on the fertile bottom-land, through which the stream flows that takes its rise at the Sweet Springs ; indeed all the adja- cent country possesses a great deal of beauty, which is increased by a lofty and very graceful knoll that rises immediately south of the springs. The cabins of the establishment, though by no means as good as they might be, were rurally dispersed over the foot of the slope, and nu- merous handsome single umbrageous oak-trees served as a shade from the hot beams of the sun, and added much to the pleasing aspect of the scene. We were put into a cabin that was old and rude enough, but it was roomy and wa- ter-tight, and we had no disagreeable neighbours. "What a delightful country this would be if there were none but clean well-behaved people in it ! Here then, finding a tranquil and agreeable rest- ing-place, we determined to remain a few days, and recover from the disgust we had experi- enced at the White Sulphur. We found an abun- dance of clean and good provisions, venison, mut- ton, good bread and butter, and excellent milk ; the pastry was also good and abundant ; and, amidst this general plenty and cleanliness, and the constant obligingness of Mr. Rogers the lardlord, and his family, we soon got into capi- tal good humour again with everybody and everything in this charming district. We heard of other springs not far from us ; there were the salt sulphur, the red sulphur, and others ; those who had visited them spoke highly of the clean- liness and abundance of those establishments, and I found that Mr. Caldwell enjoyed an undis- puted notoriety for everything that was offensive to the visitors to the mountains, a fact which points to the inevitable results which attend in- dolence and want of capacity. I had such a long tour before me, that I had not time to visit the other springs, and therefore devoted the short period I remained here to some very curi- ous natural phenomena in the neighbourhood, which had never attracted public attention, and the most remarkable of which was the manner in which travertine had been deposited here, both in ancient and modern times. The, Sweet Springs break out very copiously at the foot of a pretty knoll, which extends about 1 three quarters of a mile to Peter's Mountain, ' and are received in a neat reservoir appropria- ted to drinking, the surplus being conducted by j different conduits into two separate baths. In I the bath I found the temperature 72 Fhhr., the atmospheric temperature in the shade being 57 30', and in the sun 62. I never remained in the bath more than five or ten minutes, and al- ways felt a delicious glow on coming out, which left me without lassitude, and had a very bra- cing effect. The gaseous contents were nitro- gen, carbonic acid in abundance, and perhaps a little oxygen ; all these came up very freely through the transparent fluid, as at the Warm Springs. The solid contents are carbonate of lime, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate of lime, and a very minute quantity of iron. The sweetish taste they have, which has given their name to the waters, is probably occa- sioned by a small quantity of magnesia in com- bination with carbonic acid. These are not the only mineral waters in this valley ; other springs come to the surface in it. Not more than half a mile to the north-east from the Sweet Springs, there is one of a similar character ; and at no great distance, various chalybeate springs, with some that contain sulphuretted hydrogen. But to-return to the curious deposits of ancient and modern travertine. Before the waters of the Sweet Springs have left their source 100 yards, they begin to depos- it carbonate of lime, which has formed into a regular travertine on the sides of a brook run- ning near the enclosure of the establishment, and which pursues its course thence through the rich bottom of the valley. When the stream has flowed on for about two miles, it reaches a fall, where there is a saw-mill. This fall is about 550 yards wide across the valley, and is called by the country people the Beaver-dam, they supposing it to have been constructed by the beavers in past times when they existed in this valley. In fact, from its great width, and from the circumstance of many logs lying on its slope, it is not surprising that it should be thought to be the remains of one of the well- tnown structures of these animals. On exam- ning this fall and its broad slope, now entirely grown up with bushes and brakes, I was sur- irised to find that it was not a log-dam con- structed by beavers, but that the whole slope consisted of calcareous matter of the same character as that I had observed at the Sweet Springs. It was evident, therefore, that the stream, now only a few yards broad, had once covered the whole surface of the valley, and hat the water, in passing over this fall, which must have been a very gentle one at first, had gradually built up a calcareous dam to its pres- ent height, over which its waters had at some period been discharged, as in the case of ordi- nary dams, over the whole breadth of 550 yards. In this curious phenomenon we have evidence )f a surprising diminution in the volume of a hermal water ; and reflecting upon this, it struck me that, if it were so, the flat land at he bottom of the slope below the dam must Iso have been covered by this calcareous stream n proportion to its breadth, and upon examining t I found it to be so, the travertine extending "or a great distance on each side of the now liminished volume. I then followed the stream for three quarters of a mile, to a cascade forty- TRAVELS' IN AMERICA. two feet high and about six feet wide, projected in a very beautiful sheet upon a strong bed of slate, highly inclined, which in many places was covered with a stalagmitio floor of traver- tine, a foot thick. On scrambling down to the slate, I had a front view of the cascade, and saw that it was projected from a bold mural ledge of travertine, from- which depended an infinite variety of stalactitic rods and pilasters. Amongst other curious appearances, I observed a fir-tree (Abies Canadensis), about forty years old, in full life, with its roots and about seven feet of the stem entirely encrusted with calca- reous matter. Near to the foot of this wall of travertine, which was more than forty feet high, were openings to various caverns similar to some spacious ones I had entered in the broad calca- reous dam higher up the stream with numer- ous depending stalactites, resembling filigree work and petrified mosses, the fretted appear- ance of which is caused by the spray of the cascade. Mineral waters of this character, when they pass rapidly over shallow or stony places, or are in any manner thoroughly exposed to the action of light and air, are most prone o deposit their solid constituents, especially lime a fact which accounts for these deposits. When this valley was formed, the stream probably passed over a gentle rapid, which, breaking the water, would cause the deposit ; and this increasing in height until the volume of the stream was di- minished to its present width, or had contracted in consequence of the accumulation of vegeta- ble and alluvial matter, the slaty bottom, being dammed up, would be converted into a fertile valley capable of producing 10,000 bushels of maize annually: another beautiful instance of the beneficent manner in which provident Nature operates in favour of man. For here we see the springs of life not only issuing from unfath- omable subterranean depths to the surface of the wilderness, ready to restore the enfeebled constitution of the suffering Southerner, but behold them, after administering to his wants, mechanically engaged, by a simple process in harmony with the laws of nature, in producing the means even of sustaining those who come here to seek relief, and in embellishing every- thing around. These are amongst those charm- ing lessons we receive from Nature, which dis- pose our hearts to see a Divine care for us in everything. I was one day returning to my cabin with some fine specimens of travertine rods formed in concentric circles, And a collection of beauti- fully encrusted leaves in a state of perfect pre- servation, when I met Mr. Rogers, the landlord of the establishment, an old inhabitant, and a very intelligent and worthy person. He as- sured me that some years ago, when hunting deer in the hills, he had seen some rocks, at a great height above the valley, exactly resem- bling them. Being a man of good judgment, I proposed to him to accompany me to the place, and he cheerfully assented. Mounting his horse, and accompanied by me on foot, he led me about six miles in a north direction ; but so many years had elapsed since he had casually observ- ed the place, and the deep dells and hills, clothed with their everlasting woods, resembled E each other so much, that we passed the whole morning wandering about, climbing one hill and descending another, till I began to think he had been mistaken, and told him so. He would not admit this, and proposed trying another hill- side before we returned, called Snakerun Moun- tain, one of the outliers of limestone, of which there are many in this valley, and there I fol- lowed him. Being on horseback, and in ad- "vance of me, I heard him holla, and knew from the cheerful sound of his voice that the game was found. As he approached, I saw he held in his hand a piece of rock, and, on joining him, I immediately recognised it for a piece of very ancient, weathered travertine. He now con- ducted me to the brow of a hill, at least 350 feet above the level of the Sweet Springs, and there, to my great surprise, I saw a huge mural escarpment of ancient travertine skirting the brow of the hill, with innumerable weather- worn remains of old stalactites ; whilst the body of the escarpment resembled in every par- ticular the recent one at the cascade, abounding in large moulds of calcareous matter, which had formerly enclosed logs and branches of trees. Trie pendent stalactites, too, were constructed of concentric circles, so that I had the complete evidence before me that a stream of mineral water of great breadth, loaded with carbonate of lime, had for a length of time passed over this brow, and formed this very ancient escarp- ment. The surface of the rock contained in many parts those circular perforations made by stones and gravel kept whirling about in them by eddies, which, are vulgarly called pot-holes, and which are to be seen in the vicinity of all rapid streams. This Snake-run Mountain stood, as I found by compass, N.N.E. by E. from the Sweet Springs ; and Peter's Mountain, in an- other part, where I got a peep of it through the trees, bore E. of the place where I stood. Here was an extraordinary phenomenon ! an immense deposit of travertine lying 350 feet above the present level of the spring from which it was probably derived ; for it seems to be susceptible of no other explanation than that the level of the valley was, at some remote period, much higher than it is now, and that the Sweet Springs were then at the same level with this ancient travertine. Before the valley was scooped out by the currents which retired perhaps when the Alleghany ridges were ele- vated it is probable that the whole surface of the now deeply sulcated region was of one con- tinuous level, and that the Sweet Springs came to the surface through the limestone, on a level with this ancient escarpment : but when the valley was swept out, the hard, compact lime- stones resisted, and remained behind, as we now find them, in the calcareous hummocks ; whilst the conglomerates, shales, and sandstones were broken down and carried away. Since that period, the softer parts of the formations occupying that part of the valley where the springs now are have been gradually worn down, permitting the stream to take a new direction, and make new deposits ; whilst the old travertine remains a monument of the an- cient level of the country, and one of the strong- est geological proofs of the extraordinary changes, that have been effected in the general surface. These mountainous countries have indeed 34 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. undergone great cnanges. I have frequently found fragments of conglomerate sandstone (old red) abounding on the slopes and in the valleysl together with slabs and pieces of encrinital limestone, once, no doubt, at the same level with the beds near the summit of White Rock, near the White Sulphur. The conglomerates, too, in this district, appear to have been in situ above the highest existing summits of this re- gion, for I have repeatedly found bouldered frag- ments of them on their tops ; and near Bedford, in Pennsylvania, the same conglomerates are still found in place on the sandstones of the Backbone ridge. The general order of the strata in this part of the country is but a repetition of the ordinary succession of slates, limestones, and sand- stones, the last of which are occasionally very ferruginous. Sometimes the surface of the sum- mits consists of slates, at other times of sand- stones ; the modifications which the ridges have received appearing to be in proportion to the vi- olence of the movement which has elevated them, and the subsequent action of the retiring waters. Limestones generally form the bottom of the valleys, but where the ridges have taken the anticlinical form and have been dislocated, the limestones are often found on their flanks. About five miles to the N.W. of Crow's, I found anthracite coal cropping out in a ferruginous sandstone, on the left bank of a stream called Fork Run, which drains a small valley : the strike of the coal, which contained a great deal of sulphuret of iron, was the same as that of the ridges, N.N.E. and S.S.W. This bed of anthracite had never been disturbed, being com- pletely covered under the flat land of the valley, except where the stream has laid it bare. The coal seems to follow the flexure of the hills, as in the Alleghany ridges of Pennsylvania, a fact which I saw more clearly at another locality on the south side of the Sweet Springs Mountain, not far from* a Mr. Wiley's. The ferruginous beds at the top of the Sweet Springs Mountain are sometimes very rich, and would probably give from 50 to 60 per cent of iron. The ridges about here are well wooded, and have generally a good soil to the top, capable of making excel- lent grazing land. With iron, and coal and limestone to flux it, I see no impediment to a thriving population establishing itself here here- after. Worse land, without these valuable minerals, will sell for 25 dollars an acre in many parts of the State of New York, whilst many of these fresh and fertile lands are offered, as I am informed, at one cent an acre, to avoid the pay- ment of taxes. The fine bottom land, however, of the Sweet Springs is not to be purchased at that rate ; a great portion of it is already culti- vated, and produces heavy crops of corn, being composed for many feet of dark-coloured vege- table matter mixed up with the fragments of old land-shells, helix, paludina, anculotus, and a prodigious quantity of planorbis, in consequence of the presence of carbonate of lime. They were ditching a part of this fat land whilst I was there, which gave me an opportunity of making a collection of these shells : amongst other things, I saw them take out from a depth of about six feet the cranium of an ox, which turned out upon -inspection to be the skull of one those buf- faloes which inhabited the country before it was settled by the whites. It is not remarkable that their bones should be found in such a situ- ation, as they usually congregate in places where salt springs and wild grass are to be ob- tained ; indeed the buffalo must have frequented this valley within the memory of man, for there is an aged man near the White Sulphur who- asserts that he has killed several animals of that race at the mineral Spring there. CHAPTER VIII. Depart on foot across the Mountains to Fincastle Decidn- ous and evergreen Trees alternating with the Soil Fin- castle, a Virginia Town Mr. Jefferson the Confucius of" the United States Free-thinking and Universal Suffrage his grand Nostrums for good Government A patriotic proposition to blow Virginia " sky-high" to save its Con- stitution Botetourt Springs A Camp of Negro Slave drivers The Coffle of Slaves crosses New River man- acled and fettered The Negro drivers in mourning. HAVING looked at the most interesting objects- in this part of the country, and confided my wife to the care of some friends, my son and myseif, having still an arduous tour before us as far as the Mexican frontier, set off on foot at an early hour on September 3rd, for Fincastle, distant 29 miles, forwarding our luggage by the stage. It was a beautiful morning, and we soon got to the south side of Peter's Mountain. Here, in a small valley, on the property of Mr. Brooke, and at the bottom of another ridge called Pott's Mountain, I observed a strong bed' of anthracite coal, bearing N.N.E. ; it was a promising-looking deposit which had not been disturbed, and therefore did not disclose the thickness of the vein. The limestone lies very near to it, and not far distant there was a min- eral spring of sulphuretted hydrogen rising through a pyritous slate. Farther to the south, there is a lofty hummock, or hill, exceedingly steep, entirely composed of rich iron-stone, which we left the road to examine. Having rather fatigued ourselves here, we left the place and began the ascent of Pott's Mountain, up which the road ran for four tedious miles to the top, near which we found a delicious spring of cool water with a large trough to receive, it, and here we washed and refreshed ourselves. The view from the summit is very extensive, pre- senting many extensive ridges on each side densely covered with the foliage of the unvary- ing forest, but without a vestige of the labour of man, except at the' very top of the mountain, where, owing to there being an extensive de- posit of clay, a small pottery has been estab- lished for the purpose of manufacturingearthen- ware. As we descended the mountain on the other side, we met with numerous springs coming out from beneath the clay, and at the foot of the ridge we came to a fertile piece of land where a Mr. Scott kept a small tavern. From hence we proceeded to Craig's Creek, which we reached long after sunset. Usually at such places there is a passing place made of squared timber for foot passengers, but here we could find none, and in the exceedingly faint starlight that disclosed things but imperfectly, we were quite uncertain which was the ford. There was no resource, however, but trying, so down we sat on the beach and'Stripped to'it, and entered the stream which was about 150 feet wide. What had appeared at first to me- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 35 nace us with embarrassment now became a source of the greatest satisfaction, the tempera- ture af the water being, so very agreeable as to refresh our feet exceedingly, which were some- what bruised and chafed. Being always pro- vided with towels for emergencies of this kind, we sat down very cheerfully to refresh our- selves as soon as we had reached the other side, and then pursued our walk for an hour, which brought us to a tavern kept by a person of the name of Price, where we got some re freshment and were glad to repose ourselves after an unceasing tramp by a tolerable night's rest. We had walked 25 miles since eleven in the morning, over a very rough country. In the morning I examined a sulphuretted spring near the house, and ad vised the proprieto to divert the course of a brook which ran too near it, for, being at a higher level, the waters of the brook mixed themselves with those of the spring, and not only diluted it, but brought its temperature down to 52. After breakfast we ascended Caldwell's Mountain, another emi- nence which separated us from the valley in which the town of Fincastle is built, and which is a continuation of the great limestone valley running west from Harper's-ferry : in the ferru ginous slaty sandstones towards the top, we found large elliptical nodules of ironstone embed- ded in concentric circles, some of which were three feet long and twelve inches broad. On descending the mountain we took a sketch of some conical peaks on the summit of an adja- cent ridge, which were separated from each other by deep sulcated depressions coming down its side ; these showed a bright green foliage of hickory, maple, chestnut, and other deciduous trees, whilst the ribs of the ridge on each side of the depressions showed nothing but dark green evergreens of the fir kind. The clouds partially covering the cones of these peaks whilst the sun was gleaming upon their sides, they made an exceedingly pretty and rather un- common picture, for the contrast between the foliage of the evergreens and the summer-leav- ed trees occasioned, I supposed, by a curious alternation of slate and sandstone was very strong. Here we sprung the only head of game we saw during the walk ; a fine large cock phtasant (tetrao cupido), as they are called here, with his crest and whiskers erect, was strutting about in a wild way and clucking like a hen. After observing for a time his fantastic move- ments, which resembled those of a pouter pigeon, with great pleasure, we alarmed him, and he rose with a loud cuck-a-ra-ra voice and a strong wing, arid flew across the dell with great velocity. This pleasing incident relieved the solitude of the scene very agreeably. At the bottom of the mountain we came upon the limestone again, and on our approach to Fincas- tle we passed an opulent-looking plantation with a very respectable mansion-house, sur- rounded with a stout limestone wall. As this had been taken in blocks from a quarry in the neighbourhood, I examined it, and found that it contained some fine specimens of producta. Fincastle is a monument of colonial times, taking its name from one of the titles of Lord n.ore, who was Governor of Virginia when the rebellion broke out there in 1775 The principal street of this straggling village is very j narrow, but the place contains some respecta- ble families, and just at this period the court of justice was sitting, and which occasioned a great bustle of lawyers and country-people. To judge from appearances the science of law seemed to be a litlle more cultivated than any other in Vir- ginia ; for, with the exception of a few country gentlemen of the ancient families, all the men of any influence in the State appear to be law- yers. They fill the State legislature and direct all its proceedings ; they represent the State in Congress, and take their full share there of all the talking and all the political intriguing that is going on ; and as it occurs in most of the other States, the political parties are frequently chang- ing their ground as well as their designation, to suit the '' cry" under which their candidates are brought forward ; so that whilst they all profess to be most religiously devoted to the mainte- nance of the Constitution of Virginia, they have forty different ways of interpreting it, each of which is most stoutly maintained to be the true exposition of the Jeffersonian doctrines. It is well known to those who have travelled a great deal in the United States, that Virginia is one of the most agreeable parts of the Union, that there are many persons in it who eminently deserve the character of gentlemen, and that Virginians are, generally speaking, a lively and ingenious people, full of kind attentions to those who go amongst them. In the days of Wash- ington and the men of his time, the political topics of the day might be comprehended with- out much difficulty, for although men of sense and character differed about the local applica- tion of measures, yet they were united in the support of practically good and intelligible prin- ciples of government : but the complexity of political opinions in modern times is so great, that a traveller who is merely passing through the State, and has not paid particular attention to Virginian politics, is' quite baffled in the at- tempt to understand what he reads or what he hears. The principal cause of this degeneracy from the straightforward and simple principles of the old school, is fairly attributable to that eminent person who is considered by many of his admi- rers in America and in Europe to be the Confu- cius of the United States. Now whether this parallel is flattering to the memory of Mr. Jef- ferson or not, it would certainly seem to be true that he believed, as that antique philosopher did, that little was wanting to produce good govern- ment amongst mankind beyond a string of well- concocted abstract maxims ; he therefore be- queathed to his countrymen a set of opinions that were quite independent of anything taught by the Christian religion, and which to a great extent he had derived, during ftjs residence "*" Paris at the period of the French Revolution" from those Gallic philosophers who, dissatisfied with the condition of man as it develops itself through the various degrees of intellect, temper, and physical power with which Providence has endowed him, attempted to bring all to a philan- thropic equality by the lively action of the guil- 'otine. Before Mr. Jefferson's time Virginia was a lappy English colony, a better copy of the mo- ther-country than any of the other colonies. She had numerous independent, country gentle- 36 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. men, whose fathers, as the custom of the day was, had sent their sons "home" to be educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and she had an es- tablished endowed Protestant Episcopal Church. It was Mr. Jefferson who uprooted that church, and confiscated the glebes and parsonages. His maxim was " to let religion take care of it- self," never attending to the obvious necessity of cherishing religion for the two important pur- poses of consoling the poor and ignorant, and giving a Christian and wise direction to the power of the rich. Those grievances which the colonists had just reason to complain of from the British government, found in Mr. Jef- ferson an active exponent ; he soon became the leading patriot in his native State, and drew in many gentlemen, who disliked the man, to sup- port his measures. It was but a short time, however, which ejapsed after the acknowledg- ment of the independence of the United States, and the establishment of the Federal Govern- ment, before he turned his attention to over- throwing the influence of the gentlemen who, with General Washigton at their head, had uni- ted with him in their opposition to the mother- country, and he was successful. In exchange for a Federal Government rest- ing for its maintenance upon character and pro- perty, he succeeded in substituting one based upon free thinking and universal suffrage, two grand incarnations of fancied virtue totally with- out the principles they stood in the place of. Hence the necessity of all his political dogmas and maxims, to reconcile absurdities, most of which, like many other oracles, can be made to assume every possible phase by acute and inge- nious persons, when it is necessary to avoid the exposure of their intrinsic worthlessness. I was exceedingly amused by the conversa- tion at the public table of the inn where we stop- ped, at which a great number of country law- yers were assembled, most of whom were disci- ples of Mr. Jefferson. Nothing could exceed the extraordinary propositions which were brought forward and warmly defended by metaphysical subtleties of the wildest character. Every dis- putant asserted that the argument of his adver- sary was utterly subversive of the Constitution ; so that if the opinion of any one of them had been admitted to be founded on reason, it was clear that it would be at the expense of the Con stitution. A grave looking gentleman, who, from his conversation, I took for a Federalist of the Washington school, made a quiet obser- vation of that kind, which brought out one of the most loquacious disputants; thumping his Sand upon the table, he exclaimed with energy, ".' TJy * * *, before I'd let any inan hurt the Con- stitution a' hair's breadth, I'd blow old Virginia sky-high !" This plan of averting dangers from the Constitution by a heroic explosion of the Commonwealth itse'K, is an instructive illustra- tion of the practical tendency of Jeffersonian philosophy ; for it cannot but be highly encour- aging to the patriots of all countries who culti- vate the subtleties of metaphysical equality and universal suffrage, to discern in them a potency which, up to the present times, has not been equalled even by gunpowder. Finding it impossible to accomplish the whole of our proposed journey on foot, and being now upon a road where the mail ran, we booked ourselves in the stage-coach, and started the next morning over an execrable road of knobby limestone, stopping a short time at Botetourt Springs, another name that reminded me of co- lonial times. Here there is a mineral water of sulphuretted hydrogen, not much dissimilar to that of the White Sulphur. The establishment, when compared with the other Virginia springs I have visited, looks very respectable ; the buildings, which are wooden cabins elsewhere, are well constructed of brick, and placed in a neat quadrangle, at the end of which is the ho- tel, containing a large hall, with an excellent parlour well furnished ; every thing at the place looked comfortable, but there were only three vi- sitors there. A mile or two from these springs is Tinker's Mountain, which has a singularly symmetrical saddle-formed shape. Farther on wecame to a small settlement called Big Springs, one of those immense natural basins of pure wa- ter not uncommon in limestone districts, and which seem to abound in this well-watered country. We next ascended to a poor sort of town called Christianburgh, forty-eight miles from Fincastle, on the way to which we crossed several branches of the Roanoke River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Here we slept, and departing very early in the morning, found ourselves somewhat unex- pectedly upon an extensive table-land, not at all cut up by ridges and valleys. This continues to New River, one of the tributaries of the Ka- nawha, which empties into the Ohio. We found the descent to this stream rather rapid, and the river broader than any we had passed, being about 200 yards wide. On this water- shed the waters which flow into the Atlantic, and those which flow iftto the Gulf of Mexico, have their sources, in some places very near to each other. Just as we reached New River, in the early grey of the morning, we came up with a singu- lar spectacle, the most striking one of the kind I have ever witnessed. It was a camp of negro slave-drivers, just packing up to start ; they had about three hundred slaves with them, who had bivouacked the preceding night in chains in the woods ; these they were conducting to Nat- chez, upon the Mississippi River, to work upon the sugar plantations in Louisiana. It resem- bled one of those coffles of slaves spoken of by Mungo Park, except that they Had a caravan of nine waggons and single-horse carriages, for the purpose of conducting the white people, and any of the blacks that should fall lame, to which they were now putting the horses to pursue their march. The female slaves were, some of them, sitting on logs of wood, whilst others were standing, and a great many little black children were warming themselves at the fires of the bivouac. In front of them all, and pre- pared for the march, stood, in double files, about two hundred male slaves, manacled and chained to each other. I had never seen so revolting a sight before ! Black men in fetters, torn from the lands where they were born, from the ties they had formed, and from the comparatively easy condition which agricultural labour affords, and driven by white men, with liberty and equal- ity in their mouths, to a distant and unhealthy- country, to perish in the sugar-mills of Louisi- ana, where the duration of life for a sugar-mill TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 37 slave does not exceed seven years ! To make this spectacle still more disgusting and hideous, some of the principal white slave-drivers, who were tolerably well dressed, and had broad- brimmed white hats on, with black crape round them, were standing near, laughing and smoking cigars. Whether these sentimental speculators were, or were not in accordance with the language of the American Declaration of Independence in mourning " from a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," or foV their own callous inhuman lives, I could not but he struck with the monstrous absurdity of such fellows putting on any symbol of sorrow whilst engaged in the exercise of such a horrid trade; so wishing them in my heart all manner of evil to endure, as long as there was a bit of crape to be obtain- ed, we drove on, and having forded the river in a flat-bottomed boat, drew up on the road, where I persuaded the driver to wait until we had witnessed the crossing of the river by the "gang," as it was called. It was an interesting, but a melancholy spec- tacle, to see them effect the passage of the riv- er : first, a man on horseback selected a shallow place in the ford for the male slaves ; then fol- lowed a waggon and four horses, attended by another man on horseback. The other wag- gons contained the children and some that were lame, whilst the scows, or flat-boats, crossed the women and some of the people belonging to the caravan. There was much method and vigilance observed, for this was one of the sit- uations where the gangs always watchful to obtain their liberty often show a disposition to mutiny, knowing that if one or two of them could wrench their manacles off, they could soon free the rest, and either disperse them- selves or overpower and slay their sordid keep- ers, and fly to the Free States. The slave- drivers, aware of this disposition in the unfor- tanate negroes, endeavour to mitigate their dis- content by feeding them well on the march, and by encouraging them losing " Old Virginia nev- er tire," to the banjo. The poor negro slave is naturally a cheerful, laughing animal, and even when driven through the wilderness in chains, if he is well fed and kindly treated, is seldom melancholy ; for his thoughts have not been taught to stray to the future, and his condition is so degraded, that if the food and warmth his desires are limited to are secured to him, he is singularly docile. It is only when he is ill-treated and roused to des- peration, that his vindictive and savage nature breaks out.* But these gangs are accompanied * This practice of driving gangs of slaves through the country to the southern markets has been to a great ex- tent discontinued on account of the dangers and inconve- niences it is unavoidably subject to : for the drivers are not all equally prudent and vigilant ; often outraging the slaves by brutal treatment, and then trusting too implicitly to their apparent hiunility. Watching their opportunity, the slaves have sometimes overpowered them, put them to death, and dispersed themselves. The attention of these speculators in men has thus become turned to the expediency of embarking them at some port in one of the slave-holding states, and sending them to New Orleans by sea. This scheme, however, as far as regards the speculators, seetns to be obnoxious to the same objection that applies to marching them by land, and amounts, in fact, to the introduction of the domestic slave-trade of the United States upon the great highway of nations. In the case by other negroes trained by the slave-dealers to drive the rest, whom they amuse by lively sto- ries, boasting of the fine warm climate they are going to, and of the oranges and sugar which, are there to be had for nothing : in proportion as they recede from the Free States, the danger of revolt diminishes, for in the Southern Slave- States all men have an interest in protecting this infernal trade of slave-driving, which, to the negro, is. a greater curse than slavery itself, since it too often dissevers for ever those affect- ing natural ties which even a slave can form, by tearing, without an instant's notice, the hus- band from the wife, and the children from their parents ; sending the one to the sugar planta- tions of Louisiana, another to the cotton-lands of Arkansas, and the rest to Texas.t of the Creole, slave-transport, which occasioned so much excitement in the United States, and led to a protracted negotiation between the Federal Government and the Government of Great Britain, the cargo of slaves 'over- powered their keepers whilst on the voyage, and took refuge in a British dependency. They were reclaimed as property ; but as our laws admit of no property in human beings, the legality of the claim was denied, and the denial was acquiesced in. There seems to be no distinction, in the eyes of humanity, between chaining and transporting slaves by land or by sea, and any European government that would recognise claims for aid or compensation, founded upon the inability of slave-drivers to protect their interests upon the high seas, although when bound from one American port to another, would substantially give countenance to the slave-trade. t One day, in Washington, whilst taking a hasty dinner preparatory to a journey, I received a letter from a benevo- lent lady which letter I have preserved entreating me in the most pressing terms to endeavour to procure the en- largement of a slave called Manuel, who had been her servant. She stated that he had been decoyed to a public slave-depot in the skirts of the city, had been seized and detained there, and was going to be sold into the Southern States, and that the delay of an hour perhaps would be too late for interference. This poor fellow was the prop- erty of the principal hotel-keeper in the place, a person called Q ***** ; who, when the Congress was not in session, and he had little or no occupation for his slaves, was in the habit of hiring them out to families by the month, as domestic servants. This Manuel, who was about twenty-six years old, had belonged to his present master a great many years, was very useful in the hotel, and had married a female slave born in G * * * * * T s house, by whom he had four or five little children. I had ob- served him when visiting at this lady's, and was struck with his pleasing manners. She informed me at the time that he was in everything exemplary in his conduct, and that on Sundays he always went to church with his wife and children, whom he was training up in the most admi- rable manner. Inconvenient in many respects as it was for me to inter- fere at that time in a matter of this kind, I felt that I should not be satisfied with myself if I disregarded her entreaties, and, therefore, determined instantly to go to this slave- depot. In a few minutes a carriage took me to a large brick edifice in the suburbs, and being directed to a room where the superintendent was, I went there', and found that it was neither more nor less than a jail that I was in ; manacles, fetters, and all sorts of ofiensive things were lying about, and on casting a look at the hard features of the superintendent, I saw at once that he was the jail- keeper. Informing him that I wished to see a coloured man of the name of Manuel, he took up a ponderous key and conducted me to a door with chains drawn across it, and, unbarring and unlocking it, he called the poor fellow, whom I immediately recognised. This door opened into a very spacious prison, where several coloured people were walking about, but without manacles ; and stepping into it, I asked Manuel what had happened. He then told me the following story : His master had sent him to the depot with a message to the superintendent, who, on his arrival, locked him in the prison. Towards evening his master told his wife that he was surprised Manuel had not returned, and she had bet- ter take the children a walk there to see what was the matter. Thus were these poor unsuspecting people all entrapped. Manuel on the arrival of his wife and family v;nv into the plot he had been the victim of, and coupling it with some other circumstances that had not struck him TRAVELS IN AMERICA. Revolting as all these atrocious practices are, still this "Institution" a term with which some of the American statesmen dignify slavery and the circumstances inherent to it as it ex- ists in the United States, does not appear to me to have been fairly placed before the judgment of mankind by any of those who have written concerning it. All Christian men must unite in the wish that slavery was extinguished in every part of the world, and from my personal knowl- edge of the sentiments of many of the leading gentlemen in the Southern States, I am persua- ded that they look to the ultimate abolition of slavery with satisfaction. Mr. Madison, the Ex-President, with whom I have often conversed freely on this subject, has told me more than once that he could not die in peace if he be- lieved that so great a disgrace to his country was not to be blotted out some day or other. He once informed me that he had assembled all his slaves and they were numerous and offered to manumit them immediately ; but they in- stantly declined it, alleging that they had been born on his estate, had always been provided for by him with raiment and food, in sickness and in health, and if they were made free they would have no home to go to, and no friend to protect or care for them. They preferred, there- fore, to live and die as his slaves, who had ever been a kind master to them. This, rro doubt, is the situation of many humane, right-thinking proprietors in the Southern States ; they have inherited valuable plantations with the negroes born upon them, and these look up to their mas- ter as the only friend they have on earth. The most zealous, therefore, of the Abolitionists of the Free States, when they denounce slavery, and call for its immediate abolition, overlook the conditions upon which alone it could be effect- ed. They neither propose to provide a home for the slaves when they are manumitted, nor a compensation to their proprietors. Without slaves the plantations would be worthless : there are no white men to cultivate them ; the newly- freed and improvident negroes could not be made available, and there would be no purcha- at the time, now perceived that his master, wanting to raise a sum of money, had sold them all. The poor fel- low brought his wife and neat little children to me she was a modest, well-dressed woman, appeared very wretch- ed at the idea of being sold away from her husband and her children, and implored me most earnestly not to leave them there. On seeing me, they had conceived the hope that I had come to buy them all. to prevent their being separated, and they both protested in the most vehement and affecting way that they would be faithful to me until death. I told them that was impossible, that I never did own a slave, and never intended to own one ; that Mrs. had written to inform me of their misfortune, and that I would do all I could to persuade some of my frienda to do what they wished me to do. Leaving a little money with them, I drove to the house of a gentleman who knew what it was most advisable to do in such a case, but he gave me very little conso- lation. He said that he knew of several transactions ofG***** of a similar character ; that he had more than once purchased slaves to prevent their being sent to the South, and that he would interest himself in the affair, but that it would take some time to put anything in train for their relief. I left Washington that evening, and on my return some months afterwards, had the satis- faction of learning that the publicity I had given to the affair had prevented the separation of these unfortunate but respectable persons. sers to buy the land, and no tenants to rent it. The Abolitionists, therefore, call upon the plant- ers to bring ruin upon their families without helping the negro. In the mean time the Abo- litionists, not uniting in some great practical measure to effect the emancipation of all slaves at the national expense, suffer the evil to go on increasing ; the negro population amounts now to about two millions, and the question as to the Southern States will, with the tide of time, be a most appalling one, viz., whether the white or the black race is fo predominate. The uncompromising obloquy which has been cast at the Southern planters, by their not too scrupulous adversaries, is therefore not deserv- ed by them ; and it is but fair to consider them as only indirectly responsible for such scenes as arise out of the revolting traffic which is car- ried on by these sordid, illiterate, and vulgar slave-drivers men who can have nothing what- ever in common with the gentlemen of the Southern states. This land traffic, in fact, has grown out of the wide-spreading population of the United States, the annexation of Louisiana, and the increased cultivation of cotton and su- gar. The fertile lowlands of that territory can only be worked by blacks, and are almost of illimitable extent. Hence negroes have risen greatly in price, from 500 to 1000 dollars, accord- ing to their capacity. Slaves being thus in de- mand, a detestable branch of business where sometimes a great deal of money is made has very naturally arisen in a country rilled with speculators. The soil of Virginia has gradually become exhausted with repeated crops of tobac- co and Indian corn ; and when to this is added the constant subdivision of property which has overtaken every family since the abolition of en- tails, it follows of course that many of the small proprietors, in their efforts to keep up appearan- ces, have become embarrassed in their circum- stances, and, when they are pinched, are com- pelled to sell a negro or two. The wealthier proprietors also have frequently fractious and bad slaves, which, when they cannot be reclaim- ed, are either put into jail, or into those depots which exist in all the large towns for the recep- tion of slaves who are sold, until they can be re- moved. All this is very well known to the slave- driver, one of whose associates goes annually to the Southwestern States, to make his con- tracts with those planters there who are in want of slaves for the next season. These fellows then scour the country to make purchases. Those who are bought out of jail are always put in fetters, as well as any of those whom they may suspect of an intention to escape. The women and grown-up girls are usually sold into the cotton-growing States, the men and the boys to the rice and sugar plantations. Persons with large capital are actively concern- ed in this trade, some of whom have amassed considerable fortunes. But occasionally these dealers in men are made to pay fearfully the penalty of their nefarious occupation. I was told that only two or three months before I passed this way a " gang" had surprised their conductors when off their guard, and had killed some of them with axes. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. CHAPTER IX. Cause of some Confusion in the Designation of the Alle- ghaiy Ridges explained. A Duck-shooting Landlord. Arrive at Abingdon. Account of Saltville. Geology of the Valley and surrounding Country. Visit to King's Cove, a singular Basin in Clinch Mountain, the Resi- dence of an Outlaw. His Account of the Panthers and Wild Cat Accoucheurs. Strata of the Clinch Mountain. FROM New River the country rises to New- burn, a village situated upon a lofty and fertile table-land covered with rich grass and well wa- tered; finer pastures I have never seen, nor a more promising-looking district for grazing. As we advanced to the south-west, I found a great deal of confusion prevailing amongst the country people respecting the designation given to the principal ridges of this part of the country. That chain, which is called the Blue Ridge in the north-eastern parts of Virginia, and which is the most advanced towards the Atlantic, is by many persons in this quarter called the Alleghany Ridge ; and a ridge which runs behind, or to the west of this, is called the Blue Ridge. This has taken place from the want of a little elementary information in geology. The Blue Ridge is the most advanced towards the east of all the ridges of the great elevated Alleghany Belt, except a small subordinate and partial ridge, which in the central parts of Vir- ginia is called South- West Mmmtain. The Blue Ridge, in fact, fronts the Atlantic, and may fair- ly claim to be called tbe Atlantic Primary Chain, consisting, wherever it is seen, of a mixture of talcose, quartzose, hornblende, green altered epidotic rocks, ancient sandstones, and chlorite slates, exceedingly intersected with strong quartz veins ; being also non-fossiliferous, it is, in the strictest sense of the word, and according to the received opinions of the most accredited Euro- pean geologists, to be classed among the primary rocks, in the sense that these have preceded the formations containing fossiliferous beds. On the other hand, the ridges which immediately suc- ceed to the west of this Atlantic Primary Chain consist of fossiliferous beds and sedimentary rocks without exception, and undoubtedly belong to the formations which have hitherto been call- ed transition, and which Mr. Murchison has now included in his system of Silurian Rocks. The most remarkable of these is that great watershed, which has been before noticed, called the Alle- ghany Mountain, or Ridge, which, although farther to the north it generally maintains a reg- ular distance from the Atlantic Primary Chain, here seems to converge to the south, and towards the point where the Blue Ridge divides into two ridges, the westernmost taking the name of the Iron Mountain, and farther to the S.W. that of Unaykay, which is the Cherokee term for " white ;" while the eastern one, pursuing its way to the S.S.W., forms the western boundary of Patrick County ; the space contained between these two primary ridges being occupied by Grayson and Floyd counties. The country peo- ple, however, not adverting to the difference be- tween the constituents and age of the primary and sedimentary ridges, suppose the Alleghany Ridge to have crossed the Blue Ridge, and that the most eastern of the two primary ridges is its continuation; hence they call this last the Alle- ghany Ridge, and the western one the Blue Ridge : and this is not incorrect as far as it re- lates to its watershed character, for the eastern ridge does throw down some headwaters of the Kanawha to the west, and of the Roanoke to the Some of the limestone beds in the vicinity of Newburn are nearly horizontal, and contain patches of chert of a blackish colour, of the same character as thai which marks Black Rock in the State of New York. Anthracite coal is found in most of the little valleys about here, at the foot of the ridges, conforming to the flexure of the strata. To our left, about eight miles, at Aus- tinville, near to the Iron Mountain, there is a vein of galena in the limestone, which is worked with some success, and which runs, as I was informed, nearly north-east. We stopped at Wythe Court House, at the shabby, dirty tavern where the stage-coach puts up, and where they pretended to give us dinner; but everything was so filthy, it was impossible to eat. The landlord, a noisy, ill-dressed, officious fellow, was eternal- ly coming into the room with his mouth full of tobacco, plaguing us to eat his nasty pickles and trash along with the bread and milk we were contented to dine upon, and for which he charged us half a dollar each. This worthy was a perfect representative of that class of lazy, frowzy, tobacco-chewing coun- try landlords who think nothing is right unless there is a good deal of dirt mixed up with it. Seated upon a chair, with his legs sprawling upon two others, his great deljght was to bask in the sun at the door of his tavern, and watch the approach of the stage-coach, or any other vehicle or person that was upon the road. It was in this situation we found him, dressed in a pair of pre- posterously-fitting trowsers, covered with grease, a joundabout jacket to correspond, and a con- ceited, lantern-jawed, snuff-coloured visage, with an old, ragged straw hat stuck at the top of it. But he had one surprising talent. From his long practice of chewing large mouthfuls of tobacco, and the consequent necessity of ridding himself of the strong decoctions that, like a spring-tide, constantly threatened to break their bounds, he had gradually acquired the art of expectorating with such force and precision, that he could hit anything within a reasonable distance, and with a force before unknown to belong to that branch of projectiles. Mr. Jefferson's doctrines had one of their most able exponents in him, for, when he was hard pushed at an election, he sometimes gave his opponents just cause for seeing that he was the wrong man to contend with, by squirt- ing his opinions into their eyes a mode of argu- ment which, as he was a justice of peace into the bargain, caused him to be respected accordingly. We had an opportunity of seeing a curious specimen of this man's talents before we left the house, for, as we were preparing to get into the stage-coach, a flock of young ducklings, with an old one or two, came waddling along with re- markably uncertain steps ; the old ones advan- ced, looked, and hesitated, whilst the young ones hardly seemed to know which way they were going: most of them seemed to be blind, and, in fact, had been partly deprived of sight ever since they had been able to waddle about ; for as soon as they were hatched, the old duck bringing the little o'nes to pay their compliments to the land- lord on his three chairs, and to pick up what crumbs they might find, he, merely to keep up his practice, was in the habit of knocking the little ducklings over neck and heels whenever they came within shot, and so in process of time the" poor things had lost the use of their eyes. The old duck had perhaps been spared on ac- count of her maternal character ; but from what I saw of her motions, I rather think she had be- 40 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. come as expert at dodging as he was at knock- ing her young ones over. These details of this accomplishment of the worthy landlord and jus- tice, I had afterward from the 'driver of the stage- coach. From this place to Mount Airy we found the road very bad, and, arriving there late, stopped at an indifferent-looking house, where, to our great surprise, we got a clean supper and single bed-rooms. Mount Airy is on one of the lofty parts of this table-land, which here throws down some of the headwaters of the Tennessee River; and as we advanced next day to the west, we found excellent pastures in every direction, and a very beautiful country; graceful knolls of limestone well wooded to the top, rich grazing- grounds, and a surprising fertility all around. The edges of the limestone strata, however, cross the road often, and make it very rough travel- ling. We passed many patches of red earth that bore .a very luxuriant herbage: soils of this col- our appear to be derived from two 'sources, a red argillaceous rock, of which I have observed some isolated patches, and a red ferruginous sandstone, which last, on decomposing, makes rather a barren surface, probably from the too great abundance of ferruginous oxide. At the ford of the north fork of the Holston River a main tributary of the Tennessee there is a fine bottom land which is very productive, yielding eighty bushels of maize to the acre. This valu- able estate belongs to General Preston, father to the distinguished senator from South Carolina, Colonel Preston. It was late in the night before we arrived at Abingdon, a straggling village, which was originally built by the Scotch and Irish, who penetrated into these most distant parts of Virginia from Pennsylvania at an early period. Tkese settlers had no blood connection with those English families of Eastern Virginia, or the Old Dominion, as the Virginians love to call it, who took possession of the country by the way of James River, but were a distinct people, equally remarkable for their enterprise. Most fortunately, General Preston and his fam- ily were at home, as well as Colonel Preston, the senator, and his lady, with both of whom I had the pleasure of being well acquainted. I was received in the most friendly manner by them all, and during my stay was indebted to them for the most obliging attentions. General Preston is a person of the highest respectability, and has always been distinguished for great en- ergy of character, without which no man, under the circumstances of the period when he first came here, would have advanced into so unset- tled a wilderness as this was. He is now a very opulent landholder, and can count one hundred and sixty-two descendants. The day after our arrival, Colonel Preston most obligingly sent a couple of blood mares for my son and myself, for an excursion we pro- posed to make to his father's salt-works, sixteen miles distant, of which I had heard a great deal. We crossed a ridge called Walker's Mountain which we had had upon our right a great part of our journey by a very low gap, and soon reached Sattvitte, the object of our excursion. This is a ragged assemblage of wooden build- ings where the salt is manufactured, and is situ- ated in a small vale about a mile and a half long, and, perhaps, six hundred yards broad : it is evidently the site of an ancient lake; indeed, canoes were used when the white people first took possession of the place, and even now it is a low, flat, marshy bottom, imperfectly drained. After riding about and looking at the place, we rode to the Plaster Banks, a deep quarry exca- vation from whence they take the gypsum in blocks, which is sold on the spot at four dollars and a half per ton. At sunset we rode to the superintendent's, where we found Colonel Will- iam King, one of the lessees, to whom we had very friendly letters, and by whom we were kind- ly received, and immediately made at home. The next day we devoted to a careful examina- tion of this interesting place under the guidance of Colonel King. The floor of this small vale is formed of a limestone, running E.N.E., apparently of the same period as that of the valley of Shenandoah, and is contained between lofty hummocks or hills of the same mineral, round and conical at the top. These hills present the appearance of having been once united by a continuous floor at a level of perhaps 200 feet higher than the pres- ent floor of the vale. The salt water was first discovered by its exuding from the hills of the eastern slope, near the old mansion-house once occupied by the Preston family ; but wells hav- ing been subsequently sunk more towards the centre of the marsh, those old springs have ceased to flow. The wells have been dug 220 feet, through a deposit of clay and gypsum much mix- ed up with salt. In sinking their augurs through the mineral matter, they drop through into the water at a certain depth, and as they sometimes hear fragments of gypseous clay splash into it, it is evident there is a vast reservoir of salt water at the depth of 220 feet. In dry weather, and especially after long-continued drought, the wa- ter becomes excessively salt, yielding, as I was informed, one bushel of salt of 50 Ibs. to 24 gal- lons of water; but in the rainy seasons the at- mospheric waters raise the wells, and make the brine weaker. The water from the well called the Preston Well is pumped up day and night, and permitted to run off unused, to make the water of another well, called the King Well, more pro- ductive; because, if the Preston Well, which is within eighty feet of the other, were not dischar- ged in this way, the water of the other well would be too weak. And the necessity of doing this arises from the fact that a subterranean stream of fresh water runs into the Preston Well at a certain depth from the surface, and from thence has an oblique passage downwards into the King- Well, and thus reduces its strength. They are therefore obliged to pump, to keep down the lev- el of the waters of the Preston Well below the orifice by which they would otherwise mingle with the King Well. The pure beds of gypsum, or sulphate of lime, lie at the E.N.E. end" of this vale, and the plas- ter is, as frequently occurs in other localities, capped by an incoherent sandstone. This gyp- sum may have been deposited by the same wa- ter, or by a mineral spring which has ceased to flow or escapes under ground ; a supposition strengthened by the fact that other extensive de- posits of gypsum are found to the N.E., in the valley between Walker's Mountain, and the ridge called Clinch Mountain, where there are no salt springs. Springs containing sulphate of lime only may have been common in ancient geological periods; gypsum, however, is gener- ally found associated with salt, and this brine at the King Well i? so highly loaded with sulphate of lime, that not only do immense numbers of small crystals of the sulphate come up with it. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 41 but when the kettles are examined after a week's boiling, their bottoms are always found " blocked up" as it is technically called, with layers of gypsum from each succeeding boiling, six or eight inches thick. This vale or basin was probably after the ele- vation of the land which shuts it in a laka fed by saline and gypseous springs. The limestone is very cavernous, and it is not impossible that at some period the surrounding hummocks may have been united with extensive caverns inter- vening into which the mineral waters rose. When the connection between these hummocks was destroyed, that portion of the lake where de- posits of gypsum were formed above the brine, would, in the course of time, be filled in with aluminous earth brought in by the adjacent streams, as in the case of the valley at the Sweet Springs, and thus a body of clay and gypsum would be formed, such as they now bore through into the salt water at this place. As additional evidence that this vale has once been an exten- sive lake, the same earthy and mineral deposits are found in the borings at the S.W. end. A few hundred yards west of the buildings at Saltville, and in the road leading to the Holston River, is a deposit of 150 feet of argillaceous matter, 50 feet of which consists of blue vertical slate, and 100 feet of brown soft argillaceous schist; this last contains madrepores and producta, of which I procured some fine specimens, and runs a great distance through the country N.E. and S.W., being identical with what has hitherto been call- ed graywacke slate. From this vale, accompanied by one of our new friends, we set off on horseback to examine a place called King's Cove, of which a great deal leghany ridge, near the White Sulphur, and holds a very straight course to the N.E. as far as the Kanawha River. The name of cove is given in this part of the country to any crater-like basin or vale of land entirely surrounded by lofty hills, and there are many such in these mountains. Some of them contain from 500 to 1000 acres of the most fertile soil. There is one called Burke's Garden farther to the north, up the Clinch ridge, which was described to me as a very extraordi- nary kind of amphitheatre, surrounded by a circle of lofty hills, and containing from 3000 to 4000 acres of the most fertile land. The cove we went to see was difficult of access ; after travel- ling about three miles up the ridge, we came suddenly upon it, and got into it by a difficult pass, just wide enough for one horse, where the mountain side sloped at an angle of about 65 among the loose sandstone rocks, which made it frequently necessary for us to dismount. On our right was a deep ravine which separated us from some lofty mural escarpments,, at the top of which were strong ledges of naked sandstone hanging at an angle of about 55. The scene was strikingly wild. Our guide was a very extraordinary character, quite without a rival, as I was told, in his line; and truly I never saw a greater original, or met with a man that so precisely came up to my idea of a Yankee outlaw. He was known by the name of Charley Talbot, was a spare, sallow fellow, with eyes that glanced incessantly from one object to another, without resting more than an instant upon anything. If he was quite sure that the thing he was looking at was not the F sheriff come to arrest him, or a panther, or a rat- tlesnake, he immediately turned his attention to something else; and although he was more than sixty years old, he was beyond all comparison the most active of our party. This cove was his den, where he lived, and from it, when danger was impending from officials, he could, in a quar- ter of an hour, be in any of the four counties of Washington, Russel, Tazewell, or Wythe, all of which happen to corner here "quite slick." As we nad given Charley no notice of our ap- proach, we took him by surprise on approaching his hut; and when he came to the door and saw us, Colonel King observed that he faltered, be- lieving us to be limbs of the law, the Sheriff of Washington County having made an unsuccess- ful attempt to bag him a few days before. Char- ley had attracted the public attention some time : as a panther-hunter, a wild-cat killer, a man that would drag a bear out of his den, bring down a deer, and that failing, kill the fat hogs or beeves of the settlers, his character was established. His merits, too, were acknowledged as a dabbler in literature, being with some reason suspected of keeping up an intimate connection with the dealers in counterfeit bank-notes, that seem to abound in every part of the United States. Be- ing obliged, therefore, to come occasionally info the world, Charley was provided with a grey stal- lion of great fleetness and bottom to go to Abing- don on a Sunday, when he was privileged from arrest, and upon these occasions he used to boast that his nag and himself cared nothing for Mon- day, because they knew every inch of the country as well by night as by day. As soon as our real object in visiting the cove was explained to him, he laid aside all appre- hension, and showed great alacrity in assisting us, and took us to various parts of the cove. Some maize of extraordinary dimensions was growing not far from his hut, on the fertile red soil, resembling that which I had frequently seen on my way to Abingdon, and on lifting up my glass I saw that the very summit of the mount- ain to the left was capped by red horizontal rocks, forming an escarpment. Upon my ex- pressing a desire to go there, Charley instantly- offered to conduct me : leaving, therefore, my friends, who had been at the top of the mountain, before, I put myself under his direction, listen- ing to the interesting stories he related about '' varmint," as he called panthers, wild cats, and bears. According to his experience the "painter," for so the country-people call the panther is shy of the "human," whom he never attacks but, when he is wounded or ravenously hungry. He* is, however, easily taken by the hunter when he has dogs with him, for if the animal has not time to leap on a tree before the dogs close in upon him, the hunter despatches him with his rifle, whilst the dogs, as Charley said, "is managing- the varmint." But when the dogs are in full pursuit, and close at his heels, he springs at the first tree that suits him, generally selecting one whose lower branches are about twelve feet from, the ground, knowing well that no animal he is upon bad terns with can perform the feat. The rifle soon puts an end to the presumptive thought that he is in safety. The panther (Fclis discolor) is the lion of Amer- ca, and bears a strong resemblance to the Afri- can lioness. Charley had killed a great many of them, and they were now becoming scarce in his cove; still he said there were four or five 42 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. -arge ones that haunted it, and these came from the strong laurel thickets in Russel County, to watch a gap at the top of the mountain, which was the usual place by which the deer enterec the cove from that direction. To this gap the panthers hie before day, stretch themselves at full length on a log to wait the approach of the deer, and spring upon the neck of the animal as soon as it is within reach ; whilst the whelp pan- ther, if there is one, brings a fawn to the ground. " But," said Charley, " I hates them 'ar cursed varmint, the cattermount, as some folks calls 'em, a plaguey sight worser than the painters, and there's a pretty smart scatter of 'em in this ove, I tell you. The cursed critters do beat all for sneaking along seven or eight of 'em togither when a sow's going to pig, and they'll git right ' -close to her when she is gitting the pigs ; and when she grunts at 'em, the blasts .set up their backs jist like a iiaytural cat, and one of 'em will take one pig, and another of 'em will lay hold of another pig, and I swar, when she is done, she turns round and she ain't got ne'er a pig on the face of the arth. That's the way these ^^accountable varmint has sarved my sows ever so many times, for I reckon they like the woods to pig in better than the stye." This animal, so fond of sucking pigs, is the spotted wild cat (Felis rufa?}, and is universally complained of in this part of ftie country as de- structive to young pigs, for the sows are all per- mitted to run at large in the woods. After some exertion we scrambled up to the foot of the escarpment, and found that the red rocks consisted of argillaceo-calcareous beds, resting upon horizontal limestone, and that they were fast wearing away from the effects of the weather, being of a soft laminated structure, like / the red rocks near Dawlish in Devonshire. Great portions of the cliff fall down after wet weather to increase the rich soil beneath, and there the growth of trees, plants, and herbage is surprisingly luxuriant. When I had examined the rocks at this point, perceiving that it was possible to scramble along the head of the talus, which is formed by the crumbling escarpment for a very great portion of the distance round the cove, I expressed a desire to examine the beds farther to the S.W., so Charley most obligingly led the way, and soon got out of sight, for I was loitering along looking for rare plants, fossils, land-shells, or anything else in so interesting a place, and could no longer hear him pushing his way through the bushes. There was a thicket to pass through which was very dense, on the right of which was the mural pile of argillaceo- calcareous beds, which indeed, as Charley had well observed, "looked powerful curious;" be- fore I reached it, and whilst I was stopping to hammer away at some fossils, it came into my head that some of the " varmint" might be out looking for " spiciments," as my companion call- ed them, as well as myself; and I quickened my steps a little, as fast as the nature of the soil would permit me to do, for it had rained that morning and was slippery : but faithful Char- ley was full of consideration for me, and I found him quietly waiting at no great distance. "Look here, stranger," said he, "here is the track of one of them 'ar painters, and I reckon it is a considerable big bitch, for here's a whelp's track along with it." The impressions had been made before the rain fell, and the prints of the toes were somewhat deadened, but not at all ob- literated ; the whelp's track was generally found following the other, and we traced them both dis- tinctly for a great distance. It was evident they had been prowling just before day, ere the rain, had fallen, and were going towards the deer gap. It was now 1 P.M., and Charley said it was the custom of the " painters," as no game was abroad, to retire at that hour into the laurel thickets on the west side of the Clinch Mount- ain in Russel County. I therefore inquired if it was possible to ascend the face of the rocks, get to the top of the mountain, and take a peep at the laurel thickets. Charley said he knew of a place where he thought he could get up, and that he was willing to lend me a hand too; " but I calculate, stranger," he added, " you ain't a- going to do no sich a foolish thing as to go into the laurels ; why there ain : t ne'er a sheriff in the lour counties but what's got more sense than to walk into sich a fix." Having satisfied Charley on that score, he led the way to a part of the es- carpment that was practicable, clinging with his hands to points jutting from the rocks, and get- ting from one ledge to another. Two or three times he stopped to give me his advice and his hand, but I had been accustomed to climb worse passes, and got up without his assistance to the summit of the loftiest pinnacle of the Clinch; upon which Charley paid me the compliment of saying, " Why if you arn't a most particular parson, then I don't know one, for I swar you don't want no help at all !" But when I took out instruments to ascertain the course of the chain, the temperature, &c., Charley's admiration of me increased greatly ; he clearly lost every ves- tige of apprehension that had lurked about him as to the real nature of our visit; showed me a place where he had a desperate fight with a panther, and the place where he had treed and shot him: after which he most willingly took me to a point on the flank of the mountain, from whence we had a view of a dark-looking dell thickly filled with laurels, and which appeared :o be a most judicious abode for "painters." The view from the summit of this part of the Clinch Mountain is verv extensive, by far the most ample I have yet se'en from any of the Al- leghany ridges : to the south it was bounded by the Iron Mountain ; but in every directidn there was scarce anything to be seen but a succession of ridges covered with their eternal forests ; few- indications of man were to be observed, and, with the exception of some clearings, the scene sresented very much the same appearance it would have done when the Indians had exclu- sive possession of the country. The thermome- ter was 8 of Fahr. lower at the summit than it was in the cove, and Charley said he had never seen any flies or other insects on the wing there n the hottest weather. The elevation was judged by me to be about 2400 feet above the level of he sea. In the horizontal limestone upon which the red argillaceous beds rest, I found orthocera, flustra, spirifers, producta, with other fossils ap- jarently of the carboniferous limestone. The strata succeed each other as follows : Horizontal Red Argillaceo-Calcareous : Limestone, with Fossils, Quartzose Sandstone. Limestone, inclined at an angle of 50. If a good stone fence were laid across the ra- vine at the east end of the cove by which we en- ered it, and something done at the Deer Gap, he expense of which would not exceed as "barley thought 200 dollars, about 1200 acres TRAVELS IN AMEEICA. 43 of extremely fertile land would be so secured that nothing could get in or out of it, if the occu- pant thought proper. Exceedingly gratified by this excursion, which I believe terminated to the perfect satisfaction of Charley, we returned to Saltville to a late dinner by way of the north branch of the Holston, in which we saw great numbers of large soft-shelled turtle (Trumyx feroz) from 12 to 20 inches long. In the even- ing I walked to the Holston and procured some fresh-water shells, several species of unio, as well as that elegant univalve the f^usus fluinal-is of Say. The next morning, Sept. 12th, we took leave of our hospitable friends Messrs. King and Lewis, and returned to Abingdon CHAPTER X. & pleasant Party in a Stage-coach Arrive at Blountsville in the State of Tennessee Fists versus Dirks and Pis- tols Knoxville Meet President Jackson. THIS morning, September the 12th, was occu- pied in packing up and taking leave of the Pres- ton family, for whose kind attentions I felt under great obligations; and about two P.M. the stage- coach, in which I had secured and paid for our places to Blountsville in the State of Tennessee, came to take us away. Whilst I was standing in the balcony of the hotel shaking hands with Colonel Preston and some gentlemen who had called to take leave, I observed a stout man about 30 years old ordering one of my trunks to be taken off from the carriage, and to be left be- hind; upon which I went down to the street, and believing him to be a contractor or agent for the stage, began to negotiate with him to pay for its weight rather than leave it; but perceiving his language was a little equivocal, I asked him by what authority he interfered in the matter: upon which he avowed himself to be only a passenger, but insisted that the trunk should be left, on the ground that the roads were bad, the stage was an old one, and that no passenger was allowed more than one trunk. Desirous as I was of avoiding a quarrel, I found myself obliged to carry matters with a very high hand with this officious person to silence him, and at last sent for the agent, who told the man that, having paid for two places, I had a right to have two trunks conveyed : the matter being thus decided in my favour, the trunk was replaced. Inside of the stage were two passengers from South Carolina, to which state they were going from Blountsville. One of these persons, a Dr. "VV*****, grumbled a good deal about the trunk and the roads, but I told him as the agent had decided that my trunk was to go, I should con- sider it as a piece of personal impertinence ad- dressed to myself if anything more was said about it; upon which he had the good sense to make no more remarks. The other Carolinian said nothing. Besides these two and the puppy who had ordered my trunk to be taken off, there was an exceedingly strange-looking white man, and a negro seated opposite to him; but as the stage-coach only held six passengers, and there were already five in it on its arrival, it was evi- dent that either my son or myself would have to ride outside unless the negro was sent there. This man I ascertained was the servant of the white man opposite to him, a queer tall animal about forty years old, with dark black hair cut round as if he were a Methodist preacher, im- mense black whiskers, a i out one or two tolerable physiognomy not -ith- features, but 'singularly sharp, and not a little piratical and repulsive; all this was set off with a huge broad-brimmed white hat, adorned with a black crape that covered it almost to the top of the crown. His clothes also were black, so that it was evident he intended people should see he was in mourn- ing. I civilly asked this sorrowful figure if he would let his servant ride on the top of the coach and permit my son to come inside, and his answer was, "I reckon my waiter is very well where he is." I told my son therefore to go to the top where there was another black fellow and took care to say very deliberately and audibly, whilst I was holding the door of the stage-coach, that he would meet with some better company there than in the inside. I now took the sixth seat in this pleasant company, and there we were, all of us apparently as dis- trustful of what was to happen next, as if there had been a rattle-snake under one of the seats. It was my fortune to be seated opposite to the fellow who had given me so much trouble, so that our knees would necessarily interfere with each other if we were not mutually accommo- dating, as travellers usually are. This man would neither do one thing nor another; he seemed to put his legs in the way as much as he could, kept spitting out of the window, and then thrusting his head out of it; so that, being made exceedingly uncomfortable, I was compelled to ask him, though I did it in a civil way, to keep himself quiet; but I might as well have remain- ed silent, for, drawing himself up into a some- what fierce and sullen attitude, he growled out " that he had as good a right to be in the stage as me." Upon this the broken-hearted gentle- man under the black and white sombrero, who had drawn forth some voluminous sighs of a strong Cipolline character, affectionately put his hand upon this fellow's thigh, as though they were exceedingly intimate, which encouraged him to add " I reckon I ain't a-going to be put upon by no man : if any man thinks he's a-going to put upon me, he will get no good by it that I know." Having cheered himself on with this encouraging speech, he proceeded to take a dirk from beneath nis waistcoat, which having ap- provingly looked at, he replaced; next he took a small pistol from his pocket and showed it to his melancholy friend, who observed that " leetel pitchers would carry water as well as big ones." The other passengers said nothing. In the Northern States such an occurrence as this, of five inside passengers combining against one who had offended none of them, could not have taken place. The very sight of the dirk and pistol would have incensed every one to kick the fellow out, but we were approaching coun- tries under the jurisdiction of the bowie-knife, and having learnt at Abingdon that while we were wrangling about the trunk they had ascer- tained from the waiter at the tavern that I was an Englishman a circumstance not much in a traveller's favour when mixed up with low fel- lows of the uneducated classes in America I saw that my policy was not to get into disputes with them, but to watch their proceedings. In this sort of humour we continued the re- mainder of the journey, and at nine P.M. reach- ed Blountsville, a small frontier town of the State of Tennessee. The night was damp, and we all went into the bar-room of the tavern, where a great many persons were standing -li TRAVELS IN AMERICA. round the fire. Here, after securing seats for the next day, I took my stand, happy to be re- leased from the disagreeable persons I had been shut up with, who, I was informed, were go- ing in another stage-coach to South Carolina. Whilst standing with my back to the fire look- ing at some young children who were a-musing themselves with blowing a horn, my old torment- or came up, and in an insolent manner tried to provoke me into a quarrel with him : for a long time I refused to speak to him, but perceiving at length that he was exciting a great prejudice against me, and becoming rather irritated, I told him that he might, for aught I knew, know a great deal, as he said he did; but that he didn't know the difference betwixt a gentleman and such a low, impudent jackanapes as himself; and that though 1 was his senior by a great many years, I thought it would be quite advisable for him not to provoke me any further. Upon this, without further circumlocution, and boiling over with inarticulate rage, he said "I allow you are a * * old rascal, and that's just what you are." During all my journeys in North America I had never carried pistols, or dirk, or hidden weap- ons with me, or any arms but a rifle to procure myself game, and hitherto I had not found it ne- cessary to do so. I now saw that I had to do with a bully armed with a knife, and who was prepared to use it ; and who, seeing the advan- tage he had over me, and believing that he could say what he pleased with impunity in a crowd of fellows who were delighted to see an English- man insulted, felt quite sure that he might in- dulge in every sort of insolence with impunity. Great was the surprise therefore of the beholders when they saw me draw out a couple of instru- ments, the noble use of which was altogether un- known in the enlightened State of Tennessee. Near forty years before this memorable evening, I had in my young days been an eager pupil of the then celebrated pugilist Jackson ; and no sooner did the word rascal come strangely to my ears, than all the practice I had acquired under my great master suddenly and intuitively came to my finger's ends. It was literally Scarborough warning he got a word and a blow; in an in- stant I served him upon his astonished optics with two " straightforwarders," right and left, and down he went on the floor into an ocean of tobacco spit, quite puzzled to imagine how he had got there. Perceiving, however, that he began to fumble for his dirk and pistols, I in- stantly jumped upon him, whereupon the land- lord jumped upon me, and my son upon the land- lord. We had a few moments of very interest- ing scuffle and confusion, but being at length separated, the fallen bully was lifted up with his eyes and cheeks piffled up like a muffle, crest- fallen, and an object of pity even to myself. Nothing more was said now about pistols or dirk, and I had the satisfaction of seeing this foolish fellow, who thought I should be content with' telling him back again, according to the manners of his equals, that he was a rascal too, led off", almost frightened out of his senses lest he had lost his eyes, vapouring, however, as he went what he would do; for which I had only one answer, that I would give him ten times as much if he did anything at all. From this moment I was treated with great def- erence as far as coming into contact with me went, for wht-n I approached the fire every body retired a little to make room for me. To give them an idea that I attached no sort of impor- tance to what had taken piace, I began to con- verse quietly with some of the bystanders about the country, and whilst doing this, the poor devil was brought in from the kitchen, by his whisk- ered friend and some others, with his head bound up, and accompanied by them went out of the door, but whether to the doctor's or the magistrate's remained to be seen. I now told my son in French to be upon the watch and to bring; me information of what was going on. In the mean time the. Dr. W*****, of South Carolina, whose conduct had not prejudiced me in his fa- vour, having found out who I was, came in a very friendly manner to my son and myself, ex- flained his behaviour, and secretly told us that ought to be on my guard, as it was very proba- ble an attempt would be made to injure me. I was not particularly afraid of this : what I was really afraid of was that they would attempt to hold me to bail in a large sum. I was quite sure of my man. He would not neglect such a favourable opportunity of turning his eyes to ac- count, and I should have been too happy to have compromised the affair by immediately paying- one hundred dollars for each of my offending fists. But the parties returned to the tavern evi- dently disappointed: they had, it seems, been to consult some limbs of the law who resided in the place, but, most fortunately for me, every crea- ture that could assist them'in the legal way was gone to a court at some distance. Supper now was announced, and we went to it grave enough not a word was said. The landlord, the land- lady, the travellers, the drivers, and the negroes, first stared at the wounded hero, who was affec- tionately fed by his black-haired, piratical-look- ing friend, and then at me. I have not the least doubt that all agreed in considering me as the greatest monster that had yet penetrated into Tennessee.* I was the first that retired from the supper- room, and immediately proceeded to my old place at the fireside of the bar-room. As soon, as they had all re-assembled there, I addressed the landlord and the company, stating that it was the practice of gentlemen always to apologize when they were provoked to use violence; that I therefore apologized to him and to them all; but that as I had been called a rascal for the first time in my life, and that by a man much younger than myself, who had taken great pains to quarrel with me, it was very natural in me to chastise him on the spot, as I dared to say any one of them would have been manly enough to have done upon a like occasion: that I really was sorry for what I had done, but that I was quite sure I should do the same thing over again if I was insulted in the same way. 1 next went up to the man himself, and told him, in a friendly tone, that I was exceedingly distressed to see that he was so very much bruised, that I wished it had not been done, and would most willingly undo it if it were in my power; but that he must be sensible that he had made me very angry, and that most men when angry took some revenge or other, and my way of revenging myself wa-s much better than using dirks or pistols, which either killed or injured people for life: that he would soon get well, and would then be no worse * I learnt afterwards that the affair had reached the ears of my friends at Abingdon, with a slight change in some of the particulars ; the Englishman was represented as having- struck at a peaceable American gentleman with a dirt, then knocked him down with the butt end of a pistol, concluding the assault by lumping u ou him to gouge him. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 45 for the blows I had given him, arid that I hoped he would do as Englishmen did, forget and For- give, especially as I was very sorry to see him so mueh hurt, and was ready to compensate him. This fellow was not so bad but that he had some good feeling in him; perhaps, too, there \vas a little unction in the word " compensation," for he no sooner heard it than he blubbered out, " 1 didn't mean to say that you ain't a gentle- man, and I am quite willing to be friendly:" adding that his name was G*****, and that he was from Tuscaloosa, in the State of Alabama. Whereupon we shook hands and retired to our rooms. Being relieved from my apprehensions of having to deal with Tennessee lawyers, I went to bed and got a capital night's rest. This man was a singular compound of pomposity and ig- norance, boiling over with conceit of himself until this incident occurred, which I have no doubt was an excellent lesson for him. On coming down at one A.M. into the bar- Toom, I was surprised to learn, contrary to my expectation, that he, with his whiskered friend, was to proceed on in the stage-coach with us, having been before given to understand that he was to leave us here, which the two South Caro- linians did. When he made his apperance, I was not a little shocked to see how horribly his face was disfigured, and felt great remorse for the blows 1 had given him. On getting into the stage-coach there being now room for my son matters after daylight took a surprising change. I was treated with the greatest respect, especially by my black-eyed friend; and whenever I lifted up my mauleys, even for the most innocent pur- poses, the gentleman in mourning used to ob- serve them very curiously, as though he was not quite satisfied as to the part they were going to perform. We, however, contrived to be on friendly terms ; and all danger of quarrelling, at any rate, seemed to be at an end. It was day- light when we arrived at a place called King's Port, on the Holston, which is here a pretty .stream, navigable for boats. I obtained some fine unios during the short time we stopped; and observed a great many concamerated shells in the limestone beds on the road-side, especially orthocera of a large size, but too firmly imbedded to be taken out without much preparation. We had the Iron Mountains on our left, extending S.W. to Georgia ; and passed through an undu- lating country, not very fertile, with limestone hummocks, poor log-huts, inhabited by a rude people, and all the signs of an unproductive country. Rogersville, twenty-five miles farther west, has a few brick houses ; and the land about there is generally formed of hummocks of limestone, dipping S.S.E. about 45. The rjdges at this place behind the settlement are constituted of slate, apparently contemporaneous with that which underlies the Sweet Springs Valley. I took a peep at the dinner-table here, where there was an old woman smoking a bad pipe, my trav- elling companions, and the driver; before them was a nasty-looking dish, with quantities of coarse onions ; but everything looked so disgust- ing and filthy, that I could not make up my mind to sit down, and preferred to go without any din- ner. Here a great many sympathising inquiries were made respecting the reasons which had compelled the Tuscaloosan to wrap up his head so curiously, and he gave the old tobacco-pipe lady a piteous account of the stage being run away with, and how he had been thrown against a tree. Unfortunately the driver, who knew the truth, took this as a reflection upon the stage- driving fraternity, and not only related the true story before he came away, but gave it as his opinion that "he was a poor etarnal scamp, and that that 'ar Englishman had given him a most almighty hiding that he hoped would last him till the lost kayws (cows) would come ham." The truth is that the poor devil was a pretty bad fellow at bottom, had a wonderful fertility of in- vention, which enabled him to tell the most ex- traordinary lies to inquirers about his accident, and was so totally insensible to his disgrace, that when he was in the stage he soon got up his spirits, and conducted himself as if nothing had happened to him. We took various passengers in whilst on the road for short distances, and for each of them he had almost a different story: but it was of no avail ; the first driver from Blountsville had spoil- ed all his inventions by telling the truth, and speaking of him with the greatest contempt. When we had made seventy miles from Blounts- ville, we stopped to get a little rest at a place called Williams's, two miles from Bean's Sta- tion. Here the Tuscaloosan and his whiskered friend got into the same bed together. The next morning we drove twenty miles to a house kept by a Mr. and Mrs. Shields, two well-behaved people, who gave us a clean comfortable break- last, during which a musical-box, enclosed in a large case with a sounding-board, was playing most delightfully. In an adjoining room was laid his brother, who had got a concussion of the brain a week before, in escaping from the stage- coach whilst the horses were running away with it in a narrow road in the woods. He was get- ting a little better, after remaining three days in- sensible, but was still delirious at times. About noon we reached Knoxville, a poor neglected-looking place, which notwithstanding makes a great figure on the map. I saw some tolerable dwelling-houses, and called upon a gentleman of the name of Campbell, to whom I had a letter, and who was very polite to me ; but we only stayed an hour, just long enough to let the passengers dine at the tavern. I also called upon a very worthy and well-known gentleman with whom I had the pleasure of being acquaint- ed, Judge Hugh White, a senator of the United States, who resides here ; but he was from home. There is steam-boat navigation from Knoxville down the Holston and Tennessee into the Mis- sissippi when the water is high enough ; but, to judge from the inactivity of the place, there is very little commerce going on. Fourteen miles farther we came to Campbell's Station, a place where the white settlers used to assemble, after they had first penetrated into these remote parts, to chastise the Indians. As we drove up to the door of the tavern, I saw General Jackson, the venerable President of the United States, seated at a window smoking his long pipe, and went to pay my respects to him, apologising for my dirty appearance, which I told him I had very honestly come by in hammering the rocks of his own State. He laughed and shook hands cor- dially with me ; and learning that my son was with' me, requested me to bring him in and pre- sent him. My son, who had been scampering about the country all the time we were in Knox- ville, was in a worse pickle than myself, and felt quite ashamed to be presented to so eminent a person; but the old General very kindly took him by the hand, and said, " My young friend, 46 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. don't be ashamed of this : if you were a politi cian, you would have dirty work upon your hands you could not so easily get rid of." We had a Very agreeable chat with the old gentle- man ; he was in fine spirits ; and we left his cheer- ful conversation with great reluctance, amidst the kindest expression of his wishes for our wel- fare, and an injunction to call upon him at Wash- ington as soon as we returned. The President was then on his way to the seat of government. CHAPTER XL A Negro-Driver in mourning for a great Patriot Irrever- ence of a Negro to a White Man's Ghost Bivouac of a Gang of chained Slaves An agreeable and lively fellow- passenger Cross the Cumberland Mountains Arrive at Sparta A Driver killed Hickory Valley Mounds and Graves of the Indians that formerly dwelt here Imagin- ary pigmy race. ON resuming our places in the stage-coach, our companion in black pronounced a most decided eulogium upon Gineral Jackson, but in such lan- guage as was quite inimitable. With a strange solemnity of tone and manner, he said, " The old Gineral is the most greatest and most completes! idear of a man what had ever lived. I don't mean to say nothing agin Washington he was a man too ; but Jackson is a man, I tell you : and when I see'd him in his old white hat, with the mourning crape on it, it made me feel a kind of particular curious." This mysterious sympa- thy betwixt the two white hats in mourning opened a vein of sentiment in our companion that presently took a very sublimated form, and he commenced thinking aloud as it were, keep- ing his right hand pressed on the thigh of the Tuscaloosan. He now attempted to cover a far- rago of bad grammar with an affected pronunci- ation of his words: and at last got into such a strain of talking fine, that my son and myself had great difficulty in suppressing our laughter. He spoke of a niece that he had. and said, in quite a staccato style, "She is a most complete " and there he rather equivocally left the mat- ter, adding, however, that he had given her " a most beautiful barouche," and that he expected to overtake her that night. By and by, he said he expected to overtake another barouche which belonged to him ; and then told us what the two barouches had cost him. In short, he so thor- oughly mystified us, that we could not make out what stratum in society he belonged to. If it had not been for these barouches, we might have conjectured, but they threw us out. We knew we had no barouches on the road, and were dis- posed to respect anyone who had, for a barouche is a barouche always; and what must a man be who has two on the road, and " a complete" in one of them? A vague idea had once or twice crossed my mind that I had seen this man before, but where I could not imagine. On coming, however, to a long hill, where I got out to walk, I took occa- sion to ask the driver if he knew who the pas- senger was who had two barouches on before. "Why," said the man, "don't you know it's Armfield, the negur-driverl" "Negur-driver!" thought I, and immediately the mystery was cleared up. I remembered the white hat, the crape, the black, short-cut, round hair, and the barouches. It was one of the identical slave- dealers I had seen on the 6th of September, cross- ing his gang of chained slaves over New River. On re-entering the vehicle 1 looked steadily at the fellow, and recollecting him, found no longer any difficulty in accounting for such a compound of everything vulgar and revolting, and totally without education. I had' now a key both to his manners and the expression of his countenance, both of them formed in those dens of oppression and despair, the negro prisons, and both, of them indicating his abominable vocation. As he had endeavoured to impose himself upon us for a respectable man, I was determined to let him know before we parted that I had found him out; but being desirous first of discovering what was the source of that sympathy which united his hat with that of General Jackson, I asked him. plump who he was in mourning for. Upon this, drawing his physiognomy down to the length ol a moderate horse's face, "Marcus -Layfeeyate" (Marquis Lafayette) was his answer. " Do you mean General Lafayette ?"* 1 inquired. " I reckon that's what I mean," said he. " Why x General Lafayette," I replied, "gloried in ma- king all men free, without respect of colour; and what are you, who I understand are a negro-dri- ver, in mourning for him for 1 ? Such men as you ought to go into mourning only when the price of black men falls. I remember seeing you cross your gang in chains at New River ; and I shouldn't be at all surprised if Lafayette's ghost was to set every one of your negroes free one of ^hese nights." The fellow did not expect this, and was silent, DUI my son burst into a violent fit of laughter ; and, to add to our amusement, the negur-driver's ilack man who had been vastly tickled with, the idea of the ghost coming to help the negurs boiled over into a moststentorious horse-laugh of the African kind. His enraged master now broke out, " What onder arth is 'the matter with you, I reckon"? If you think I'll stand my wait- er's sniggering at me arter that fashion, I reck- on you'll come to a nonplush to-night." These awful words, which Pompey knew imported very serious consequences, brought him immediately into a graver mood, and he very contritely said, :( Master, I warn't a larfing at you, by no man- ner of means ; I was just a larfing at what dat ar gemmelman said about de ghose." Soon after his the fellow pretended he was taken ill, and* determined to stop at a tavern on the road, a few miles from Bean's Station. He accordingly told Pompey to go on with the stage-coach until he overtook the gang, and then to return for him. with one of the barouches. Here we left him to digest our contempt as well as he could. Pompey now told us a great many things that served to confirm my abhor- ence of this brutal land-traffic in slaves. As to lis master, he said he really thought he was ill ; 'Master's mighty fond of ingeons," said he, and de doctors in Alexandria tells him not to eat sich lots of ingeons ; but when he sees 'em ie can't stand it, and den he eats 'ern, and dey makes him sick, and den he carries on jist like a house a fire; and den he drinks brandy upon 'em, and dat makes him better; and den he eats ngeons agin, and so he keeps a carrying on." i-Yom which it would appear that the sum total )f enjoyment of a negro-driver, purchased at itich a profligate expense of humanity, is an un- imited indulgence in onions and brandy. Before we stopped for the night, but long after unset, we came to a place where numerous He died in the early part of the summer, and many of friends in the United States were in mourning on the occasion. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 17 fires were gleaming through the forest: it was the bivouac of the gang. Having prevailed upon the driver to wait half an hour, I went with Pom- pey who was to take leave of us here into the woods, where they were all encamped. There were a great many blazing fires around, at which the female slaves were warming themselves; the children were asleep in some tents; and the males, in chains, were lying on the ground, in groups of about a dozen each. The white men, who were the partners of Pompey's master, were standing about with whips in their hands; and "the complete" was, I suppose, in her tenc; for I judged, from the attendants being busy in pack- ing the utensils away, that they had taken their evening's repast. It was a fearful and irritating spectacle', and I could not bear long to look at it. Our company, on my return to the stage-coach, ^ras reduced to ourselves and the now humble Tuscaloosan. We were kind to him, lest the poor devil should feel unnecessarily uncomfort- able. After a rough ride in the dark over an execrable road, we came to a poor miserable house where the sheriff lived, and where we were told we might lie down until four A.M. But such beds ! We were charged 12 cents, or 6d. each, for the privilege of lying down upon them, whilst we should have been most happy to have given ten times as much for clean ones. But as the great study here appears to be to spare themselves trouble and exertion, they content themselves with putting a pack of dirty rags to- gether, calling it a bed, and then leave it in the same state throughout the year. A better spe- cimen of :t cheap and nasty" could not easily be found. In the morning we started again at day- light, and reached the junction of the Clinch and Holston where they form the Tennessee, at a poor place called Kingston. The country now began to teem with graves and mounds of the Indians who once possessed the country, and to become very interesting. Early in the morning a passenger joined us, who turned out to be a very agreeable and di- verting person. I saw at once he was not an American ; for, although he had a sallow face, it was round, and his nose and a certain expres- sion of his countenance, added to the native po- liteness of his manners, marked him fora French- man. We conversed some time in English, which he spoke tolerably well ; he had been on the Mississippi River, "and knew most of the towns there familiarly. In the course of our conversation I happened to mention the village of St. Genevieve, and giving it the French pro- nunciation, he broke out, "Ah, Monsieur, je vais bien que vous parlez Franpais je parle Anglais moi comme un animal, je le sais bien parlons Fran<;ais s'il vous plait." From this moment we talked nothing but French, except when our lively companion addressed the Tus- caloosan, who, having removed the handkerchief from his head, exhibited his black eyes in full relief. His odd appearance greatly attracted the Frenchman's attention, who, in a very sympa- thetic tone, inquired as to the cause of it. We had now the old story of the stage being upset, and Monsieur fully believing he had been in- jured in that way, could scarce contain himself, exclaiming, " De Americain drivaire in de South- ern State is an infamious animal!" and then proceeded in the most voluble manner to tell us of some narrow escapes he had had with drunk- en drivers. It appeared to me that there was not a place in the Southern and Western States where this Frenchman had not been ; I h;id only to look at the map and mention a place, wliea he would say, "Monsieur, je eonnais cet endroit la parfaitement ; il y a un tel qui derneure la et un tel." And to my inquiries he would answer,. " Oui, Monsieur, il y a bien de montagnes, mais pas comme celle du Cumberland, que vous allez. traverser." Or else it would be, " Non, ce pays la est plat comme ma main." After a few hours of this sort of conversation,. I perhaps felt as curious to know what his pur- suits could be that had led him to so many pla- ces where he knew so many people, as he was- to know mine who made so many inquiries about the surface of the country. Apparently his cu- riosity was more lively than mine, for he made many attempts, though always with politeness, to penetrate my secret, and once or twice went rather far on the road towards finding out who I was. At last, without telling him my name, I informed him that I was an Englishman, and that my pursuits were purely confined to geology and natural history. He was delighted with this- mark of confidence, and said, "Monsieur, je ne connois pas les sciences, mais je les honore ; et je suisbien aisede rencontrer un brave Anglais, car je les estime tous de tout mon creur." He now proceeded to tell me who he was and what he was, and what sort of a person his wife was,, how long he had been married to her, and what age she was when she became his wife. " Oui, Monsieur," said he, "c'etoit une jeune personne charmante, pleine de bonte, et je puis dire que je 1'aime de tout mon cceur." His name was Nidelet, he was a silk merchant of Philadelphia, had married a daughter of a respectable French hegociant, a Monsieur Pratte,of the town of St. Louis, on the Mississippi, and was at this time engaged, as he had often before been, in collect- ing debts due to his house, which accounted for his accurate knowledge of the country. In the course of the day the driver, it appeared, told him how the Tuscalbosan had got his black eyes. which had exceedingly sharpened his curiosity to know who I was; and on coming to a hill he joined my son, who was walking up it, and con- trived very ingeniously to get it out of him. On. re-entering the stage-coach^ therefore, he trium- phantly exclaimed, "Ah, ah, Monsieur! vous e"tes done Monsienr F. : j'ai bien entendu parler de vous a Philadelphie, et je suis enchante de 1'honneur de votre connaissance. C'est vous done qui avez flanque a ce coquin ces gros yeux il les a bien merite. Diable, c'est un art su- perbe que celui de boxer! J'ai pris quelques lemons moi-m^me, mais n'importe je voyage toujours avec des pistolets et un dirk tenez! regardez! Vraiment vous lui avez arrange son. sacre museau joliment. Peste, comme il est beau. II parait etre votre ami a present ne vous fiez pas; il est capable de trouver son mo- ment et vous planter son dirk. Le coquin, j'au- rai un O3il sur lui si jamais il fait le moindre mouvement, je lui regale un coup de pistolet an museau." The poor devil who was the object of this rhapsody saw, by the excited looks and gestures of the Frenchman, that he was blown, and at the next hill took his seat with the driver, and never came into the stage again, so that we had nothing more to do with him. We commenced the ascent of Walden's Ridge to-day, which is on the east flank of Cumber- land Mountain, and is separated from the west- ern flank by a depression or valley. Proceeding- along a disintegrating sandstone, we came to a TRAVELS IX AMERICA. place called the Crab Orchard, from the first white pioneers finding crab apple-trees (Mains coronaria) here. A few miles hence the mount- ain descends again rapidly to a beautiful cir- cular cove, containing, perhaps, one thousand acres. This is a singularly romantic and pleas- ing vale, perfectly round, and surrounded by a mountainous country, the hills, as well as the vale, being in every part covered with graceful and stately trees. The Cumberland Mountain, taken altogether, is, where we passed it on the way to Sparta, a sort of table-land about forty miles broad, with occasional depressions in it. Indications present themselves here of rocks of a later period than those of the Alleghany Ridge ; the limestone in the valleys is all horizontal, and on each flank of the hills the same strata of sandstone crop out as we ascend and descend them. The fossils on the flat tabular limestone, which consist principally of producta, spirifers, and flustra, increase greatly in numbers, but do not vary much, apparently, in genera, from those in the inclined rocks we have so long been trav- ersing. The descent to Sparta is rugged for one mile and a half over the mineral beds, and on reaching the foot of the mountain I observed a change in the botany of the country, as well as in the rocks. The flint in the limestone beds here takes an agatized form, and often assumes a beautiful boytroidal chalcedonic appearance. Soon after we had got upon the level land, we met a stage-coach from the west with a passen- ger severely cut in the face. He informed us that in the morning the driver had fallen asleep on his seat, and dropping from it upon the ground, the wheels had gone over his head and killed him on the spot, upon which the horses galloped off, and at a turn of the road ran the vehicle against a stump, and broke the stage to pieces : he was thrown against some trees, and narrowly escaped with his life. . These accidents fre- quently happen, for, with few exceptions, the drivers are a reckless, unmanageable race of fellows, that drink hard, and care nothing even what happens to themselves. All the particu- lars of this sad story were eagerly listened to by the Tuscaloosan, whom we discovered after- wards to have represented himself as one of the injured passengers upon that occasion. It was late at night before we reached Sparta. Sparta is a very small place, not exactly upon a Lacedaemonian plan, perhaps, but at any rate it has a small square and a court-house. As to the rest, the houses were miserably shabby, as well as the stores. Here Idetermined to remain a short time, as the country was very interesting, arid I found obliging and nice people at the tav- ern. The next morning after breakfast I re- turned to the Cumberland Mountain to secure some fossils I had seen, and to get a view of the country from the summit. From the west brow of the mountain a bold ledge of horizontal sand- stone rocks projects from a great distance, form- ing a natural stone terrace, from whence there is a most extensive view of the country ; which, with the exception of a few patches of cleared ground, is an unreclaimed wilderness. There is a small vein of bituminous coal not very far off, with two strong chalybeate springs. On the 17th we sallied out on foot to a place called Hickory Valley, where there were said to be a great many coves and little vales. I had heard of Indian graves of a peculiar kind that were found here, and was desirous of inspecting them. After an agreeable walk we reached the valley, and found it a very pleasing place, with fine springs, game in abundance, flint in the limestone strata occurring as the chalk-flints do in Europe, and everything appropriate for the permanent residence of a tribe of Indians. Mr. Turner Lane, an old resident here, to whose plantation we went, informed us that when the stumps of trees in his clearings became suffi- ciently decayed to permit them to plough their fields thoroughly, the coulters frequently tore up square blocks of limestone and human bones. This took place so often, that at last their curi- osity was excited, and they perceived that these blocks were parts of stone coffins, consisting of a bottom-piece laid flat on the ground, two side pieces, a foot and head-piece, and a lid laid on the top. The extreme length of these graves was 24 inches, some of them were only 15 inches long, and others even less, and the coffins were sunk not more than a foot in the ground. It had struck him and other persons as a curious fact, that amidst so great a number of graves there should not be one longer than 24 inches, and he determined, therefore, in concert with a Mr. Doyle a neighbour of his who inhabited an- other cove about four miles from his residence to examine into the matter with great care. They accordingly opened some graves, and first removed the stones before they disturbed the contents of the coffins, which were filled appa- rently with nothing but the common soil of the country. Having removed this carefully with their knives, they found that each grave con- tained a skeleton, supported by a sufficient quan- tity of earth to prevent the bones falling into a heap. The skeletons were uniformly laid on the right side, and drawn up somewhat as people sleep, the right side reposing on the right arm. Under the neck they uniformly found an earthen Indian pot, formed (as I afterwards found) of clay and fragments of the unio, which, being saturated with moisture, generally fell to pieces, but when carefully taken out and dried, would become hard again. Mr. Lane and his friends were now convinced as they still are that they had discovered an ancient race of pigmies that had been buried in this valley before the exist- ing forest had grown up ; and the story setting out, some country doctors and curious people came to the place, and finding the dentification of the jaws perfect, and the sutures of the cra- nia complete, they pronounced the skulls and bones to have belonged, not to children of the ordinary Indian race, but to adults of a pigmy race. A book was next written about it, and it became one of the wonders of the western country. Having heard Mr. Lane's account of the af- fair, we walked over to see Mr. Doyle, and hear what he had to say. On our way we stopped to examine some an- cient mounds almost obliterated by time, with very old forest trees growing upon them. We found Mr. Doyle at home, living very comfort- ably in his beautiful cove, where he had cleared about one hundred and fifty acres of land. He gave us precisely the same" information we had received from Mr. Lane, only observing that the graves were much more numerous on his farm, and that lie. had been the first person to suppose them filled by a pigmy race. He said he had opened at least one hundred of them, and that they resembled each other in everything, save that in the shortest of them the bones were ex- TRAVELS IN AMEEICA. 49 tremely decayed, and the skulls contained no teeth ; whence he inferred that these were the graves of pigmy children. I now examined sev- eral of the coffins he had opened, and measured them, and found that there was not one of them longer than 24 inches, or deeper than 9. Hav- ing seen these 1 proceeded, with his permission, to open one of the graves myself that had been untouched. The skeleton was there, with an ex- tremely thin cranium without teeth : the bones were suprisingly small, and it was evident the body had been laid on its right side, and packed in earth. A small pot was under the neck which crumbled to pieces on being touched, and I found a rib of a deer with a snail shell, that had also been put into the grave, In most of these coffins Mr. Doyle had found some shells, and some small perforated stones, which had probably been used for a collar to put round the child's neck. On going to Mr. Dovle's house he presented me with some of the shells found in them, which were Fusus fluvialis, a univalve, found in the neighbouring Holston. Whilst rambling about we came to a very strong ledge of sandstone rocks which had a sort of cavern beneath them: on looking into it we saw the bones of another skeleton, and contrived to get the cranium out ; it was full of teeth, and had a hole in it which it was evident enough had been made by a toma- hawk. ' Before we parted with Mr. Doyle I essayed to undeceive him about the pigmy race, and told him it was the custom with a great many tribes of Western Indians to expose their adult dead upon scaffolds, and when all the soft parts had wasted away, the bones of the skeleton were put into very short graves ; that if he would consider the size of the oldest skulls he had found, he would see that they had belonged to individuals with as large heads as our own, which would have been both inconvenient and unnecessary to a pigmy race. But Mr. Doyle was not at all pleased to have his wonder taken to pieces in this way, and fought for his pigmies with all the pertinacity of an inventor of genera and species for shells, who has never seen them in their habitats, and has acquired his information from dead valves. On coming away, his last words were, "You've jist got the wrong notion, and when you git to Nashville you'd better talk about something else." 1 regretted my indiscretion, and was determined henceforward to be as care- ful about interfering betwixt a man and his pig- mie's as I would he betwixt a man and his wife. We returned to Sparta by a different road, and had a charming walk over a calcareous spur from the Cumberland Mountain, passing by Simpson's Bridge on the Calf-killer's Creek (so'called from an Indian chief), near to which I found a seam or parting in the limestone of argillaceo-calcare- ous earth, with some large specimens of Apia crlnoidea. We reached the village an hour after night. The next morning I prepareAto go to a place called the Wild Cat's Cove, where I was inform- ed there were great numbers of Indian graves and mounds ; but it began to rain, and continued wet the whole day. I therefore devoted the time to writing and arranging my fossils, which had accumulated upon my hands. In the evening my kind French friend gave me a letter to his father-in-law at St. Louis, and made me promise to deliver it in person. Here I took leave of him. During the few days I had oassed at Sparta, our friend Nidelet always used to come and visit us in the evening. Every body in the place knew him, and he knew every body; and 1 believe it was in part owing to his good offices, and the manner in which he always spoke of us, that so much attention was paid us, in having horses placed at our disposition to go upon our excur- sions. He was not pleased, however, with the conduct of the greater part of his debtors. His house at Philadelphia had permitted their coun- try customers about here to take silk goods to the amount of 70,000 dollars a very large sum, certainly, for one house to trust them with in only one branch of trade; and many of them not only told him they could not pay, b*ut would give him no security. Upon such occasions he was very prodigal of the terms "voleurs, coquins, chicaneurs;" and used to say, "Ces gaillards sont tousde nieme ; ils ne payeroient jamais s'ils ne craignoient pas les avocats, qui sont voleurs de m6me calibre." But, generally speaking, he was a person of the happiest disposition, had a great deal of drollery, and was by no means wanting in good sense and observation. I never met with any one better fitted to get along in such a country ; he could sleep any where or any how, and could eat, drink, and smoke any thing and every thing that came in his way. Once, upon observing that I was rather fastidious about the use of a towel, he said, " Monsieur, quant a moi, je trouve que tout est bon, quand il n'y a pas de choix!" a happy expression*, that merits the at- tention of all persons travelling in frontier^m- tries. He was a person of unbounded curiWty, and, observing that I attached importance to the fossils I collected, would not let me rest until I had given him an idea of the general scope of geological inquiry. Often would he interrupt me by exclaiming, "Magnifique! magnifique!" As soon as we had emptied our pockets in the evening, he would examine every thing, and ask, "Est-ce que ceci 6toit avant le deluge 1 ?" And when answered in the affirmative, would say, " Mis6ricorde !" Then, lifting up some unios, he would add, "Et ceci?" To which I would answer, " No, these are recent shells that I took from the river." That was sufficient for them ; he would instantly put them down, saying, "Ah, ce n'est rien done !" When we parted, he had just made such felicitous progress in the science of geology as to entertain the most sovereign con- tempt for every thing that had happened since the deluge. " Je m'etonne que vous ayez de la patience avec de pareilles b6tises, mon cher," he would say; a dreadful satire upon the labours of those philosophers who have forced all exist- ing things that are scarcely dissimilar to each other into different genera and species, and have excluded nothing but chimneys and haystacks from nomenclatorial classification. CHAPTER XII. Indian practice of burning the Underwood to enaole. the Natives to pursue the Game The Aboriginal Races to be traced by their Mounds General Jackson's Plantation, the Hermitage His character by a Neighbour Arrival at Nashville ON the 19th of September, at the dawn of day, we resumed our places in the stage-coach for Nashville, passing through a country with very much the same character as that about Sparta, the surface being occasionally cut up into ravines, and the road made rough by hummocks of lime- stone : the trees also, as we have seen them in 50 TRAVELS TN AMERICA. other places, were more open in the forests, and had abundance of wild grass growing up amongst them. This is particularly the case on the pla- teau of the Cumberland Mountain, where an im- mense pasturage is afforded to the cattle. This openness of the woods gives a park-like appear- ance to the country, and enables you to see through the forest for a great distance, which is very pleasing. The white men, however, having now driven the ancient race out of their country, the underwood is beginning to spring up quite thick, as the old settlers say, in comparison to its ancient state. < The soil was always prone to produce a lofty wild grass; and as this prevent- ed the Indians from seeing and pursuing their game, they were in the habit of annually setting fire to it, and thus kept the underwood down. During the morning we crossed Caneyfork, a fine branch of Cumberland River, where I saw immense quantities of large valves of the unio laid on the bottom of the stream. Our road was now up and down steep limestone slopes to a place called Liberty, where, as well as we could judge from the exterior, there was a decent tav- ern ; and as we had ridden thirty-three miles without breaking our fast, we told the people we hoped to gel a good breakfast. But it turned out they had no bread even of Indian corn, and in its place the landlady placed before us a filthy- looking mess of what she called boiled pie-crust, and added some soft of meat, but so filthy and bla^that we had to give the whole matter up and^> without anything. I remembered Mons. Nidelet's maxim, but I could not act up to it upon this occasion. I therefore went out to col- lect some fossils, and placing them on the seat of the stage-coach, where I thought, as we were the only passengers, they would not be disturbed, I entered the house again to see if I could not prevail upon them to get us some milk. The landlord of this house was a weazen-faced, dried- up Methodist, and was going a short distance on the stage-coach with his daughter to attend a camp-meeting. When I returned to the vehicle I found him there, and he asked me " if it wa me what had left that 'ar dirt on the seat," and said that he had flung it all into the road. I was angry enough to call him a senseless jackass, a matter which he. did not pretend to dispute with me. Being a religious man, however, and hav- ing meant no harm, I was sorrow for having said it, and told him so after 1 had explained what fossils were. This set all right when we got into the stage-coach, and I got some information from him about the country. He said there were immense quantities of Indian graves in the neighbourhood; and that about five miles from his house there was a mound, situated near a stream that flows into the Cumberland, with a circumvallation going round it that would meas- ure three quarters of a mile, with a great pro- fusion of graves near to it. I regretted I could not see this to make a sketch of it; for where mounds of a similar character are found upon a long line of country, they generally point to the origin of the Indians who have 'made them Some fragments of idols which I have seen in these valleys, whose waters flow into the Gulf of Mexico, are almost identical with some of the Mexican idols; and obsidian has been found in the mounds near Lake Ontairo, which is a strong indication of Mexican origin, as there is no ob sidian in the United States * It is always useful to give the forms and dimensions o Indian mounds and graves when seen at isolated points, fo At night we arrived at Lebanon, a place which s tolerably well laid out, and contains Some good >uildings : where there is any soil upon the rocks, t is very fertile, but the horizontal limestone :omes so near to the surface, that the ground is ifien unfit for agricultural purposes. By daylight on the 20th we were again in the itage-coach, proceeding through a country of flat imestone covered with a deposit of fine soiL Uolton now becomes the staple of the country. We stopped at a poor tavern and got a wretched breakfast, a not uncommon occurrence in these districts. Travellers always fare much better in arming than in cotton planting countries, where batter, milk, eggs, flour, &c., receive very little- attention from the small settlers. We now drove on to the Hermitage, the plan- tation of General Jackson, the President. I had seen at a tavern in Virginia a box directed to lim, and learnt accidentally that it had been waiting there several weeks, the contractor of he stage having refused to forward it because he carriage was not paid, and because he was opposed to the General in politics. I therefore took it under my care, and mentioning the cir- cumstance to him when I met him at Campbell's station, the old gentleman told me that the box: contained his favourite saddle, and that he had been inconvenienced for the want of it during; the short holiday he had been indulging in from, the seat of government. The mansion-house at the Hermitage where I stopped to deliver this box is built of brick, and is tolerably large; everything was neat and clean around it, the fences were well kept up, and it looked like the substantial residence of an opulent planter. The estate is said to be a very fine one, to consist of from seven to eight hundred acres of cleared land, two hundred acres of which are in cotton at this time, and to extend to the Cumberland river. The quantity of cotton which the land yields in this part of Tennessee is small com- pared with the great productiveness of the rich, bottom lands in the 33rd and 32nd degrees of latitude farther south, where the plant comes much nearer to perfection. A plain farmer of the neighbourhood who got into the stage wiih us, not far from the Hermit- age, to go to Nashville, and who had lived near General Jackson betwixt twenty and thirty years, , gave us a very intrresting account of this distin- guished man; which, making allowances for the partiality of a neighbour who shared his politi- cal opinions, I have no doubt is founded in truth. He said the General was an industrious, mana- ging man, always up to all his undertakings, and most punctual in the performance of his business engagements: that his private conduc* was remarkable for uniformly inclining to jus- tice, generosity, and humanity: that he was an excellent master to his slaves, and never permit- ted his overseers to ill-treat them. As to his house, he said it was constantly full of people, being in fact open to every body ; those whom he had never heard of before being asked to dine when they called, and those they had room for being always furnished with beds. For these reasons, he said, every body respected him, and most people loved him. As to his public, con- the purpose of connecting' long lines of such objects where they exist. One traveller sees one part of the line, and another traveller sees another. The Americans have not hitherto done much to make Europe acquainted with the in- terior of this part of their country ; they are as yet too much occupied in establishing themselves, and in making money. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. duct, he observed that he was rather an uncom- promising man, and liked to have his own way, but that his own way was always a very good one, and a very sensible one, if he was left to himself. He was man of strong passions, and had once been very much addicted to cock-fight- ing, horse-racing, and "cwtsiderable cursing and swearing," but that he had " quit all these," and was in earnest about doing good to the country. And he added, that if the General was not al- ways right, it was to be laid to the score of some of his political friends, who imposed upon him for their own private ends, a thing not very diffi- cult to do, because when he thought a man his friend he was too apt to go great lengths with him. These remarks, which fell from our fel- low-traveller in a quiet, sensible manner, are so much in accordance with what I have observed and seen of one of the most remarkable men the United States have yet produced, that I listened willingly to a very curious account he gave me of some incidents of the General's early life, which, I believe, have been greatly misrepre- sented. About 1 o'clock P.M. we fell in with an excel- lent macadamised road, leading to Shelbyville, and soon after came in sight of Nashville, the centre of civilization of the western country. Its appearance was prepossessing. We soon reach- ed the public square, and alighted at a good- looking inn, called the City Hotel, where at last we found some comforts, after getting over 900 miles in one way or another since the 1st of Au- gust. CHAPTER XIII. Description of Nashville-The College Professor Troost The Baptist Preacher and the Rattlesnakes Affinity betwixt certain Mexican Idols and others found in Se- quatchee Valley in Tennessee Public Spirit of the lead- ing men of Tennessee Mr. Ridley, one of the earliest Settlers His adventures Indian attack upon a stocka- ded Fort Heroic conduct of Mr. Ridley's Daughter Murder of White Children by the Savages, and unmiti- gable hatred of the Whites to them. IN the afternoon, after reading the numerous letters I found waiting for me at the post-office, and taking a hasty look at the town, I walked out to a villa in the neighbourhood where my friend Monsieur Pageot, of the French legation, was passing some of the summer months with his lady, who rs a native of the State of Tennes- see. We were delighted to meet in this distant part of the world, and I remained chatting with them until sunset. On reaching my quarters I began the serious work of answering my letters, for I find it one of the very best habits 6f-a man who has a great deal to do, to leave, if possible, nothing undone that belongs to the day, and at any rate to make a clear week of it. Nashville contains about 6000 inhabitants, has a public square, churches, meeting-houses, markets, &c. &c., and is built upon a lofty knoll of limestone, the fossiliferous flat rocks of which come to the surface : there is also a commodious bridge which connects the town with the nor- thern bank of the Cumberland River, on the road to Kentucky. Some of the streets are steep, and encumbered with sharp pieces of limestone, that punish the feet severely in walking. There is an excellent spacious building in the vicinity called the Penitentiary, and another is erecting for a hospital. Coming from the wilderness, where we have been leading rather a rude life self perfectly happy as the dii sums ; for, like all philosophi ] for some time, Nashville, with its airy salubri- ous position, and its active bustling population, is quite what an oasis in the desert would be; and when improvements are made in the naviga- tion of the Cumberland River, and in the public r^ads, it cannot fail to become a populous town. One of my first movements was a walk to the college to see Professor Troost, who is a great enthusiast in geology. It is to be mentioned t the honour of the State of Tennessee, that it has been one of the first of the American States (a patronise science, by allowing him five hundred dollars a year as geologist to the State, in addi- tion to his appointment at the college as profes- sor of chemistry and natural history, to which a salary of one thousand dollars a year is attached; so that the worthy professor is thus enabled to enjoy all the comforts of life, and to make him- distribator of these ic enthusiasts, he places no value on money," and willingly gives any of the country people twenty dollars to bring him a live rattlesnake, or anything new or curi- ous in natural history. Everything of the ser- pent kind he has a particular fancy for, and has always a number of them that he has tamed- in his pockets or under his waistcoat. To loll back in his rocking-chair, to talk about geology, and pat the head of a large snake, when twining itself about his neck, is to him supreme felicity.. Every year in the vacation he makes an excur- sion to the hills, and I was told that, upon one of these occasions, being taken up by the stage- coach, which had several members of Congress in it going to Washington, the learned Doctor took his seal on the top with a large basket, the lid of which was not over and above well secu- red. Near to this basket sat a Baptist preacher on his way to a great public immersion. His reverence, awakening from a reverie he had fall- en into, beheld to his unutterable horror two rat- tlesnakes raise their fearful heads out of the bas- ket, and immediately precipitated himself upon. the driver, who, almost knocked off his seat, no sooner became apprised of the character of his ophidian outside passengers than he jumped upon the ground with the reins in his hands, and was followed instanter by the preacher. The "insides," as soon as they learned what was going on, immediately became outsides, and nobody was left but the Doctor and his rat- tlesnakes on the top. But the Doctor, not en- tering into the general alarm, quietly placed his greatcoat over the basket, and tied it down with his handkerchief, which, when he had done, he said, " Gendlemen, only don't let dese poor dings pile you, und dey won't hoort you." Dr. Troost is a native of Bois le Due, in Hol- land, and is a short thick man, with a physiog- nomy entirely German, but pleasing and bsn^^c- olent; his hair is white, and his dress <#*-_ markably neat. He wa.< a surgeon in the Dutch army, and when he landed at -New York, was on his way to Java with a commission from Louis Bonaparte, then his sovereign, to examine the natural history of that island : learnin?, how- ever, that Java had been taken by the English, he proceeded to Philadeldhia with an intention to settle there. Dissatisfied with the neglect he experienced, he went to New Harmonyj in Illi- nois, with Le Sneur, another naturalist ; and becoming disgusted with the quackerv of the So- cialist philosophers who had assembled there to practice their insane theories, he, in a happy hour, came to Nashville, where his merit is ac- 52 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. knowledged. His private room at his house is full of snakes, fossils, turtles, birds, fishes, Indi- an relics, &c., &c., all thrown together in the greatest confusion. It makes no matter what it is, the Doctor is such a confirmed virtuoso, that everything is fish that comes to his net. The museum of the college, of which I had heard a great deal, contains numerous objects collected and placed there by him, chemical apparatus, dead animals, stuffed birds, turtles, fossils, min- erals, books, all stowed away without the least regard to order, and where none but the master- hand of all this confusion can possibly ferret out anything that may be wanted. Although a man gifted with a strong intellect, yet the organ of order seems to be rather deficient with the worthy Professor. I found him a most friendly and obliging person, and during my stay in Nash- ville went to see him as often as the public ex- aminations, now going on at the college, would admit of. Amongst his Indian relics I observed some (I had seen fragments of a like kind found in the valleys near Sparta) bearing a close re- semblance to the Mexican 1 idols or Teutes. One of them was very interesting. Some portions of a large Cassis cornuta a shell found near Tampico, in the Gulf of Mexico had been bro- ken away, and one of these images or idols was placed upon a point of the Columella as a kind of altar. This was found in Sequatchee Valley, in Bledsoe County, through which runs a tribu- tary of the Tennessee, whose waters flow into the Mississippi. This Sequatchee Valley seems to have been a fovourite resort of the Indians in old times, for it contains great numbers of their graves and monuments. When the language of the Cherokee Indians comes to be analytically examined, some affinities to the Aztec dialects may possibly be discovered; and it certainly is a fact of some importance to the inquirer after the origin of the Indians, that there are some points of resemblance between the Cherokees and Mexicans, and that the first had been seat- ed, long before America was discovered, in warm sheltered valleys that debouched into rivers emp- tying into the Gulf of Mexico. I received a great deal of pleasure during my stay here in attending the examinations at the college. One of the days was appropriated to Dr. Troost, and a great number of ladies and gentlemen assembled in his laboratory. The students read essays on geology and natural his- tory that deserved much commendation, and af- forded me, for the first time, such a gratifying spectacle as I had never before witnessed in any of the colleges of this country. The Doctor says, that although he has had some sensible, clever youths under his care, he has not yet met with one enthusiast therefore I do not appre- bed the science will make a very rapid prog- ^><;s here. The other branches of learning ap- peared to me to receive gre2t attention ; Mr. Hamilton, the professor of mathematics, is an able man, and Dr. Lindsay, the principal, seems worthy of his situation. The students, in sev- eral instances, had made very good progress in the languages and what struck and surprised me was the purity of their elocution, which was divested of everything like provincialism. I could not help complimenting Dr. Lindsay upon this point, for it is not to be concealed that the vulgar corruptions which are silently taking place in the English tongue in the Southern States threaten to establish a sort of Creole dia- lect, that,- in concert with the effects of their popular institutions of government, may rapidly effect the total corruption of our language there. The dialects of Lancashire and Yorkshire are unintelligible enough to strangers, but the respectability of antiquity attaches to them , they are the ancient language of the people of those districts, have been honestly transmitted down to them, and are slowly yielding to the progress of improvement. Here the people have been furnished with one of the finest languages spoken in Christendom, yet they seem to be ta- king such pains to make it indecently vulgar and obscure, that, although accustomed to it, I frequently am left almost ignorant of what they really mean to say. A liberal institution, like ibis college, conducted in the manner it is, is arl inestimable blessing to the state, and will enlarge and purify the minds of hundreds whose shining examples will assist to keep down the vulgari- :ies that must overrun every country where ed- ucation is not worthily attended to. The gen- tlemen of Tennessee who patronise this college, deserve therefore to be mentioned with all hon- our as the benefactors of the coming generation. No traveller who comes into the country as I have done, can feel anything but respect for what he sees around him in this place. When I first visited North America, in 1806, the word Tennessee was mentioned as a kind of Ultima Thule. Now it is a Sovereign State, with a population of upwards of 700,000 inhabitants, has given a President to the United States, and has established a geological chair in the wilder- ness. The first log-hut ever erected in Nash- ville was in 1780; now there is a handsome town, good substantial brick houses, with pub- lic edifices that would embellish any city in America, and certainly, as far as architecture is concerned, one of the most chaste episcopal churches in the United States. Besides these there are numerous extensive warehouses, evi- dences of a brisk commerce, and an exceeding- ly well constructed bridge thrown across the Cumberland River. It adds greatly too to the interest of the place, that a few of the hardy in- dividuals who, with their rifles on their shoul- ders, penetrated here, and became the first set- tlers, still live to see the extraordinary changes which have taken place. In one of my geological walks I called at the residence of one of these venerable men, a Mr. Ridley, who possesses a plantation about four miles from Nashville. Going along the road, a group of wooden buildings of a rude and com- paratively antique structure could not but attract my attention, especially one of them which stood alone, and differed from all the others. On en- tering a room of the dwelling-house I found a tall strapping young negro wench reeling cotton, with a machine that made such a detestible creaking, that I could scarce hear my own voice when I askad her if there was a spring of water near. As soon as she pointed it out, my son took a gourd shell, kept for the purpose, and went for water: in the mean time I passed into the court-yard, where I found an elderly woman, rather masculine in her manner, very stout in her person, and strong in her movements. Upon my asking her if she was the mistress of the house, she very civilly replied that she was not, " but that her mammy was," who was coming. I now perceived a much older woman, extreme- ly emaciated and sallow, but erect in her per- son, and very lively in her manner of speaking, coming froni a log-hut which served'as a kitch- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 53 en. This aged person naving obligingly asked me if I would not go into the house and take a chair, I went towards it, and near the door found an aged man with a hoary head, eyes that would scarcely bear the light, and every mark of ex- treme old age about him. He shook hands kindly with me, and asked me various questions, who I was, where I came from, where I was go- ing to, and was particularly anxious to know how old I was, seeing that my hair was grey. I spent the morning with this patriarchal family, and ingratiated myself so much with them, that they imparted their history to me. The old man, Daniel Ridley, was ninety-five years old, or would be so the 1st of January, 1835, being born on the first day of the year 1740, in the reign of George II. The emaciated wom- an was his second wife ; she was eighty years old, and during the fifty-four years they had been man and wife, she had borne him eight children. Miss Betsy, the stout woman for so she was called by the slaves was a daughter by his first marriage, and was now sixty-two years old : she had been married twice, and already had great grand -children. The patriarch himself, of course, had great great grand-children, one of whom, a descendant of his oldest son, now in his seventy-second year, was to be married next year, so he may yet live to bless his fifth genera- tion. He told me he had a short time ago been counting his descendants, but after getting as far as three hundred, he found it very troublesome, and had given it up. These had sprung from sixteen children, the produce of both his mar- riages. A curious little trait disclosed itself in the old man when he first began to converse, which is often observed in very old people. We were talking in the room where the cotton-ma- chine was screaking, and he articulated so fee- bly that it sometimes prevented my hearing what he said; I therefore mentioned it to the old lady, who bade the girl to stop, but the wench flatly refused, and \upon my telling her that she must stop, she said, " The old man won't let me stop." I now turned to him to explain the necessity of her stopping whilst we were conversing ; but I found it unnecessary hre was shrewd enough, and knew what we were talking about. " If she stops," said he, " she won't get her task done." At ninety -five years of age, on the brink of the grave, he could not bear to lose the value of a halfpenny for the delay would not have cost him more of the labour of one of his slaves. Miss Betsy told me before I went away, that when he was occasionally indisposed, and they had to lay him on his bed in the same room, he insisted upon the machine going from morn to night, and always scolded the girl if she stopped an instant. Old Mr. Ridley informed me that he was a native of Williamsburgh, in Virginia, that he emigrated from thence on marrying his second wife in 1780, and established himself on the north fork of the Holston, where they lived be- twixt ten and eleven years, continually engaged in troublesome contests with the Indians; but this he did not mind, he was naturally industri- ous, and having* eight children by his first wife, to whom he was married before he was twenty, it was necessary for him to work hard. He had also been a soldier in General Braddock's army, and was thoroughly inured to fatigue and dan- ger. Hearing of a settlement that was making on the Cumberland River, he joined a large par- ty, who, having built boats, came down the Holston, the Tennessee, and the Cumberland rivers, about eight hundred miles, to Nashville, where they landed in 1790. The families com- posing this expedition proceeding to settle them- selves, he selected the site he now lived on for his plantation. His first care was to clear an acre of ground for his fort, and construct a strong stockade around it, with a gate, as the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee Indians were fiercely contending against this intrusion into their hunt- ing-grounds. Within the stockade he built a double log-house, consisting, in accordance with the general custom, of two rooms, with a spa- cious passage between them, putting the whole under one roof. One of the rooms served the family to sleep in, the other for a kitchen, and the passage was a convenient place to eat and sit in. A few yards from this he erected a well- constructed block-house, for the family to fly to if the stockade was forced. This block-house yet stands on the N.E. corner of the fort, and was the building which we had observed was so dif- ferent from the others. On the S.E. corner of the fort he placed another block-house, and on, the S.W. corner another. On the N.W. corner he had not built one, because it was protected by the others. Within the area were a few oth- er buildings for the convenience of their horses and cattle. This was the general plan adopted by the whites for the protection of their families against the Indians; and certainly the block-house ap- pears to be a very convenient and efficacious building for the purpose it is intended to serve. The one we saw was about twenty feet square, and was built thus : next to the ground were six round logs about twenty-one feet long, laid upon each other, and well mortised : next came a log about twenty-four feet long, on the west side, and a similar one on the other sides, all well mortised. In this way a projection even with the floor that divides the upper chamber of the block-house from the lower one is formed beyond the ground-tier of logs, upon which an upper wall of round logs is built, after which the building is roofed in. Upon the roof pieces of wood are fixed for the garrison to step upon and extinguish any fire the Indians might succeed in setting to it with their arrows. Loop-holes also are made in the logs of the upper chamber to en- able them to fire at any of the Indians who ven- tured to show themselves ; as well as others in the projecting part of the floor, from whence they could fire perpendicularly down upon their be- siegers, if they should attempt to run up to the block-house to set fire to it. Mr. Ridley never was attacked in his fort; but a neighbouring one, on the plantation of his son- in-law, Mr. Buchanan, became the scene of an affair still talked of by many of the inhabitants of Nashville with great interest, and of which I had the details from the Ridley family. Mr. Bu- chanan resided about two miles from the Rid- leys : they had removed into Tennessee togeth- er, had settled near each other, and Mr. Buchan- an's son had married Mr. Ridley's daughter, Sally, a woman of very large dimensions, weigh- ing 260 Ibs. She had a courageous spirit corre- sponding to her size, and having been trained from her early youth amidst dangers, had al- ways as her father informed me been remark- able for her personal resolution, and her patient endurance of hardships. The fort of old Mr. Buchanan had once been surprised by theChero- kees and Choctaws, when the Indians, rushing; TRAVELS IN AMERICA. into the room where the old pair had taken ref- uge, butchered the old man in the presence of his wife, who, kneeling with her back to the wall, and imploring their mercy, had the muzzles of their guns pushed close to her face to frighten her. She was, however, spared. " I once ask- ed her." said old Mrs. Ridley to me, " how she felt when she saw her old man she had lived with so long tomahawked in that way; but she gave me no answer, and putting her hands be- fore her face cried so, I thought she would have broken her heart." In 1792, when the attack upon the fort which is going to be narrated took place, Mr. Ridley's son-in-law, Buchanan, had possession of it. The Indians had been gathering for some time, and the white settlers had been informed through their spies that it was their intention first to attack and subdue Buchanan's fort, then Rid- ley's, and afterwards another on the Cumber- land. Four hundred settlers had assembled, and had waited from day to day at Buchanan's, but it being rumoured that the Indians had given up Iheir intention, almost the whole of them return- ed to their own homes, the insecurity of their families keeping them in continued anxiety, so that only nineteen of the whole muster remain- ed, all of whom belonged to the immediate vi- cinity. One Saturday evening, a Frenchman, and a half-blooded Indian, arrived in great haste at the fort, to say that the Indians were on their way, and would soon be there. They were not believed, even when the half-blood told them they might cut his head off if the savages did not Teach the place in a few hours. Two men, how- ever, were dispatched to reconnoitre, and pro- ceeding heedlessly, they fell into an ambush, and were both of them killed and scalped. These messengers not returning, it was concluded that they had extended their reconnaissance, and that therefore the Indians could not be near: the con- sequence was that the Frenchman and the half- blood, who had professed to have come amongst them to take white wives, were now looked upon with great suspicion. In this state of things all the men of the fort retired to rest, leaving Sally Buchanan to sit up in the kitchen. Whilst she was listening in the dead of the night to a noise at a distance, which she at first supposed indicated the approach of the messengers, suddenly she heard the horses and cows struggling and running about in the enclosure in great agitation for, as Mrs. Rid- ley said, " Cows is mortal feared, as well as hor- ses, of them parfict devils the Indians ;" and un- derstanding the signs, she immediately roused the men with the cry of "Indians, boys! In- dians!" Instantly arming themselves, the men flew to the gate, which 900 warriors of the Chero- Irees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws were attempt- ing to force. The gate was thoroughly well se- enred, or it must have given way to their efforts ; but the Indians fortunately making no diversion at any other point, the brave men inside had but this to direct their attention to; and animated by a noble determination to defend the place to the last extremity, they made an aciive and vigor- cos defence, answering to the deafening yells of the savages by a shot at them whenever a chance occurred of its taking effect. In the mean time, it being discovered that the absentees had taken almost all the bullets with them, the heroic Sally Buchanan, thinking the men would be more ef- fectually employed at the stockade, undertook the task of supplying them, and at the kitchen- fire actually cast almost all the bullets that were fired, whilst a female relative who was staying witn her clipped the necks off. As fast as they were ready, Sally would run out with them, and cry aloud, " Here, boys, here's bullets for you; but mind you don't sarve'em out till you're sure of knocking some of them screaming devils over." This incident is equal taany thing we read of in history; and so much were the men encour- aged by the indomitable spirit of Sally, that the Indians, after a fruitless attempt to force their way in, which lasted several hours, becoming appre- hensive that the report of the rifles and the up- roar which Mrs. Ridley heard very distinctly two miles off would bring succours to the gar- rison, drew off before daylight, after losing sev- eral of their number. And thus the garrison, by its prompt and gallant resistance, not only saved itself, but all the other forts which the Indians had laid their account in capturing. At this period the most unquenchable hatred existed betwixt the Indians and the white set- tlers, ihe first struggling for their hunting grounds, the last for their lives. The Indians never spared the male whites when they could destroy them, and very seldom the females. As they were not always in sufficient force to attack the settle- ments openly, they proweled about in small par- ties, and placed themselves in ambush where the whites were accustomed to pass. Mr. Buchan- an had a grist-mill near his fort, to which the neighbours used to resort to have their flour made. Upon an occasion when Indians were not supposed to be near, one of their female ac- quaintances who lived in the vicinity sent her four young boys to the mill for grist lor the fam- ily, thinking they would not only be able to as- sist each other, but would be a mutual protec- tion. These little fellows were unsuspectingly surprised by some savages not far from the house, and the wretched mother had the unspeakable misery of seeing them all dragged into the woods to be scalped. Two of these boys survived and got renewed scalps, but they were always bald. Upon another occasion, a young girl was going on horseback to a friend's not more than two miles distant, and persuaded another young fe- male, her friend, to get up behind and accompa- ny her. Before they had got half way, however, the girl who rode behind was shot down by some Indians, and the other escaped by the fleetness of her horse, which she urged with desperation, and with which she took such a desperate leap as to be the wonder of the generation she belonged to. Still influenced by a feeling of unmitigable and unsatiable revenge against the Indians for practising such inhuman warfare, it is not sur- prising that when GeneralJackson went against the Creeks in 1813, the enthusiasm of the Ten- nesseans to serve under the bravest and most warm-hearted of their citizens should have been general. Four of old Mr. Ridley's sons accom- panied him. " The boys would go," said the old man to me : " I couldn't have stopped them if I had wished ; but I did not wish to do it." " Ay," added his old wife, "I told my boys they were as welcome to go with Jackson as they were to sit down to dinner." " Yes," said Miss Betsy, the sister of the Amazonian Sally, SnH the great- grandmother of several children, "I'd fight for Jackson myself, any day." And when I lock leave of this fine honest family, the old tnao grasped my hand in his, and said, " When you get to Washington, tell Jackson I was sorry 1x4 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. did not call on me; it is the first time he went away without calling; but I know he couldn't come; he sent me word he couldn't. Tell him," said he, and the old man, to the great admira- tion of my son and myself, absolutely sobbed, whiht his aged eyes were suffused with tears, "tell him 1 love him I love him better than I love any body: he Aas always been kind to me; there was always a good understanding betwixt us." As I was ging out at the door, he added, " Tell Jackson to send me a pair of specs : if I could only see to read the Testament, it would not be so hard to live : but I can scarce see at all."* I am rather afraid this was a piece of stinginess in the old patriarch, who could have found plenty of spectacles in Nashville. But he is a great economist; for a carpenter, who was doing a job to his house, having got it done a couple of hours before night, the old man, seeing a plank or two to spare, obliged him to stay the two hours out and make up the planks into a coffin for himself, which he actually keeps un- der his bed ; and there being still some stuff to spare, he told the carpenter it was a great pity there was not enough to make another for Mrs. ] Ridley. I learned afterwards that some partial settle- ! ments had been made about here before Mr. Rid- ley came to Tennessee, and, indeed, as early as 1779. General Jackson settled on a plantation near to that where he now resides in 1778, but happened to be from home when the Indians gathered in 1792. Dr. Robinson told me that his father was the first settler in 1779, and that he built his log-hut at French Lick, a mineral springt in the surburbs of Nashville. This lick was resorted to by wild animals; and a Mons. Monbrun, a French trader and hunter from Kas- kaskias, in the state of Illinois, who came nere to trade with the Indians, used to say that he has often sat on the bank of a ravine near the spring, and picked the finest buffaloes off with his rifle. Mr. Robinson, finding the country fertile and in- viting, left his party to plant corn, and returned to the east to conduct a larger number of his friends back, who were anxious to join his set- tlement at French Lick. These he brought, with their live stock, by a circuitous route to avoid some Cherokee towns; and, on reaching their destination, proceeded to occupy the country un- der grants of land from the State of North Car- olina, and to erect stockaded forts. No Indians had settled in these parts; and the whites, finding the country vacant, took possession without cer- emony. But although the Indians did not live here, they considered the country as their hunt- ing ground. Game was very abundant where they resided, and this was the reason why they did not even visit French Lick annually. Find- ing, however, that the whites were increasing in numbers, they commenced hostilities about a year and a half after the arrival of the whites, and waged war incessantly against them will: more or less vigour for fifteen years, harassing them so much, that at one time, disheartened by great losses of their children and friends, and seeing no end to the conflict, they were on the point of coming to a determination to abandon * General Jackson, to whom I related this interview on my return to Washington, confirmed all the incidents here mentioned, and snid he certainly would send the old patri- arch a pair of spectacles. t This is a snrin? of sulphuretted hydros-en, and the tem- perature is 52 F;ihr. Persons from New Orleans and other j. arts of Louisiana come here during the summer mouths. 55 the country. Of seven males in the family of Mr. Robinson, who was the principal leader of the whites, only two were left, himself and a son. Dr. Robinson told me that, when a boy, he re- membered his elder brother being brought home dead from a camp where he was making maple sugar. The Indians had killed him and cut his head off. CHAPTER XIV. The religious sect of the Campbellites Order of Priest- hood confined to handsome young fellows Geology of this part of Tennessee Section of the Couutry made by the Cumberland River for 300 miles Remarkable ancient bed of broken Shells Harpeth Ridge Unios of the Western waters. ON returning from my daily excursions to the hotel, I had always two or three agreeable fam- ilies to resort to, where I could pass an hour or two pleasantly. One evening I went to a soiree at a Mrs. M'C* * *'s, where the most select of the Nashvillian ladies were supposed to be pres- ent. Some of them were fashionably dressed and were pretty, rather provincial and hearty in their manners perhaps, but the evening went off ?uite en r6gle, and I was very much entertained, was told afterwards that the party was given to a lady on her marriage to a preacher of the CampbeUite persuasion, and that the greater por- ion of the company belonged to that sect, one of the most curious of the innumerable variety of religious persuasions in America. The Episcopal, or English Church as it is often called, appears, although it has no connexion with the government, to be the only steady church in the United States, keeping up an impregnable respectability by adhering to the Liturgy and to written sermons; a salutary practice that has hitherto rendered it the hope and asylum of all educated people in that country: but the dissent- ing churches, on the other hand, seem to be rath- er at sixes and sevens, and although many of them are temporarily popular, and filled to re- pletion by occasional favourite preachers, yet they are as prone to empty themselves again, upon the manifestation of any innovation in their doctrine or manners. The slightest deviation oi opinion or sanctity on the part of a favourite preacher is sure to raise up a party of pious cen- sors, and thus cliques are formed in a congrega- tion, upon the principle that it is quite wrong not to hate people with a perfect hatred that will not be of your opinion, and quite right to take sides against them who permit themselves to be found out. Then comes the natural operation of the voluntary principle, the breaking up of a con- gregation, and the formation of a new seel. I have heard this very common fermentatory process much commended, as one which, by cre- ating numerous sects, secures the United States from the preponderance of any one: a kind of logic which perhaps will not convince every- body, since it is not yet quite so clear that the possession of a great many things of doubtful and fluctuating importance is better than that of one whose excellence and integrity has for so long a period protected it from serious schisms. Experience seems to teach, that to become rea- sonable in this life, man is as much in want of a little steady spiritual influence to guide his mor- al way, as of legal authority to restrain his phys- ical actions; and time will show whether this is not as applicable to the United States as to t^ie mother country, which owes so much of its mor- 56 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. al position to the union of Church and State. As to the Campbellites, whom I saw upon this occasion, there certainly was nothing vulgar amongst them ; as far as appearances went, they might for aught I could discover have been Episcopalians; and I was curious to learn what were the opinions or doctrines which had for the moment united so many polite people. A lady, tp whom I spoke on the subject, and who was a Campbellite herself, was kind enough to ask me to drink tea with her, and meet one of their popular preachers, a Mr. F* *****. I willingly accepted the invitation, and passed a very pleasant evening. The amount of informa- tion 1 collected was, that Mr. Campbell, the found- er of the sect, was an Irishman, and that they agreed perfectly with most other religious com- munities on one point, to wit, that they were quite right, and all other persuasions quite wrong. They deny all priesthood, and their preachers are consequently not ordained, but are elected by their congregations, and are men not above the middle age. All the members of this sect call each other brother and sister, and marriage is a mere civil ceremony amongst them, wanting even the formality observed in the union of dua- kers. They are Baptists too, and have public immersions. Mr. F* ***** entered into a conversation with me respecting their religious opinions, which I would willingly have declined at that time, there being three or four very pret- ty women present; but he pressed me rather hard, and being a fine-looking man of about 34, natu- rally felt interested in vindicating the sect before so many handsome sisters. After some explana- tions, he repeatedly told me they could not be wrong, because the New Testament was the true guide for the universal church of Christ, and that they had constituted it theirs. I asked him if he understood Hebrew and Greek, to which he re- plied that he understood nothing but English, and did not want any other kind of learning to under- stand the Testament. Upon this I contented my- self with saying, that those who faithfully ob- served the precepts contained in it would no doubt lead innocent and happy lives, but that I believed even his translation did not authorise him to say that other Christians were wrong: that the Testament, nevertheless, was but a trans- lation from another language, and that all trans- lations were so far liable to error as to be sub- ject to different constructions : if translations then, were liable to misconstruction r who was likely tp be right the learned men who had deep- ly studied the Testament and the history of the church of Christ in the ancient languages, or those who, knowing no language but English, had no light but conjecture and party-feeling to guide them in their doubts 1 That it appeared to me as a matter of course, if men were divided into two sects, one believing in the validity of an or- der of priesthood, and another disbelieving it that the sect founded and kept up by men with- out human learning was more likely to have de- parted from the truth, and was more likely to disappear, than the Episcopal Church, which was but a copy of that of the mother country the divine authority of which had been so wel illustrated by the learning and holiness of the great scholars and divines that had adorned so many generations. He made no reply to this, merely saying tha he did not know the -ancient languages, bu that he wished he did, as he knew what an advantage learning gave to men. One of the adies, who did not seem pleased at the turn the :onversation had taken, asked me if I seriously nought that " Campbellism" ever'would "fall hrough;" to which I replied, that I could not lure to suppose so, as long as all the pretty women and handsome preachers combined to ceep it up ; upon which she good-naturedly said, he believed I " was making fun of them all," and then I took my leave. The geology of this part of the country is ex- remely interesting. We had now left behind us the highly inclined strata of the Silurian sys- em, and had got upon horizontal beds, evident- y the equivalents of those of the mountain-lime- tone of England ; many of which, in the neigh- >ourhood of Nashville, have been, with their fossils, accurately made out by Dr. Troost. The ocks of the Cumberland mountains constitute a ofty chain, which forms the boundary betwixt the states of Kentucky and Virginia, and runs thence o the north-east. The great bituminous coal- ield of the western country appears to lie prin- cipally west of this chain, at the summit of which ndications of coal are found ; and the geological )osition of the Nashville beds may be deduced, ndependent of their fossils, from the section which the course of the Cumberland river has opened, from its source in the state of Kentucky to Nashville in Tennessee, a distance of about 300 miles. At the falls of this river, in Whitely County : Kentucky, the river, leaving the sandstone of the coal measures, has worn its way through a quartzose conglomerate grit, united by silicious and argillaceous cement, to the depth of about 500 feet, and continues to flow over it for some distance beyond the falls. Pursuing its way, it next cuts through a bed, consisting principally of shale, about 200 feet thick, in which are three horizontal veins of good bituminous coal, each from three and a half to four and a half feet thick. The river runs on the bottom of this bed, about three miles below the mouth of Laurel river, and the banks continue to expose the coal veins for a distance of seven miles below Rock Castle River : here the Cumberland has cut into a bed of compact limestone with an oolitic struc- ture similar to the oolitic bed of the mountain limestone of England about 300 feet thick. To this succeeds a series of horizontal calcare- ous beds, about 200 feet thick, which, at the mouth of Big Indian Creek, show themselves in the banks, together with a seam of bituminous shale, which is 20 feet thick at Big Indian Creek, and is continued at Harpeth Ridge near Nash- ville. Near to the creek the river has worn its channel into the flat beds of limestone which are found at Nashville, and which maybe estimated at 300 feet thick, dowrf to the junction of the Cumberland with the Ohio. The section of these beds would appear thus : Conglomerate grit 500 Shale with coal 200 Compact limestone 300 Horizontal calcareous beds 200 Bituminous shale 20 Lower series of beds to the Ohio ... 300 T52T Many of these beds, all of which are horizon- tal, contain fossils. In the compact limestone a trilobite is found, which appears not to differ from the Calymene Blnmenbachii, but it is so incorporated with the rock, that I have never procured a specimen that was not much mutila- ted; and, as has been mentioned before, the TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 57 chert in the seams is often beautifully agatized with a chalcedonic botryoidal appearance. The lowest point at which 1 had an opportu- nity (I did not pursue the Cumberland to the Ohio) of examining the series was on the shore of the Cumberland at Nashville, the river being then very low. The various beds through which the rivei has cut its channel, and which also appear in parts of the neighbouring country, vary a good deal in their crystalline structure and in their organic remains. The lowest on the shore of the Cumberland were of a dark blu- ish grey colour, with a structure between that of old granular and compact secondary limestone : they occasionally abounded with nodules of sili- ceous matter resembling chert, black outside, but greyish within, their mineral substance ap- pearing to have been infiltrated into cavities that perhaps once contained organic matter. The rocks were -frequently covered with fucoidal strings and zoophytes, that had become quite black by exposure to the sun when the river was low ; and of these the characteristic marks were obliterated, and their surfaces rounded off by aqueous attrition and exposure ; they stood, how- ever, in singular relief, the calcareous matter having been rubbed away and the siliceous mat- ter left. Favosites, quite black, were in abun- dance, in large irregular round masses, with sharp crisped circles ; these, as well as the Stromato- pora, with concentric lamina and tubercules, are called by the country people " petrified buf- falo dung." Here also is found a long concam- erated shell, which Dr. Troost has called " Co- nolubularia," which I have seen before on the limestone beds, near the Saguenay River, in Lower Canada. The other zoophytes belonging to this bed, which I saw, such as calamopora, columnaria, &c.,.were all siliceous. In a superior bed, the cavities were filled with interesting accidental minerals, their walls being lined with carbonate of lime, upon which beau- tiful crystals of strontian, of a fine sky blue col- our, sulphate of barytes,- fluate of lime, fibrous gypsum, and crystals of sulphuret of zinc upon brown spar, often appeared, as they sometimes occur in a galeniferous district. This lime- stone, when rubbed, has a faint smell of bitu- men. Dr. Troost pointed out to me, in the banks of the Cumberland, a conglomerated bed of dead shells, fractured, and much comminu- ted, where all the valves appeared to be single, at least I could find no bivalves that adhered to each other. This must have been a bed of dead shells before the rock became indurated. It lies between two beds of compact limestone, and is in some places 15 feet thick, whilst in others it thins off to one or two feet, and then disappears, as though it had been an ancient drift of broken shells. Lying, as it does, betwixt beds filled with perfect bivalves and other unmutilated fos- sils, it is a remarkable deposit, which speaks volumes about the ancient state of the submarine surface of the earth. Above these beds is a stra- tum of coarse granular limestone, covered al- most with that beautiful fossil called Strophome- na rugosa. But there is a ridge near Nashville, called Harpeth Ridge, where a good section of some of the beds of the vicinity can be obtained, and Dr. Troost was kind enough to accompany me there. This ridge seems to be an outline of the ancient surface of the country before it was lowered by the removal of so many strata, and rises con- spicuously above the level of Nashville, with a strong bed of argillaceous sandstone at the top. The three principal beds of which it consists, superadded to the subjacent strata, including the lowest calcareous bed on the Cumberland Riv- er, near to Nashville, give the following section of this part of the country, consisting of nine dis- tinct beds of limestone and sandstone, sometimes separated from each other by dull slaty lime- stones and other seams of mineral matter. Feet No. 1. 75 No. 2. 10 No. 3. 15 No. 4. 10 HARPETH RIDGE. An argillaceous sandstone, sometimes cher- ty, sometimes granular. No organic bod- ies in the granular part, but contains en- eremites in the calcareous seams towards the bottom. This bed reappears in various other parts of Tennessee, but has general- ly been caried away with many of the subordinate beds. Nashville, and a great part of the adjacent country, are on the the bare limestone. The ridges towards the N.E. are sharp, have abrupt projec- tions, and steep declivities ; whilst on the opposite side the slopes are gentle, and the crowns of the hills rounded, as though, a current had retired that way. Compact limestone, abounding in fossils where it is cherty. Encrinites, trilobites, gorgonia antiqua. Encrinital limestone. Echinodermata. Tur- binolia. Flustra. Spirifers. Alternates occasionally with sandstone. The fossil bodies sometimes siliceous. Slaty clay or shale, often bituminous. This bed reappears in other parts of the dis*- trict : contains reniform masses of sulphu- ret of iron. No. 5. 8 No. 6. 12 NO. 7. 6 No. 8. 12 No. 9. 15 Granular sandstone. Coarse granular limestone, with a slight green chloritic stain. Asterias. Stropho- mena rugosa. Calymene Blumenbachii, asaphus platycephalus, pentamerus, cate- nipora, ceriopora, &c. Argillaceous limestone, with trilobites and calamapora, &c., separated from No. 6 by a partial bed of broken dead shells. A tough compact grey limestone. Ortho- cera. Conotubularia. Favosites. Tur- bo bicarinatus covering whole plates of the limestone. Granular limestone of a bluish black grey colour, when fractured shows reddish points. Cherty bodies jn cavities. Co- notubularia. Favosites. Stromotopora. Accidental minerals, strontian, brown spar, zinc, with galena disseminated in it ; it is far, there* fore, from being improbable that these are indi- cations of productive deposits of sulphuret of lead. Of all these fossils and minerals I made a very good collection, besides adding greatly to my collection of unios, of the most beautiful varie- ties of which the Cumberland River contains a surprising abundance. This molluscous animal delights in the rivers that flow through a calca- reous country, and certainly flourishes more in the streams that empty into the Gulf of Mexico than in those that flow into the Atlantic. This predilection of theirs is a fact worth inquiring into. Whether it be the effect of the abundance of calcareous matter, the softness of the climate, or to their being direct congeners to the unios which inhabit the Mexican and South American rivers, the fact is now well ascertained that very few of the beautiful varieties which live in the Western waters are found in the Atlantic streams 58 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. and it appears that where they are mixed to- gether, it is generally at the heads of great riv- ers flowing in contrary directions, which, at periods of high water, occasionally flow into -each other. But where were all these fresh- water bivalves when the whole country was un- der the salt ocean 1 If they are a creation since the establishment of the existing rivers, may not each race of them have been produced where they now live, and their various appearance be the consequence of an adaptation to the circum- stances which influence their structure? On the 4th of October, having despatched all my collections in casks to New Orleans, to be forwarded to New York, and taken places in the stage-coach for Louisville in Kentucky, I called upon my various friends at Nashville to thank them for the very kind attentions we had receiv- ed, and to bid them adieu. I had received very pleasing impressions both of the inhabitants and the place, and was glad that I had visited it. At the inn where we staid we led a very quiet life ; they soon ceased to stare at our bringing rocks and shells home, and let us do just as we pleas- ed. Having become a little accustomed to dirt, too, the sight of it was not so distressing as it used to be. The table was pretty good : I sel- dom dined at it, but the people very obligingly gave me something to eat at my own hours, and I expressed my satisfaction to them on paying my bill. CHAPTER XV. Leave Nashville The Barrens of Kentucky The Mam- moth Cave First View of the Ohio River- Arrival at Louisville Falls of the Ohio Henry Clay, his great popularity Captain Jack of the Citizen Steamer, a most catawampous Navigator Public indifference to the loss of Life in new Countries Explanation of "a Sin to Crockett." AT one o'clock A.M., October 5th, we bade adieu to Nashville, and after proceeding about fifteen miles north of the Cumberland, the coun- try began to rise rapidly. At the dawn of day the stage-coach going very slowly up hill, I glad- ly got out and" walked, and when we had reached the summit of the plateau, found we were upon beds of limestone bearing small fan-shaped sul- cated impressions resembling others I had seen near Sparta, and which appeared to have been made by marine fuci. For some distance the road passed through a valley focmed by chains of Knobs, as they are called here, which are calca- reous hummocks somewhat resembling those in the country betwixt Kingston and the Cumber- land mountains. The districts here are of a secondary quality, and the Kentucky people call them Barrens, because they are not as fertile as the rich low lands which are, occupied by the first settlers. In this they imitate the Dutch peo- ple who settled the fertile bottoms of the Mohawk river in the State of New York in the middle of the seventeenth century. A Dutchman would say he had so many morgens of land, and a mile of berg; but be never would dignify the hills with the name of land. These barrens, however, have tolerably good timber upon ihem, and when the population of the. State renders it necessary to occupy them, they will he^fonnd to be good sec- ondary soils, for in many parts of them I saw good tobacco and corn growing. At present it is an uninteresting country, not broken up enough for a geologist, and the settlers are so poor and slov- enly that, with very few exceptions, there is no- thing but dirt to be seen in the taverns; so that, of course, there is nothing like comfort to be ob- tained in them. There was always some dinner provided for the stage-coach, but it was impossi- ble to sit down to such miserable stuff, and 1 found it a better plan to wander and look about, and use my increased appetite as a sauce to the bad suppers we got. We found the peopJe, how- ever, civil and obliging; they are cut off from every source of improvement, and seem content- ed with the comfortless condition they exist in, because they know no better. We arrived at the Bowling Green at night, where there is a tavern of some pretensions, and here I got a wretched bed to lie down upon for a few hours. In the morning we started again, and crossed the Big Barren, an extensive and important tributary of Green River, which traverses the western part of Kentucky and empties itself into the Ohio. We breakfasted at a Mr. Bell's, the nearest inn, I be. lieve, to the Mammoth Cave, about the great ex- tent of which much has been said. Its mouth is in a valley of horizontal limestone, not far from Green River, and, like most caves of great magni- tude, such as that of Carinthia near Laybach, St. Michael's at Gibraltar, and the Helderberg in the State of New York, all of which I have visited, is composed of numerous galleries and branches, presenting occasionally vaulted domes, pools of water, deep pits, with depending stalactites and other calcareous minerals. One of the domes of this cave is said to be 120 feet high, and from the great extent of the place where it rises, it has been appropriately chough called the Temple. I was told that the cave extends two miles from its mouth, and that the length of all the galleries taken together exceeds seven miles; so that it must be a severe day's work to any one who would undertake to visit every known part of it. Nitrous earth is found here in great quantities, and the cavs must be a surprising curiosity to those who have never visited such places. We had DO time to go there, and very little inclina- tion to delay the progress of our journey, time be- ginning to be precious. We were informed, how- ever, that the mouth of the cave was the source of some revenue to the proprietor who owned the land, and that he was extremely averse to any one taking a plan of it, lest a shaft should be sunk into it in another part and an opposition portal set up. These caves appear to be very numer- ous in this part of Kentucky, What are called sink-holes are constantly to be seen on the surface of the land. These are circular depressions in the form of reversed cones, sometimes 25 feet deep; they appear to be sections of cavities in the limestone, and frequently lead to a cave. I observed a very ingenious use which some of the farmers had made of them. If there is an orifice at the bottom they cover it well over, and then plastering the whole with clay the sink-hole be- comes an excellent pond of water for their cattle and for domestic uses. The soil in this part of the country is sometimes very red, and I havfr. frequently had water, after rain, brought to int. to wash with so muddy and red that I could hot use it. The country-people, however, are so ac- customed to the water in this state that they do not object to it. We crossed Green River, a pretty stream re- semblin? Caney Fork in Tennessee, at Mum- ford's Ville, a singularly shabby looking place, notwitdstanding its fine name. Towards even- ing we met the Tennessee race-horses on theit return from the Louisville races, where they had triumphed over the Kentucky horses, to the'great TRAVELS IN AMERICA. mortification of the Kentuckians. At Elizabeth Town, a pretty thriving place, where we arrived after sunset, we got a comfortable supper at a tolerably good house, and resumed our journey at midnight amidst torrents of rain. At length, towards morning, we began to descend the great table-land we had so long been crossing, and were evidently approaching some valley where the general drainage of the country was carried on ; the land became flatter and more fertile, the forests exceedingly thick, and the trees of such great magnitude in comparison with those we had left behind that without seeing the famous Ohio River we were quite sure we were upon the al- luvial deposit adjacent to it. When we were least thinking of it we came to a clearing, and an immense river appeared before us. " That must be the Ohio !" was our mutual exclama- tion, and so it was, just where Salt River emp- ties into it. I was perfectly delighted with this magnificent stream, and ample as was its volume, could not but think of what it was in ancient times when it covered all the rich flat land we had passed over on its south side for the last two miles. Nothing can be more fertile and beauti- ful than this land, which, in every part, is cov- ered with noble trees. We entered Louisville at one P. M., by way of the race-course, which seems to be well laid out, and is kept up with much care. At the City Hotel we (buna excellent accommodations, equal in many particulars to those in the Atlantic cities. Certainly it is a very great luxury to repose a <3ay or two in one of these good inns after so much suffering for want of food and rest; and here, besides other comforts, we not only found a table abundantly supplied, but things to cor- respond in a manner that would keep any criti- cal epicure in good humour. Louisville is a well laid-out town, advanta- geously placed on the south bank of the Ohio, and accessible to the portly steamers that con- stantly resort to it. It has three wide streets par- allel to the river, each of them 80 feet broad. The principal of these is Main Street, which is quite a busy place, and nearly as much built up, as I remember Broadway, the principal street of the now populous city of New York, to have been in 1806. These streets are crossed at right angles by other streets leading into the country. The town fronts what are called the "Falls of the Ohio," an extensive rapid about two miles long, with a fall in the bed of the river of about twelve feet to the mile. To avoid these falls and make the navigation continuous, a canal has been constructed on the south side near to the city from the western termination at Portland to deep water near the town. This is a costly work, and the lock at the west end for admitting steamers is very capacious. The bed of the Ohio, comprehending the widest part of the falls, is about one mile and a half across, and, most fortunately for me, the river was unusually low at this time, so that about three quarters of a mile of the bed of the river was quite bare and dry, and I could walk about in every direction on the flat limestone beds, which abounded with fos- sils. The channel of the river when the water is so low is near the north bank, on the shore of the State of Indiana, and at such times you can walk with great security to a few islands which are between it and the city. One half of one of these islands was carried away in the spring of this year to the .base, and a beautiful bed of en- crinites became thus uncovered. Near to an- other of these islands some men were engaged in a limestone quarry for the use of the city, and as the rock peeled off in seams of from eight to twelve inches, it disclosed a surprising abun- dance of rare fossils, many of which I had never seen before, and of which I made a rich collec- tion. Most of the beds of limestone are bitumi- nous, and the smell in some of them amounts to fetor. Petroleum is found in many cavities, and I was informed that when they were engaged in blasting the beds lor constructing the canal, they came to places where a gallon of the mineral oil could be collected during the twenty-four hours. The frequency of this phenomenon has led some persons to suppose that all the deposits of bitu- minous coal are not of vegetable origin. Upon the whole Louisville is a prosperous and agreeable place, and appears to be under the government of judicious magistrates. The man- ner of paving the streets pleased me very much; after being well graduated, seams of limestone from the Ohio are set upon their edges close to each other, and are then covered with the mac- adamised metal. The place, however, is not at all times equally active, its business being much, influenced by the state of the water: when it has rained in the upper country and the river rises, everything is life and bustle, and the people are as active as the Egyptians when the Nile is on the increase; steamers are immediately put in motion, and travellers are moving in every di- rection. Large steamers of 500 tons burthen are constantly arriving and departing. I visited one of this class called 'The Mediterranean,' which was fitted out in a very convenient and handsome man- ner. Families in these boats can have good state cabins to themselves, and are furnished with an abundant and well-dressed table. Wine, spirits, bottled porter, ale, &c., are sold by the steward ; so that nothing is wanting to mitigate the tedium of a long voyage to New Orleans or any other place. Besides the first class of passengers the steamers receive a great quantity of merchan- dise, and many passengers of the lower classes, who are entirely separated from the others and who find their own provisions. When the wa- ter is low, few of the large steamers venture above the falls, as they are apt to run aground on the shoals, and remain there a long time. The Kentuckians are an enteprising, indus- trious, and united people ; they inhabit a beau- tiful country, and cultivate a generous soil. With a magnificent river upon their frontier, that can convey their tobacco, pork, corn, and their other various productions, to every part of the earth, they seem to have all the elements within themselves of permanent prosperity. The people, too, do not appear to have been demor- alised by low demagogues to the extent that they have been in some of the other States, and hence are not so much under their influence, but rather listen to the precepts and imitate the examples of their superiors. Of these the acknowledged leader is Henry Clay: his name, which is so well known through the United States, operates like a talisman whenever it is mentioned in Ken- tucky. There is not a man in the State but is proud that Mr. Clay is a Kentuckian. Indeed, identified as all his interests are with the State ; being the most extensive farmer, the most spir- ited improver of all the breeds of cattle, horses, and mules, the most affable of men to all classes, having an established reputation for undaunted personal courage, and never having been known to do a mean action either in his public or pri- 60 TRAVELS IN AEERICA. vate capacity, whilst during his long political career he has been conspicuous above almost all his fellow-citizens for active and shining talents; it is not surprising that his character should have made an impression upon the people, and that they should by their conduct acknowledge the advantages they derive from their relation to so eminent a person. What a blessing would it be to this great republic if its people, turning a deaf ear to selfish demagogues, would but con- sent to receive, even if it were but for one pres- idential term, so much permanent benefit as they would derive from his great experience, his manly virtues, and honourable consistency ! The weather having set in very rainy, and being fatigued and disgusted with stage-coach journeys in these unsettled countries, I turned my attention to a trip by water to St. Louis, in the State of Missouri. There was a very small steamer called the Citizen, which was lying at the western end of the canal, commanded by Captain Isaac Jack, a native of the State of Mis- sissippi. When the water in the river is low, these small steamers come into play, and of course exact a much higher price than when all the boats are running. Captain Jack's boat had a board up by way of advertisement, signifying that he was to sail " to-day ;" and as the rain made me rather dread the horrid roads which I should have to travel over in a land journey across the States of Indiana and Illinois to St. Louis, I walked early in the morning to the place where the Citizen lay, and went on board of her. I found a great many passengers there who had slept in the boat; and knowing what monstrous lies the captains of these vessels tell to induce passengers to embark with them, I thought I would speak with Captain Jack before I engaged our berths. Captain Jack, who was breakfast- ing in his cabin, had " considerable" of that buc- caneering look about him which is common to his class on the Mississippi. He seemed in a very great hurry, and was surrounded by a num- ber of impatient passengers, some of whom had embarked merchandise with him with a view of being the first to get to St. Louis with their goods. The truth was that the captain had always been going " to-day" for several days past, but had not got off yet. His custom every morning and evening was to set " that bl d bykr" as he call- ed the boiler, a-going to make decoy steam, and in this way he had managed to entice various passengers to send their luggage on board. They soon found out the trick after they had got there, but as the wharf was three miles from Louisville, and Captain Jack's blandishments had still some influence with them, they continued with him ; and there he kept them de die in diem by all sorts of ingenious expedients and mendacious prom- ises, not one of which had he the slightest idea of keeping. Inquiring of him when he intended to start, he answered "At four in the afternoon precisely." " How many best berths have you to spare 1" "There's jist two, and no more." "Will you show me the book?" On looking at it I saw that not one-half of the berths were taken, and observed, " I did not suppose he would start with so many empty berths, but would wait for the Eastern stages to-morrow, and that I should like it as well." Now the captain and I should have agreed very well on this point if we had been alone, but, with the fear of his passengers before his eyes, he answered, " No, if you ain't aboard at four, you'll not find me here; all won't stop me ; I ain't a-going to stop not a minute fof no stages." The passengers, who were attend- ing to our conversation, now seemed to take courage, and assured me that the boat would start punctually at four, for all the cargo was- taken in. " Why," said Captain Jack, drawing up in an attitude of offended honour; "do you think I would tell you a lie about it for double the passage-money 1 If I would, I wish I may be etarnally blown I know whare." I was now quite sure he did dot intend to go ; but hoping to out-general him, I said, in a quiet way, <: I am not a man of business ; I am travelling for pleas- ure ; two or three days are of no great conse- quence. They say the water is rising at Pitts- burg, and it will be as comfortable for me to. wait a day or two, as to go now and run upon the shoals. If you had been going a couple of days hence, it might have suited some of us, for yours is a nice-looking boat ;" which, indeed, it was. This rather "slumped" Captain Jack, and he left off swearing by four o'clock, know- ing that another steamer was advertised to sail immediately after him, and fearing lest he should drive me to go to that. He looked piteously at me, as much as to say that if we were alone we could come to an understanding. But the pas- sengers, alarmed at my proposition, now told him to a man they would all go ashore if he did not go at four. Uttering, therefore, the most astound- ing imprecations,* and invoking the most absurd horrors upon himself and his steamer, which, if he did not keep his word, he first wished at the bottom of the Ohio, and then at the bottom of the Mississippi, not forgetting to wish himself at the bottom of a much worse place, he turned from his passengers, and in a low, winning sort of a way, said, " Stranger, if I don't go at four, you can go back to Louisville, I'll be if you. can't, and that's fair, at any rate." I thought it was tolerably so, and we therefore embarked our A few minutes before four the " byler" took up its part and produced a little steam, and fora few minutes there was an appearance of bustle on board. Amidst all this, nobody had seen the captain for several hours, and he was now miss- ing at the most critical moment. All the an- swer we could get from the steward was, that " the captain had gone for the pilot." In the mean time carts kept coming with goods, which were laid on the beach, evidently intended to be shipped: amongst these were several small: casks filled with gunpowder. The hours slipped away, and at eight o'clock the passengers were furious, for it was too clear that Captain Jack had " done" them out of one day more. At half- past eight he came on board, with the appear- ance of a man overcome with fatigue and anxi- ety, swearing lustily that he had not been able to find the pilot, but had left word with his wife to send him on ; that he was a first-rate pilot, " a leetle slow or so at moving abaywt ;" but "sar- tin it was the most onaccountablest thing that he had disa^?/nted him so ; howsumdever, he'd be here directly." I now became spokesman, and ventured to tell Captain Jack that his four o'clock, had become almost nine, that all his oaths were broken, and that it was evident he had never in- * An apology would be due to the reader if any specimen were detailed, however slight, of the tremendous blasphe- mies with which men of this class in the Southern States interlard their speech. Oaths, which are only expletively used by others, with them form the staple commodity of language ; and the few innocent words, they utter seem al- most to Ls afraid of coming in betwixt the claps of thunder TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 61 tended to go, because the beach was covered with merchandise and gunpowder not yet em- barked. To which he promptly answered, that "he warn't a-going to take one single curse's worth of it; and that as to the gunpowder, if we thought he was sich a ^accountable fool as to take that and ruin his insurance, we didn't know him; that it might lie there till all etarnity was over for what he cared, for he had ordered his people not to touch it." The passengers now broke but into a strain of general dissatisfaction, which he parried by curs- ing and swearing against the pilot for "disapynt- ing" him, and invoking, with the most unheard- of blasphemies, all sorts of evil to befal him if he did not go punctually at nine the next morning. *' And," said I, " what security have you to offer us that you will go in the morning, after lying in the way you have done 1 Nobody believes you about the pilot; and do you think we are such fools as to believe a word you say about any thing!" Upon which the fellow said, "Stran- ger, if that ain't catamount to saying I'm a liar, then I reckon I don't know nothing;" and. turn- ing to the passengers with an impudent leer, add- ed, " Gentlemen, it's my interest to give you parfict satisfaction, and if I don't go to-morrow morning at nine to a minute, I'll treat you all to as much wine as you can drink, and that's fair, by !" Thus caught, we remained all night on board. I rose with the dawn of day, and, go- ing to the beach, saw that all the goods were gone ; and not doubting but that they had been taken on board whilst we were all asleep, I in- quired of one of the hands, and he not only con- firmed it to me, but showed me where the gun- powder was stowed away. About six the captain turned out, and said he was going to town for the pilot ; but the passen- gers who had been longest on board, perceiving they had no hold upon him at all, were now be- come very much incensed, and gathered round him. I asked him where the gunpowder was; and he immediately answered that he had sent it back to Louisville in a waggon, and even na- med the merchants he had sent it to. This I told him I did not believe one word of; that I knew the gunpowder was on board, and it was not at all unlikely but that the steamer would be blown up. Upon which, in the most deliberate manner, he invoked every sort of perdition upon his soul if there was a grain of gunpowder in the steamer, and offered to go with any of us and examine the whole cargo. Some of the passen- gers now said I was carrying the matter too far, as he did not dare to carry gunpowder on freight, for it was contrary to law, and would make the insurance void; and Captain Jack, stepping for- wards after the manner of "Ancient Pistol," boldly offered to give me a thousand dollars in specie for every grain of gunpowder I could find on board of her. As this insolent, yet ridiculous proposition was a figure not easily matched in the great art of browbeating, I determined to join issue with the captain here, and to blow him up, in the hopes of saving the steamer. I there- fore coolly told him that he was an ingenious fellow, but that he had made a false move for once; for I knew that the gunpowder had been taken on board by his directions, that it was now in the forecastle not far from the furnace, that I had seen it there within half an hour, and that if he and the passengers would go forward with me I would show it to them. Captain Jack now was checkmated, and, without denying the fact, said, " Stranger, I niver did see sicn a man as you are ; I swar you beat all creation for contra- riness. But, gentlemen, if I don't go at nine to a minute, I'll give you leave to set fire to the bl d gunpowder and blow the steamer to ****." Leaving his passengers with this extraordina- ry alternative, he went ashore to look for more freight and passengers; and, following his ex- ample, I returned to Louisville to breakfast, sent a carriage for our luggage, and the rain abating, and the Ohio not rising, determined to be satis- fied with the experience I had acquired in rela- tion to small steamers and their captains. The lies these fellows tell are like custom-house oaths with many persons, told in the way of business only. Great a liar as Captain Jack was, he was said to be an obliging, good fellow. As to explosion from gunpowder, or destruction from any other cause, they occur with so much frequency as to have created a general indiffer- ence to accidents of this kind. An explosion of the boiler of a steamer called the Banner took place about this time on the Mississippi: five persons were killed, and sixteen frightfully scald- ed. It was the occasion of a paragraph in the newspapers headed " Melancholy Disaster," but I never heard it alluded to afterwards. Perhaps the accidents are few compared with the great number of bad steamers, and worse engineers and commanders, on the Mississippi. Any fel- low with the slightest knowledge of machin- ery sets up for an engineer; no certificate is re- quired of his ability, and if he will serve for a low price, the lives of the parties on board are at once entrusted to him. The steamers go by high pressure ; and when the engineer and cap- tain are two-thirds drunk which often happens in the small steamers they drive the steamer as fast as she will go, and sometimes load the safety-valve to terrify the passengers. All these accidents happen from rashness o"r carelessness. Those who go in the small steamers are gener- ally poor people emigrating to the western coun- try, speculators, gamblers, and people little known ; all fatalists to a certain extent; at any rate, believing that their chance is as good as that of any body else; and when they have made a mistake, it is a matter which concerns very few people, and makes little or no impression upon others, for human life is not esteemed as precious in these wild countries as in com- munities where existence is cherished and pam- pered. As mea advance in civilisation, every individual is a link in society, and his life is valuable to the rest, who know how to feel and compassionate the loss of one of their number. Here it does not strike any one as being partic- ularly surprising that such people should per- ish ; indeed, if the world thought about it at all, it would be surprised that they had not perished before. Men, too, are rapidly reproduced in this country of easy subsistence. Property is risked in the same manner, because it is easily acqui- red again. Food and clothing are obtained by very small exertions, the active men of these frontier countries not having, like the individu- als of denser communities, any apprehensions on that score. They know they have an unoc- cupied wilderness before them, with land and game to fly to: and as to the wealth which many of them are eager to obtain, it is not desired for the purpose of placing the happiness of them- selves or their families upon a solid foundation, but is a prize of which, when drawn, the amount is laid out in lottery tickets again, all of which TRAVELS IN AMERICA. frequently come up blanks. Such men meet re- verses in a quieter way than others do who be- long to an older stage of society. An intelligent person whom I saw at Louis- ville told me that be knew a man who had em- barked all he had in the world on a flat-bottomed boat, and then undertook to conduct the boat, with the aid of three or four men, over the falls of the Ohio without a pilot. He could have pro- vided a sufficient pilot for six dollars, but he re- fused to have one ; and pushing his boat boldly into the rapids, it soon got beyond his control, was knocked and stove to pieces, every thing was lost, and his men and himself saved with difficulty. When the people who ran to tne shore to assist him came up with him, they found him looking at the fragments of his boat which were dashing about amongst the rapids. All was gone, to the last barrel of flour, and to the last nail in his boat. It was an incident to have made Momus serious for the time; but this fel- low, turning to the people, said " Hail Columbia, happy land ! If I ain't ruined, I'll he " The same gentleman assured me that he was once a witness to a similar scene, when the vio- lence of the rapids overpowered the persons con- ducting another flat boat, tossed it about in a frightful manner, and finally driving it into a chute of great power, the boat was literally turn- ed a somerset by the eddy. Everything was lost, and the owner was extricated from the rap- ids with difficulty. On reaching the shore, and seeing the disjecta membra going down stream, the first thing he said was, " She's gone to be any how; but she made a most almighty rear of it, didn't she!" This is the usual way in which they use their expletives, conceiving it gives energy to what they have to say. But this kind of brutality, which makes the conversation of the lower classes near the Mis- sissippi so disgusting, is not always a proof of badness of heart, for I have seen many of them very obligingly disposed to be useful to others. The half-horse, half-alligator race, that was brought up from infancy in the arks and flat-bot- tomed boats that navigated these western rivers before steamers were introduced, are off" the stage now; but the language of the people is still sufficiently figurative, and sometimes unin- telligible. Any magnificent steamer, built upon a larger plan than usual, is called "A sin to Crockett;" an expression of which I received a very roundabout explanation. A well-known Tennessean named Crockett, remarkable for marvellous feats and marvellous stories, is sup- posed to be so "beat" by this monster, "larger than the largest size," that, instead of regarding it as a virtue, he regards it as a sin, and, ergo, it is " A sin to Crockett." CHAPTER XVI. Leave Louisville, and take to the Stage-Coach again Dif- ference betwixt the Manners of Slave and Free States Vincennes in the State of Illinois Old Race of French Canadians there Beauty of the Prairies Horizontal Coal Seams in the banks of the rive;s Grouse Ancient bed of the Mississippi seven miles broad -The Town of St Louis in the State of Missouri Col. Smith of the British Array " Running a Negro" explained Jefferson Barracks, admirable management of a reg-imental fund Vuide Poche and Pain Court A group of thirty Barrows. WE left Louisville, Oct. 13, in the stage-coach, intending to pass through the States of Indiana and Illinois, on our way to St. Louis, and cross- ed the Ohio soon after daylight to New Albany, a thriving village on the Indiana shore, five miles from the Falls. The country hence rises rapidly several hundred feet, and leaves the val- ley of the Ohio for elevated barrens, with lime- stone knobs, as far as Greenville, where there is- a pretty level country, resembling the barrens of Kentucky, and geologically the same, the valley of the Ohio merely intervening. From Louis- ville to Paoli, fifty-one miles, is a succession of knobs and levels. We crossed the Blue River at a desolate place called Fredericsbnrgh, where there is a compact lead-coloured limestone con- taining producta. The road was tolerably good r the land frequently of the very first quality, and the people very civil and obliging. The change from a state where slavery exists, which it does in Kentucky, though in somewhat a mitigated form, to a State with a free population, is obvi- ous here. In Indiana you see neat white wom- en and their children, with here and there a free negro ; and every thing is cleaner and tidier than in Tennessee and Kentucky. The mis- tress of the house and her daughters wait upon you at table, instead of the huge, fat, frowsy ne- gresses that, in the slave States, poison you with the effluvium from their skins, when they reach over to set any thing on the table. Paoli is a poor sort of a place, built on a broad ledge of limestone; but the situation is beautiful. They have a novaculite, or whetstone, here, which ap- pears to be of an excellent quality, and is pro- cured at the French Lick Hills, about ten miles off. From hence the country is over a rough limestone road to the east fork of White River t where the land drops down to a perfect level bot- tom, consisting of a deep fertile alluvial soil, a. great part of which is annually under water. This is the eastern edge of 'the great basin of the Mississippi; and along this swampy bottom, loaded with timber, we continued to White Riv- er, which we crossed in the ferry-boat, and where I obtained some unios. From hence we travel- led fifteen miles to 'Vincennes, on a dead but well-wooded flat; and on approaching the towa came to a prairie country. The change was a pleasing one: a ridge of sandstone hills skirted the plains, and we could perceive a chain of lofty mounds upon them, thrown up by the In- dians in ancient times, which strongly remind- ed me of the tumuli and beacons on the wolds of Yorkshire. These mounds seem to have serv- ed the double purpose of sepulchres and of look- outs, as they command both the hills and plains. Vincennes is an old French settlement, huilt upon- the Wabash River, a fine, slow, pellucid stream, which rolls over a sandstone covering strong beds of coal, that are frequently exposed to view in the banks. This place, when ^e French possessed it, was called Poste St. Vincent, a name which the Americans have corrupted into Vincennes. The French familiarly called it Au Poste; and the quarter of the town inhabited at present by that race is separated from that inhabited by the Americans, whose village stores, bad taverns, and brick houses, form a singular contrast with the humble cabins of the descendants of the an- cient French Canadians, who seem to mix very little with their intruding neighbours. After the conquest of Canada and the peace of 1763, Colonel Croghan was sent by the British government to explore the country adjncent to the Ohio River, and to. conciliate the Indian na- tions who had hitherto acted with the French. He left Pittsburg with some Indian chiefs, and TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 63 'white men, in two bateaux, on the 15th | French Canadians to abbreviate all their names. of'Ma'y, 1765; and on the 8th of June, when bi vouacking a few miles below the mouth of th AVabash, was attacked by a party of eight} K-ickapoos and Musquattimay Indians, who kill ed five of his party, wounded himselt and all the others except three, took them prisoners, an plundered them. The Indians by forced march es conducted them to this place, where there were then about ninety French Canadian families described by Colonel Croghan as an idle, lazy people, worse than the Indians. No doubt was entertained that these people had instigated th Indians to commit this outrage in time of peace for they shared the plunder with the savages, anc refused to lend any assistance to the unfortunate party of Colonel Croghan. I called at the hu of several of the Canadians, and as soon as 1 began to speak French was very politely receiv- ed, one family offering me coffee. They seem- ed to have no desire to keep up any intercourse with the American settlers; and one woman told me that they were "si betes ils ne savoient pas faire le cafe." It was at her cabin 1 found an elderly man, who told me that his father was here when Colonel Croghan was brought in a pris oner. I was much interested with the place and with these simple people, who seem broken- hearted by the presence of the intruders that have destroyed both their gaiety and their importance. The difference betwixt the two races is, that the Canadian, not loving work, is always ready for n, whilst the American is so industrious that as no time to play. After visiting several of them, I went to a tavern in the American part of the town, kept by one Clarke; but this man, by his rude manner and his extortions, made us glad to get away from the place, so easy is it for any disagreeable person to turn the whole cur- rent of that kind feeling one is so happy to enter- tain. Words cannot do justice to the beauty of the prairie we entered upon on crossing the Wa- bash into the State of Illinois: it was a sort of ocean of land, a few trees only being visible in some points of the horizon, as palms are seen in the distance on the desert plains of Egypt. We had now a fine smooth road over an uniform level, were moving through an interesting Indian country on a bright sunny day, and were in high spirits. On crossing the Embarras, a stream which intersects the prairie and flows into the Wabash, I saw a superb bed of bituminous coal in the bank, on ^a horizontal level, the extreme depth of which was not visible. The whole ot the oolitic series of beds being- wanting in the United States, the coal-fields of this country are generally found on the surface, a circumstance which will give the greatest facility for mining when coal comes into general use, which it must do when fire-wood becomes scarce and dear. In many places the coal will only require the sim- ple operation of quarrying, as now practised in the anthracite beds of the Allegheny Mountains, which have been upheaved under circumstances almost justifying the opinion, that the coals in the western country, those in the mountains, and those on the Atlantic, were contemporaneous in their origin, and were at one time united in one field. It is amusing to observe how the American settlers are doing their very best to corrupt all the French names of places : amongst the rest, they have poetically converted the Embarras into the Ambrosia. It was the custom of the If they were going *n the Arkansan Mountains, they would say they were going "Aux Arcs;" and thus these highlands have got the modem name of "Ozarks" from American travellers. "Aux Kaskaskias" the Canadians abbreviated into " Aux Kau ;" and in passing through Illinois now you hear of the Okau River a name, in- deed, which has got into the maps. The whole country from Vincennes to the Mississippi is a dead flat, resembling some of the moors and wolds of England, occasionally interrupted with belts of trees, and swamps wi'th swamp timber growing in them. These belts of trees at partic- ular 'distances seem to subdivide the general prairie; and you hear of the Six-mile Prairie, the Twelve-mile Prairie, and one near a small settlement called Carlisle is called the Twenty- mile Prairie. In other parts of the country you see no termination to the prairie on the horizon. Frequently the grouse (Tetrao cupido) start up- almost under your feet, fine strong birds, but too- heavy to fly far: of these a good sportsman could kill more than he could carry in a couple of hours. Deer also frequent these plains. I saw- none myself; but a passenger on the top of the stage-coach saw several whilst I was looking at some land-shells. After going over 140 miles of this kind of ountry we sa Idenly came to the edge of this orairie land, which was a sort of continuous 3lufF containing flat horizontal seams of coal, and descended from it to a lower level of rich black alluvial soil. We saw at once that we were now upon the ancient bottom of the Mis- sissippi River, and that we were approaching he great stream which drains the immense dis- rict of upper country. Across this ancient bot- :om* of that once mighty stream we bad now only six miles to travel before we should reach he present channel of the Mississippi, and push- ng on after a tedious swampy drive at length got a glimpse of the river, which is here not quite a mile wide, ; nd soon after reached the steam-boat ferry. Although the weather had been sultry all day, with scarce a breath of air tirring, we found a breeze approaching to a gale on the Mississippi, and in crossing found the water rather ro'igh. Opposite to us was the city >f St. Louis, with its churches and their steeples, he broad quays coming down to the water at a great inclination, the massive warehouses in rontof them, and a prodigious number of steam- ;rs alongside the quay. Rejoicing that we had got to the extreme terminus of stage-coaching- n safety, we now crossed this noble river, ex- :eedingly gra'ified with the magnificent sight >efore us; ind'ed.the spectacle wanted but little lid from the i nagination to make it one of the most pleasing we had ever met with. On reaching the main street my fancy filled with the history of the peregrinations and adven- ures of Father Hennepin, La Sale, and other arly travellers in these regions; and anxious to> ee the descendants of the enterprising Canadians cho first discovered and settled these shores of be Mississippi, f was grievously afflicted at the ommon-place appearance of the shops, and the cant of French names over them. To have ollowed the enterprising Pere Hennepin so far erely to find a street full of Reuben Doolittles * The country p< le of the river the fore the annexatl tales. pie call this alluvial strip on the east American bottom, from its having- been, i of Louisiana, the limit of the United G4 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. and Jeremiah Cushings painted over the doors gave me a sensible chill; but the moment the avaricious looks of the numerous Yankee store- keepers, and their stores well filled with Euro- pean goods from the Atlantic States, met my eyes, all the romance of Canadian cottages, old French physiognomies, and crowds of Indian walking about, that had been flourishing in my imagination, was completely dispelled. I saw at once that the everlasting Jonathan had struck his roots deep into the ground, and that the La Sales had given way toDoolittle & Co. If any- thing was wanting to bring me to the complete practical state of mind I was approaching, no- thing could have been more serviceable than the tavern I was directed to, which was in every sense inferior to that at Louisville. On arriving there I entered the bar-room, which was filled with vagabond idle-looking fel- lows, drinking, smoking, and swearing in Amer- ican: everything looked as if we had reached the terminus of civilisation ; it seemed to be next door to the Rocky Mountains, and only one stage from where we should find Nature in a perfect undress, and in the habit of eating her dinner without a knife and fork. I had scarcely ascer- tained of the landlord that we could have separ- ate bed-rooms when an exceedingly fine gentle- man, superbly dressed, his jowls covered with hair, and a gold watch-guard magnificently streaming across his chest, came out from the knot of smoking fashionables in the bar-room, and with his face beaming with satisfaction, ex- tended his right hand most lovingly to me. It was " Colonel Smith, of the British army" who had formerly served at Waterloo, and whom I had seen at the White Sulphur Springs in Vir- ginia. Since 1 had lost sight of this gallant of- ficer I had received some interesting information respecting him. which left little doubt what regi- ment he had served in, a fact that seemed to have escaped the Colonel's recollection at the White Sulphur. I had met with a Kentuckian at Louis- ville whom I had also seen at those springs, and he informed me that a few days after I went away a disclosure had been made which seemed to have had an unfavourable effect upon the Colonel's health, for he had suddenly departed to try the waters* at the Red Sulphur. It seems that amongst other modes of getting a livelihood in the Southern States, that of " run- ning negroes" is practised by a class of fellows who are united in a fraternity for the purpose of carrying on the business, and for protecting each other in time of danger. If one of them falls under the notice of the law and is committed to take his trial, some of the fraternity benevolent- ly contrive, "somehow or other," to get upon the jury, or kindly become his bail. To "run a negro" it is necessary to have a good understand- ing with an intelligent male slave on some plan- tation, and if he is a mechanic he is always the more valuable. At the time agreed upon the slave runs away from his master's premises and joins the man who has instigated him to do it; they then proceed to some quarter where they are not known, and the negro is sold for seven or eight hundred dollars, or more, to a new master. A few days after the money has been paid, he runs away again, and is sold a second time, and as oft as the trick can be played with any hope * This is a slang expression. These swells generally re- main in New Orleans during the winter, and " try the wa- ters" during the summer, that is, they go to the watering places. of safety. The negro who does the harlequinade part of the manosuvre has an agreement with his friend, in virtue of which he supposes he is to receive part of the money; but the poor devil in the end is sure to be cheated, and when he be- comes dangerous to the fraternity is, as I have been well assured, first cajoled and put off his guard, and then, on crossing some river or reach- ing a secret place, shot before he suspects their intention, or otherwise made away with. A small planter who happened to be at the White Sulphur this season, and who had the year before purchased a valuable slave that had escaped a few days afterwards, advertised him very minutely in the newspapers; and it happen- ed very oddly that another planter had at the same time advertised a slave with the same de- scription, but with a different name. This led to an interview betwixt the two planters, and upon comparing notes they found they had each been defrauded by the same identical white man and his pretended slave. All their efforts, how- ever, to discover this person had hitherto been in vain, when one evening the planter who was at the White Sulphur going with a friend to the gambling-house, suddenly asked a person there who that man was with the gold chain on his breast; he was told it was "Colonel Smith, of the British army, who had served at Waterloo." Now the pla'nter, although he had not served at Waterloo, thought he had a pretty distinct rec- ollection of the Colonel's having sold him the "runaway negur," and kept his eye constantly fixed upon him, a circumstance which sooner or later could not fail to attract the attention of the Colonel, whose eyes were in the habit of keep- ing a pretty sharp look-out; and not liking to be stared at, he walked out and was followed by the planter and his friend. The night was dark, the Colonel had friends on the spot, who, like himself, were always prepared to " hop the twig," and in half an hour was seated in a gig and wending his way through the woods to Lewis- burgh. In the morning the story was abroad, the Colonel was said to be gone to the Red Sulphur, and thither the planter followed him, swearing he never would return home until he caught him. " How de do 7" said the Colonel in a drawl [hat was quite affettuoso, extending his hand :o me ; " I'm happy to see you, if I ain't I'm ." [ showed the Colonel how I did without a mo- ment's delay by instantly turning my back upon bim and asking the landlord to step into the pass- age with me, where, in a very few minutes, I old him all I knew, all 1 had heard, and all I nought of the Colonel. The landlord was a prudent man : he saw it would be of no advan- age to him to keep such a fellow in his house, and when he went back to the bar-room, merely said that the gentleman had told him that two Virginia planters were coming on in the stage- coach after a man who had " run a negui* upon hem. Half an hour afterwards the Colonel ransferred himself to a steamer that he reached just as she was casting off from the wharf on her way to New Orleans. St. Louis is admirably situated on the right sank of the Mississippi, which is at least one lundred feet higher than the shore on the oppo- site side, so that the present channel is on the western edge of the ancient bed. The town is juilt on beds of horizontal limestone correspond- ing with those of the opposite bluffs of Illinois, about seven miles to the east, which distance TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 65 may be assumed as the breadth of the ancient stream. From the edge of the plateau the ground slopes at an angle of 45 to the river, and the town is principally built on this slope. The street fronting the river where the lofty ware- houses are is called Water Street, and the steam- ers and other craft lie at the loot of the quay, which is very steep at low water. The next street running parallel to this, and where the shops are, is called Main Street. The others lead to the country and intersect these at right angles; and although the houses and shops are small and rather shabby, yet the place is the seat of a very active trade, comprehending the Amer- ican fur-trade of the far western country. But the suburbs of the town contain a great many neatly-built and pleasant-looking residences, the most conspicuous amongst which is that of Gen- eral Ashley, the celebrated fur-trader to the Rocky Mountains. His residence is a very in- teresting one, the foundation being laid upon one of those ancient Indian mounds which are so nu- merous in this country, and of wh'ich there is "a cluster around him. The population of the place is oddly mixed up. When Louisiana belonged to Spain many Span- ish families settled here; to these the French suc- ceeded ; now the Americans have taken root in the place, and at this moment it is half-filled with German emigrants. The Roman Catholic religion, as yet, preponderates; but this will not last long, for the Presbyterians are running up their Ebenezers very rapidly. Amidst this mot- ley population a part of which on Sunday even- ings is singing and praying at the meeting-hou- ses, a part dancing, a part playing the guitar, and the German part swizzling new-brewed beer, some very respectable and excellent people are to be found, full of intelligence and kindness. General Clarke, the enterprising companion of Lewis in the well-known journey of discovery to the Rocky Mountains, is a most agreeable old gentleman, who lives in a very pleasant man- ner, and has got an interesting cabinet of natural curiosities which he has picked up in his various travels. The French families of Pratte, Chou- teau, and others are actively engaged in the com- merce of the country, and are people of merit and influence. The Chouteaus conduct the affairs of the American Fur Company, and their ware- house contains immense quantities of furs trans- mitted from the far west, of which I saw and pur- chased some interesting specimens. The young people of the old French families still continue their reunions on a Sunday even ing after the custom of their lively ancestors, arid have music and a family dance; but I was in- formed by some French ladies that they had been cautioned lately to discontinue them, as this practice gave offence to the Presbyterian con- gregation, and it was not unlikely some mob- bing would take place. The Christian example of the Presbyterian people of Charlestown, in the State of Massachusetts, who lately burnt a Ro- man Catholic female seminary and valiantly drove the female instructresses into the streets at midnight, will, no doubt, produce a salutary ef- fect upon many Roman Catholic persons here and dispose them to be serious on a Sunday even- ing. During my stay here I drove out to Jefferson Barracks, ten miles from St. Louis, to pay my respects to General Atkinson, the commanding- officer of the district, with whom I had formerly been acquainted. The road oassed through the T Drench village of Carondelet, which is beauti- lallysituated on the limestone beds, and com- nands a fine view down the Mississippi ; it is a )oor, poverty-stricken place, containing some in- jonveniem wooden houses, whose inhabitants are )recisely what they were one hundred years ago, lot having made the least progress in the useful rts. They still use a small badly made cart nth a meagre horse, or "marche done," as ev- erybody calls them in ridicule, and appear not to iave one earthly comfort in their houses. In old imes this place and the village of St. Louis were rivals, although the last always held its head a little above the other. Whether it was hat the bakers of St. Louis sold shorter loaves han usual, or would not give credit to their neighbours for what they wanted to buy, the peo- ple of Carondelet nicknamed the place " Pain- 3ourt." In return the people of St. Louis nick- named Carondelet " Vuide Poche." What was a joke then is not one now, for the two places are called Pain Court and Vide Poche by the lower classes upon all occasions. You never hear of ' un habitant de Carondelet," the term employed s "un Vuide Pocheur." So true is this that upon one occasion when 1 was collecting some fossils on the shore at this place, I got into con- versation with a French boy about twelve years old, and asked him purposely the name of his village, when he answered, " En Anglais on 1'appelle Carondelet, mais en Fran<;ais on 1'a'p- pelle Vuide Poche." Jefferson Barracks are well built and charm- ngly situated upon a bold bluff on the right bank of the Mississippi, with a gentle slope, occasion- ally studded with trees, going down to the river. The 6th regiment 'of U. S. infantry, now in gar- rison here, has excellent quarters, and the officers and their families find this a pleasant residence, being in a salubrious country adorned with fine woodlands and abounding in game at no great distance. The post fund of this regiment appears to be well managed ; the library belonging to it contains about 3000 volumes, besides numerous public papers and periodicals ; they have excel- lent schools for the soldiers' children, and other useful and benevolent plans for the general ad- vantage of the regiment are supported by this fund, which depends solely upon contributions made within it. At this time the finances are in so flourishing a state that I was told they had between four and five thousand dollars in cash on hand. These facts do great honour to the gentlemen who so ably have managed the fund, and through whose care such precious advan- tages are secured to a regiment often destined to pass many years on the distant frontiers far re- moved from all society. General Atkinson's long residence in the western country has made him a perfect master of the economy necessary for a military post of this kind, and I certainly have never seen a frontier garrison which ex- celled Jefferson Barracks for beauty and salu- brity of situation, neatness of parade-ground and quarters, and all general arrangements for the personal comfort of officers and men. The Gen- eral received my son and myself in the most cor- dial manner, and we had the pleasure of par- taking of an excellent dinner at his quarters with some American officers who had just re- turned from a residence of several years at the more distant post of Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri. The succeeding day we made an excursion on foot to the coal-field in the bluffs of Illinois, TRAVELS IN AMERICA. which we had passed over in our way to St. Louis. The seam which at present supplies St. Louis with coal lies horizontally in the bluffs about a mile and a half north of the public road from Vincennes, and as they are about eighty feet in height, they nearly correspond with the plateau on which St. Louis is built. The coal lies beneath a bed of light grey limestone, from which I procured some fine products and tere- bratula; in the shale which formed the roof of the seam I could find no fossil-plants, but abun- dance of sulphuret of iron. The seam measured eight feet thick to the ground, and probably went down several feet farther, so that it was not pos- sible to ascertain whether it rested upon clay or not. To obtain the best quality of the coal they have nothing to do but to make drifts into the bluff of from twenty to one hundred feet, take it out in large blocks, and cart it over a wretched road in the swamp to St. Louis, where the in- habitants pay from 14 to 16 cents the bushel for it. The carts, drawn by oxen, can carry in dry weather when the swamp is most passable 1400 Ibs. I suggested to the contractors to con- struct a cheap railroad for the six miles, which would not cost more than 3500 dollars a-mile, and would reduce the cost of transportation at least two-thirds. The excavation of the coal is carried on in a slovenly manner; the roof of the seam is often not secured at all, and, of course, is continually falling down, so that when they have run their drift as far as they dare and I did not see one exceeding a hundred feet in length they abandon it and go to another place. Coal is also found on the opposite side of the Mississippi, about four or five miles west of St. Louis; and as we had seen seams of the same kind near the surface a little west of Vincennes, and were continually observing them in our progress through the State of Illinois to these bluffs, besides being told that they are found for great distances north and south in the ancient banks of the Mississippi, it would seem that all these seams are but sections of one great con- temporaneous deposit underlying all this part of the prairie country, and which, perhaps, at some ancient period, was connected with the coal- fields betwixt it and the Atlantic a conjecture that would appear extravagant to one who had not actually crossed them all. Having examined the coal-ground we directed our steps to some elevated mounds we had seen as we advanced to the Mississippi, and having reached them after a good smart walk across the plain, were highly gratified with their ap- pearance. They were about thirty in number, some of them near to each other and others iso- lated. Some were conical, some oblong, some flat at the top, and the larger ones usually had a small tumulus connected with them by way of projection from the side. They were of various sizes, but the largest of them was so very striking an object, that after getting up to the top of a few of the others, and remarking that there was a de- pression in the surface of the ground near to each of them, from whence the materials of which they were made were probably excavated, I turn- ed my attention principally to it. CHAPTER XVII. A remarkable Barrow The Monuments of the Ancient Red People analogous to those of the Old Races in Europe Probable cause of the diversity in Indian Dialects A pet- rified Forest Society at St. Louis More bolting- at the Table d'Hdte Fur-trappers of the Rocky Mountains Excellent Markets at St. Louis Money the .real object of Life. THIS lofty barrow consists of an oblong tumu- lus stretching north and souih, the summit of which is 115 feet from the ground, with a broad terrace round it, at not quite half of its height from the base. The width of the oblong across at the north end is about 160 feet, and its length on the east side is about 350 feet. At the south- end the width is somewhat abraded, but appears at one time to have corresponded to that at the other end. From the centre of the terrace anoth- er oblong of 50 feet on each side projects. The east side of the terrace is 200 feet wide, and its front both to the east and west measures 450 feet. In the rear, at the north, runs the Cahok ia Creek, which contains some good fish, as I was informed, and here a dense woodland commen- ces, in which are various other mounds. On the west side, and near to the large barrow which the neighbouring people call Monk's Mound is a smaller one, where some monks of La Trappe once fixed their residence when they took refuge in this country; but the dwelling in. which they resided is now levelled with the ground, and few remains of it are still visible. I walked over the area where these melancholy beings resided, of whom some curious stories are related. A benevolent lady of St. Louis once visited them to offer her services, and was re- ceived in profound silence. Finding that her offers were promptly declined, and that they were not disposed to hold any communication, with her, she took her departure, but no sooner had she left the door than one of them took a swab and a pail of water, and immediately began to scrub the place upon which she had been standing, as if to purify it. These ascetics cul- tivated a part of the large mound, and raised their vegetables upon it. At this time it is in the possession of a me- chanic named Hill, who has built a house at the top, around which we saw abundance of Indian, corn, pumpkins, tomatoes, &c. ; for the soil of which the mound consists is the rich black mould taken from the surface below, which is extremely fertile. Mr. Hill laid the foundation of his dwelling upon an eminence he found on the summit of his elevated territory, and upon dig- ging into it, found large human bones, with In- dian pottery, stone axes, and tomahawks ; from whence it would appear that these mounds not only contained a sepulchre at their base, but have been used for the same purpose in after- times at the .summit.* The extraordinary di- mensions, however, of this mound, seem to war- rant the conjecture that they served various pur- poses: for when the adjacent low land was in- undated, many families could reside upon it, and its great elevation made it an excellent look-out for the approach of an enemy. Mrs. Hill told me that even the top of the mound was unhealthy in the autumnal months, and that she was then suffering from the malaria of the place. We next visited another oblong mound, with an em- inence or small tumulus upon it, south of that upon which the Trappists dwelt; and if I had had time, and had been prepared, I should have opened the small tumulus in the expectation of deterring some ancient chief, but night was com- * I have seen mounds of this kind although not of this S j 7 . e _ op ened, which contained vast quantities of bodies Biled in layer* upon each other. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 67 ing on, we had at least six miles to walk, and ran some risk of not reaching the Mississippi before the last trip of the steam ferry-boat. In the course of this day we saw upwards of sixty mounds large and small, some oblong, some conical, and others quadrangular, like those upon the plateau upon the other side of the Mississip- pi. From their relative position to each other it might seem as if they were intended for defence, and yet they may be nothing but ancient ceme- teries where distinguished chiefs were buried: again, from their frequent occurrence on these low swampy bottoms, one of their principal uses may have been as dry places to resort to during the inundations which periodically covered those plains with the swollen floods of the river; and the broad terrace attached to Monk's Mound strengthens this view of the subject, since it ad- mitted of being inhabited at any stage of the wa- ter. It is plain, however, that they were not ex- clusively used as places of resort in times of in- undation, since similar ones are frequently found upon plateaux of land far above the rise of the Mississippi. General Ashley, who perhaps pos- sesses more practical information respecting the Indians than any other individual, assures me that he has found them in every possible situa- tion in the remote countries adjacent to the Rocky Mountains; so that when we consider that one or more skeletons, accompanied with pottery and warlike weapons, have been found in all the mounds that have been opened, we may at any rate reasonably conclude that these structures were intended, in their origin, as sepulchres for the eminent dead of the aborigines, and were to the Indians what the pyramids were to the ancient Egyptians, and the barrow to the races that in- habited England in times of yore. The ingenuity of the human race, before met- als came into use, seems generally, and in situ- ations the most remote from each other, to have been directed to the same contrivances ; the an- cient British raised the barrow over the chief- tain, and placed an earthen vase slightly orna- mented near the illustrious dead ; the red Indian of North America did exactly the same thing; and not only are all the specimens of pottery found in these American barrows, which I have seen, whether in Tennessee, Missouri, or in the museums, made of sand and clay, and freshwa- ter shells ground up, but they exactly resemble each other in their ornaments and form, and scarcely at all differ in the size and pattern. I possess many specimens of ancient British and American vases, that only differ from each oth- er in the ingredients of which they are made. In the ancient British barrows the stone coffin, too, or kistvaen, is composed of six pieces of stone, just as the stone coffins spoken of at page 48, near Sparta, in Tennessee. The remarkable diversity of dialects which has for a long time existed between the Indian tribes that inhabit North America, the rooted antipathy that one tribe often cherishes to an- other, and some striking differences which are to be observed in their customs, are facts which have led to the inference with many persons that the existing races have had a various origin; still their colour, their skulls and physiognomies, the close resemblance in their modes of sepul- chre wherever found, the forms and materials of their vases, their mounds, their stone axes,* * The stone axe found in the ancient mounds, with a groove around it in the place of an eye (which is sometimes found in the British barrows) to attach a handle to, with a arrowheads, and the purposes to which they have been applied in all times, seem independ- ent of their traditions to form an indestructi- ble link betwixt the ancient and existing races of Indians, and to prove that- these last are but generations descended from the first; all these natural, artificial, and traditionary evidences betraying a connexion which cannot otherwise be proved in the case of a savage people who have never had any permanent records. As to the difference betwixt the dialects, I imagine it appears to be greater than it is : few persons have studied the structure of the Indian languages, and no one has yet successfully en- tered upon the task of showing how human be- ings in a state of nature, with no motives, and no aid, to improve their oral communications, must, when separated into groups or tribes for purposes of subsistence, necessarily permit the influences of climate, food, and the new objects they become familiar with, to effect great chang- es in their language. If the Sclavonic, Teuton.- ic, Gallic, British, and other nations, who are although remotely descended from a common, stock, no longer understand each other, it is not surprising that the red Indians, whom civilisa- tion in no shape has ever reached, should speak different dialects. Our own language has chang- ed in the last four hundred years strangely ; what changes, therefore, may not have taken place during two thousand years perhaps, or more, that the red Indians have inhabited North, America, and who never have possessed the means of even temporarily fixing one of their tongues'? These mounds have been supposed by some writers to have been erected by a race that once passed through the country, and that had no blood connexion with the existing peo- ple ; but the evidence they furnish of a similar- ity of customs and manners does not support that opinion. It is true that the present races do not appear as far as I have any information to continue the practice of constructing them, but this may be occasioned by the whites having gradually possessed themselves of the country, and, indeed, the particular race that were in the habit of constructing such mounds may have perished amidst the conflicts in which the Indi- ans have always been engaged amongst them- selves. At General Ashley's I saw the head of an ani- mal, which, but for the appearance of a tusk, was apparently of the genus Cervus, and was entirely converted into a siliceous fossil: the left jaw had been broken off by a man who wanted to see if the brains were petrified. It was found near the sources of the Yellow Stone River, a tributary of the Rocky Mountains, which rises on the east flank of that great belt. This fossil was not found imbedded in any rocky siratum' but was lying loose on the ground, and had prob- ably become silicified by the same process that has at some period acted upon a very large scale and with great intensity in that part of the coun- try. General Atkinson and other intelligent of- ficers, who had examined a singular phenome- non there, informed me that upon the west bank of the Missouri, a few miles below its junction with the Yellow Stone, the remains of an ancient forest are found, at an elevation of about 300 feet thong made of hide or the sinews of some animal is the same weapon used in our own times by the Indians of the West. I saw several of them fitted with handles attached hv thongs, which General Clarke had brought from the for 8 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. above the river, extending twenty or thirty- miles on the open prairie, every tree of which is now a perfect siliceous petrifaction ; the surface of the ground being literally covered with broken trees, stumps, roois, and fractured branches, con- verted into stone, and scattered about in innu- merable fragments. Some of the trees were bro- ken off close to the root, whilst the trunks of others were standing at a height of several feet above the surface; one of the stumps was up- wards of fifteen feet in circumference. Various specimens of these silicified plants have been shown to me, and the phenomenon must be ad- mitted to be one of the most extraordinary facts in the history of mineralogy. The fossil which was found in this petrified forest exhibited on its right side part of the cra- nium of the animal, of which the whole posterior part was wanting. The right orbit, with a cav- ity lying obliquely from it, was tolerably perfect, as well as the snout, part of which was broken off. The teeth of the upper jaw were pretty well preserved, and consisted of four molars, four in- cisors, and, in a line almost on a level with the lower edge of the orbit, were the remains of a tusk. On the opposite side of the jaw were a corresponding socket and tusk, but the rest of the teeth were unfortunately destroyed by the philosopher that wanted to see if the animal's brains were petrified. From the edge of the pos- terior molar to the tusk a curve is described. The osseous structure is otherwise perfect ; and the whole is converted into siliceous matter, ex- cept some calcareous earth in the cavities, which somewhat resembled the calcareous fillings-in of the fossils of Montmartre, near Paris. The owner was so annoyed by the very unscientific treatment which the head had received, that he was loath to trust it to me to make a drawing, and so I contented myself with a .hasty sketch of it. The venerable discoverer, General Clarke, made my stay at St. Louis very agreeable to me : whenever I had any leisure, I had his mu- seum and his pleasant and instructive conversa- tion to resort to. His son-in-law, Colonel Kear- ney of the U. S. Dragoons, and his lady, were also very polite. Mrs. K. is a lovely woman, and inherits a great deal of the spirit of enter- prise which had distinguished her father. She accompanied her husband by land all the way through the wilderness from Fort Towson, on Red River, to St. Louis, and left this last place to go into winter-quarters with him at the De Moine, much higher up the Mississippi. From Dr. William Kerr Lane, too, I received the most useful and pleasing attentions: nor ought I to forget those which were paid to me by some of the respectable French inhabitants. On leaving Sparta, in Tennessee, my amusing friend M. Nidelet, putting a letter in my hand, addressed to his father-in-law, General Pratte, at St. Louis, exacted a promise from me that I would deliver it in person. 1 did so, and thus became accr&liti in some of the most respectable French families where I passed many agreeable moments. They soon found out that I liked their society, and 1 became what under other circumstances I never could have been the confidant of many of their suppressed national feelings. At the tavern where I lodged all was dirt, dis- order, and want of system. A pack of ragged young negroes performed the service of cham- bermaids and waiters, and did it about as wel as a pack of grown monkeys, caught in the Bra zils, would do in three months' teaching. The andlord, who to me was always very obliging, seemed to have no sort of authority either over lis servants or his guests. These principally onsisted of those impudent, smoking, spitting shopboys, who are dignified in the United States with the appellation of "clerks." I only occa- sionally dined there; but it was always the same hing. At the ringing of a bell these " clerks" ushed in crowds to the table, just as a pack of lounds or a drove of swine would to their feed. '. found it most prudent to wait a short time, for n eight minutes they had gobbled everything up, and had again rushed out to take a glass of swipes, a cigar, and go to their "stores." One >f the intolerable evils of practical equality is, he obliging clean people to herd with dirty ones. The landlord, however, seeing my way of doing hings, used generally to send me something hot and comfortable to eat at my leisure. But an- other class of men was not so exceptionable : every now and then, extraordinary-looking, coarse-dressed, weather-worn, dried-up, queer animals travellers like myself would come in, and sitting down without a word to anybody, would commence the most astounding voracious jerformances. Fish, pork, beef, sausages, pud- lings, all on the same plate together at the same ime, and bolted down with the most stoic indif- 'erence as to which the knife and fork laid hold of first. It was like Potier's song u Deux canards s'en vont promenant, Le premier va au devant." These men often looked like very indifferent company, but in fact were much more estimable persons than most of those at the table who were better dressed. The American swell is easily known, for he is always a preposterous fine gen- tleman, but these men belonged to a class that possessed a great deal of that kind of information I was anxious to possess myself of. Theij were trappers from ike Rocky Mountains. Some of them had been many years in the remote countries of the west, sometimes trapping beaver on their own account, at other times acting as agents and servants to others. They were generally modest, unpretending men, and appeared uncon- scious that they were objects of the liveliest in- terest to me. I formed an acquaintance with several of them who had frequently traversed the plains west of the Rocky Mountains, and par- ticularly with two who had wintered with the Spaniards on the shores of California, and had resided some time both at Monterey and the magnificent Bay of S. Francisco. The adventures of some of these trappers were very striking; accustomed to penetrate into the most secret haunts of the mountains near the sources of the streams that flow into the North Pacific, they would set their beaver traps at night, visit them early in the morning, and skulk away during the daytime to avoid those parties of the Blackfeet, Crow, and Eutaw Indians, which were scouring the country to punish these intruders into their native hunting-grounds. Many were the fights they had had with them, with the loss of one or more of their companions. One of these men had a broad scar on his fore- head, made by an arrow which a Blackfeet In- dian, who had been brought down by a rifle and refused to receive quarter, fired into his face from the ground. The point fastened itself in his skull, and was extricated with difficulty. These men, from their own account, seldom save anything from their hard- won earnings; TRAVELS IN AMERICA. when they have anything beforehand they spend it freely, or give it away, and when the annual supplies come from St. Louis, they are charged such immense profits, that they are always in debt to the traders, whose policy it is to keep them in the fur country, that they may not have the trouble and expense of sending more out. The consequence is, that the country is over- trapped, and the destruction of animals is so great, that subsistence will ere long be obtained with difficulty. This state of things is already approaching: the American Fur Company no longer derives the great profits it once did, and will probably be dissolved rather than expend their capital in an unproductive trade. When that state of things arrives, many of the trappers will combine and establish themselves at some point or points in the territory of the Columbia, probably in the Valley of the Wallamet, a trib- utary of the Columbia, where the soil is some- what fertile, the situation health}', and where a greater amenity of climate prevails. All these irien concur in speaking with great admiration of the softness 01 the winter climate in some of the valleys of the Columbia territory, and the very early state of the spring there, which, no doubt, is to be attributed to the western breezes bringing to that coast the mild temperature of the ocean which they traverse. Of the British or Hudson's Bay Fur Company these men always spoke with respect ; they said it was a good thing to be in their employment, because it was steady and constant, and did not admit of people doing as they pleased, and creating so much confusion : they observed to me that the people who were connected with them were not charged unreasonable profits for supplies, and were provided for when they were old: the fur trade, they remarked, would never flag with them, because they had all the north country in their own hands, and had secured the best trappers even in the southern parts : some of them gave it as their opinion that the Ameri- can Fur Companies C9uld not contend with them, and would be driven out of the country by supe- rior capital and untiring energy; so that in the end the whole country would be in their hands, and that they would keep it, for they " acted" so kindly and liberally to the Blackfeet, the Crows, and all the Indians on the Columbia, that they would always side with the British, "and it would never be worth while for the Americans to try to root 'em out, for they couldn't do it." These appeared to me to be sensible observa- tions, and under such circumstances the terri- tory on the Columbia would not seem to war- rant any great effort on the part of the United States to establish a colony in so remote a situ- ation ; one, indeed, which would have to be kept up at an enormous expense, without any great object in view, and without any great advantage to be obtained by it. It is very clear that the Hudson's Bay Company, which has such nu- merous posts and important agricultural settle- ments in the Columbia territory, are the real and only colonists who can maintain themselves there. No doubt that territory, in an agricultural point of view, has been extravagantly over-rated ; but that the British Government will ever sur- render the mouth of the Columbia river, through which it has an uninterrupted communication from duebec to China, is highly improbable ; quite as much so as that the United States will commence an expensive career of colonization, which, although occurring naturally to England from her limited home, the industry, wealth, and increase of her population, would seem to be very unwise on the part of a country which ap- pears called upon by what is due to its own prosperity to curtail its possessions rather than to increase them. The markets of St. Louis are full of excellent things; game of every kind is in profusion, and extremely cheap; but, unfortunately, these good things are always irretrievably ruined in the cooking at our hotel. At General Clarke's, how- ever, I ate some wild ducks very nicely dressed, and which I thought as tender and high flavoured as the famous canvass-back ducks of the Susque- hannah. In my walks 1 frequently met sportsmen coming home loaded with wild fowl, the splendid wood-duck (Anas sponsa\ with his magnificent crest, and those beautiful teals with blue (Aims discors) and green wings. As to venison I have seen very little of it, and it has always been so badly dressed wherever I have met with it, that I have generally thought it the worst meat at ta- ble. The fish of these waters is very good, es- pecially the catfish (JPiiaehdus?), which are rich and palatable without sauce of any kind. The country, indeed, abounds with what is good, but the majority of the people do not seem to care how they live, provided it does not interfere with the grand exclusive object of their existence, ma- king money. Wherever I go with the fewest exceptions this is the all-prevailing passion. The word money seems to stand as the repre- sentative of the word " happiness" of other coun- tries. In other lands we see rank, distinction in society, scientific and literary acquirements, with the other elevating objects that embellish and dignify human Hie, pursued by great num- bers with constancy and ardour; but here all other avenues to advancement, except the golden one, seem nearly untrod the shortest cut, coute qui coute, to that which leads to ready money being the favourite one. Where this sordid passion stifles the generous ones, a rapacious selfishness is sure to establish itself; men cease to act for the general welfare, and society at length resolves itself into a community, the great object of every individual of which is to grasp as much as will last as long as himself. In every large town of the United States where I have been, I have, it is true, found ami- able and delightful exceptions to this general de- fect in the American character; but such is the force of evil example, that hereafter it is to be apprehended they may stand about in the same relation to the whole that the planets do to the fixed stars. The officers of the United States army, however, appear strikingly exempted from, this base inclination of sacrificing everything to money; these gentlemen are much better edu- cated than they used to be, and appear to have neither the opportunity nor the inclination to de- grade the military prestige. CHAPTER XVIII. Purchase a Waggon Old French Town of St. Charles on the Missouri Linden Grove Origin of the Mounds- Customs of the Osage Indians. BEFORE we left St. Louis I purchased a nice little waggon called a Dearborn, and a young horse that had been sired by one of the wild prairie horses ; he was a very elegant animal, good-tempered, appeared sound, and I named him Missouri. We were now at the end of all 70 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. stage-coach travelling, and as I was desirous of proceeding in a southern direction as far as the frontier of Mexico, I thought it was better to procure a conveyance of this sort than to purchase horses : with it we could carry our luggage, our specimens, and some provisions ; when one of us was walking the other could drive, and we could sleep under it at night into the bargain. It gave us great pleasure to think we should be quite independent with this little equipage, should have no smoking and spitting passengers, no cursing and swearing drivers, and nobody to care about but ourselves and Missouri, whose beautiful grey skin, arched neck, full eye, and ample tail attracted great attention. Our first excursion with him was to the old French town of St. Charles, on the Missouri. The road over the prairie was excellent ; we passed a race-course, and a tolerable tavern four miles from St. Louis, where the land was so good that 35 dollars an acre was asked for it. Farther on the plain was agreeably diversified by woodland and small valleys, and game seem- ed to be plentiful, for we passed numerous cov- eys of fine quails, so tame that they- woald scarce get out of our way. We came also within eighty yards of three beautiful deer, in fine con- dition ; they were amusing themselves quietly in the middle of the road, and, as we drew nearer, bounded gracefully into the thicket. At fifteen miles from St. Louis we came to Owen's station, a poor village in a fertile tract of land which was first settled when the Spaniards possessed the country : from hence the coun- try fell gradually towards the valley of the Mis- souri, in the way to which we passed some beds of horizontal limestone which a stream had un- covered, and then came to a rich black bottom about two miles broad, which, like that adjoin- ing the Mississippi, formed part of the ancient bA of the river when its waters were more vo- luminious. We saw the north bank of the Mis- souri before we saw the river itself, and at length came suddenly upon it. When the waters are high, it would seem, from the muddy margin, to be about 4000 feet wide ; but at this time it was unusually low, and in the deepest part the stream did not exceed fifteen feet in depth, hav- ing a clayey sluggish appearance. The south bank consists of strata of clay and loam, and is constantly wearing away ; but the north bank is a gentle slope, exhibiting various beds of fossiliferous limestone, probably the equivalent of the carboniferous limestone of England. There are some circumstances con- nected with the alluvial banks of the Missouri and Mississippi which deserve notice. The soil on the south bank of the Missouri extended, within the recollection of individuals now liv- ing, so much farther into the river as to have contracted the channel as I was informed -to three-fourths of the present width ; perhaps this may be exaggerated, but a person whose house we passed about one hundred yards from the edge of the present bank has been obliged to remove it three times, and it appeared to me that he would have to repeat the operation within the next ten years. The same wearing away of the alluvial bank on the east side of the Mississippi, opposite to St. Louis, is going on at the same rate. There are persons who remember when voices could be heard across that river, which is not the case at present. If this is permitted to go on long, these rivers will carry away the alluvial banks, will re-establish their dominion over the width of the ancient channel, and the present volume of water spreading itself over so great an increase of breadth, the navigation will be destroyed, as it is in the Hudson River, near to the city of Al- bany. This would be a great misfortune to the city of St. Louis, and it ought to be averted in time. St. Charles is a poor tatterdemalion-looking place, presenting a long street with some old French houses, and shabby brick stores, where a few American shopkeepers are wasting away their lives. The tavern we put up at was in keeping with the rest, the bed-room we were shown into being so dirty and comfortless that we gave up all hope of a good night's rest. We therefore walked into the country about a mile and a half, to a Major Sibley's, to whom I had a letter. His villa, which is called Linden Grove, is prettily situated on the plateau about a mile back from the river, where the country undulates gracefully, and has fine woodlands. Everything looked rural and nice about the house, the trees were cleared away with taste, and there was an extensive garden bearing marks of unusual care. The Major received us very cordially, and I soon discovered that he was an intelligent and agreeable person. If he had asked us to bivouac in his neat garden, we should have been grateful ; but he pressed us so earnestly to stay all night with him, offering the great luxury of separate bed-rooms, that I really thought him one of the most enlightened men I had met with in the western country. He had resided many years amongst the west- ern Indians as agent of the United States, and had been one of the commissioners appointed to lay out the traders' great road to Santa Fe, in Mexico. We soon got into conversation about the lofty mounds I had seen, when he stated that an ancient chief of the Osage In- dians (corrupted by the French from Whashash) informed him whilst he was a resident amongst them, that a large conical mound, which he, Major Sibley, was in the habit of seeing every day whilst he resided amongst them, was con- structed when he was a boy. That a chief of his nation, who was a most distinguished war- rior, and greatly beloved by the Indians, and who was called Jean Defoe by the French, un- expectedly died whilst all the men of his tribe were hunting in a distant country. His friends buried him in the usual manner, with his weap- ons, his earthen pot, and the usual accompani- ments, and raised a small mound over his re- mains. When the nation returned from the hunt, this mound was enlarged at intervals, ev- ery man assisting to carry materials, and thus the accumulation of earth went on for a long period until it reached its present height, when they dressed it off at the top to a conical form. The old chief farther said that he had been in- formed and believed, that all the mounds had a similar origin ; and that the tradition had been steadily transmitted down from their ancestors, that the Whashash had originally emigrated from the east in great numbers, the population being too dense for their hunting-grounds : he TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 71 described the forks of the Alleghany and Mo- nonghahela rivers, and the falls of the Ohio, where they had dwelt some time, and where largo bands had separated from them, and dis- tributed themselves in the surrounding country. Those who did not remain in the Ohio country, following its waters, reached. St. Louis, where other separations took place, some following the Mississippi up to the north, others advan- cing up the waters of the Missouri. He enu- merated many existing tribes who had sprung from their stock, but mentioned the Saukies as a people not related to them. It would seem, therefore, from this chiefs account, that the In- dian tribes have always been in the habit of in- truding upon other nations with as little cere- mony as the whites have upon them. Amongst the curious corruptions which In- dian names have undergone. Major Sibley men- tioned the following-: Of the Indian name Wha- shash, the French have made Osages, and have divided them into les Grands Osages et les Petits Osages ; but as the voyageurs abbreviate every- thing, they called them les Grands Sds et les Petits Sds, pronouncing the word petits ptits and tils. The Americans, who followed the French, and adopted their terms without un- derstanding their language, have transmogrified " les Petits Osages" into the Teat Saws* After such a specimen of etymology, no wonder that great changes have been produced in language by savages who have been intruding upon each other perhaps for 2000 years. Major Sibley also gave us a great deal of cu- rious information of the customs of the Indians, and of some of the causes of their going to war with each other. It sometimes, he said, occurs in a tribe, that young men, either because they are enamoured of the daughters of some of the chiefs, or moved by other causes, are determin- ed to perform some achievement that will raise them into importance. Stealing horses, if done adroitly and successfully, is considered an hon- ourable action ; surprising and scalping indi- viduals of a distant tribe, with whom they are not upon good terms, is a sure road to distinc- tion. The preparations are silently made and promptly executed ; then comes retaliation, and after it war. When a young woman is about to be married amongst the Osages, an Indian, who fills the office of town crier, takes her dressed in all her finery round the town, and announces that she is going to become the bride of such a young man. Upon one of these occasions, when the daughter of a distinguished chief was about to be led round, painted in grand costume, her cheeks and her hair smeared over with vermil- ion, it was suggested by one of the chief's wives that Major Sibley's clean white shirt would con- trast very well with the vermilion, if it were put on the young maiden ; so he very gallantly, in the assembled presence of her friends, strip- ped himself of his shirt, and the young lady put it on, to the great delight of everybody. The Osages, in the opinion of Major Sibley, are as capable of showing strong affection and friendship as the whites, and are sometimes passionately attached to one of their wives. The other wives are with them rather in the This is equal to thf ~jv goes by, which nto " Bob Ruley." island in Lake Michigan equa o e name an san n ae cgan now goes by, which from " Bois BrOle" has been changed " capacity of help-mates, for when an Indian is opulent everybody flocks to his lodge, and he must have assistance to prepare food for them. These supernumerary wives he occasionally permits, from motives of gain or friendship, to cohabit with other men ; but if one of them without his connivance is detected in her infi- delity, he takes a summary and barbarous re- venge. He conducts her himself to the prairie, and there delivers her to twenty-five young men, where, after being brutally treated by them, she is turned adrift, and ever after considered infa- mous. This is called " walking the prairie." In the morning, after a hearty breakfast, we took leave of the worthy Major, and went to see the Mammelles, of which we had heard a good deal. They were nothing but rounded detached points of land belonging to the bluffs of the pla- teau, to which the early French voyageurs had given this name on account of their form. From the top of one of them we had a fine view of the extensive prairie at their foot : viewed from a distance these Mammelles have the appear- ance of isolated mounds, and it is only when close to the bluffs that you perceive their real character. On our return to St. Louis, our new purchase, Missouri, remembering his stable there, per- formed to admiration, and seemed determined to support the high character his vender had given him : this excellent person, when I laid the money down before him, and asked him for a receipt, was so affected either by the sight of the dollars, or the loss of such a valuable ani- mal, that with a melancholy kind of tone he of- fered the following spontaneous pledge to me : " Stranger, if that ar boss don't go like a screamer, I'll give you leave to ex-flunctify me iato no time of day at all ; if I don't I'm no ac- caywnt I reckon, not by no manner of means." A very generous proceeding on his part, since it was not included in the bargain, and one which it was not easy to appreciate ! On the 25th of October, in the evening pre- ceding our departure from St. Louis, there was some danger of a row in the town betwixt the Roman Catholics of the lower classes and the Presbyterians. The new Catholic cathedral was to be consecrated on the succeeding day, at which ceremony many bishops and clergy- men from a distance were to assist. General Atkinson, in honour of the occasion, had very kindly permitted the band of the sixth regiment to be in the procession, and had lent them two field pieces. During the night some ill-natured persons spiked them, and the enraged French- men of the lower classes imagining it to have been a spiteful act of the Presbyterians, seized the guns, and threatened to turn them against one of the meeting-houses. Better counsels, however, prevailed; the guns were unspiked, and order was restored. CHAPTER XIX. Departure from St. Louis The Comforts of an Indian Mat- rimonial Alliance Tame Buffaloes Herculaneum in America Immense flocks of Cranes History of Mrs, Gallatin Value's Mines. WE took our final departure from St. Louis on the 26th of October. Our " Dearborn" just TRAVELS IN AMERICA. held everything that we possessed comfortably ; we had added a top to it to shelter us from the sun and rain, our harness was in good order, and perhaps we were as well equipped for get- ting through a savage sort of country, cut off from everything like old society, as we could he. As we drove through the streets, Missouri be- came exceedingly restive, and gave sundry signs of dissatisfaction by plunging and eleva- ting his hind heels rather too much above the level of the shafts to promise any good to the general concern. The fact was that the Cana- dians were blowing away out of the two pieces of cannon as fast as they could, and our horse did not like the noise. At one time I thought we should have been wrecked before we got out of the town ; but by a little management and coaxing we at last got out of the sound of the uproar, and Missouri showed his usual docility. I remained a short time at Carondelet. and pro- cured some fossils from the limestone beds, of the same species with those at St. Charles and St. Louis, and at evening drove up to General Atkinson's, at Jefferson Barracks. He and his lady were assisting at the consecration at St. Louis ; but he had left orders that I was to take possession of the house without ceremony whenever I arrived, so that we got into good quarters at once. Meantime, Captain Newitt, an officer of the sixth regiment, whom I had become acquainted with at the White Sulphur Springs, undertook to entertain us at the mess until the General's return. Here one of the offi- cers, who had been several years in the Northern country amongst the Indians, related an amusing adventure of his own. He had been living a long time alone, and had no society whatever, ex- cept occasionally a few of the Indian chiefs whom he knew, one of whom had a young and rather pleasing daughter. Her brother, who had been amongst the whites, and spoke a little English, one day asked him if he would like to have her for a wife, and told him that if he would make the usual presents to the family, she should come to his lodge. As she was a comely and clean-looking young squaw, he got the necessary presents from the sutler, consist- ing of cloth, blankets, tobacco, gunpowder, &c., and delivered them to her friends ; upon which she was brought to his tent, and left there, di- vested however of every article of clothing, ex- cept an old dirty blanket which covered her shoulders. When he returned in the evening he found this young creature crouching down in a corner, and half-frightened out of her senses. He now sent for some old squaws, and had her thoroughly scrubbed, washed, combed, and clad in new clothes. The next morning he went out a hunting, and on his return in the evening found they had taken all her clothes away again. This was repeated three times, when, losing his patience, he told the brother that if it were done again, he would send her back to her father's lodge, and have nothing more to do with her. Although she was now permitted to keep her clothes, he was soon visited by an annoyance of another kind, for every day all her friends and relations came to his tent to see her and talk to her, and as the Indians are the idlest people in the world when not occupied in the chase or in war, he found it at length impossi ble to drive them away. The fact is, that when there is anything to eat in a lodge, the Indians go to work as if there would be something wrong in procrastination, and so seriously set about eating everything up at once ; and his young housekeeper following -he example she had witnessed at her lather's lodge, gave them everything she could lay her band upon ; they ate his bread, his meat, his sugar, and they used everything that he had in lis tent besides. At length they took to sleep- 'ng in it, so that it was in a fair way of becom- ng a receptacle of filth of every kind. He now bund out that the comforts of matrimony with, a comely and clean-looking Indian maiden may 3e purchased rather too dear, and like all men. who have made a precious bad bargain, began, to sigh for the tranquillity of his bachelor's life. At length his impatience became so great, that tie told his brother-in-law, the match-maker, he was determined to strike the tent, and break up the matrimonial connexion. But the brother took it up very punctiliously, and said as the irl had not been unfaithful, he could not do it without offending all her relations : this the of- ficer was aware of, and would have been not a little puzzled what to do, if the Indian who from the first had been more solicitous about what he could get from him than for the honour of his alliance had not relieved his anxiety by saying, " You my broder, you got big heart here, very big heart ; you lay blanket on ground, rifle, powder, shot, tobacco, cloth for leggings, my sister go back with me to lodge." The officer saw at once that this was the least troublesome and expensive course to pursue to get a divorce, so closed with the offer, and thus got rid of his lady, who very contentedly went back to her connexions with her new suit of clothes on. The limestone beds on the shore of the Mis- sissippi here abound in cyathophylla, calamo- pora, and terebratula ; they also contain round nodules of flint, with silicified alcyonia and en- crinites : the bluffs are about 150 feet high, and are composed of various beds of limestone. On the evening of the 27th General Atkinson and his lady arrived, with information that the fes- tival had gone off harmoniously, and that the spiking of the cannons had been traced to some idle young fellows for whose conduct no sect was responsible. On the 28th we bade adieu to our kind friends at Jefferson Barracks, and took our departure for the lead mines in the State of Missouri. * The country for a great distance around the garrison abounds with the same kind of depres- sions on the surface that we noticed in the lime- stone country betwixt Nashville and Louisville, called sink-holes. The road was indifferent, and led through a forest of oaks, through which, as we were passing, we were very much amu- sed with the quails, which were so numerous and tame that they would scarce get out of the way with a crack from the whip-lash. After driving eight miles, we came to a broad rich bot- tom of land, through which flows the Merrimac River, a beautiful stream, about 160 yards wide. The southern sources of this river rise in Wash- ington County, in the State of Missouri, and on its way to the Mississippi it receives Big River, about thirty miles west from its muuth : we crossed it in a ferry-boat, about one mile from the confluence. Rising out of this valley we TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 73 came again upon the table-land to a high undu- lating country, consisting of limestone, with abundance of chalcedonised chert. The ex- traordinary quantity of siliceous matter in these calcareous beds is quite remarkable. At the Sulphur Springs, sixteen miles from the garri- .son, we were overtaken by a cold heavy rain, and stopping at a plantation belonging to Major O'Fallon, an Indian agent, who was from home, we took the liberty of quartering ourselves there for the night ; a black woman, who was left in charge of the premises, entertained us in the best manner she was able, and laying ourselves quietly down upon some buffalo hides, spread upon the floor near a good fire, we got over the night as well as we could. The springs, at this place, are slightly impregnated with sulphuret- ted hydrogen, and the solid contents in solution are muriate of soda and carbonate of lime. In a field, not far from the house, I saw two tame buffaloes which the Major had brought from the Indian country, a bull and a cow ; they looked exceedingly thin and lank : indeed, I have nev- er seen any of these animals in good condition when under restraint, and I am told that they seldom breed when deprived of their liberty. In the morning we proceeded to Herculaneum on the banks of the Mississippi, through a coun- try of limestone knobs : this little place is built at the edge of the river, in the front of a semi- circular cove where the edges of the strata of limestone are worn down so as to resemble the seats of an ancient amphitheatre, from which circumstance Mr. Moses Austin, the original founder of the place (the father of Mr. Austin, the leading man amongst the Americans in the Mexican province of Texas), who was a fanci- ful as well as an enterprising person, gave it the name the ancient city bears, which has been so many centuries covered up near Naples. At each horn of the amphitheatre the limestone bluffs are very fine, and the beds are so full of seams and blotches of black siliceous matter, that the mineral contents of the beds seem to be almost equally divided between silex and lime. We got a very comfortable breakfast at this place, at a small hut kept by two women from New-England, who had brought all the nice clean habits of their own respectable State here with them ; and, pursuing our journey, we dis- covered, whilst getting out of the ferry-boat on crossing the St. Joachim which figures on some of the American maps as Swashing Creek, a strange imitation of St. Joachim that an im- portant part of the machinery of our waggon was broken. This was an incident that brought us up in good season ; we were still in the neigh- bourhood of Herculaneum, where, fortunately, there was a blacksmith, and torrents of rain were pouring down. All this would have been bad enough if we had been far from any settle- ment ; for although we were provided with ham- mers, and nails, and cords, and every appliance for common accidents, we had no blacksmith's forge, and the case required one. We therefore drove to the blacksmith's, and finding that we could " get in" at a widow's close by, whose name was Gallatin, I went there, and found her a very respectable person, with a clean bed- room and sitting-room at our service : indeed, our quarters looked so promising that I deter- mined to stop here a short time, being desirous K of looking about me, and examining the shores of the Mississippi. As soon therefore as the rain ceased, we sallied out and climbed to the top of the bluff behind Mrs. Gallatin's house, which is about 100 feet high, and upon which a Mr. Bates',' one of the original settlers, has erected a shot-tower, where a great deal of shot is made, that is dropped from the height of 130 feet. The river scenery is remarkably beautiful at Herculaneum ; the bluffs are imposing, and dis- integrate in a peculiar manner into large grot- toes, which look as if they had been excavated by man, but they are to be seen in the very in- cipient part of the process at the most inacces- sible parts of the top of the bluff. On the shore immense blocks of limestone, filled with chert,, as much as the chalk is with flint in some parts, of England, are piled upon each other. To the north the view is very graceful : the alternate bold and depressed banks on the left, the pictu- resque wooded islands in the river, and the rich alluvial bottoms of the State of Illinois, making a fine picture. To the south the long vista down the Mississippi, its well wooded and lofty banks ;. the extensive island in front of Herculaneum, with a spacious level and dry sand-bar, that at this season of the year might be converted into- an excellent race-course ; the whirring and croaking of tens of thousands of cranes (Mega- lornis Americanus), the scourge of the corn-field s,. that after their devastations by day return at night to the sand-bar to set up a croaking that makes the whole country ring again ; the flocks of wild geese that rival the cranes with their harsh trumpeting ; and, last of all, those mon- sters of the waters, the numerous steamers heard from a distance of several miles before they are seen, and which, when they appear, come on belching and sughing out from their metallic throats as if they were huge animals in their last agony ; all these concurring features excited our admiration strongly, and we con- fessed that we felt as if we were realising some of those fancies which are so eloquently ex- pressed in the tales of the " Arabian Nights." Being desirous of examining the opposite shore, I engaged a man to take us across the Mississippi in his skiff, which here is about a mile wide : the skiff was an old rotten, ticklish affair, but as we could not get a better, we en- tered it with our rifles, and. landed on the large island in front, which has been cut off by the river from the Illinois side. It contains several hundred acres of good soil, but on account of its lying very low, and being subject to annual inundations, can never be cultivated. I made my way through the small timber that covers it, but found no game, although my son, who trav- ersed the island in another direction, got a sight of two deer, without however getting a shot at them. From this place we got into our danger- ous skiff again, and after being snagged two or three times, ft last paddled ashore. We walk- ed along the fertile alluvial bank to Harrison- ville, one of those wretched settlements con- sisting principally of a country store or two. Seeing a very extensive field of Indian corn, I asked the owner how many bushels it would average per acre, and he answered, that the crop had suffered much for want of rain, and would not avera'ge more than sixty bushels per acre, but that in good seasons the "land would 74 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. yield from 80 to 100 bushels. He also said that good corn was now at 15 and 20 cents the bushel, and that some persons who wanted money very much had offered their crops at 12 cents (sixpence) : he added, that it was not an uncommon occurrence here to sell a barrel of sound corn, containing seven bushels, for one dollar. The people at this place were begin- ning to recover slowly from their annual attacks of the fever and ague : their sallow, emaciated countenances, that looked distressed by the monstrous quantities of calomel they were ac- customed to take, and the feeble and uncertain steps with which they went about their avoca- tions, betrayed how dearly they paid by the loss of health for the privilege they enjoyed of occupying a fertile soil, which, whilst it gave them the means of existence, destroyed the power of enjoying it. From hence we walked six miles through the "American Bottom," the greater part of which is a rich alluvial flat, to the limestone bluffs, the limit of the bed of the ancient Mississippi, whilst thousands of cranes were wheeling about and deafening us with their cries : not far from the iluffs were several lagoons, containing immense numbers of fresh-water shells, especially Ana- -dontas, which delight in dead water. Prodigi- ous quantities of wild fowl were disporting upon these pools, where we shot some very fine fat teal with brilliant green wings. After a fatigu- ing day we retraced our steps, and re-crossed the river to our lodgings. The vast extent of the calcareous strata in these parts of North America, exhibiting an uniform flat deposit for many hundreds of miles, awakens many reflections. It is a popular opin- ion amongst geologists, that the sedimentary beds are derived from the detritus of other rocks which preceded them, and in many instances, no doubt, the opinion is well justified. But where are the roots of the rocks that have fur- nished the mineral matter of which the whole basin of the Mississippi and hundreds of miles of contiguous territory are formed, comprehend- ing an area as large as Great Britain? And what a stretch of the imagination does it not require to contrive the destruction of a conti- nent of such extent ! It would seem to be a much more simple process, and one capable of fulfilling all the conditions of the problem, to suppose a great portion of the solid contents of the existing strata to have once been in solu- tion in subterranean depths, and to have been sent to the surface loaded with calcareous mat- ter, as in the case of the Sweet Springs in Vir- ginia, and with siliceous matter, as in the case of the Geysers, as they are exhibited in our own day. The manner in which siliceous matter is often found mixed up with the calcareous rocks certainly seems to point to a period when they were in the state of calcareo-silicjous mud de- posited from thermal sources, the^molecules of the respective minerals having cohered togeth- er by mutual attraction. The morning succeeding to our excursion I went farther down the shore of the Mississippi, on the right bank, for the river being unusually low at this season, I thought it probable some beds might be exposed which I should never have an opportunity of seeing again ; and I was not mistaken, for about a mile north of the Plattin Creek, which is about thirty-three miles from St. Louis, I found an important bed of sandstone, only a few inches above the level of the river, of a loose granular texture, consisting of quartzose grains held together without ce- ment, and so very incoherent in some places that it crumbled between the fingers. Upon ex- amining the calcareous roeks in the bank which rested upon the sandstone, I found that a great change had taken place, and that they no long- er consisted of compact limestone containing seams and blotches of cherty matter, but that ; though much mixed up with silex, they were fetid, non-fossiliferous, and abounded in cale spar with occasional streaks of sulphate of lime : indeed they so strongly resembled some cal- careous beds I had seen in the galeniferous countries of Europe, that I thought it probable they might be connected with the lead district which lay immediately to the west. I was, therefore, extremely particular in my examina- tion of the sandstone bed and the beds immedi- ately above it, as they might serve as keys to decipher the stratification of the lead district which I was about to enter. We had been so much interested with the geology and natural history of the neighbour- hood, and were so well satisfied with the quiet and comfortable quarters Mrs. Gallatin had pro- vided for us, that we did not leave her house until the 31st of October. She was a person of great worth, and when I learned her history which is not an uncommon one in this part of the country I could not but feel great respect for her. Her husband had lived happily with her for a great many years, but having become a speculator, had mismanaged his affairs ami brought upon himself numerous pecuniary em- barrassments : not liking his prospects he, like many others, determined to go to Texas, a country which had for some time loomed up as the asylum of that portion of oppressed human- ity that feels nervous under the restraints of law. He, therefore, left his excellent wife with three modest, amiable daughters, all marriage- able, one son an adult, and another a child of about five years old, under a solemn promise that he would return for them as soon as he had provided a home there. After he had been absent two years she received a letter from him, which held out some encouragement of his return, but another year had passed away and she had heard nothing more. " He has been too long away from us now," said she tc me with an appearance of subdued grief, " too long I imagine ever to wish to come back to us again. I think he must have pretty much for- gotten us by this time, and we must try not to break our hearts about it." All the individuals of this family were remarkable for the neatness of their persons ; the mother had known much better times, and although her conversation and conduct proved that she knew how to meet this trial with spirit and sense, yet in her counte- nance well-defined traces of sorrow were to be seen. The daughters were maidenly looking roung creatures, with great modesty of de- meanour, and the eldest son appeared a steady and useful man, extremely attached to his moth- er and sisters. They seemed to be all usefully employed from morn to night, and to be habit- ually under the influence of the religious train- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 75 ing they had received. I felt great sympathy for this worthy family on parting with them, especially for the sorrowful mother ; but I had seen many more unfortunate than themselves, for they were manifestly under the care of Him who protects and blesses the virtuous in adver- sity. We left the Cove of Herculaneum by a deep miry road in the black soil, and with some dif- ficulty Missouri got our equipage up a very steep and bad hill, at the top of which we found ourselves in extensive barrens containing strag- gling trees. We had not proceeded very far in the country ere I saw on our left a denuded sort of deep ravine, and descending into it I found at the bottom the incoherent sandstone I had seen on the shore of the Mississippi ; and on examining the upper strata I recognised the fetid non-fossiliferous calcareo-siliceous beds, which satisfied me that I had got a good hold of the stratification. Having gone about ten miles we stopped at a settler's named Strick- land, who had erected his house near a spring, and following the water down to a bottom not far from his dwelling, I found some thin beds of limestone and lithographic stone of a very good quality, resembling the white lias. From hence we proceeded eleven miles over a broken and undulating country to Vallee's Mines, the sandstone occasionally cropping out at the surface of the ground, and at length came to a low bottom where some smelting houses were erected. Here were Vallee's Mines, but as to regular mining no such thing had ever been practised at the place, nor any kind of mining beyond digging shallow pits into the alluvial soil in search of galena or sulphu- ret of lead, which at some period when the ga- leniferous rocks once in place here were de- stroyed, had been left in the superficial soil, from the size of a pin's head to masses weigh- ing several hundred pounds. These pits, from six to twenty feet deep, exist in such great numbers, that it is very difficult to drive be- twixt them, even upon the road, and in the night-time it would be impossible. Great quan- tities of sulphate of harytes, called tiff by the workmen, is found where they dig, and a pro- fusion of dark red clay is also thrown out by them : but the confused manner in which the digging is carried on at this place baffles all in- vestigation. The people employed were prin- cipally French ; the men were brutal, and not disposed to conversation, and the only person from whom we could obtain almost any infor- mation was an old French negress, who had a great deal of that politeness which distinguish- es the old school. The smelting was conduct- ed in a wasteful manner, in small out-door fur- naces, with galena and wood alternately piled in layers. As soon as we had seen everything worth our attention, and fed our horse at a wretched looking hut where there was a pack of dirty old beldames, we continued on to Tap- lid and Perry's Mines, where I hoped to find op- erations going on in the rock. The road was bad and difficult, and led us to the brow of an abrupt hill, from whence we perceived a pretty valley beneath us, and a number of huts which we supposed belonged to the mining establish- ment. Night was approaching, it was cold, we were verv much jaded as well as our horse, and on reaching the place, received with no small degree of sensibility the information that there was no tavern of any kind there, and no place at which we could stay, as all the huts were full of working people. CHAPTER XX. Taphtt and Perry's Lead Mines Geology of the Lead Dis- trict System of Galcniferous Veins Their Structure analogous to the Trap Veins at Trottemish in Scotland Farmington Visit to the Iron Mountain. IN this dilemma I went to a kind of double log hut which had rather a more imposing look than the rest, to try if we could not make in- terest to be housed for the night. An old ne- gress, who cooked for the party in this hut, said that " Dr. Perkins was the master there, that he did the doctoring about, and that he was from hum, and she didn't think we could get in nowhere." Just at this moment a good-look- ing young miner coming up to the hut, I made our situation known to him, and he said we were welcome to stay all night if we would put up with such fare as we should find. As nei- ther Missouri nor ourselves had formed any great expectations, we gladly accepted of his offer, and proceeded to take care of our horse and luggage. The hut was soon afterwards filled with miners, who came in for the even- ing, and in a short time we became acquainted with the friends we had to mess with, who treated us with great kindness. Our fare, to be sure, was humble enough, salt beef with very wretched coffee, and not a drop of milk ; but the bread was palatable, and having prepa- red some of our own tea, we managed tolerably well, and passed the evening talking with the miners by the side of a cheerful fire. The young man, to whose civility we had been so much indebted, had the management of a part of the concern entrusted to him, and he inform- ed us that shafts had been sunk here in the solid rock with great success, which we should have every facility of examining in the morning. This was very gratifying information ; for such confused ideas had got abroad of the geological character of the lead district, that everything was to learn about it, and these shafts could not but afford a great deal of instruction. Finding these miners to be all resolute young adventurers, and quite intelligent and obliging, I felt bound to contribute something on my part to the entertainment of the evening, and pro- duced some old Cogniac brandy which we had laid in for great emergencies only and it was so highly approved of, that when the hour for sleeping had arrived, they surrendered in the most friendly manner one of their beds on the floor, upon which my son and myself, without being too curious, laid down and passed the night. In the morning we partook of the frugal breakfast of our entertainers, and sallied out to examine the hills preparatory to descending the shafts. The country in the lead district, except where it is interrupted by the valleys, presents an extensive table-land, through which a few slight streams run, which are used by the mi- ners to wash the soil taken out of the shallow pits or "diggings" which have before been spo- ken of, and which were first commenced by the TRAVELS IN AMERICA. Spaniards when they had possession of the country. These streams, in cutting their way through the superficial soil, had sometimes dis- closed valuable deposits of the ore, and this had induced adventurers to commence " diggings" in other parts of the alluvial soil, sinking their pits until it became inconvenient to throw or hoist the mineral matter out. and tjien abandon- ing them to excavate others. I observed people occupied in this kind of work in several places : the soil at the top consisted generally of about a foot of red earth mixed with pieces of mamil- lary quartz and petro-siliceous stones ; next a deposit of red clay of a few feet deep, resting upon a bed of gravel and cherty pebbles, in which the fragments of galena were contained. These deposits do not differ in point of mechan- ical arrangement from the gravel deposits con- taining gold in the Southern States, all of which appear to be the result of the destruction of the superior strata. At present, owing to the greater energy of the Americans, almost the whole surface of the country is dug up into pits of various sizes, from four feet diameter to some exceeding twenty feet square, with a proportionate depth. These larger areas belong entirely to modern times, and are the result of the discovery grad- ually made, that the loose fragments of galena in the superficial soil, which were once the sole object of the diggings, are connected with "mineral" as it is called here imbedded in the solid rock. As soon as this was ascertain- ed they went to work as men would do in an or- dinary quarry, without much relation to method, and in one or two places I saw a quarry of the extent of half an acre opened, and people blast- ing the galeniferous rock with gunpowder ; so that mining, as it is called here, is precisely what quarrying is in other places. In selecting a place for conducting these ex- cavations, they observe, as the miners do in Cornwall, certain external indications of " min- eral" on the surface, such as the prevalence of masses of quartzose rock, generally cellular and full of groups of small mamillary crystals, which are often very brilliant. These crystals fre- quently rest upon chalcedonized concentric lay- ers with an agate structure. In other instances the crystals are formed into pyramids, and their masses are hollow. These quartzose masses are called in the mining district " mineral blos- som," and are always thought, I believe with justice, to indicate the presence of galena be- low : indeed it was obvious to us, on entering the lead district, that a great change had taken place in the mineral matter; numerous locali- ties presenting a confused but distinct and rath- er unvarying character of crystallization in the agate structure, the mamillary quartz, and the indications of sulphate of barytes. The hills around the small valley where we were, consisted of the same calcareo siliceous rock which we had seen superincumbent upon the incoherent sandstone. Some practical Eng- lish miners had sunk a shaft on the slope of these hills, and Messrs. Taplitt and Perry, being enterprising men, had imitated their example. The shaft they had sunk was 110 feet deep, and the young miner who had the charge of it very obligingly caused me to be let down in the buck- et, and gave me every aid and facility for ex- amining their underground works. For the first sixty feet we went through the ealcareo- siliceous rock, rather incoherent towards the top, and then came upon a horizontal vein o sulphuret of lead ; lower down they had come upon a second horizontal vein, the appearance of which was surprisingly brilliant and curious ; for as I stood in the widest part of the drift, I could see a band of bright shining compact ga- lena upwards of a foot wide, running through the rocks in a horizontal line. Numerous sub- ordinate veins and threads were connected with : .iris band, and where the metal appeared to be promising, they had cut drifts into them. In ursuing this principal horizontal vein, I came, i succession, to a great number of cavities or pockets in the calcareo-siliceous rock of various sizes, all of which seemed to be analogous to those which exist underground in the gold re- gion of Virginia. Some of them were not more than four or five feet wide, whilst others were much larger. The largest I entered was about forty feet from top to bottom, and about thirty- five feet in diameter. In this, as well as in the other cavities, they had uniformly found an im- mense quantity of red clay, resembling that found in the superficial deposits, with a thick plate of sulphuret of lead at the bottom of it, as if it had sunk there by its specific gravity. But what gave me the greatest satisfaction was coming at length to a vein almost vertical, con- taining a breadth of about eighteen inches of compact galena ; this my conductor said they called the main r.hannel. I took its course, and found it to be N.N.E. S.S.W., with an inclina- tion of 18. On a full consideration of all the circumstances connected with this main chan- nel, I came to the opinion that all the horizon- tal veins were lateral jets from this vertical lode, which, rising from below, had injected the horizontal bands into the rock. The phenome- non appeared to me to be quite analogous to the case which Mr. M'Culloch has cited of the in- jection of horizontal bands of trap into sand- stone, at Trotternish, in Scotland.* Having made these observations upon the di- rection of the veins, I commenced an examina- tion of their structure more in detail, and found they were all what is called in some of the min- ing districts of England " wet veins," being, with- out exception, encased, not in sulphate of bary- tes, but in pure bright red argillaceous matter, quite wet beneath the galena, and cutting with a shining waxy face. Wherever the metal runs, this wet red clay accompanies it, enclosing it as it were in a sheath, and carrying along with it sometimes nodules of quartz, iron, zinc, and a little galena, a compound to which the miners have given the name of dry bones. We here find the origin of the red o.lay which covers the gravel beds of the superficial soil in the valleys, and an almost incontrovertible proof that that deposit is the result of the destruction of an- cient beds. Everything connected with the ge- ological phenomena of the metallic districts of this country concurs to show that there has been in ancient, times a period of great violence, accompanied with mighty aqueous action, that has ended in greatly lowering the ancient sur- face. We were informed that they could raise and * Vide M'Culloch's ""Western Highlands of Scotland." " TRAVELS IN AMERICA, bring to the surface at these mines 5000 Ins. weight of the ore a day, a quantity that I should think could be easily quadrupled, if the demand for the metal justified it. The compact sulphu- ret they obtain is very valuable, for it is free from foreign matter, and yields 65 per cent, of pure lead of commerce. I advised them to de- sist from cutting drifts upon so many of the threads, as they were making a labyrinth of their works, hut to sink another winze from one of their galleries, and cut out upon the main channel below, as it was not improbable that in doing so, they might intersect another suite of horizontal bands of the ore. Having paid our debt of hospitality to our iind entertainers in douceurs to the black work- men in their service, we shook hands cordially with them, thanking them with great sincerity, and departed for Farmington, a small village, distant about twenty miles. We kept the high table-land for the first ten miles, constantly ac- companied by the mineral indications, and then descended to a low country where the calcareo- siliceous rock no longer appeared. Crossing a pretty stream, called by the French Terreblue of which the Americans have made Tarblue, whose waters were exceedingly pellucid, we passed some farms where the soil seemed to be fertile, and in eight miles more reached Farm- ington, and put up at a quiet comfortable tav- ern kept by a Mr. Boice. Here I had a chance of writing up my journal, which was a little be- hindhand, and of doing justice to my internals, which for some time had been upon rather scan- ty allowance. The distance from this place to the Iron Mountain, which was the great lion of this part of the State of Missouri, being only sixteen miles, I determined to take a look at it, and Mr. Boice having procured us a couple of country saddle-horses, we gave Missouri a holiday, and started early the next morning. Our course was about S.W., and having proceeded four miles the country began sensibly to grow high- er, and we came upon some thin beds of the calcareo-siliceous rock; but in four miles more a still greater change took place, for we came to very lofty hills of a different kind to those we had seen on the preceding day, with an ab- rupt and stony ascent. Having reached a place where the rocks were entirely denuded, I dis- mounted, and found we were upon a formation of well-defined syenite, consisting of a regular chain, apparently running for a great distance N.E. and S.W. Crossing this chain, we turned into the woods in a S.S.W. direction to exam- ine it on the west side, and there found it de- flected rather inwards, taking somewhat a cra- teri-form. Riding on about an hour and a half, we at length came to a hill where the syenite was ponderously impregnated with iron, and at a distance of about a mile from this, reached one of the rarest metallic spectacles I have ever witnessed. This consisted of two very singular hills, sparingly covered with trees, and adjacent to each other ; one of them about 350 feet high, and both together perhaps containing 500 acres of land. The surface of those hills had the ap- pearance of being paved with black glossy-look- ing pebbles of iron, having a bright metallic fracture of a steel gray colour Beneath these pebbles, as far as I could judge, there was a sol- id mass of micaceous oxide of iron, and I traced it north and south near half a mile, until it was covered with the superficial soil at the foot of the hills. Near the tops of these hills are im- mense masses of this oxide, and the space be- tween them is filled up by fragments that have been broken from them, with angular edges a little rounded by the weather. Some portions of the ore are mixed up with quartaose matter of a flinty character, and, in some instances, crystals of iron were imbedded in the quartz. The other hills around, which I had an oppor- tunity of examining, consisted of a dark-col- oured coarse quartz with reddish felspar, but no mica. We were filled with admiration at what we saw : everything had the appearance of being metalic matter erupted from below, and I left the place regretting that I could not devote a whole week to a more particular ex- amination of this curious syenitic chain, as we had been informed that other part* of it con- tained very striking mineral phenomena. On our return at evening we saw a great many coveys of quails, with a numerous flock of fine grown wild turkeys ; and as they beha- ved with pretty much the same indifference to us that tame ones would have done, we dis- mounted, tied up our horses, and gave chase to them in the woods ; hut they had not been creeping about the day before on their hands and knees in lead mines, nor gone through a fatiguing day's ride of forty miles as we had done, and soon left us at a very satisfactory dis- tance ; we therefore remounted, pushed on to Farmington, and after partaking of such a meal as country people roused from their beds were disposed to give us, retired willingly to rest. On the third of November we started at an early hour for Mine la Motte, about sixteen miles from Farmington. There is a good deal offer- tile alluvial soil in this neighbourhood, where emigrants from Tennessee and Kentuky have settled themselves, but they do not live com- fortably. People of this class usually leave their native homes compelled by their poverty, and not being strangers altogether to the pre- carious and shifty existence of settlers in a wild country, they have recourse to all sorts of simple expedients to get along, and end by adopting, as permanent usages, the shifts they had at first been compelled to practise. These, with their descendants, become manners and customs, to which the traveller is obliged to conform. Their cooking, their washing, their eating, their sleeping, and all their domestic matters are got through with in the simplest way, without much system, and with very little ceremony. An explorer of this wild country soon becomes accustomed to their ways, and is quite contented if he is a man of experience when he finds them good-tempered and clean. He is "generally hungry, and if he finds anything on the table that he can eat with satisfaction, tie sticks to that, helping himself liberally at first ; for inconstancy and the search after va- ety do not generally produce useful results in countries where the grand object is to lay in a apital supply for the gastrics to work upon as ong as possible, and where there is not much certainty about the next meal. The real cares of such a traveller are food for the day, and a TRAVELS IN AMERICA. clean lodging for the night. He may get some- thing to eat at one place, and at flight he may come to another with little or nothing that he can eat, and must content himself with lying down on the floor, wrapped up in his own gar- ments, there to get what sleep he can amidst the whole assembled family. His happy mo- ments are all out of doors, where nature, always clean and always attractive, generally compen- sates him for every privation: there clinging to the open woods and the murmuring streams as long as daylight lasts, he reluctantly seeks the habitation of man only when compelled by want of food and rest. CHAPTER XXI. Mine la Motte Veins of Galena disturbed by electric Mat- terEarthquake at New Madrid in 181 1 Frederic.ktow A Judge's Encomium on the Missouri Bar Panther Stories Greenville Fare at an opulent Missouri Farm- er's Life*f a Squatter How to " bring up" the Sover- eign People Bear Oil Currency Scene in a Court of Justice. WE soon begali to cross some of the head waters of the river St. Francis, and after pass- ing a deep ravine where strong horizontal led- ges of sandstone jutted out on its sides, we came upon an extensive table-land, where the trees being nearly all cut down, I supposed we were near the mine : soon after we reached some miserable log cabins on a naked plain, in- habited by the most ignorant human beings I almost ever conversed with, the mothers and wives of some of the labouringminers. A couple of miles farther on we came to the old French village of Mine la Motte, where was another set of miserable huts, in the inside of one or two of which, however, I perceived some signs of hope, such as tea things neatly arranged, bed- curtains, looking-glasses, &c., belonging to the families of some English miners, as we found upon inquiry. Speculators from all quarters seem to have resorted to this place; the French are not very numerous, and those who succeed the best are the English, who have been brought up to mining in their native country ; for being conversant with the throw of veins, and accus- tomed to follow a regular system of work, less of their labour is wasted : the Americans, how- ever, are gradually adopting their plans, and be- ing ingenious mechanics and persevering men, are beginning to do very well. What rather surprised me was, that even Englishmen had adopted the method of quarrying instead of sink- ing shafts, alleging, as the reason, that the whole vicinity was so cut up by pits made by those who followed the practice of shallow digging, that it was hardly practicable to do anything but quarry the ore, for which the nature of the surface offered great facilities. This part of the lead district presents many curious- phenomena deserving attention.. Its surface is upon a table-land of great extent, with a few inconsiderable streams passing through it, and the diggings are so numerous in every direction, and the country is so wasted, that the cattle running at large frequently fall into the holes. One quarry had been opened to the ex- tent of fifty feet in length and twenty-five feet in depth, and another had been irregularly work- ed in the side of a hill for a greater distance, so that sections of the manner in which the galena was connected with the stony matter were ex- hibited in various ways. At the quarry called Mine la Prairie, the galena not only ran in the rock in compact bands, as at Taplitt's, but in some places was interspersed with it in small patches, and sometimes the calcareo-silioeous rock was even speckled throughout with minute portions of the ore, so as to give the appearance of the stony and metallic matter having both come into place at the same time, for if either the one or the other were abstracted, no prin- ciple of cohesion would be left for the remain- ing mineral. This ore is troublesome to reduce, being much mixed with sulphuret of copper, and only yields from 40 to 50 per cent. In another quarry phenomena of a different character presented themselves ; the calcareo- siliceousrock was so decomposed as to be quite incoherent, and loose enough to be shovelled out ; occasionally it changed its character, the silex and lime being separated so as to leave the rock sometimes hard, sometimes soft, some- times granular, sometimes compact. In one place I observed a seam of sandstone near three feet thick lying upon a seam of bright galena six inches broad, with limestone below. But what made this locality, where the constituents of the calcareo-siliceous rock had separated, so interesting, was the state of the galena found in it. A band of ore, upwards of twelve inches wide which evidently had once run horizon^ tally in a compact body through the rock, like that which we had sen at Taplitt's was stiJl there, but shattered and dislocated into myriads of sharp angular fragments, some of them stand- ing on their edges in one direction, eight or ten inches wide, and others at right angles to them - r whilst near to them parts of the original com- pact horizontal band were lying flat on the rock as if they had never been disturbed, resembling the condition of the shattered flints in the chalk, cliffs at the Isle of Wight. For this phenome- non, perhaps, the proximate cause is at hand, in the subterranean disturbances that seem t be peculiar to this district, and which occurred at New Madrid, on the Mississippi, in 1811 and 1812.* These produced very remarkable ef- New Madrid is a settlement on the right bank of the- Mississippi, about seventy miles south-east from this dis- trict ; it received this name in consequence of its having been the site of an old Spanish post, and was settled first in 1780. The country around is a flat alluvial area without a vestige, of rocky strata in any part of it, generally well wooded, but containing two or three prairies of about five miles square, where cotton and Indian corn are cultivated. In the month of December, 1811, the inhabitants of New Madrid were roused in the night by distant rolling sounds, somewhat resembling the discharge of artillery : soon after this the earth began to rock to and fro, and to open into vast chasms, from whence issued a dense vapour accompanied with torrents of water. Near one-half of the county of New Vladrid was depressed about four feet from its ancient evel ; the beds of anc.ent lakes were upheaved, and became arearof sand, and lands of the most fertile quality were sunk in some places and converted into lakes, one of which 's said to be sixty miles long and from three to twenty miles iroad ; some parts of this lake are so shallow as to permit ;he tops of the trees to appear above the water, but the depth in other parts is said to be from fifty to one hundred eet. At one moment of this convulsion a portion of the >ed of the Mississippi was heaved up so high as to make its waters refluent, and accumulate them to an extent which nenaced the submergence of all the adjacent country ; and he settlers were only spared this evil by the increasing .lower of the aqueous volume, which at length wore a pas- sage through the artificial dam thus created, and restored the channel. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 79 fects ; they raised and depressed extensive dis- tricts of country, filled up old lakes and formed new ones, and completely changed the surface of the country in the interior for a great distance on the west side of the river; adisturbing in- fluence which, from causes unknown to us, may have frequently visited this part of the country. Perhaps even the'syenitic chain, which includes the Iron Mountain, may have been thrust up at the period when an electric power of great in- tensity passed along these lodes, and brought them into their present shattered condition. Highly gratified by what I had seen here, we departed for Frederictown, four miles distant, over a tolerably level country. This was the ancient St. Michel of the French, in the vicinity of which this modern American settlement has been built on a hill, with its court-house and steeple, a magnificent object to our now rustic eyes, so long accustomed to log cabins. We stopped at an indifferent-looking tavern, kept by a German named Heihner, an intelligent and good man, who was exceedingly unhappy at this time, having had the misfortune to kill a drunken Frenchman who had insulted and an- noyed him excessively in his own house. He was under bail for a large amount, but enter- tained confident hopes that he would be acquit- ted upon his trial, as it was known to many re- spectable people that the Frenchman was the aggressor, and would probably have slain Heth- ner if he had not been too quick for him. This tragical incident had occasioned a feud in the place not very favourable to the poor Ger- man's hopes, a strong party having been formed exceedingly hostile to him ; for a majority of the inhabitants being of French origin had taken up the affair warmly, and being a foreigner he had not as many friends as a native American would have had. Nevertheless, he was not without them ; some of the most respectable people were determined he should have fair play, and the magistrate who had admitted him to bail was at the head of them. A person we became acquainted with gave us an amusing account of this worthy personage, who had been " raised" on the frontier settlements of Kentucky, and el- evated to the dignity of judge of the county court here, not because he had ever studied law, or any other art or science, but because he was a thorough going party-man. The judge was a straight-forward, fearless person, and, having emigrated into the state of Missouri in consequence of a ruinous law-suit, had brought with him an utter detestation of lawyers. It happened that the friends of the deceased Frenchman had engaged the services of a con ceited, talkative, satirical limb of the law, who also had come here to make his fortune, and betwixt this man and his honor the judge a grudge had arisen upon the following occasion Amongst the functions his honor was charged with, was the duty of taking acknowledgments of deeds ; and soon after his elevation to the bench the attorney waited upon him accompa- nied by a female, and, presenting him with a long conveyance, told him he was ' to examine her secretly and apart," whether she had signed the deed by compulsion, and was to certify the affida vit immediately, as they wanted to use the deed in half an hour. As he had never exercised this function before, and had no very clear notion f what sort of examination she was to under go, and, above all, not liking either the man or lis manner, he told him to leave the paper, and hat he would look it over and see what he :ould do. To this the attorney testily replied, ' you have no business to look at the paper at 11, your business is only with the affidavit." A. ittle nettled at this want of reverence, the judge s sharply rejoined, " I calculate you must take ne for a most almighty fool to suppose that I'm a mind to swar to what's in that ar paper be- bre I've read a word in it, fcnd I ain't a-going- o do no sich thing for no lawyers on the uni- versal arth, I tell you." It was in vain his hon- r was told that he was not the person that was o swear to the affidavit ; he would not listen; ,o the attorney, and the lady inclining to the udge's opinion, and expressing a wish that he ,vould read the paper, the attorney was outvo- ,ed and had to submit, taking his revenge, how- ever, afterward, by ridiculing the judge upon all occasions. At the period when this homi- cide took place, his honor had received so many affronts from the attorney that a " rumpus" was expected betwixt them every time they met. When Hethner was brought before the judge r a violent altercation arose betwixt him and the attorney on the propriety of admitting the ac- cused to bail. Authorities were quoted, statutes were produced, and the bench was emphatically ;old that he "could not by law admit him to bail, and that no man that was the very begin- ning of a lawyer would say he could " To all this his honor replied, "the court knows well enough what it's abaywt, it ain't a-going to do no sich thing as read all them law books by no- manner of means, and it's no use to carry on so> for the court decides all the pynts agin you.' r Having delivered the opinion of the bench with, great firmness, his honor now took to a remarka- ble personal peculiarity he had, which was to gather his lips together when he had made a speech, and suck the air in with great vehemence. No sooner, therefore, was the decision promul- gated than the attorney sarcastically observed,. Some folks gets their law from books, and some folks, I calculate, must suck it in." This sally having produced a universal titter, his hon- or immediately arose to vindicate the dignity of the bench, and addressed the following elo- quent rebuke to the offending barrister : " Suck or no suck, I swar I ain't a-going to be bully- ragged by no sich talking Juniuses as you, a sniggering varmint that's the non compus men- tus of all human abhorrence, and that's parfictly intosticated with his own imperance that's the court's candid opinion if it ain't, I wish the court may be etarnally ." I should have been glad to have visited other parts of this interesting mining district before the winter had set in, if my plans had permitted me to do so, but we had still 500 miles of this part of the country to travel over in a S.W. di- rection before we could reach the Mexican fron- tier, and during the whole of that distance, Lit- tle Rock, upon the Arkansa River, was the only- village we should meet. Our horse Missouri, too, had shown symptoms of not being equal to the task of drawing his load over roads that would probably not grow better as we advan- ced : this was a discouraging circumstance, as our sole dependence for accomplishing our tour TRAVELS IN AMERICA. was upon him. I determined, therefore, to de- fer my visit to Potosi and some other mines to a more favourable opportunity, and putting our waggon into thebest order that we could, and agreeing to ease our horse by walking the whole way if necessary, we took leave of this the last village on our route to the Arkansa, and, with my rifle on my shoulder, and my hammers in my belt, and my son holding the reins, and walking by my side, we now entered the endless forest. In the course of the morning we got upon hilly land, and found it less woody, but abounding in pebbles of hornstone, masses of cellular mamil- lary quartz, opaque flints, siliceous gravel, and ^everything indicating a mineral country where quatzose and siliceous matter had the dominion Not only were the pebbles of mamillary quartz agatized at the edges, but large nodules of opaque flint in concentric circles occurred at every step. These mineral indications increas- ed as we advanced, and on an extensive ridge which we had to traverse we could find nothing but siliceous matter. Having made about six miles, we passed some heads of the St. Francis, the water of which was beautifully transparent, as are all those of this siliceous region. Seeing a smoke at some distance in these pine barrens, I walked some distance to it in the expectation of meeting with some person or other, but it only turned out to be some old logs burning ; and as we advanced we found the whole country black and incinerated in every direction, the woods having been generally on fire. At Twelve Miles Creek we found some obscure settlers, and at sixteen miles from Frederictown we passed lofty hills of massive dark reddish greenstone, probably connected with the syenitic chain : we then fell down to a bottom of some extent, and at twenty-three miles crossed a mountain about two miles anc a half from foot to foot, composed of the old siliceous matter, hornstone, mamillary quartz &c. A mile farther brought us to a settler's named M'Faddin, on a fertile bottom of land half a mile east of the river St. Francis. The bed of this stream contains great quantities of siliceous gravel, a circumstance unfavourabl to the erection 'of water-mills, since it makes i difficult to lay their mill-dams on the solid rock and when they do not succeed in doing so, the water dodges under the gravel, and the dam comes down. For this reason the people aboi here are frequently obliged to send their corn fifteen or twenty miles to be ground. Mr M'Faddin showed me pieces of galena that he had ploughed up in his lands : zinc also am manganese are found, -which last the settler call black tin. In every direction the mountain contain magnetic oxide of iron, this appearing to be the favourite metallic associate of siliceou countries. Here we boiled our kettle, and got a refresh ing cup of tea, which, with the addition of i mouthful of buffalo tongue, taken from a smal supply we had brought from St. Louis, set u all right again. M'Faddin is an experiencec hunter, and entertained us with some capita wild-beast stories. The panthers are nurnerou about here, and are frequently killed. His sor and a negro man had lately driven one up a tre with their dog, but they had no gun, and bein determined on having some sport they cut th ;e down with their axes. The animal not ing much stunned when he came to the round, immediately made fight and flew at iem ; but the negro having disabled him with gash from nis axe, he was soon dispatched. his was considered a daring achievement, for ic panther when roused to resistance is con- idered dangerous, and only to be dealt with by le rifle. M'Faddin told us of a singular habit f this animal, who, when he has killed a deer r any creature he has mastered, first feeds pon it, and then covers his prey over with eaves, lying there to watch it until he is hun- ry again. M'Faddin has frequently found a tag covered in this manner, and the panther's ir near to it, when he has been frightened rom it by the dogs. Only a very short time go he was searching the woods for his hogs, hen he roused a large panther, who taking to tree, was brought down with the rifle ; re- urn ing to the place whence he started him, he ound one of his hogs covered up with leaves, hat the animal had killed and partly devoured. ?ears, too, are numerous, and when in the au- umnal evenings they are heard scratching in he dry leaves for mast, the hunter steals upon hem with his rifle : this is called still-hunting. A mile from this place we got again upon the ?alcareo-siliceous hills, the rock being fetid in many places, and found masses of compact sul- )hale of barytes with the usual quartzose indi- cations. The change of level was now con- inued from one hill and valley to another, and rendered our progress slow ; at seven miles "rom M'Faddin's we ascended a very abrupt hill about 1200 feet high, composed entirely of sili- ceous matter, and at the summit enjoyed what we had been long strangers to, an extensive view of the country. Immediately below us as a very deep glen, as savage-looking as the wildest nature could make it, distinguished by a fearful but attractive character : we had been told of this place, and that it was not resorted to by panthers, because there was no water near. It is water that makes herbage plentiful, and the smaller animals attracted by it are fol- lowed by the rapacious carnivorous ones which prey upon them. To the N. and N.W. were numerous lofty ridges running nearly parallel to each other, like those of the Alleghany ; and here and there to the west some remarkable high cones, overtopping all the other mountains. The ridge upon which we stood was not more than 100 feet broad, and assuming a semicircu- lar form, gave a crateri-form appearance to the glen below. We enjoyed this view exceeding- ly ; its extent and grandeur, the perfect silence and solitude of the scene, the consciousness that we were there alone, in a country so wild and savage, that if any misfortune happened to us, we could expect no assistance ; and the more comfortable consciousness that we were in the possession of health, strength, and resolution, imparted a romantic and exhilarating feeling that made us happy for the moment. From this mountain, at the foot of which frag- ments of galena have been found, we descended three miles to Greenville, a poor wretched col- lection of four or five wooden cabins, where the miserable inhabitants die by inches of chills and fever. It is a most distressing thing to arrive at these settlements on the water-courses at TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 81 this season ; the poor people, feeble, emaciated, and sallow, are just beginning to recover from the malaria of the country : to many of the persons whom I here saw life seemed to be a burthen, whilst others were roistering about at that indespensable rendezvous of every settle- ment, a dirty-looking store, where all the vaga- bonds congregrate together, to discuss politics and whiskey. The settlement, however, is beautifully situated on a rich bottom of land on the east bank of the St. Francis, a fine clear stream about eighty yards broad, running thirty feet lower than the banks at this time, but ivhich often during the floods overflows them. After feeding our horse, and endeavouring in vain to purchase a little milk for ourselves to eke out some gingerbread we had, we proceed- ed fifteen miles farther through mountains and fertile bottoms resembling those of the morning, until at night we reached a settler's of the name of Stevenson, half a mile distant from Big Black River, a tributary of White River, in the terri- tory of Arkansa, which it joins a Httle south of 36 of N. lat. Here we were obligingly receiv- ed, and having taken care of our horse, sat down with tHe family to their humble evening's repast. Not having eaten since I left Frederic- town, I was ready enough, and there was some- thing on the table they called a dish of meat ; but it was such an extraordinary-looking affair, that I did not venture even to taste it: there was also a companion to it which went by the name of pumpkin pie, a dish that in the Atlantic States is deserving of every commendation. I did taste this, but it would not do; so asking permission to boil a cup of my own tea, I ate a sweet potato with it, and afterwards went into the yard to eat a piece of gingerbread, for the double purpose of satisfying the cravings of my appetite, and of not giving offence to our hosts by appearing to be above eating the fare they had provided. And here it is to be observed, that these peo- ple occupied 160 acres of fertile bottom land, had 1000 bushels of Indian corn ready harvest- ed, two or three hundred bushels of wheat, nu- merous cows, with a boundless range for them on the adjacent hills and bottoms that afforded excellent grass, great nu.nbers of barn-door fowls, wild turkeys in profusion around them, deer to be had at an hour's notice ; and yet so indolent were they, and so ignorant of the de- cencies of existence, that they would not take the least pains to prepare anything that was nourishing even for themselves. With such people every repast, whether it be breakfast, dinner, or supper for there is no variety in their meals consists of the worst possible cof- fee, indifferent dirty frothy-looking butter, black sugar or honey, as the case may be, a little ba- con, or some sort of dried meat cooked, I do not know how, and as tough as leather, and miserably made Indian corn bread : if you ask for milk, the general answer is, " We ain't got none, for the kayws is somehaw got a haunt of not coming hum." Eggs we have not once met with. All these settlers are, in fact, drawn from the poorest classes of Tennessee, Kentucky, and I Louisiana. Where they are agriculturists they | are hardworking enterprising men, always busy, fencing, ploughing, chopping timber setting traps ! L for the wolves, hunting the panthers that de- stroy their calves and swine, and are continu- ally occupied without a moment's relaxation. With them the ceremony of eating is an affair of a few moments ; the grand object is to fill the stomach as quick as possible with the usual food ; this, from long habit, they prefer to any- thing else; and the women having got into a daily routine without any motive for changing it in the slightest degree, and, indeed, without even suspecting that it would be agreeable to anybody to do so, go on preparing the same dis- gusting coffee, pork, bread, and butter three times a day, as long as they live. If the settler is merely a hunter and a squat- ter, you find a poor cabin and no farm ; a cow, perhaps, that comes in from the woods once every two or three days to get a little salt, and that then only givds a leacupfull of milk. But in most cases when you arrive, the owner of the mansion is not at home, and in his place you find six or seven ragged wild-looking imps, and a skinny, burnt up, dirty female, who tells you that he " is gone to help a neighbour to hunt up an old painter that's been arter all the pigs ; he ain't been hum in a week, and I reckon he's stopt somewhar to help to shuck corn (the strip- ping the maize from the husk when it is ripe) : we han't not nothing in the house but a little corn that I pounds as I uses it, and a couple of racoons jist to sarve us till he gits back."* The corn they consume is paid for in deer-skins, and the heavier debts of the squatter he literally li- quidates with bears' oil. If he has to negotiate the purchase of a horse to the amount of 50 dollars, the items of the appropriation are as follows : On or before Christmas he is " to turn in" 15 gallons of bar (bear) oil, the current value of which is one dollar per gallon ; twelve deer- skins at 75 cents each ; then he is to go with " a negur" to Big Swamp to help to " hunt up" some young horses that were taken there six months ago to pasture, and is to have a dollar a day for that service ; and as to the rest, he " is to git along with it somehaw or other." This curious bargain I took down from the mouth of one of these fellows who had been born in the woods, had never even been in a village, and knew nothing of the arts and cus- toms of society. He seemed a fearless, good- tempered creature, with a great deal of conceit of his own cleverness ; had no property of his own but his rifle, and never had possessed any save that which he acquired by his wandering and desultory pursuits. He had a prejudice against all men who were not, like himself, freed from every kind of restraint, and did not go willingly amongst them. When I had con- versed with him for some time, he asked me if I was a lawyer. I told him no, that I was afraid I was nothing much to boast of in the way of business. " Why, then," said he, " I swar that's jist what I am, and I'm glad you are not a law- yer, for the lawyers is the most cursedest var- * A traveller in these districts told me that he once came to such a place, where the number of little peltry clad imps was so great, and they ran about so quick, that he could not pet an opportunity of counting them. Not one of them had a hat, and never having used one, the hair of every one of them was white. Upon his saying to the mother, " Why, you have got a surprising quantity of children ; how do you ever mean to bring them up ?" " Bring 'em up !" replied she, " why, my husband brings 'em up every Saturday, I reckon, and then 1 washes 'em all." TRAVELS IN AMERICA. mint, I reckon, that's abawt." " Where have you met with any lawyers," said I ; " there are none in this part of the country 1" " Stranger," he replied, " I once lived ajyning (adjoining) to the Gasconade what runs into the Missoura, and so they set off Franklin Cay wnty ajyning to it ; and wherever they set up a caywnty, you see, there the lawyers is sure to corne. And so a farmer what I owed fourteen deer-skins to, sent a constahle and tuk me, and wanted to haul me into the caywnty, and so the more he wanted me to go the more I wouldn't go, and I gave him a most almighty whipping. Soon arter three fellows corned from Franklin and tuk me, and hauled me to what they called the court-house, where there was a lawyer they called Judge Monson, and he fined me ten gal- lons for whipping the constahle. ' Why,' said I, 'you don't mean to say you'll make me pay ten gallons for whipping that ar fellow ]' ' Yes, I do,' says he, ' and that you shall see !' 'Then,' says I, ' I calculate I'll whip you like the first time I catch you in the woods, if I have to pull all the hees and all the bars in Missoura out of their holes.' And so the crittur had me locked up till one of the settlers that wanted me to do a job for him said he would pay the ten gallons : but I didn't like them practyces ; I seed the country warn't a going to be worth living in, and so I left the Gasconade Caywnty and coined here, for you'll mind that wherever the lawyers and the court-houses come, the other varmint, bars and sich like, are sure to quit." Characters of this kind are now only to be met with on the remote frontiers : most of their cabins are destitute of furniture and food, and at certain seasons the sickly inhabitants look as if their clothes had never been taken off, their faces washed, or their hair combed. The set- tling of the country is a great annoyance to men of this class; for where the white man comes to plant and live, the buffalo and elk will not stay, the deer and bear become thinned off, and amongst his former friends the hunter is almost reduced at last to the deer, the wild turkey, the racoon, and opossum, which being totally insuf- ficient for his wants, he gradually becomes a dependant upon the more opulent planter, the only person who has ahcays something to eat. This he tries for a while, and pays for his sub- sistence in little jobs ; but the restraint is too great, and at length he bursts his chains, and plunges into the wilderness some hundreds of miles off, " whar the hars is a plenty." CHAPTER XXII. Big Black River First appearance of Parroqueets Elk "*nd Buffalo Little|BIaek River A Disaster and a Night in the Woods Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, and one of the Sovereign People unable to hulp the reins of Govern- mentA Forest on Fire The Currant River. AT the break of day I left my uncomfortable bed, and having refreshed myself at the well, examined a ravine not far from the house, in the banks of which I found some very long and curious stalactitic rods of oxide of iron. Veins of micaceous oxide are very abundant in this neighbourhood, and some hunters who frequent the mountains inform me that it is in the great- est profusion in various localities there. Pur- suing our journey, we came to Big Black River r a broad limpid stream, with a rapid current moving down so swiftly that our horse, after taking us one-third of the distance across, be- came alarmed, and I was afraid we were going to have a scene with him. We found it impos- sible to get him to move without compromising the safety of .our vehicle and luggage ; so, after trying in vain to get him on for a quarter of an hour, it became at length necessary for one of us to get into the river and try to lead him. My son accordingly got into the water and led him a few steps, whilst I plied him with the whip- to prevent his stopping. On nearing the shore we found the water almost took him off his legs, and my son, finding it too deep to walk, let him go. In this dilemma, and every moment ex- pecting to come to a grand stand-still, I happily reached the bank, but with the waggon full of water, and my son scrambled out of the river as well as he could. It had been a severe frost during the past night, the water was bitterly cold, and he suffered a good deal ; so we stop- ped on getting to dry land, and soon got up a. cheerful fire for him to change his clothes at. We now perceived that, if we had taken a dif- ferent period for passing these mountains, we could not have proceeded, for in the rainy pe- riods these fords are impracticable for wheels, as well as many of the bayous and creeks. After travelling some distance through the forest, we got upon an extensive bottom, where we again found the country on fire, the leaves and twigs all burnt up, and every thing as black as soot. At length we reached a place where fire had not passed, and as there was a small clear running stream close by, we determined to make this our breakfast parlour. Whilst my son attended to our horse, I collected materials for a fire ; and after many vain attempts to light it with some pretended English matches I had procured in Baltimore, I succeeded. The next thing was to set our new tin tea-kettle that we had procured at St. Louis on the fire, and bring it to boiling heat. All this I did with so much, dispatch and apparent cleverness, that I could not help calling to my companion to observe my rare dispositions in the culinary line. Un- fortunately, I was too soon obliged to put a much lower estimate upon them than I at first thought they deserved, for my son, coming to the fire, communicated the alarming informa- tion that I had made a veteran of the new ket- tle on its very first performance. The fact was that I had left it a few minutes, and the fire burning up fiercely had made it complete ly black, with smoke, and what was worse, and was a serious misfortune, had melted all the soldering from both the spout and the handle, so that we i were immensely puzzled how to take hold of it I and convey it to the teapot. We, nevertheless, made a cheerful and hearty breakfast. Mrs. Stevenson had managed to put us up a bottle of new milk before we came away, we had good ' black tea, nice loaf sugar, some biscuit and buf- ! falo tongue, and were in capital spirits. As we were breakfasting, four beautiful crested wood- ducks, alighted in the stream not far from us, but they became alarmed before we succeeded in getting a shot at them. Just before we left j the place, we perceived that our fire was creep- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. ing through the leaves, and that, if not extin- guished, it might produce a serious conflagra- tion., Thinking it right to leave Nature as clean as we found her, we spent about a quarter of an hour in bringing pails of water from the stream untilthe fire was out. Many careless persons do not take so much trouble ; they kindle a fire, and then leave it unextinguished ; the conse- quence of which frequently is, that many thou- sands of acres are burnt over, the mast .upon which the deer and bears would have fed is de- stroyed, the buildings of the farmer endangered, his fences burnt down, and his corn-fields in- jured. The hunters, too, sometimes, with the intention of driving the game to a particular quarter, will purposely fire the country in vari- ous places, indifferent to the devastation and inconvenience they cause ; and all this merely to get a few deer with greater dispatch than they would do by going a little farther into the country. It is in vain to remonstrate with these men ; they live by getting deer, and as they look upon the farmer as an intruder, have little or no sympathy for him. A few miles from this place we came to a shallow ravine, or dry bayou, with a little stag- nant water at the bottom. The bank was very steep ; and when we got down our wheels stuck fast in a mud-hole, from which our horse with all his efforts could not extricate them. After many futile attempts, we were obliged to take him out, unload the carriage, cut poles and logs to place before the horse as a bridge for him to stand on, and using others as levers, finally, after three hours' hard work, succeeded in suc- cessfully assisting Missouri to get us out of the bayou. We now reloaded and pursued our journey, and after travelling a few miles over a kind of ridgy country, sometimes upon calcareo- siliceous beds, at others upon siliceous rocks, came to one small ridge which we found almost composed of millions of tons of the very best gun-flint, equal in quality to the chalk-flint of Europe ; a substance unknown in the United States, there being no chalk beds hitherto dis- covered there. Descending to the south we came to some very beautiful situations of fine dry undulating land, easy of access, the slopes exceedingly gen- tle, and beautiful woodland trees scattered about as they are seen in the charming park scenery of England. Having made about fourteen miles we stopped to feed our horse at a Mr. Eppes's, who has a plantation on a very fertile bottom, and here we saw the first appearance of a cane- brake (Miegia macrosperma) : this plant is al- ways indicative of good soil, and in some por- tions of the southern States pushes up its jointed stem amidst the forest trees so thickly that a chicken would sometimes find it difficult to creep betwixt the plants. We had also other indica- tions of a Southern latitude here : small flocks of parroqueets were wheeling and screaming about in the bright sun, and showing their brill- iant colours to the greatest advantage. Upon the wall of the cabin where. the family lived was a frame upon which the skin of an elk was stretched that Mr. Eppes had killed the day before. Learning that he was in a corn-field about half a mile distant, I walked there and found him, when he confirmed to me what I had before heard, that in the " Big Swamp," which bordered his plantation on the east, and which extended about twenty miles to the river St. Francis, there were still a great many elk and buffalo, the only situation in which these ani- mals are to be found east of the most advanced settlements of the whites, it being favourable to them from the great extent of the swamp, the luxuriance of the wild grass, and the absence of man. Mr. Eppes related to me that two or three days ago he and his son had entered the Big Swamp to hunt up some young horses they had turned into it in the spring to thrive upon the leaves of the miegia, which gran ivorous an- imals are very fond of; that wandering about in the mazes of the swamp, and tearing their clothes to rags amongst thegreen briars (smilax), the supple jacks (JEnoplia volubilis), saw briar (Schrankia horndula), and all sorts of pests of their kind, they had lost themselves, and know- ing of no method to find out where they were, but going to the river to observe the direction of the current, they crossed a broad " sign" or track of buffalo, where at least forty of them had recently passed. This they knew by their dung, the marks of their hoofs, and the peculiar tracks these animals make when they travel. Soon afterwards they crossed a "sign" of numerous elk, and whilst they were deliberating what to do, three large ones came trotting up and stood still at no great distance from them. Mr. Eppes fired and one of the elk dropped ; the others stood some time by their fallen companion, but made off before he had time to load again. He said they were about the size of a large Spanish, mule, and that they looked extremely well with their branching antlers when they first came boldly up. Having skinned the animal they left the carcase behind, and soon after, coming upon, their own trail, proceeded home. From hence we proceeded through some pleasant open woods, consisting principally of oak-trees growing on a very fertile soil ; and some time after night heard the murmuring sound of Little Black River before us. I hesi- tated a moment whether or not to stop and biv-. ouack here our experience of the last ford we had passed did not afford much encouragement for a similar adventure in the dark ; but Mr. Eppes had assured us the ford was an easy one, Missouri seemed very willing, and I thought I would proceed a few miles farther through the thick woods, where we could have seen nothing by daylight ; so whipping on our horse, away we went literally, for, in making a sort of turn to go down the bank, the nigh wheels, which, we could not see, got on a hummock of land, and the whole concern, including the unsus- pecting Missouri, made a complete turn over, luggage and all, leaving the waggon bottom up- wards. We both of us jumped out, as we felt we were coming to a "fix," and thought with dismay upon this most disastrous occurrence. Our fine-tempered horse behaved extremely well ; instead of kicking up a rumpus in the dark, and making things worse, which would have been a very natural step for him to take, he laid still, and permitted us to take the wag- gon to pieces as well as we could, and to un- buckle and unstrap him before he stirred ; he seemed almost to comprehend us as we patted and comforted him; and it was not until he could neither hurt the waggon nor himself, that, 84 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. a little aided by us, he maoe an effort, and with a plunge arose from the very awkard ppsition in which he lay with his back down hill. We were now brought to a "nonplush;" it was dark, our luggage, our axes, our hammers, our rifles, our everything that we had in the world, was scattered on the beach, and we had nothing to do but make the best of what had happened, and endeavour to look cheerfully for- ward rather than to look sorrowfully back. Our first care was to tie up our horse, our next to regain the bank, choose a level and open place in the wood, and make a good fire. All this being successfully done, we gave Missouri his corn in the pail, and secured him for the night with a long rope that admitted of his having a limited range to pick up the wild grass in. We next made a small fire on the beach, and by its aid collected and put together the parts of our waggon not one of which was broken and drew it to a safe place beyond the danger of a sudden rise of the stream. We then gathered together our luggage, our provision-basket, and all the articles we could see, leaving my loose specimens and other small matters on the beach until morning. Things being made as snug as circumstances admitted of our making them, we got a warm cup of tea and a mouthful to eat, and then proceeded to lay in a supply of logs for our fire. It was a very cold night, and unfortunately 'd the devmuing wavus :uid gain'd the shore, Tunis to regard the turbulent :ibyss." which he set an immense price had got so far on his way back again to his native country. Such is the plastic nature of Jonathan, his in- domitable affection for the almighty dollar, and his enterprise in the pursuit of it, that it is far from beimg impossible that there are lots of his brethren at this time in the interior of China, with their heads shaved and long pig-tails be- hind them, peddling cuckoo clocks and selling > wooden nutmegs. Before I left the room one of the gentlemen who had slept in our apartment came in, look- ing rather frouzily ; there was a great attempt at finery about his clothes, and a tremendous red beard under his chin : it was impossible not to admire him, and equally so not to see that in his haste to come down before everything was devoured, he had forgotten to wash himself and brush his hair. The voice of this worthy was precisely like that of Colonel Smith of the Brit- ish army, whose adventures have been narrated ; and the exquisite manner in which he drawled out his ungramrnatical absurdities left no room for conjecture as to his real character. When I asked the landlord who he was, he told me he was "a sportsman," a designation by which all the bloods who live by faro and rouge et noir are known in Arkansas. I was obliged to remain two days m this house, all the others being full of adventurers,, who were constantly pouring into Jthe place. Decent people, I was told, got into private fami- lies ; but, although we applied in several places,, we could find nobody disposed to receive us: our landlord. Colonel Leech, who perceived that we were only travelling for information, was very kind and obliging, but he could not let us have a private room, and we were, therefore, very uncomfortable, walking about the town, and passing, I dare say, in the eyes of every body for adventurers. At length we heard of a clergyman who lived on the skirts of the town, and sometimes " took in boarders," so we im- mediately hied to the Rev. Mr. Stevenson's. It was a nice-looking cottage enough, separated from the road by a paling, inside of which was standing a somewhat dried-up looking individual, in a seedy -looking, light-coloured jacket, an old hat with a broken rim on his head, only one eye / in that, and a rifle in his hand. " Pray, sir," said I, touching my hat, " can you inform me if this is the Reverend Mr. Stevenson's 1" Upon which he immediately said, " I expect I am the Reverend Mr. Stevenson !" That being his opinion, it would not have forwarded my pur- pose at all to have commenced a dispute with, him about it, so we immediately entered upon, business. I told him who I was, what my pur- suits were, that we had got mixed up with very bad society, and that I should be very happy to pay any thing for a private room and board in, his family. Mr. Stevenson turned out to be a much better man than his externals indicated : he entered into my situation, presented us tfr Mrs. Stevenson who had two remarkably good eyes in her head and who not only assigned us a roomy Bed-chamber, which we lost no time in taking possession of, but during the whole time we staid in her house was uniformly obli- ging to us. Mr. Stevenson had been one of the earliest settlers in Arkansas, had travelled in every part of it, and had occasionally officiated 96 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. in the remote parts as a missionary : as he cul- tivated a piece of land somewhere near the town, whenever he visited it he was in the hahit of taking his rifle with him, and this accounted for my having seen him armed. At the supper-table we first met the rest of his family, which consisted of several small children, three other boarders, two of whom were tradesmen of the place, and a very intelli- gent person from Switzerland of the name of T . This gentleman's conversation inter- ested me very much, and when I had become sufficiently acquainted with him to learn his history and adventures, I could not help taking great interest in his welfare. He was of a good family in Switzerland, had been well educated, and had been officially employed in one of the bureaux of the national government. In the revolution that overthrew the aristocratic fami- lies, he and others determined to abandon their country and found a colony in America. Form- ing their plans upon little other evidence than what a map furnished them, they came to the conclusion that the most desirable situations were to he found betwixt the 34th and 35th de- grees of North latitude, and Mr. T and a colleague were sent to explore and report. They had arrived at New Orleans, and proceeded from thence immediately into the interior of Arkan- sas, where they had resided for several months ; here their fynds became exhausted, and r re- ceiving no remittances nor communications of any sort from their friends at home, they fell into a perfect state of destitution, and led a most miserable life for a long time in the woods. At length they separated, each to provide for him- self, and Mr. T arriving pennyless at Little Rock, had succeeded in getting some sort of employment in the Land Office, where his talent as a draughtsman made him very useful. When I met him he was half broken-hearted, longing to return to his native country, but with no prospect before him of ever getting out of Little Hock, where the emoluments of his daily labour barely sufficed to keep him alive. Having thus cast anchor for" a few days in a quiet and safe harbour, I began to look about me and collect information. The town of Lit- tle Rock receives its name from being built upon the first rock, a slate which underlies the sand- stone and dips S.E. at a great inclination which juts out into the Arkansa, in coming up the river from its mouth in the Mississippi ; it is tolera- bly well laid out, has a few brick houses, and a greater number of indifferently built wooden ones, generally in straggling situations, which admit of their having apiece of ground attached to them. The population was at this time be- twixt 500 and 600 inhabitants, a great propor- tion of them mechanics; lawyers and doctors without number, and abundance of tradesmen going by the name of merchants. Americans of a certain class, to whatever distant point they go, carry the passion for newspaper reading with them, as if it were the grand end of educa- tion. A town in England with a population of 8000 souls will have a few of the lower classes who do not know how to read at all, but those who are not of the educated classes, and who do read, generally apply that noble art, when proper occasions present themselves, to reading the Bible and religious and moral books. Newspapers are too expensive for the poorer classes in England, and therefore the minds of by far the greater part of them are not distract- ed, enfeebled, and corrupted by cheap newspa- pers ; and although the exceptions are painfully obvious, still it is true that there is not a passion in England for reading low newspapers as there is in America. Now the only newspapers that deserve to be read in England pay a great tax to the government, and are only within the reach of the opulent classes, Jhose who are at ease in their circumstances, and men of busi- ness ; but these being conducted by men of ap- proved talents and fair character, reflect to the public all the intelligence that the inquiring spi- rit of a great nation requires, and assist to keep down corruption rather than cherish it.* How could a town of 8000 inhabitants in England support a newspaper printed in the place 1 ? Where would its useful or instructive matter come from? Why, from those quarters which have already supplied it to those alone who want it. If such a town had a newspaper it could not be supported, and therefore it remains without one. But in Little Rock, with a population of 600 people, there are no less than three cheap newspapers, which are not read but devoured by everybody ; for what pleasure can be equal to that which, through the blessings of univer- sal suffrage, those free and enlightened citi- zens called the "sovereign people" are made partakers of once a day, or at least three times a week, on finding that the political party which has omitted to purchase their support is compo- sed of scoundrels and liars, and men who want to get into power for no other purpose but to ruin their country 1 ! It seems impossible that there should be any time or inclination for Bible reading where this kind of cheap poison gets into the minds of human beings; you might as well expect to find a confirmed Chinese opium smoker engaged in the solution of the problems of Euclid. In this part of the country it has struck me as the worst of all signs, that I have never seen a Bible in the hands of any indivi- dual, even on a Sunday. I have not, however, been in every body's house, nor would I infer that every individual in Little Rock is to be included in this irreligious category. What I have said I would apply ex- clusively to what are called the " sovereign peo- ple," that mass which it is the business and in- terest of political demagogues to mislead and debase, for the purpose of directing it as they have too successfully done in many parts of the United States against the virtuous and praise- worthy efforts of good men and their families in every part of this extensive government; men. who struggle to bring their country back to the honourable principles that illustrated the period of George Washington, but whose long struggle will be made in vain until the evil consequences of universal suffrage present themselves in such an appalling form, that the people, rendered wise by great suffering and experience, will consent to surrender to the guidance of men of character and property that governing power which is now both cause and effect of their blind passions. * The " National Intellipenper" of the City of Washing- ton well deserves the high character it has everywhere acquired. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 97 It was my good fortune to become acquainted with a few respectable and agreeable individuals here. Governor Pope, the governor of the ter- ritory, is an unaffected, worthy person : he was once a conspicuous politician in Kentucky, and by some accident has lost one of his arms. This gentleman has been of great service here in various ways, especially in the judicious use he has made of the funds entrusted to him by the general government for the erection of a legis- lative hall, which is a very handsome building, placed in an advantageous situation, on the brink of the river, and one of the neatest public build- ings I have seen in North America. The Gov- ernor showed it to me with great exultation, and I complimented him sincerely on the taste he had shown. He lives amongst the inhabitants in an unpre- tending and plain manner, encouraging them to use no ceremony in talking to him, and appear- ing to me to carry his affability and familiarity with them quite as far as it was expedient to do. Ceremony and circumlocution seem to have found no resting-place amongst the inhabitants of Little Rock ; if they have anything to say to you, they come to the point (pynt as they pro- nounce it) at Once, and are not very shy of their expletives. Soon after my arrival I went to call upon his Excellency the Governor, and being told that he lived in a small house in a particu- lar quarter of the town, I went in that direction, and seeing a house which I supposed might be the one I was in search of, I knocked at the door, upon which an odd-looking man enough came to me. Not knowing, after my experience of the Reverend Mr. Stevenson, what might be trumps here, I touched my hat and said, " Will you be so obliging as tell me whether the Gov- ernor is in the house 1" I fancy this fellow had never lived in Belgrave-square, for his answer was, " No, I'm if he is." He told me, howev- er, very obligingly, where the house was, and at last I found it, and knocking with my knuckles against the door, a dame came, who, as I found afterwards, was the Governor's lady. She was a strange-looking person for one of her rank, and I had been so tickled with the last answer I got, that I could not help cherishing the hope that she, too, would say something very extra- ordinary. With the most winning politeness, therefore, I inquired, " If his Excellency the Governor was at home?" Upon which, with- out mincing the matter, she very frankly told me that " he was gone to the woods to hunt for a sow and pigs belonging to her that were miss- ing." Now this might very reasonably happen to a territorial governor in such a practical way of life as he was, and still be, as it really was, creditable to him. Sows and pigs will stroll into the woods, and the wolves will pick them up if they meet with them. Mrs. Pope had sent one of her " negurs" to the woods upon a pre- vious occasion, and the fellow had neglected his duty and gone somewhere else ; this time, there- fore, she sent the Governor, who, being a man of sense, and knowing how little dependence was to be placed upon his " negur," and perhaps wanting a walk, had undertaken the task of driving piggies home. Besides the Governor there were other agree- able persons with whom I became acquainted ; a Colonel A*****, a clever good-tempered law- yer. . Mr. Woodruff, the editor of the principal Gazette of the place, and postmaster, was al- ways obliging, and is one of the most indefatiga- bly industrious men of the territory. At his store we used to call to hear the news of the day, which were various and exciting enough ; for, with some honourable exceptions, perhaps there never such another population assembled broken tradesman, refugees from justice, trav- elling gamblers, and some young bucks and bloods, who, never having had the advantage of good examples for imitation, had set up a stand- ard of manners consisting of everything that was extravagantly and outrageously bad. Quar- relling seemed to be their principal occupation, and these puppies, without family, education, or refinement of any kind, were continually resort- ing to what they called the "Laws of Honour," a part of the code of which, in Little Rock, is to administer justice with your own hand the first convenient opportunity. A common practice with these fellows was to fire at each other with, a rifle across the street, and then dodge behind a door: every day groups were to be seen gathered round these wordy bullies, who were holding knives in their hands, and daring each other to strike, but cherishing the secret hope that the spectators would interfere. At one time they were so numerous and overbearing that they would probably have overpowered the town, but for the catastrophe which be'fel one of their leaders, and checked the rest for awhile. Mr. Woodruff, like most of the postmasters, kept a store, and thither these desperadoes used to resort ; but it became so great a nuisance at last as to be intolerable, and being a firm man he determined to put a stop to it. The young fellow in question dared him to interfere, threat- ened him more than once, and coming to the store one evening provoked the postmaster so much by his insolent violence, that a scuffle en- sued, in which the bully got a mortal wound. Mr. Woodruff described the scene to me, and showed me the place where he fell, but said that he got his death by the awkward use of his own weapon. The public opinion sided with the postmaster, who was very popular at the period of our visit. One of the most respectable inhabitants told me, that he did not suppose there were twelve inhabitants of the place who ever went into the streets without from some motive or other- being armed with pistols or large hunting- knives about a foot long and an inch and a half broad, originally intended to skin and cut up an- imals, but which are now made and ornamented ith great care, and kept exceedingly sharp for the purpose of slashing and sticking human be- ings. These formidable instruments, with their sheaths mounted in silver, are the pride of an Arkansas blood, and got their name Of Bowie knives* from a conspicuous person of this fiery climate. A large brick building was pointed out to me that had been erected for stores and ware- * Some of these bloods are fellows of great animal courage, if we may judge from the following account of i affair which took place on this frontier, and which is ken from a published account. A specimen of the very first water came on horseback to a tavern, and entered a room where some other persons were assembled. Throwing his cloak on one side, the usual pistols and Bowie knife appeared ; and as nobody TRAVELS IN AMERICA. houses, but the owner thinking he could do bet- ter by applying it to the uses of a more steady line of business, rented the large store on the ground floor as a drinking shop, commonly called here a "groggery ;" here it was the cus- tom of the bloods to convene and discuss the last quarrel, and to tell how such a one " drew his pistol," and then how such a one " whipped out his knife ;" adjourning when they had drunk to the warehouse up stairs, which they called "the college," and which was converted into a gambling room for faro and rouge et noir. I had a description given me of some of the scenes that took place here by persons who were present, which would appear incredible to even any gamblers who were not familiar with this den of infamy. To this place it was the practice to inveigle all the young men they could, who had any property or any credit, make them mad with drink (the youth of these climes become frantic, not stupid, with the fiery potations they use), and then ruin them with the most atrocious foul play. Out of this class they recruit their infamous gang, and teach them how to decoy and ruin others. When they have nobody to fleece, they play amongst themselves having no idea of any other mode of occupying the time. Many stories were re- lated to me of a trader at the mouth of White River, named Montgomery, a finished sportsman in every sense, passionately fond of gambling, excessively addicted to whiskey, and who al- ways used to sit down to the faro table with his Bowie knife unsheathed by his side, to insure fair play. This man, with some others, suc- ceeded in effecting the ruin of a promising young officer in the United States service, a Lieuten- ant , who was an acting quarter-master. He had had the weakness to permit himself to become acquainted with some of these wretch- es, and although he was a married man, and had his wife with him, became at length their familiar companion. Having government drafts in his possession, they contrived to defraud him, when drunk, of them, to the amount of ten seemed particularly overjoyed to see him, he soon broke silence by looking at them scornfully and saying, "1 don't know whether you are the very beginning of men or not, but I've pot 3000 acres of prime land, two sugar planta- tions, 150 negurs, and I reckon I can chaw up the best man in this room !" No one venturing to dispute any part of this statement, he proceeded to open his mind a little further. " I've killed eleven Indians, three white men, and seven painters ; and it's my candid opinion you- are all a set of cowards !" Having thus unbosomed himself, he observed that one of the company kept a steady eye upon him, and walking up to him, jostled him. This, as he found out after- wards, was carrying it a leetle too far, for the person he was evidently seeking a quarrel with was a doctor, who had gone through a variety of adventures, and had been on the " pynt of bursting his byler" ever since this wor- thy " beg-in to carry on." The doctor immediately rolled him off. when out came the Bowie knife, which, but for the timely interference of the rest of the company, would have been lodged in the doctor's heart. Now came mu- tual defiance, and an instantaneous agreement to " ffeht it out." The terms proposed by the intruding swagperer were rather novel, even for courts of honour in that coun- try ; but the doctor was not a flinching man, his sienm was up, and he told his second to agree to anything that was fair for both. There was a room in the house totally dark, into which not a cranny of light came, and this w is fixed upon for the scene of the mortal combat. The par- ties were now each stripped to the skin, excrpt their Wow- sers, their arms and shoulders well greased with lard, and a brnce of loaded pistols and a Bowie knife given to ach. Thus were they put into the dark room, with the thousand dollars. Such was the infatuation of this young man, that finding that he was ruined for ever in his profession, he went off with Montgomery and a party of the sharpers to New Orleans, to get the drafts cashed that he had parted with, together with others that he had still left. But it so happened that an active of- ficer, who was acting in the commissariat ser- vice, heard of this movement, and pushing- across the country, reached the banks of the Mississippi, far to the south of the Arkansa and White River, where the gamblers were to em- bark. He had scarce been there an hour when a steamer heaving in sight he went on board,. and to his great surprise found his brother of- ficer and the whole gang of villains on the deck. They were thus frustrated in their nefarious plans, for on their arrival at New Orleans, he immediately stopped the payment of the drafts,, and the party returned to White River, where the unhappy victim of these scoundrels after- wards died of delirium tremens. So general is the propensity to gambling in this territory, that a very respectable person as- sured me he had seen the judges of their high- est court playing publicly at faro, at some races.. The senators and members of the territorial, legislature do the same thing ; in fact, the great- er part of these men get elected to the legisla- ture, not to assist in transacting public business, but to get the wages they are entitled to per diem, and to gratify their passion for gambling. A traveller, whom I met with at Little Rock, told me that he was lodging at an indifferent tavern there, and had been put into a room with four beds in it. There he had slept quietly alone two nights, when on the third, the day be- fore the legislature convened, the house became suddenly filled with senators and members, several of whom, having come up into his room with their saddlebags, got out a table, ordered some whiskey, and produced cards they had> brought with them. The most amusing part of the incident was that they asked him to lend them five dollars until they could get some of understanding that the butchery was not to begin before a signal was made by the seconds outside. For near a quarter of an hour after the signal had been given, the seconds heard no noise whatever, and were disposed to think the affair would end as it began, in words, when sud- denly a pistol went off, and then another. The survivor of this .strange duel afterwards stated, that scarce a tread or a breath could be heard in the room after they had cocked their pistols : he saw, or thought he saw, for nn instant,, the cat-eyes of his antagonist glistening, but they changed their place so quickly that he was uncertain, and did not venture to fire. At length, however, he fired, and re- ceived a shot instantly in return, the ball of which lodged- in his shoulder. Being in great pain, and fearing he should faint, he fired a second pistol, when instantly he received a second ball in the fleshy part of his thigh. He soon became very faint from loss of blood, and after trying in vain to support himself against the wall, fell on the floor. Silently and slowly the other now ap- proached his intended victim, with the knife in his hand ready to despatch him. The prostrate man, perceiving the wary character of his adversary, and aware of his extreme danger, had summoned all his presence of mind ; grasping his knife firmly, and raising himself cautiously up a little, he listened, but could hear nothing approach. Moving his upraised arm around, he endeavoured to pierce with his ey<* into the darkness that enveloped him, when suddenly he saw the same gray eyes glistening in front of him, and striking with all his might, he plunged his knife through his incautious assailant's heart, who fell to the ground. The successful duellist now called out to the seconds to open the door, and entering they found the doctor weltering in his blood, but still holding his knife up to the hilt in the dead man's body. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 99 their legislative " wages." Not liking this pro- position very much, he told them that he was as hard up as themselves. They therefore pro- ceeded to play on tick, sat up almost the whole night smoking, spitting, drinking, swearing and gambling; and at about five in the morning two of them threw off their clothes, and came to bed to him. JVote. This specimen of the legislative qualifications peculiar to such a state of society ra-iy appear strange to some persons. Those philosophers, however, who see no mockery in giving to wild colonial communities the forms of government which are necessary only to old civilized countries, may learn from the following narrative, which is strictly true, how the dignity of representative govern- ment is exposed to be outraged nnd degraded by the animal man before religion nnd education have made him a ra- tional being. In the month of December, 1837, during the session of the Legislature of Arkansas at Little Rock, one John Wilton being Speaker of the House of Representatives, a bill came to the House from the Senate, called the Wolf Bill. The object of this bill was to give a bounty for the destruction of wolves; and it provided that when any cit- izen went before a justice of the peace in a particular dis- trict with the scalp of a wolf, he was to receive a certifi- cate of the fact, which was to entitle him to a pecuniary bounly from the funds of the territory. By many persons this bill was considered to be a job, it being very well known, from the experience of previous occasions, that when wolves became scarce in the district intended to be protected, parties would go out of the territory, even into Texas, to hunt for them ; and it was not an unusual thing, when wolves were " uncommon scarce," for patriotic in- dividuals to cut the scalp of a wolf into a great many val- uable slips, and, fastening a slip to the scalp of a sheep, a little disguised, and holding the slip between their fingers, to take a solemn oath before the magistrate that this was the scalp of a wolf, and that it was killed in the district designated by law ; an oath of convenient latitude; for the slip held on by was part of the scalp of n wolf, and the rest had belonged to a sheep killed in the district. If the justice of the pence was an obliging person, and it was made worth his while to continue so, the operation was a good one, and such a bill as the Wolf Bill was sure therefore to have a great many friends. Having passed the Senate, the bill was sent to the House, where a party, from various motives, being formed against it, it was assailed by all sorts of ridicule. It had so happened that another job law had been passed, called the Re,U Estate Bank. This was a sort of bank the cnpi tal of which was to consist of land, and enabled those en- terprising persons who had interest enough to become stockholders, to offer land, as a part of the capital of the bank, that could not he sold for a penny an acre, or even sold at aJI, with as much success as those that held lands of a good quality, and that were convertible in the mar ket, always, however, provided the commissioners ap- pointed to scrutinise into the title and quality of the real estate were good-natured. The law, for this reason, be- came obnoxious to the suspicion of being a job, concocted for the purpose of enabling these ingenious individuals to convert their titles for land into evidences of bank stock the conversion of which into money, even at only twenty- five per cent, of its nominal value, was what is called "'a splendid operation." Amongst the amendments offered to embarrass the passage of the bill was one proposed by a Major Anthony, that the " signature of the president 'of the Real Estate Bunk should be attached to the certificnv; of the wolf scalp." At this, the Honourable Colonel John Wilson, the Speaker, t.K)k fire ; he was the head and life and soul of the Real Estate Bank, and immediately railed out to Anthony to ask if he meant to be personal, who answered that he did not, and going on to explain, WHS ordered to sit down. Anthony refused to take his seat saying that he had a right to the floor for the purpose of explaining. But the Speaker, thrusting his hand into h^ bosom, drew forth a huge Bowie knife, and brandishing i! aloft, cnlled out, with a voice almost inarticulate with rage, " Sit down, or I'll make you." Anthony, continuing to keep the floor, now beheld the extraordinary spectacle of the ofteer appointed to keep order in the 'House, dc liberately descending from the Speaker's chair, his right hand wielding a glittering blade, nnd keeping an eye of fire steadily fixed upon him. As the Speaker advanced j with determination inflexibly imprinted on every fenturn, Anthony put his own chair a little on one side stenpoi! back a few paces, and drew his Bowie knife alo. Gudi- ing up the chair to serve as a shield to himself, the Speaker ' rushed upon Anthony, and a fight now began betwixt "'em over the chair, Wilson being stabbed in each arm by , his adversary, who in the scuffle lost his knife. Anthony now hastily snatched up another chair to defend himself, but the Speaker, perceiving his advantage, pressed upon im, dashed the chair up with his left hand, and, uncover- ng Anthony's breast, deliberately murdered him, by thrusting his knife up to the hilt in his heart. As he withdrew the knife, the unfortunate man, without uttering a word, fell down dead on the floor, in the presence of hia colleagues, not one of whom had interfered to stop this trocious carnage. The ruffian Wilson, having perpetrated this deed, looked at his knife, and wiping the blood from it with his thumb and finger, retired back to the Speaker's The proceedings subsequent to this murder in a House of Representatives were of a piece with the foul transac- tion. The House adjourned, and three days elapsed be- fore any of the- constituted authorities took any notice of it. A relative, however, of the murderer having asked for a warrant for Wilson's apprehension, a legal inquiry was instituted, to which he came, at the end of some days, with four horses harnessed to a sort of carriage, as suitable to the dignity of the Speaker, and accompanied by numerous friends. All the circumstances of the murder were distinctly proved, and although the public prosecu- tor proposed t adduce a particular law showing that it was not a bailable offence, the Court refused to hear him, and admitted the murderer to bail. Agreeably to his recognizance, he appeared at the session appointed for his trial, when a motion was made to remove the trial to an- other county, founded upon the affidavit of Wilson him- self and two of his friends, one of whom swore that " from the repeated occurrence of similar acts within the last four or five years in this county the people were disposed to act rigidly," and that therefore it would be unsafe for Wilson to be tried there. The Court, upon this, removed the cause to another county, and ordered the murderer to be delivered to the sheriff of that county ; a mere formality, for no restraint whatever was laid upon him, and he went wherever he pleased, treating people at the dram-shops to whatever they liked, and entering into all their debauch- cries and extravagance. ' The time for his trial in Saline County being arrived, he lodged at the same house, and ate three times a day at the same table, with the judge appointed to try him ; and, as if the law were to be treated upon this occasion with yet unheard-of indignities, when the prosecuting counsel, after witnesses had been heard, attempted to address the jury, a mob was collected at the door of the courthouse, where a pretended affray was got up, and such a tumult raised ,that not a word could be heard. During the whole of this proceeding the judge never serve order, and, when the . . ordered Wilson instantly to be discharged, who, in the open court, told the sheriff " to take the jury to a dram- shop, and that he would pay for all that was drank by them and everybody else." Upon this a loud cry of exul- tation was raised, all ran up and shook hands with the acquitted murderer, and, to complete their outrageous con- duct, many of them, accompanied by a majority of the jury, when they had finished their orgies, having collected horns, trumpets, and all sorts of noisy instruments, paraded the streets till daylight, continually assembling at the lod- gings of the relatives of the murdered legislator to shout and scream and yell, as in triumph over them and over the This account is taken from a narrative of the affair pub- lished at Little Rock. card. During the whole of this interposed his authority to pre- e jury brought in their verdict, CHAPTER XXVII, Apology for the Manners of Arkansas-Manner of living at Little Rock-Aversion to shutting the Doors-Tertiary Deposit Alluvial Bottoms, and the Species of Plants growing there-Visit to the Mammelles- German Emi- grants-Geology of the Mammelle Mountain-Enter Tn immense swampy Plain-Danger of towelling without a being obljged to treat the DISGRACEFUL as these manners and practices must appear to Europeans, as well as to respect- able Americans in the older states, it is also true that although the few individuals in Arkansas ivith whom a stranger is happy to associate sometimes express strongly their abhorrence of them, yet these things at present are so much beyond their control, and pass so constantly be- fore their eyes, that although they do not cease to be offensive, yet you perceive that they lose with them that peculiar character of enormity in TRAVELS IN AMERICA. which they appear to men trained in well-order- ed communities. They tell you, and not with- out some reason, that the rigorous criticisms which are fitted to older states of society are not strictly applicable here; that this is a frontier territory ,vhich, not long ago, was only inhabit- ed by the hunter, the man who had no depend- ence for his existence but by killing wild ani- mals; that the class which succeeded to this was composed of outlaws, who sought refuge here from the power of the laws they had offend- ed ; that where an absolute majority in a com- munity consisted of criminals, gamblers, specu- lators, and men of broken fortunes, with no law to restrain them, no obligation to conceal their vices, no motive to induce them to appear de- vout or to act with sobriety, it was not surpris- ing that such men should indulge openly in their propensities, or that public opinion which, in fact, was constituted by themselves should be decidedly on their side, and opposed to every thing that would seek to control them; that their consolation, however, was, that the worst of the black period had passed, that the territory was now under the government of the United States, and that a municipal magistracy was established in the town. Certainly, it is pleasing to hope that society, even here, is in a favourable state of transition ; yet, although the benign influence of the general government is strikingly manifested, Arkansas ^wilJ have longer to struggle with the disadvan- tages which attend it than Ohio, Kentucky, and other frontier States of the Union have had, the settlers of which came from a respectable pa- rentage, and with industrious views. These communities were never corrupted by the man- ners of the Gulf of Mexico, and their territories were never the refuge of outlaws. Amendment, therefore, will develope itself slowly in Arkan-< sas, and society there will, for a long time, require a strong arm and a vigilant eye, like the way- ward and spoiled child, who is compelled to con- form to the hard conditions imposed upon him, until the natural love of order and justice is awakened in his heart. As far as public morals are concerned, things will probably go on for a long time in their old course. Demagogues are already as busy here as they are in other parts of the United States : all the offices in the terri- tory, except the few which are in the gift of the President of the United States, are elective ; and candidates, if they will not wink at the vicious habits of the people, have little chance of suc- cess. At present, therefore, a great deal must be tolerated by the magistrates, for the truth is, they are only tolerated themselves upon that condition. In time, it is to be hoped that the settlement of the territory will bring accessions of population from a healthier stock ; that ex- amples of religion, probity, and sobriety of life, will increase in number ; that new generations will respect and copy them ; and that, in the end, public opinion will effect a regeneration of habits. As to the manner of living here, I must con- fess, that although my stomach appeared to be broken in to any sort of fare before my arrival, yet I had encouraged the hope that in the capital of the territory 1 should find an agreeable change. What must forcibly strike a stranger here, is the apparent total indifference of everybody to what we call personal comforts. No one seems to think that there is any thing better in the world than little square bits of pork fried in lard, bad coffee, and very indifferent bread. To this, without almost any variety, they go regularly three times a day to be fed, just as horses are led at livery. Venison, it is true, is abundant, but it is no better than any thing else. A man goes into the woods, kills a deer 'twenty miles off skins it, cuts the haunches, or "hams," as they are called, off, hangs one on each side ol his saddle, leaves the rest behind him for thr turkey-buzzard (Cathartes Aura, Cuv.), or wolf and rides into town. Those who buy the ham: know but one way of using them ; they cut sli ces from them, frythem in lard, and send them u table, hard and tough, and swimming in grease I once, and only once, saw part of a saddle o venison brought to table; it had been killed thaV day, and was fat, but the room was cold, the plates were cold, and the meat was underdone and scarcely warm. Everybody knows that a worse state of things than this for venison can- not be imagined. My hostess took it very ill in me that I would not eat of it. She had " telled the man to bring the saddle in for me, and he had chopped part of it off with an axe, and had left the thin part behind: she had put it in the oven instead of frying it, and I wouldn't eat it so not no more than I would when it was fried if I didn't beat all !" As to the aqremens of the ta- ble, there seemed to me to be only this differ- ence betwixt the woods and the town, that when you were eating in this last you had bread and vegetables, and a roof over your head. Those at table with me seemed, however, to enjoy their repast as much as if it had been prepared by an artist of the first talent. They ate heartily, and appeared to be cheerful and contented ; so true is it that we are the creatures of education and habit, and that the slovenliness and dirt, which are so revolting to those who are not accustom- ed to them, are not even seen by others. An- other confirmed habit ol the country is never to shut the doors ; during the long summer they have this is unnecessary, and they never do any- thing that they are not compelled to do ; so that when the winter season comes, the family hud- dles round the fire with the door wide open, and generally five or six pains of glass broken in the window, which no one thinks of mending any more than of shutting the door. In the interior, where you stop for the night, they usually have nothing but shutters to exclude the air, glazed windows being too expensive and inconvenient. In stormy weather, therefore, you are often obli- ged to eat your meals by the light of a nasty candle of grease, and to get over the day, if you are detained, as well as you can by the light of the fire. But wherever you go,-it is in vain you tell the blacks to shut the doors after them : they are eternally coming in and going out, big and little; so that, at length, you give it up, and try to get out of the draft of cold air as much as you can. The town of Little Rock is surrounded by ex- tremely poor land, and from a variety of concur- ring causes can never be very populous. The river upon which it is situated is hardly navi- gable four months in the year, and the sandbars upon it are annually becoming more obstructive. As a place of deposit for the immediate neigh- bourhood, and in virtue of its being the seat of government, it may in time become a respect- able small town, have good seminaries of edu- cation for the youth of the territory, and afford agreeable society ; but in a commercial point of view it can only have a limited share of trade. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 101 White River will hereafter be made navigable for steamers 200 miles above Big Black River, and will be the avenue for trade to the northern districts, whilst Red River will be the same for the southern. The resources, too, of the terri- tory itself appear to me, from all I learn, to have been very much exaggerated. Mountains and soils of inferior quality form two thirds of the whole area, and the rich bottoms which commu- nicate with the Arkansas, the Mississippi, Big Black, White River, and other streams, will in most places require a great capital to be laid out in embankments, or levees, as they are called, to secure the cotton crops from inundation. Cot- ton will always be the staple production of Ar- kansas, which is therefore destined to the curse of being a slave-holding state. The town, as has been before stated, is built upon a slate traversed by broad bands of quartz, and no sandstone is superincumbent in the im- mediate vicinity ; but near the ferry I found a partial bed of tertiary limestone, containing os- trea, turritella, calyptrea, cerithium, and other marine shells ; and about three miles from Lit- tle Rock the same deposit reappears in consid- erable quantities, and is quarried for the purpose of making litne. About three miles and a half S.E. from Little Rock there is an independent ridge of hard siliceous matter which is ten miles long, and lies on the south side of the bayou call- ed Fourche, where are some exceedingly rich alluvial bottoms filled with trees of great magni- tude, and which presented a very curious ap- pearance. The periodical inundations of the Arkansas are sometimes of a terrible character, rising to the height of thirty and even forty feet. During one of these, in June, 1833, the backwater of the river rushed up the bayou, and very soon filled the extensive alluvial bottom: the river being highly charged with red argillaceous matter col- lected in its course from the Rocky Mountains, left, on its subsidence, all the trees painted with a chocolate-red colour at a great distance from the ground, so that the height of the inundation could be accurately measured. Many trees at- tain a surprising elevation and girth in bottoms of this kind in these low latitudes. Amongst them I observed Deciduous Cypress (Cupressa disticha), Cotton- Wood-Poplar (Populus angula- to), Populus monilifera, Hackberry (Ccltis inte- grifolia), Over-Cup-White-Oak ( Quercus macro- carpa), Coffee-Bean Tree ( Gymnodadus Canaden- sis), Sweet-Gum Tree (Liquidambar sfyracifiua), One-seeded Locust ( Gleditsia monosperma), Trip- le-thorned Acacia {Acacia triacanthos), Ogee- chee Lime (Nyssa pubescens"), and many others. These bottoms are so grown up with vegetable matter, and are in some parts so difficult to move through, on account of those vegetable pests the Saw Briar (Schrankia horridula}, Green Briar (Smilax}, and Supple Jacks (JEnoplia volubUis), all of which, especially the Saw Briar, catch and tear your clothes, that an individual not familiar with these endless and gloomy swamps is not much tempted to wander far into them. Any one who should lose himself and be exposed to remaining there all night, would have to climb a tree, for those places are the favourite resort of numerous troops of wolves at that period. Noth- ing can exceed the fertility of these bottoms, but they will not be reclaimed soon, for the embank- ments necessary to keep out the inundations would require to be of the most formidable and expensive character. During our stay here we made various excur- sions into the neighbourhood. I had heard of he Mammelles, and was desirous of seeing them and the adjacent country, as they were only about twenty miles off, up the Arkansas River; accordingly, on the 22nd of November, having procured an additional horse, we took to the woods again. We kept the slate for a few miles, and then rose upon ridges of sandstone of the same mineral character as those we had travel- led upon on the north side of the valley, on our way to Little Rock, and which I have. supposed to be the equivalent of the old red sandstone of Europe. The veins of quartz were here also of great breadth and still more frequent. We saw numerous beautiful deer on the way, bounding and skipping about with great agility, and then, showing us their snow-white tails and haunches - r but as we make war only on fossils, except when, we are obliged to supply ourselves with provis- ions, we are content with admiring them. The ridges here run nearly east and west for about twelve miles from Little Rock, when the country becomes more level, with small bottoms of land and narrow streams running through them. Here we found some German emigrants tempo- rarily hutted, who had gone through a variety of adventures since they left their native fader- land : they had been sick with the malaria and were now recovering, but all their enthusiasm for liberty and America had evaporated ; their resources, too, were nearly exhausted, and, en- feebled and disheartened, they seemed not to look forward with pleasure any more, but rather to revert to what they had left behind. This is too frequently the fate of emigrants who are discon- tented with their native country ; they render themselves unhappy at home by believing that everything at a distance from it is paradise ; and when, after having sacrificed all their means and encountered continual privations and sickness, they have put an impassable barrier betwixt themselves and the soil they still love and the friends of their youth, they find they have ac- complished nothing but expatriation, that they are in a foreign land of which they do not know the language, where everything appears barba- rous to them, where no one takes the least inter- est in them, and that the sunshine they once in- considerately thought belonged to the future, now, when they have paid the uttermost price for it, only beams in their sorrowful imagina- tions upon the past. These poor people were delighted to converse with me, and to find that we took an interest in them. I gave them a ( little money, of which they stood in great need to purchase meal, and advised them not to settle upon the bottom lands where the malaria would constantly persecute them ; but rather to seek an undulating country where there was abundance of limestone and de- ciduous timber, and where the slopes of the hills, would yield them grain and pasturage, and good springs. Leaving these worthy people, we noV entered upon an extensive bottom with numer- ous streams running through it, one of which, about fifteen miles from Little Rock, is called Petite Mammelle ; and here, in the immediate vicinity of this stream, is that magnificent rocky cone called the Mammelle Mountain, an outlier of the red sandstone, so often mentioned, of a very- precipitous kind. Its south-west aspect is ex- tremely fine, and resembles a pyramid, the height of which is about 700 feet from its base. Having ridden our horses through the pine- 102 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. trees which extend two-thirds of the way up the mountain, and which was as far as we thought it expedient to take them, we dismounted and se- cured them in order to accomplish the rest of the ascent, which is naked, steep, and rugged, on foot. On the S.W. edge of the pyramid, the sandstone beds were lying at an angle of 70 to 75, and in some places they were vertical, be- ing completely set on end. Many acres of the western face were covered with huge blocks and fragments of the rock, without a plant or a blade of grass to relieve the rugged and desolate aspect it presented. After a fatiguing ascent we gained the top, from whence we saw the river Arkansas at a distance of about two miles, and all the sur- rounding country at our feet. The rich bottoms were plainly indicated by the deciduous trees with which they were covered, and stood in strong contrast to the pine timber growing on the ridges. The horizon was bounded by ridges bearing S.W. and W. from us, and we saw dis- tinctly several high cones to the N.W., which I took to be the elevations called Magazine and Mount Cerne. To the N. was the interminable wilderness of gray leafless forests we bad so late- ? passed over, on our journey to Little Rock, he waving line of the Arkansas, and the exten- sive bottoms into which it rushes when its chan- nel is full, were all before us. I had no concep- tion before of the great extent of these bottoms, which can never be made available for human purposes until they are protected by levees from the intrusion of the river. The view from this mountain is extremely characteristic of the wilds of America, and would make a fine panorama. But we had scarcely made a shetch of it before it was time to descend, for evening was ap- proaching, and we had yet to find our way to a person to whom we had an introduction, and who had built a sawmill somewhere in the vi- cinity of the river for the purpose of sawing the logs of the cypress trees. Regain ing our horses we pursued our journey, and soon entered one of those vast dark bottoms, filled with thick and lofty trees, all of which, to the height of about fifteen feet, were painted a chocolate colour, as accurately as if it had been done by hand, with the red mud of the Arkansas. In this immense bed of silt, produced by the an- cient overflowings of the river which rose thir- ty feet in June, 1833 we came to a serious ob- stacle in a broad and deep bayou, called the Grande Mammelle. Its banks were exceeding- ly difficult both of access arid egress, and the mud appeared so deep that we were not a little embarrassed what to do. Happily a tree had fallen across, so getting upon it, and sounding the bayou, we determined to try it. My son en- tered the water first, mounted on our friend Mis- souri, for we knew he was to be relied upon at a pinch, and to be sure he swam over gallantly to the other side ; but there the bog was so deep and plastic, that he stuck fast, and could not ex- tricate himself. My son was therefore obliged to jump off into the bayou to relieve him of his weight, and by the aid of some twigs got on the bank. After a great many violent plunges the horse at length got out covered from top to bot- tom with mud. I now unsaddled my horse, and my son crossing over to my side on the tree led him by the bridle; but my horse in his turn got completely bogged, and wanting the spirit of the other, he seemed to give it up, and turned his eyes up to us in such a comical and reproachful way, that we simultaneously burst out a laugh- ing. After a while collecting his energies he made a fortunate plunge, and got to the bank also. Having scraped our nags a little, we re-sad- dled and proceeded on amidst those never-ending painted trees, that were continually reminding us of the wild power of the Arkansas, to which, as when men are walking upon the crater of an abated volcano, we felt as if we were too near. We had no path to guide us, no marked trees to assure us that we were in the right track, and we were not much encouraged at discovering, as we advanced, an endless succession of stagnant pools on our left, showing that we were in the lowest part of the swamp. Guided alone by the com- pass, we pursued our way, hoping that this be- ing the lowest part of the bottom it might be con- nected with the stream upon which the saw-mill was built. We had been told that this mill was about three or four miles from the mouth of the Grande Mammelle, but whereabouts this mouth was it was impossible for us to surmise ; a very cold night was coming on, my son was wet through, if we did not extricate ourselves from this horrid place before it became dark, it would be impossible to proceed. I became very anx- ious, and regretted a thousand times that I had not engaged a guide. What made my reflections still more unpleasant was, that I had seen the extent of this frightful swamp from the top of the mountain, and knew that it extended several miles (I afterwards learnt that it contained from 30,000 to 40,000 acres) ; it was evident, therefore, that if we were benighted, we might find it very difficult to provide for our safety against the countless gangs of savage wolves that range about by night. Leaving the pools, we now in- clined more to the right, and the forest being somewhat more dry and open, put on in the di- rection of the Arkansas, thinking we should be more safe there than in the swamp. Steadily following this course for some time, we came at length upon a cowpath, and felt amazingly cheer- ed by it. I knew that it was the custom in these wilds to turn the cows out during the day to pro- vide for themselves, and to shut the calves up to entice their mothers back. Now the cow that made that path must have some place to go to, and something in the shape of man would prob- ably be there. On we went, losing and finding the path twenty times, and at length came to where the ground was more beaten, and several other paths appeared. A little embarrassed at this, we, in the end, preferred the most beaten of them, and put our willing horses who seemed as much comforted as ourselves by these signs upon it. Night had fallen, when suddenly we heard the comforting sound of the lowing of cattle. Never did that sweet line Aut iu reducta valle mujpentium please me so much as those rural and friendly sounds; guided by them we came to a small house on the river, and were there directed to proceed half a mile to a settlement where the mill was, and to the proprieto- of which we had an introduction. CHAPTER XXVIII. A Concert of Wolves Ancient bed of the Arkansas-An Arkansas Honeymoon Method of crossing a Bayou De- part from Little Rock for the Hot Springs of the Washita Explanation of a "Turn-out"' Stop at the best Hotel on the Road " Nisby" and her " Missus" Stump Han- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 103 -A. fastidious Judge Governor Shan- non's Hotel A. Jury de circnmstantibus THE owner of the mill, Mr. Starbuck, was -from home with his wife, but his father-in-law, a Mr. Elliot from Virginia, and his lady, were there, and received us in a very friendly manner. Here we supped and slept, if being awake al- most the whole night can be called sleeping, for which there were various causes; Fahrenheit's thermometer fell before midnight to 24, a point which is sensibly felt in this latitude, and our Toom, although not out of doors, felt very much like it. Then came the yelling and howling of the wolves, who made an incredible noise, es- pecially towards morning, some barking in one tone, some screaming and howling in another, as if each one had his tail in a pair of pincers; an uproar which appears intended as a signal for stragglers to come into the swamp, where they crouch during the day. A third cause of our wakefulness was some strong green tea that good Mrs. Elliot treated us to; an excellent bev- erage, if it is wanted to dragoon nature into sit ting up all night, but which upon this occasion did not fail to give me abundant opportunities of thinking about a great many things, and especi- ally of the very pretty night we should have had of it, what with the weather and the wolves, i f we had been obliged to stay in the swamp. good long walk Before breakfast. Mr. Starbucl is a man of great resolution and enterprise, am has built a grist and saw mill at the edge of thi: ^reat swamp; the pools we had seen formed a chain of small lakes, which extended severa miles, and the timber on each side of them, anc on their edges, being almost all killed by the water formed as perfect a picture of desolation as a for est of innumerable dead ragged bare poles cai do. The Cyprus (C. disticha), which is the tim ber they principally saw, flourishes greatly ii *uch situations, and attains a prodigious size As to the lakes, such immense quantities of wik fowl resort there that some of them were almos covered with wild geese and ducks, and at cer tain seasons swans come there also. During the day I had an opportunity of mor minutely examining this curious locality, an saw very clearly that the long chain of pools an lakes was upon the line of an ancient channel o the Arkansas, having traced it through the swam to the river again. A small circumstance wi lead to the deflection of one of these might -streams, when flowing through an alluvial coun try. The lodgement of a tree in a low state c the water will, when the stream becomes sti lower, turn it from its course, and produce als what is called a sandbar. The current having new direction given to it, wears its way in tim through some low and weak part of the opposit bank, makes a new and circituous channel, an forms an island, which in this part of the cour try is usually called a "cut off;" the old be now becomes converted into a chain of poo and lakes, and is gradually filled up again by th silt deposited by the annual inundations. I have heard of the channel of the Mississippi at the south being changed in this way, a sandbar hav- ing first turned the current through a new and weak part of the bank, and the whole flood, in a period of inundation, coming through in such force as to effect, in 24 hours, a new channel fit- ted for a steamer to pass through. In the course of the day a small skiff coming the mill from below for some grist, I prevail- d upon the boys who paddled it to put us over the other side ofthe river, where I had heard ere were some settlements. Having landed pon an immense sandbar,* we pursued it (oc- asionally diverging into the interior) for several liles, observing the workings of this powerful ood, and I became so interested with what I w, and received so much information from this radical lesson, that I determined to follow the iver on my return from the Mexican frontier, to s junction with the Mississippi, a distance of bout 300 miles. From the river we went a short distance into he interior to see a Mr. Piat, an old settler here, vho has raised a large family in Arkansas, most f whom have established themselves elsewhere, le seemed to have collected some comforts bout him ; but a Mr. Graham, who lives in the eighbourhood, has built himself a commodious otise, and has a few small fields adjoining to t, with a patch of very promising looking wheat. Many persons in the territory, who have never een accustomed to plant any thing but Indian. ;orn, imagine that wneat will not succeed, and upon no better evidence than that they have never sown any; but the appearance of Mr. Starbuck's grist mill, the want of which had per- iaps kept the cultivation of wheat back, is pro- ducing a salutary change. We also visited a place we had heard a good deal of wondrous matter about, called' Crystal Hill. It is distant from Little Rock about 14 miles, and abuts upon the river. It consisted of red sandstone lying upon slaty shale, dipping to the south-east. The shale runs about three- fourths of the distance up the hill, and the sand- stone caps it there at an inclination of about 60. At the water's edge the shale contains bands and nodules of ironstone, and occasionally pyrites or sulphuret of iron, which many persons, ignorant of minerals, who have landed here, have sup- posed connected with the precious metals, and so have caused the locality to be talked about. In- deed there is another place a few miles lower down, called Mine Hitt, .where some individuals, upon the strength of similar appearances, have actually dug for silver. Night coming on, we engaged two men to row us back in a skiff to a Mr. Henderson's, where we had sent our horses in the morning, and here we were very hospitably entertained. Our host had formerly been a trader with the Indians, and knew this part of America well. On the chim- ney-piece of the room where we slept, I saw a singular ornament, a compound mirror, com- posed of near a hundred small ones, all with sep- arate lackered frames, and fancifully arranged into one general frame. He said it was the only remnant of his old stock in trade, and that he used to exchange these trifles with the Indians for their peltry. After breakfast he was kind enough to accompany us for a few miles from his house, in order to see us safe across the Grande Mammelle by another ford, where there was less mud. On reaching the ford, I was * These sandbars, when the river is low, may be trave- led over for great distances, and are thns used where there are no roads. Some conception may be formed of the diffi- culties which first settlers have to contend with, by stating that a very respectable person, who resides about 50 miles west of Little Rock, took his bride on horseback, to visit some friends up the Arkansas, for the distance of 200 miles, fording the river from bar to bar, and sleeping every night upon one of them. 104 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. amused at the nonchalance with which he com menced his operations; merely crossing his own stirrups over the saddle, he led his horse to th< stream, and drove him in with a few strokes o the whip, when the animal, partly swimming and partly walking, soon got over. Then taking the saddles from our horses, and tying the bridles round their necks, he drove our horses across in the same manner, which immediately joined hi: nag that was cropping the leaves of a cane-brak( on the opposite side. With our saddles on oui shoulders, we now crossed the bayou, over a tree which had been felled for the purpose, and re- mounting, soon came on the eastern and south fronts of the Mammelle Mountain, which we found was connected with a low peaked chain that extended to the river, and abutted upon i opposite to the long sandbar. Having taken a friendly leave of our guide, and received his di- rections for our course, we without difficulty got into the old road and reached Little Rock again in the afternoon. On the 27th of November we again put our little waggon in motion, and directed our course towards the hot springs of Washita (pronounced Washitaw). For the first eight miles the road was very bad, full of rocks, stumps, and deep mud holes, and wound up one of those sandstone ridges that are so common in this country. We frequently came upon trees that had fallen across the road, and had lain there many years, exhib- iting an indifference on the part of "the settlers unknown in the more industrious northern states. When a tree falls on the narrow forest road, the first traveller that passes is obliged to make a circuitous track around it, and the rest follow him for the same reason. I have observed this peculiarity both in Missouri and Arkansas. If a tree is blown down near to a settler's house, and obstructs the road, he never cuts a log out of it to open a passage; it is not in his way, and travellers can do as they please, because nobody would prevent their cutting it. But travellers feeling no inclination to do what they think is not their business, never do it. The settler in these wild countries plants to live, and not to take to market; if he is on horseback he cares little about it, if he is in a light waggon he can get round the tree in less time than it would take to stop and "work for others." Thus the old adage is verified, that " what is every body's business is nobody's business;" but what makes this unjustifiable indolence on the part of the settler when the obstruction is near his house sometimes very absurd, is, that often when a track is established round the first fallen tree another obstruction shuts up this track, and so in a long period of time the established track gets removed into the woods, far out of sight of the settler's house. If you ask him why he does not cut a log out of the first fallen tree, he will prob- ably say that " it is not his business to wait upon travellers," and indeed the distances from house to house are sometimes so very great, that it would be unreasonable to require of any par- ticular settler to remove all such obstructions. These circuitous tracks are known by the name of turn-outs, and if you are inquiring towards evening how many miles it is to the next settle- ment, you perhaps will be told, " 16 miles and a heap of turn-outs." We once made a calculation that these turn-outs had added at least five miles to our journey in Missouri and Arkansas. Apro- pos of the pronunciation of this word which undoubtedly is a Gallo-American corruption of an Indian name the universally adopted one now is Arkunsaw, pronouncing the first syllable as we do in the word arm, and the last as we do saw a carpenter's tool; the middle syllable is short. Having reached the top of the sandstone ridge, we found a tolerably good table-land, watered by numerous small transparent streams, some of which run into the Arkansas, others into the Bayou Bartholomew, a tributary of the Saline River, before it joins the Washita. As we ad- vanced, the vegetation began to assume more and more a semi-tropical character; several spe- cies of oaks which we had not seen now appear- ed, especially the narrow-leaved varieties; the willow oak ( Qucrcus phdlcs) was very abundant ; and we found the first plant we had seen of the bow wood (Madura aurantiaca), but without any fruit on it. In the evening we came to a sort of tavern, 27 miles from Little Rock, built on a rich bottom of land, at the north fork of the Saline, a violent stream in the season of freshets or floods, which then overflows its banks 20 feet. This place was kept by a sort of she Caliban, and the tenement consisted of one room with a mud floor, in the various corners of which were four cranky beadsteads, upon which were hud- dled what she chose to call bed clothes. But what bed clothes! Then there was a door that would not shut, a window frame with every pane Droken, and some benches to sit on before a Droken table, to form the sum total of the furni- ure and appliances of this hotel. She told us we might choose our own bed, and after we had 3ut our horse up, she would give us some sup- ser. As it had already begun to rain, we were *lad to be housed for the night, and having put Missouri into a hovel, consisting of open logs, with some boards to cover him, and left him, with plenty of Indian corn leaves and some grain, we adjourned to the fire-side. The rain now be- gan to pour down in torrents, and before our sup- Der was ready four more travellers joined us, os- ensibly on their way to a government sale of and at a distant county. I was glad of this, be- cause one of them was Colonel A*****, of Lit- le Rock, a v^ry intelligent and agreeable per- son, with whom I was acquainted. This accession to her company put our host- ess into a great bustle ; she had to prepare sup- per for six persons, several of whom were law- yers, and of course the great men of Little Rock, and she set about it accordingly. We now dis- :overed that she possessed reso'urces we had not suspected the existence of; a kitchen that cor- esponded with every thing else was attached o the hotel, and communicated with it by a mall door, and in that kitchen was her aide de uisine and factotum, a stunted, big-headed ne- ro girl, that from her size did not appear to be more than twelve, yet was not destined to see er twentieth year again. The grotesque rags his creature was dressed in, and the broken- irimmed man's hat that was cocked on one side f her head, gave such an effect to the general: ttractions of Nisbi/ for that was her name bat she put us all into the very best possible hu- iour, and we could not but break out into a huckle of delight whenever she came into the oom. Whenever we became better acquaint- d, we found that Nisby was an abbreviation of lophynisby, as our hostess pronounced it, which ut me in mind of Thomson's line " Oh Sophoiusba, Sophonisba, Oh !" I know not when I have uttered so many laugh- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 105 ing Ohs ! as during the early part of this even ing. The appearance of the girl indicated ex- treme stolidity, yet she did not want for spirit and activity. Her "Missus."*who seemed to have a lurking idea that things might possibly be carried on a " leetel" better than they were at her hotel, always endeavoured to supply deficiencies by a voluble and magniloquent description of the things she "hadn't jisl got at that time;" and whenever she was at a pinch, would draw upon Nibby to confirm her assertions : this the girl was pretty well broken into, but when the " Mis- sus," in the warmth of her generous intentions in our favour, would sometimes call upon Nisby to execute instanter manifest impossibilities, then poor Nisby would be "nonplushed," and, if hard pressed.would betray something that looked like impatience. We had an amusing instance of this whilst the supper was preparing. Upon the broken table around which we were to sit, Nis- by had placed certain plates and coffee cups and saucers, most of which had gone through a great many hardships; and having used her talent for display to the best advantage, went to the kitch- en, where her Missus was occupied baking some heavy dough cakes, and frying a quantity of lit- tle bits of fat pork. By and by in came Missus to take a survey before the first entree came in, and affecting a most distressing surprise, com- menced the following dialogue with her aide de cuisine at the top of their voices : " Why, how this gal has laid the table ! Nis- by 1" " What's awanting, Missus 7" " You ha-ant laid the table no hay w, you kree- ter, you !" " I reckon I couldn't do it no better." " Why, whar on arth is all the forks V " Why, the forks is on the table thar." "If you don't beat all I mean the new forks." " I niver seen no new forks, you know that, Missus." " Whar has the kreetur put the forks, I say V No answer. " Wahl ! if you don't find the forks, I allow I '11 give it to you !" Enter Nisby, agitata. ]%ft (Solto voce e staccato.') " I ha-ant put no forks nowhar. I niver seen no forks but them ar what's on the table; thar's five on 'em, and thar's not no more ; thar's Stump Handle, Crooky Prongs, Horny, Big Pewter, and Little Pickey, and that's jist what thar is, and I expec they are all thar to speak for themselves." And Nisby was right. Stump Handle was there, and was by far the most forkable-looking con- cern, for it consisted of one prong of an old fork stuck into a stumpy piece of wood. Crooky Prongs was curled over on each side, adapting itself in an admirable manner to catch cod-fish, but rather foreign to the purpose of sticking into anything. Horny had apparently never been at Sheffield or Birmingham, as it was a sort of im- itation of a fork made out of a cow's horn. Big Pewter was made of the handle of a spoon with the bowl broken off; and Little Pickey was a dear interesting looking little thing, something like a cobbler's awl fastened in a thick piece of wood. As my son and myself had our own knives and forks, we did not dispute the choice of the re- markable ones on the table ; and the guests, ex- cessively diverted with this dialogue, good na- turedly adapted themselves to the necessity of the O case. We contrived to swallow some of the wretched coffee, by putting a great deal of sugar into it; and we tasted the heavy cakes, one-third of which seemed to be mere dirt. Indeed every thing was so dirty, that my stomach revolted at what was before us. The old hag sat at the ta- ble to pour out the Coffee, and saw well enough that we were disgusted ; but as we said nothing, she made no remarks. One of the guests, how- ever, told a capital story, which was a fair hit, and which she did not relish at all. It was of one Judge Dooly, who was obliged to make cer- tain circuits in an unsettled part of the country, and being rather fastidious, did not always sub- mit in silence to the inconvenience he was expo- sed to by the dirt and slovenliness of others. It happened that the landlord of a tavern he was oc- casionally obliged to stop at, had a dispute with another tavern-keeper about the direction of a * new road that was going to be laid out, each or them being very anxious to have it brought near to his house : he took the liberty, therefore, of can- vassing the Judge who was one of the persons that was to determine the course of the road and endeavoured to convince him that the road ought to come to his house, frequently apologizing,, however, and saying that " the Judge knew best what suited him, but he hoped there was no harm in giving a friendly opinion." " Not at all," re- plied the Judge, " and I will in return offer you some friendly advice, that may perhaps be use- ful to you in regard to your table, if the road should happen to come this way. You know best, but I should think it would be better for you,, when travellers come to your house, to have the dirt put on one dish, and the bar's (bear's) meat on another, for I swear I like to mix such things for myself, and not to let others do it for me." When we had left the table and drew near to the fire, a great many pleasant stories were told. Colonel *****, who for several years attended the circuits to remote and barbarous parts of the' territory, said, that although professional men had still many curious scenes to go through, yet that they now fared much better, and found some sort of accommodation more frequently than for- merly. He stated that some years ago, after a hard day's ride, there was only one cabin at which they could stop, and that it was very im- portant to reach it in the winter season. This cabin belonged to an old hunter, a. pioneer in that part of the country, to whom the lawyers in virtue of the extensive jurisdiction he had in the wilderness had given the title of Governor Shannon; it consisted of one solitary room with a mud floor, and not a single article of furniture except an old log that he had hollowed out, and that he slept in at night, and sat upon at other times. Upon this mud floor travellers used to stretch themselves in their blanket-coats, and there they pigged with the Governor, an old ne- gress, and a team of dogs he kept to hunt thebars^ which were numerous around him. As there dad never been a door or any contrivance ap- proaching it to the cabin, the dogs used to come in and go out whenever they pleased : if they were all asleep, the barking of a wolf would rouse them, and out they would rush over the recumbent travellers, without being at all partic- ular where they trod upon them. On their re- turn, wet and covered with dirt, they made no ceremony of who they laid near, nor whom they laid upon, for dogs like to lie warm, and this was the reason why the Governor had made his- bed in a log. It happened upon one occasioo 106 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. that a judge, who had never made this circuit before, favoured the Governor with his compa- ny, and becoming at length outrageously annoy- d at the stench and filth of the dogs, one of which had acted very irreverently to his Hon- our, called out to the Governor, that if he did not take a dog away that was upon him, he would kill him on the spot. Upon which his Excellen- cy replied, that he " would be if the bl d judges and lawyers of Arkansas hadn't slept with his dogs for seven years, and that if any man touched one of 'em, he would send him to sleep with the painters, in less than no time." The Governor was well known to be a resolute fellow, and as there was no other settler nearer than 30 miles, and " a pretty considerable sprink- ling of bars and painters about," the Judge thought it best to put up with this slight upon his authority. We had also another very characteristic story, 'When the Americans first crossed over into Tex- as, they, as usual, scattered themselves about the country, each selecting a suitable situation in a -well- watered fertile part, not more distant than ten or twenty miles from each other. This was very convenient for the thieves and homicides, "whose practices sometimes made it necessary for them to escape even from Little Rock, and to these settlers they upon such occasions resorted. Ere long, however, their evil doings made them as obnoxious to these pioneers in Texas as they had been to others, and the settlers combined to drive them off. It happened that three fellows f the very worst stamp, two of whom had com- mitted murder, and the other was a notorious horse thief, had broken jail at Little Rock, and "were pursued and traced into Texas, where they had eluded their pursuers. At this time the Mexican laws nominally prevailed in that part of the country, for the Americans professed to be 'Mexican citizens, and there being no Mexican authorities to administer justice, one of the .American settlers, a man of some resolution, was appointed by his fellow countrymen to act as a magistrate, and was called "Alcalde." There being some reason to believe that the three vagabonds were hid away in an extensive corn- brake, a party was formed to hunt them up, and ;having found and secured them, they were taken to the Alcalde's house. A court was immedi- ately held, and a narrative entered into of the circumstances under which they had been tra- ced, and finally captured in the corn-brake. But as no evidence was adduced to prove that these men had been guilty of the crimes imputed to them, the Alcalde declared, " I swar I'm non- plushed ; these is the right fellows no doubt of that but who's to prove it, and who onder arth is to take 'em back to Little Rock I want to know." The Alcalde's wife, coming into the council just at this time, looked at the culprits, and in one of them discovered a fellow who had stolen some linen from her cabin when she lived in Arkansas, and who was known to have kill- ed a cow belonging to her brother, for the sake of the skin. " I tell you, old Caldy," said she, "if you don't hang these fellows up right off, you'll never have such another chance, and mind what I tell you, I calculate, if you don't, you ai'nt agoing to have a skin left on a kay w's back, nor a shift to mine, to all etarnity." This alarm- ing prospect decided the fate of the jail-breakers, and they were all hung up within half an hour. But the best story of the evening was related fcv a lawyer who had been personally concerned in it. Four other culprits had also broiren jail at Little Rock, where they had been put, prepar- atory to being sent to a distant part of the coun- try to be tried in the district where they had com- mitted their offences. Three of them were char- ged with murder, and the fourth with several ca- ses of horse stealing, a crime at the head of all offences there, since there is nothing manly in it, and nothing more inconvenient. Their counsel, for it was he who related the story to us, said that they had good friends, and that he was well paid for defending them. As soon as he ascer- tained from his clients that they were all guilty, he arranged his plan for their defence. The place where they were to be tried consisted of a single house in the wilderness, which represent- ed the future county town; the witnesses were on the spot, and all the appliances to constitute a Court. Twelve men had been with some dif- ficulty got to leave home, and come to this place to perform the part of a jury. At the critical moment, however, one of these men was not to be found ; and as a panel could not be formed, the judge stated the fact, and asked what step the prosecuting attorney intended to take. The counsel of the accused, after many protestations of their innocence, and their strong desire to prove it without loss of time, now proposed to fill the panel de circumstantibus. It so happen- ed that the only circumstantes were the three murderers and the horse-stealer, so they put one of the murderers into the jury, and first tried the horse-stealer and acquitted him, and then put the horse-stealer into the panel and acquitted the murderer; and by this sort of admirable contri- vance the whole four were honourably acquitted, and returned perfectly whitewashed into the bo- som of society ; the jury and the rest of the court also, having got rid of a tedious and unpleasant business, returned without delay to their respect- ive homes. The hour at length came for us to retire to our dingy-looking beds. On examining the extra- ordinary bundle of rags of which mine seemed composed, I found one coarse sheet beneath they never put more than one sheet to a bed that had perhaps been slept upon by a score of persons, and a coarse blanket at the top of that : the pillow was a good match to the rest; so, get- ting into a large flannel bag I had made for the purpose, which left my arms free, and tied close round my neck, I covered the pillow with a silk handkerchief, tumbled all the rags on the floor, wrapped myself in a blanket-coat, and laid down, bidding defiance to the myriads of bugs that were confidently expecting their prey. The rain was still pouring down when I awoke in the morning, but jumping instantly up, 1 un- packed myself, and finding a pail of water and a gourd to dip it out with, on a shelf near the door an excellent custom which obtains here I hastened to make my ablutions, and having dri- ed my towel at the fire, prepared to depart. But the rain continuing to fall in torrents, we were all compelled to sit down at the table once more with Little Pickey and Company. The break- fast was more disgusting than the supper, be- cause the friendly darkness had concealed much of the filth, and of the sordid appearance of eve- ry thing around us. At length, however, it cleared up, and we got away from this den of rags and nastiness, just in season to ford the Sa- line, which was beginning to rise. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 107 CHAPTER XXIX. Arrive at Magnet Cove An interesting Mineral Locality Strange effects of a Hurricane Reach the Hot Springs Whittington without his Cat Rare accommodations Description of the Springs Fishes in Hot Water Tem- perature and Gaseous Contents of the Hut Springs The Travertine presents different Constituents below the Surface. COLONEL CONWAY, the surveyor-general of -the territory of Arkansas, was at this time build- ing a cottage for his family to escape to, during the season of malaria at his plantation on Red River; and had been kind enough to give me a letter of introduction to his lady, desiring her to receive us hospitably for the night, if we found it convenient to stay there. This cottage, which was in a secluded place called Magnet Cove, we -determined to reach if we coulJ. Passing over the same kind of country we had seen the day "before, pine timber prevailing, and the holly (Jtez (rpaca) beginning to be abundant, we at length, after crossing some streams that were extremely swelled, reached Trammels, another miserable looking cabin, and here we left the road to Texas and turned into an obscure track that led to Magnet Cove and the Hot Springs. Por the first three miles the country rose, and the road became exceedingly rocky and difficult; added to which the mounta'in streams were be- ginning to assume a fierce character that rendered them dangerous, frequently covering the track, so that we could not see it, and concealing rocks which often were on the point of overturning us. At length the country became more open, and as night was approaching we looked about with some anxiety for Magnet Cove. What it was like no one had told me; I had intended to have got more particular directions from Colonel Con- way, but an engagement prevented our meeting at my departure from Little Rock, and he had sent the letter to my lodgings. The nature of the country did not promise anything like a cove, but always hoping that we should discover it, we pushed on, and at length descended from the table-land into a gloomy looking lowland very densely timbered. Here we found two or three tracks, and were doubtful which to lake. One of them probably led to the Hot Springs and the other to the cottage : seing some twigs lately bro- ken on the left-hand track we turned into it, and soon after saw a still fresher track on our left in the woods. Driving on as quick as we could we came at length to where we perceived that the lowland was encircled by lofty hills, and now it occurred to me that thi-s was one of those roman- tic places such as we had seen in Virginia and Tennessee, and which are there also called toves, and perceiving a clearing, and looking back through it we saw a cottage to which the track we had last passed evidently led ; so turn- ing back we followed this track, and at last came to the cottage. Mrs. Conway received us very politely, and unprepared for visiters as she was, with carpenters and labourers to provide for, had some supper got for us. Seeing that we were very much in the way, we retired to rest in a room which was not yet enclosed, and was still open to the weather on the side where the chim- ney was hereafter to be built, an inconvenience which was remedied as well as circumstances admitted of, by hanging up some counterpanes ; but everything was very clean and we rested well. In the morning, at dawn of day, I sallied out to view the place, and having walked through the bottom, made my way up the lofty elevation, with which it was surrounded, and looked down into the interior, which was in fact a deep basin containing about 1200 acres of the richest land, and thickly wooded. What struck me very much was, that the whole area which rather affects a spheroidal than a circular form com- prehending this cove both outside and in, was covered with deciduous trees, whilst without its limits the trees were all evergreens and pines. Upon examining the rocks upon which these de- ciduous trees grew, I found they were constituted of a decomposing and very ancient greenstone, that had intruded itself into the general strata of sandstone of the surrounding country, whilst the evergreens grew only upon the sandstone out- side. Having returned to the house, and made a very comfortable breakfast, I sallied out again to look at some localities where Colonel Con- way had told me I should find some curious min- erals. He had informed me that on surveying the country the needle would not traverse on ap- proaching this locality, and the cause was here apparent from a mound in the Cove, covered with pebbles of magnetic micaceous oxide of iron from one ounce to four pounds weight. These pebbles, like those of the vein in Missou- ri which goes by the name of Iron Mountain, overlie masses of the metal of prodigious extent, which, from their great magnetic force, probably influence the country around for a great dis- tance. Some of the specimens which I brought away especially one which contained a portion of a large crystal of iron possess an intensity of magnetic power which is truly surprising. In other pans of the bottom I found large masses of decomposing felspar, studded with black tour- malines, some of which were in long prisms, whilst others were in stellated groups, with beau- tifully delicate acicular rays. In some of these felspathic rocks were amorphous pieces of white sulphuret of iron, believed here to be silver. Oc- casionally the rock in the bottom was a coarse- grained kind of syenite, composed of red felspar, hornblende, mica, and some quartz. In a smalJ field, not far from the house, which had been re- cently ploughed and where there was no tim- ber growing when Colonel Conway first took the possession of this place I found a great many Indian arrow heads made of a beautiful semi- transparent kind of novaculite ; and in one place an immense number of chips and broken arrow heads, all of this stone, were lying together. This had been evidently a favourite retreat for the Indians, but I looked in vain for the rock from which the novaculite had been taken. Upon considering all the circumstances con- nected with this cove, the intrusive character of its rocks, their distinct origin and separation from the sandstone, its minerals, the quasi-crateri form of the cove, and the immense deposit of magnetic iron, I could not but be impressed with the opin- ion that Magnet Cove ows its origin to an an- cient volcanic action, and that it is one of those extinct craters that may have preceded that class where basalt and lava are the principal products. I left this rare place full of admiration ; if it were in social respects a desirable situation for a residence, the proprietor would certainly possess one of the most enviable estates in America. We had proceeded over the sandstone about six miles always going parallel with the Wash- ita, which flowed about a mile from us when we came to a part of the country where all the 108 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. forest trees without exception were standing for at least a thousand acres around, dead and bare, with the bark peeled off them, but without any marks 'whatever of fire having been in the country. This was a phenomenon we were at a loss to account for, but at the next settler's it was explained to us. About six years ago a hurricane passed over the country in the month of May, and desolated everything it came near. The sky, when passing over this place, was frightfully black, and dipping down, discharged such fierce streams of hail against the northern side of the forest trees, that all the bark was de- stroyed down to the wood, and the circulation of the sap being destroyed, every one of the trees died. The house where we received this infor- mation and which had several sick persons in it at the time, for the sake of being near the Hot Springs was unroofed in an instant; all the poultry that were out of doors were killed on the spot, the rooms were filled with rain and hail as if a river had been pouring into it, and when the hurricane passed away there, the hail was two feet deep on the ground. These hurricanes, like those in the West Indies, sometimes assume a fearful character. I have never been caught in one of the worst of them, but their track in the forest which I have sometimes fallen in with, presents a singular picture of destruction. I nave come upon an avenue of trees 200 yards wide, torn up by the roots, and going in a straight line through the country for a short distance, with the tops of the trees laid uniformly in one direction ; then a larger area would be seen with the trees twisted in a strange manner, broken, and laid in every direction, as if a whirlwind of immeasurable force had been expending itself upon them, and had clashed the trees against each other. From this place we had nine miles to go to the Hot Springs over the sandstone ; the road was bad, and we had to cross some violent streams, especially one called the Gulfer, which we achieved with some difficulty; at length, com- ing near a ridge, we turned into a narrow pas- sage or vale between two lofty hills, and saw from the appearance of things that we had reached the Hot Springs of the Washita, so much the object of curiosity to men of science, and so little known to the world. Four wretched-looking log cabins, in one of which was a small store, contained all the ac- commodations that these springs offered to trav- ellers. We had never seen anything worse or more unpromising than they were, but driving up to the store, a Mr. Whittington, who pur- chases bear skins and other skins of wild animals of the hunters, paying for them in the commodi- ties he gets from Little Rock, and who did not seem in a very promising way to the Lord Mayor- alty of London, was obliging enough to say we might take possession of one of the log cabins. Having taken care of our horse we accordingly moved into the first that we had passed on our arrival. It had a roof to it as well as a little por- tico, as a defence against the rays of the sun, but this was literally all that it had, for not an arti- cle of furniture was there either in the shape of table or chair. The floor was formed of boards roughly and unevenly hewn, and, unfortunately, some of them were wanting. Being reckoned, however, the best lodgings in the place, we made the best of it, and through our new friend got skins, blankets, and other appliances to serve as bedding. We next laid in some firewood and constructed a kind of table, so that when we had succeeded in borrowing two old chairs, we look- ed with some satisfaction upon our new attempt at housekeeping. We were sure at any rate of being alone, and of being out of the reach of filth of every kind ; in fact it was almost as desirable as being in the woods, and had the advantage of shelter. How invalids contrive to be com- fortable, who come to this ragged place, I cannot imagine, yet I understand that ten or a dozen people are often crammed into this room, which my son and myself found much too small for two. Persons who resort to these springs in the autumn might do very well if they brought with, them their own tents and a sack or two of flour, for meat in the latter part of the year is abun- dant and of good quality, which it is not at other times when animals are breeding and suckling their young. Being impatient to see the springs we sallied out, and continued making our observations un- til night fell. The narrow vale in which these huts are built, and which does not exceed 50 yards in breadth, extends about 800 yards nearly north and south, and then turns to the west. On each side of it is a lofty ridge of sandstone, and other ridges close in the view to the north. At the base of the ridge to the east is a bed of clay- slate, upon which flows a pretty little murmur- ing stream, that takes its rise in the hills to the N.E., and into which immense sheets of traver- tine descend, indicating sufficiently the near neighbourhood of the springs. The ridge from its base to the top is very ferruginous, is about 450 feet high, with a steep inclination, and in the upper part has a good growth of pine and oak timber. The greater number of the springs which are very numerous rise in the side of the ridge, at about one third of the distance from, its base, and are found at various points below, and even in the bed of the stream, but there are some near 300 feet above it. There is this pe- culiarity in the situation of these Hot Springs, that if ever a town should be built in the narrow vale which is only 100 feet below the most co- pious of them the hot water, which perhaps has a mean temperature of 145 Fah., could be con- veyed in spouts supported by frames into all the houses below, to be used either as baths or for domestic purposes. As these hot waters flow down the side of the hill, they deposit their cal- careous matter, which can be traced down to the edge of the rivulet. The vale has perhaps been wider at some remote period, for the travertine extends back east from the stream about 150 yards before it leans upon the acclivity of the hill, and is occasionally 100 feet high, continuing along the east bank of the stream with some in- terruption at intervals a distance of 400 yards; sometimes presenting abru-pt vertical faces from. 15 to 25 feet high, and at other times showing itself in curtains with stalactitic rods, and pre- senting points and coves advancing into and re- ceding from the stream. Havinggratified myself with these preliminary- observations, we returned to Mr. Whittington's to make the very important inquiry of how and where we were to get something to eat, and here we learnt that a Mr. Percival, who lived in an- other of the log; cabins, was the general enter- tainer of all visitors to this place. He had been a hunter, and having seen the place as early as 1807, had in some year subsequent to that built a cabin in the vale : this fact, as he conceived, gave him a pre-emption claim of right as pro- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 109 prietor of the waters, and finding some advantage in supplying the invalids who had now for some years resorted (o them, he had set up a monop- oly as general provider to all strangers who had any money in their pockets. To Mr. Percival's cabin therefore we hied, and presenting ourselves at his supper-table, found a quantity of little pieces of pork swimming in hog's grease, some very badly made bread, and much worse coffee, waiting for us. They knew very well that we had no other place to go to, and had prepared accordingly. Nothing could be less tempting and more rude than the fare we got ; and if it had not been for the supply of tea and sugar we had laid in at Little Rock our stomachs would have gone to bed very discontentedly. Percival, however, was a good-natured man, could talk about things that interested us, and promised to look up some venison for another time, so we adjourned to our abin, got up a good fire, and laid down. In the night we were awoke by the weather, which had set in excessively stormy, and we found that our portico, whatever its use might be in the sum- mer, was not upon duty at this season of the year, for the wind came in with such force that we could scarce keep any of the covering upon TIS, and I discovered that the rain had been pour- ing upon me for some time before I awoke. We were also mistaken in our calculation of being alone, for it seems our cabin being placed upon a loose wall raised about a foot and a half from the ground, offered a good shelter to the various hogs belonging to the place, all of which had congregated immediately beneath us, and there they were to be sure, grunting, and appearing excessively distressed, as hogs always are in stormy weather, and having every opportunity if they were so disposed of seeing what we were doing through the hiatus wilde deftzndus, which separated every plank upon which we trod. This was our first night at the Hot Springs of the Washita, but happily we were not inva- lids. In the morning the weather had cleared up, and the sun broke out in great force, so having lighted our fire, and dried our effects, my son went to the stream for a pail of water to make our ablutions. We now found out that we were really at the Hot Springs, for there was a very great difficulty in procuring cold water, the springs occupying a breadth equal to 400 yards of the base of the ridge, and all of them at least thirty-five in number falling into the brook, raised its temperature to that of a warm-bath, especially in places where springs of hot water came through the clay slate. Finding this to be the case, I thought I might as well go to the water as have the water brought to me ; so ta- king my brushes and towels I sallied out, and was exceedingly pleased with the picturesque effect produced upon the slope of the ridge by the vol- umes of vapour proceeding from so many fu- meroles. A gentle smoke seemed to emerge from an immense thicket of arbnsta and young plants, all of which, in full leaf of a brilliant green, made a fine contrast to the naked oaks already stripped of their leaves. The water in the brook was pleasantly tepid, and having no one to intrude upon my privacy, I made a pro- fuse use of it, and wading about found that the hot water came through the slate in an immense number of places; yet mingling with the water of the brook it did not burn my feet, although on the shore I found that if I insinuated mv fin- gers a few inches below the gravel, I was obliged to withdraw them instantly. Fishes are never found in this stream when the waters are low, but when it is much raised by floods from the mountains, then trout, perch, and other fish are taken in all parts of it. One of the inhabitants told me that towards the northern end of the trav- ertine, where there was a considerable pool, he had often seen the fish gliding below, and that upon such occasions when he would throw a few crumbs of bread in, they would dart up- wards, and getting their noses into the stratum of hot water at the top, would instantly wheel about and disappear. Frogs and snakes, too, when they fall into it inadvertently, stretch them- selves out and die. We were so charmed with the novelty of every thing around us, that we got some corn bread and a little milk from Mrs. Percival, and sitting down by one of the springs the temperature of which was 148 Fahr. we made our breakfast there, the water being sufficiently hot for the purpose, and enjoyed ourselves very much. In fact this day, December 30th, 1834, was a memo- rable one in our journey, for attractive as were the terrestrial rarities we were surrounded wiih, they were literally eclipsed by a celestial phe- nomenon of the highest degree of grandeur, an almost total solar eclipse diverting for a while our attention from every thing else. The eclipse here was not total, for at the period of the great- est obscuration there was still the appearance of a slight luminous streak of the sun's body, which gave a pale light equal perhaps in amount to that of two full moons ; the shadow of the clouds waved on the ground in a singular manner, and the thermometer fell 4 during the ten minutes preceding the greatest obscuration : the planet Venus, too, was visible for near an hour, al- though the occultation took place in the middle of the day. Take it altogether, it was a very solemn scene. As soon as this had passed away, we contin- ued our observations upon every thing around us. and were not a little amused with the uses the settlers made of these waters : the facility of obtaining hot water was fully appreciated by them, for they never seemed to boil any water for any purpose, nor to drink any cold water: a tree, smoothed off on the upper side, was laid across the stream at a narrow part, so that they could easily cross and supply themselves for the purpose of washing their clothes, and on a shelf, near the door of each cabin, was always a pail of mineral water with a gourd to drink it from. Some of the springs are quite tasteless, others have a slight chalybeate flavour, but certainly the first neither communicated a foreign taste to tea or coffee. The highest temperature of these springs at the time 1 was there, did not exceed 148, but there had been a good deal of rain which had no doubt lowered it. If there was no admixture of atmospheric waters, it is probable they would mark a' few degrees more ; indeed an individual here with whom I became ac- quainted, showed me a memorandum which a visitor had given him during a period of long drought, where a particular spring was noted at 156 Fahr. Around the sources of these hot waters the confervas flourish remarkably, but my attention was particularly drawn to an enamelled lichen- looking substance of a brilliant green colour which was exceedingly mucilaginous ; it was not, however, a lichen, for I observed that it be- 110 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. gan at first by a filament, and thai it went on spreading and thickening until it became half an inch thick. In some places it was six inches broad. The settlers finding that this substance keeps warm a long time, and that it feels soft and comfortable like a new poultice, apply it successfully to suppurate wounds. Where the travertine forms so rapidly as to impede the pas- sage of the water, and compels it to take another channel down' the hill, which it frequently does, this glairy-looking substance, abandoned by the hot water, entirely loses its colour, and dries up into a crisp, thin film, always, however, preserv- ing the appearance of lichen I examined it in this state with a strong glass, and found the centre of it to be calcareous 'matter of a whitish grey colour, deposited around a slight filament of grass, or any other accidental substance ; the side next the atmosphere being of a dark colour and in a state of decomposition, whilst the under side still preserved a deadish green appearance. I made some observations upon the gaseous contents of these waters, and put some bottles of them up, to have their solid contents ascertain- ed by some competent person in the Atlantic States, but the bottles got broke before they reached their destination.* I observed very lit-- tie gas escape from these waters and their solid contents were carbonate of lime, sulphate of lime, and a very little iron in some of the springs. There are, however, reasons for supposing that in ancient times the mineral constituents of these springs have not been exactly what they are now. Being desirous of satisfying vnysetf whether the travertine was of an uniform qual- ity, I commenced digging into it about 25 feet from the level of the brook, and having got into it somewhat more than a foot, I found a great increase of sulphate of lime, and much lower down I came to a dark red oxide of iron in nodu- lar reniform masses, taking a botryoidal form. The sulphate of lime was deposited in layers from a line to two inches thick. Beneath these were masses of ferruginous sandstone belonging to the ridge, which seemed to have been at some time loose, and were now re-cemented by the mineral deposits from the water, which had fill- ed up all ihe interstices. I took out one of the largest of these nodules, the circumferential crust of which in some parts was two and a half inch- es thick, of rich hematite ore, whilst its interior was almost filled with gypsum. From all the circumstances connected with these nodules, I was inclined to think that they had been depos- ited in ancient times by strong chalybeate wa- ters, and that they had become aggregated by molecular attraction. It was very evident that where the greatest quantities of red oxide were, a stream of water had passed for a long period of time, holding iron and sulphate of lime in so- lution, and anterior to the period of the present waters, whose deposits of travertine now cover the ferruginons deposits below. Nor is it im- probable that springs of a similar kind may yet exist, for in a low cavity close to the brook I perceived a stream of hot water with red oxide near it, and upon examining it minutely I found * Dr. Daubeny having in 1837 visited this place and ex- mii ed the gaseous contents of these waters on the spot. 1 quote from him, as better authority than myself for an anal- ysis : Carbonic acid . . .4.0 Nitrogen .... 92.4 Oxygen 7.6 104~ the same process going on, iron depositing on the sides, and soft seams of sulphate of lime al- ready establishing themselves. Whether this chalybeate* character in the hot water of the cav- ity last spoken of be not acquired as thermal waters may acquire some of their properties, in transitu is a fact I would not pretend to speak positively upon; many springs that rise through beds of decomposed shale and coal loaded with, sulphuret of iron, undoubtedly are often affected as they pass through them, and become sulphu- retted but the carbonate of lime, and the pro- digious quantity of caloric which has for such immense periods of time raised the temperature of these springs, must have their origin in 'hose depths whence the intrusive rocks, the veins of micaceous iron, and various other mineral phe- nomena in this region, are derived. CHAPTER XXX. Curious and beautiful Mineral structure of the adjacent Country Locality whence the Indians procured the Min- eral for their Arrow Heads An unsophisticated " Bar- hunter'' Panthers fond of Buffalo Tongues Strange sin- gle Combat betwixt a Hunter and a male Buffalo Rea- soning power of the Animal State of the Hunter's Nerves after the battle. SOME person having shown me specimens of a kind of novaculite which they used as hones for their razors, I took a guide to the locality whence they were procured, and after clamber- ing over a very rugged country for three miles, we came to one of the wildest regions imagina- ble and singularly curious. It was altogether broken up into short ridges and isolated cones, from 300 to 500 feet above'the level of the streams that meandered amongst their bases in contract- ed gorges from 15 to 40 yards wide. I had con- stantly observed in all the rocks west of the Mis- sissippi a strong tendency to a siliceous charac- ter associated with iron. In Missouri the sub- stitution of siliceous for calcareous matter was very striking, and it was not less so in the north- ern parts of Arkansas. Ever since we left Lit- tle Red River we had been upon a quartzose sandstone reposing on a clayey slate, and from a pentramite which Mr. Henderson assured me he had taken out of this sandstone near the Mammelles (the only fossil I saw), and from other considerations, I was disposed to consider this sandstone as the equivalent of the old red sandstone of Europe. The curious gradations of this siliceous matter, in the forms of old red sandstone, flint, hornstone, and quartzose rock, had interested me much: but my admiration was unbounded when I discoverod that all the ridges and coves of the broken country I was now wan- dering in, were composed of a beautiful novacu- lite of a pearly semitransparent nature, indeed quite opalescent in places, lying in vertical lam- ina so brittle and so closely packed together, that it was very difficult to detach a piece even six inches long without the aid of proper tools; but when detached, the rock presented singularly pure glossy natural faces, and was occasionally tin- ged, in a very pleasing manner, with metallic solutions. As far as my own experience and information goes, the mineral structure of this part of the country is as curious and rare as anything that has yet been seen. * In the last moments of my stay at the Hot Springs I found nodules of iron, similar to that spoken of. on the west side of the hill whrre the springs are, and some conglom- erate firmly held together by ferruginous cement. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. Ill Ascending a very lofty hill composed entirely of this mineral, we found several large pits, re- sembling inverted cones, some of which were from 30 to 30 feet deep and as many in diameter, the insides and bottoms of which were covered with chips of this beautiful mineral, some white, some carmine, some blue, and many quite opal- escent. In and near these pits round and long pieces of hard greenstone which I had seen in place about 18 miles distant were scattered about, but none of them too large for the hand. These were undoubtedly the quarries from whence the Indians, when they possessed the country, obtained the materials for making their arrow heads and spears, for those which I had found in the ploughed field in Magnet Cove were made of this mineral. The pieces of hard greenstone were the tools the Indians worked with, and the rough mineral when procured was taken to their villages to be manufactured: I had many opportunities subsequently of feeling assured of this, upon rinding, amidst the circu- lar holes and mounds where their now fallen lodges once stood, prodigious quantities of these chips and arrow heads that had been broken in the act of making them. From this place we scrambled to the top of the loftiest cone we could see, and had a very fine view of the country. From the summit of the elevation where we stood, looking south, an extensive pine plain appeared, perhaps eight miles wide, whilst on our right to the S.S.W., about fifteen miles distant, was a ridge where one of the branches of the Washita rises, and which circled round to the E.S.E., having the Washita on its north flank. Most of the ridges seemed to curve, and, after running a distance of from two to fifteen miles, would terminate. To the east we thought we recognised the high- lands about the Mammelle, which were near for- ty miles in a straight line from us. Having made our observations in this part of the country, I endeavoured to procure a guide to cross the country with us to cantonment Tow- son, a military post of the United States on the Mexican frontier, distant in a straight line about 120 miles. All roads of every kind terminate at the Hot Springs; beyond them there is nothing but the unbroken wilderness, the trails and fords of which are only known to a few hunters. We accordingly entered into a negotiation with a backwoodsman, who was highly recommended for his resolution and knowledge of the country ; but he was far from being eager to engage in our service, objecting that this was the season when bear-hunting commences ; and although he ad- mitted that I offered him more money than he could earn, yet, he said, if he was to go, "he couldn't stand it, 'case the bars was so fat this year." As I could not hope to compensate this Nimrod of the woods for the enjoyment he would have at his annual sport a feeling I could ap- preciate I was obliged, though with great reluc- tance, to change my plan, for I was exceedingly anxious to continue the examination of these siliceous ridges to the south-west. This man was a very singular fellow, who shunned socie- ty, was dressed altogether in the skins of ani- mals he had killed, and seemed never to have been washed, and to have no beard. He lived in the woods many miles from the Springs, and only visited them when he had bear and deer skins to sell. He appeared, however, to take an interest in us, and advised us strongly not to at- tempt the excursion alone, for he said that the ordinary fords could not be passed at this season without swimming the now swollen rivers, and that to get through the country we should be obli- ged to go round the heads of the streams, which would make the distance equal to at least 200 miles. Adding to these circumstances the cold- ness of the weather and the extreme difficulty we should most probably find in subsisting ourselves,, we thought the attempt would not be justifiable, and turned our attention to a more frequented and practicable route. The account this man gave me of the manner in which the bear is pur- sued by some of the professed and more opulent hunters was curious. He said that some of them, who had great numbers of cattle roaming; at large in the forests around them, were so pas- sionately fond of the sport, that they maintained, stout teams of dogs until the hunting season com- menced, by slaying beeves for them. In summer, when there is no mast, Bruin is- thin and hungry, and boldly intrudes upon the settlements, where thtfre are any, to devour the hogs. If the settler catches him on his grounds he kills him, but he is too meagre and his skin, is to light to tempt him far from home ; he choos- es another season for that, when the bears are- fat, can surrender a good skin and from twenty to twenty-five gallons of oil, and have retired to the rich bottoms where the cane-brakes are. Then out he sallies, prepared for an absence of several weeks, dressed in a jacket and leggings of buckskin, for garments of any other material would soon be torn from his back by the briars. When he gets to the scene of operations he kills two or three buffaloes, if he can, for their skins,, which he hangs up on poles in the form of a tent, leaving one side open in front of his fire, to- wards which his feet are placed when he sleeps. This is also his storehouse : his skins, his meat,, his oil, are all deposited here, until their accu- mulation induces him either to take them home or send them by an assistant. As to what is called bear's meat, it is literally nothing but the fat of the omentum. The fleshy part is all given to the dogs. Of this fat, which the hunters call the fleece, they are ravenously fond, preferring it to everything else on account of its sweet taste, ' and because they can eat a great deal without incommoding themselves. Occasionally the hunter regales himself with venison when he is in a country where the deer abound, but pleasure with him is made subordinate to business, and it will take him as much time to kill and flay a deer of the value of one dollar, as it will to se- cure a bear worth twenty. But bears, deer, and buffallo do not comprehend all the animals he has to deal with ; he has to protect his stores during his absence from his skin-lodge in the daytime from wolves and panthers, and is not. always able to do it even when he is there, as the following anecdote, so illustrative of the hunt- er's life, and which I had directly from the per- son it relates to, will show: This man had amassed a great many spoils in his tent, and had put about twenty buffalo tongues in a trough which stood inside, but near to the entrance. One night returning ex- ceedingly fatigued, he slept very soundly, and on awakening discovered that all his buffalo tongues were gone. He was vexed at his negligence, and imputed the theft to some wolves that he knew were prowling abort. Having taken something to eat, he went to a cane-break in the vicinity, and had not gone far when he heard a low whining cry, and, looking in that direction, TRAVELS IN AMERICA. toe saw something through the thick canes play- ing about like a cat's tail, and immediately knew it was a panther. Stealing forward and care- fully looking he distinguished a head and ears and concluded the animal was stretched upon a log, a posture they are very fond of when they are not hunting. Raising his gun, he fired, anc the beast, mortally wounded, made a prodigious jump and attempted to run, but fell and died in & few minutes. He immediately skinned it, anc curious to learn whether this panther had been the midnight depredator, he slit his paunch open, and there found his buffalo tongues, but by no means in a state to be sent to the London mar- ket. This man told me that the panther when not hungry flies from man, and takes to a tree il the smallest dog pursues him, but when he is gaunt and voracious he is dangerous, springing upon his prey from a log or branch, and even darting through the fire of the bivouac upon the hunter himself, who then takes to his knife. He said it was a good plan to put the entrails of a bear near the lodge at night to " compliment" any panther that might be prowling nigh, a piece of politeness that no doubt would appear very refined to poor Bruin, if he could be made to un- derstand it. But the most interesting hunter's story I have ever heard was told me by our host, Mr. Per- cival, who has followed the forest chase from his youth. In 1807 he was on a trapping expe- dition with two companions on the Washua, when they left him to kill buffalo, bear, and the larger game ; and he remained to trap the streams for "beaver. He had not met with very good suc- cess, and had been without meat about twenty- four hours, when, turning a small bend of the river, he espied a noble-looking old male buffalo lying down on the beach. Having secured his canoe, he crept softly through a corn-brake, which lay between the animal and himself, and fired. The shot was an indifferent one, and only wounded the animal in the side, but it roused him, and having crossed the river he soon laid down again. This was about noon, when the animal, having grazed, was resting himself in a cool place. Percival now crossed the river also in his canoe, and got into the woods, which were there very open, and somewhat broken by little patches of prairie land, a very frequent occur- rence in these parts of Arkansas, where forest and prairie often seem to be contending for the mastery. But the bull being suspicious, rose before the hunter came near enough to him, and took to the open woods. Percival was an ex- perienced hunter; he had killed several hundred buffaloes, and knew their tempers in every sort of situation. He knew that the animal, when in large herds, was easily mastered, and was -well aware that when alone he was sometimes dogged and even dangerous ; he therefore fol- lowed his prey cautiously for about a mile, knowing that he would lie down again ere long. The buffalo now stopped, and Percival got within fifty yards of him, watching an oppor- tunity to strike him mortally; but the beast, see- ing his enemy so near, wheeled completely round, put his huge shaggy head close to the ground be- fore his fore feet, as is their custom when they attack each other, and rapidly advanced upon the hunter, who instantly fired, and put his ball through the bull's nose; but seeing the temper the beast was in, and knowing what a serious antagonist he was when on the offensive, he also immediately turned and fled. In running down a short nil! some briars threw him down, and he dropped his gun. There was a tree not far from him of about eighteen inches diameter, and every thing seemed to depend upon his reaching it; but as he rose to make a push for it, the buffalo struck him on the fleshy part of the hip with his horn, and slightly wounded him. Before the beast, however, could wheel round upon him again, he gained the tree, upon which all the chance he had of preserving his life rested. A very few feet from this tree grew a sapling, about four or five inches in diameter, a most fortunate circumstance for the hunter, as it contributed materially to save his life. The buffalo now doggedly followed up his purpose of destroying his adversary, and a system of attack and defence commenced that, perhaps, is without a parallel. The buffalo went round and round the tree pursuing the man, jumping at him in the peculiar manner of that animal, every time he thought there was a chance of hitting him; whilst Percival, grasping the tree with his arms, swung himself round it with greater ra- pidity than the animal could follow him. In .this manner the buffalo harassed him more than four hours, until his hands became so sore with rubbing against the rough bark of the oak tree, and his limbs so fatigued, that he began to be disheartened. In going round the tree, the buffalo would sometimes pass between it and the sapling; but the distance between them was so narrow, that it inconvenienced him, especially when he want- ed to make his jumps; he therefore frequently went round the sapling instead of going inside of it. The time thus consumed was precious to Percival; it enabld him to breathe, and to con- sider how he should defend himself. After so many hours' fruitless labour, the bull seemed to have lost his pristine vigour, and be- came slower in his motions: he would now make his short start, preparatory to his jump, only at intervals; and even then he jumped doubtingly, as if he saw that Percival would avoid his blow by swinging to the oilier side. It was evident he was baffled, and was consid- ering what he should do. Still continuing in his course round the tree, but in this slow man- ner, he at length made an extraordinary feint hat does honour to the reasoning powers of the buffalo family. He made his little start as usual, and when Percival swung himself round, he bull, instead of aiming his blow in the direc- ion he had been accustomed to do, suddenly turned to that side of the tree where Percival would be brought when he had swung himself -ound, and struck with all his might. The feint rtad almost succeeded: Percival only just saved lis head, and received a severe contusion on his arm, which was paralyzed for an instant. He now began to despair of saving his life, his limbs rembled under him, he thought the buffalo would wear him out, and it was so inexpressibly pain- ty to him to carry on this singular defence, that at one time he entertained the idea of leaving he tree, and permitting the animal to destroy lim, as a mode of saving himself from pain and anxiety that were intolerable. But the buffalo, just at that time giving de- cided symptoms of being as tired as himself, now stopped for a few minutes, and Percival ook courage. Remembering that he had his mtcher's knife in his breast he took it out, and >egan to contrive plans of offence; and when, te bull, having rested awhile, recommenced his TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 113 old rounds, Percival took advantage of the slow- ness of his motions, and using a great deal of address and managemenc, contrived in the course of hal'f an hour to stab and cut him in a dozen different places. The animal now became weak from loss of blood, and although he continued to walk round the tree made no more jumps, con- tenting himself with keeping his head and neck close to it. This closed the conflict, for it en- abled Perciva] to extend his right arm, and give him two deadly stabs in the eyes. Nothing could exceed the frantic rage of the unwieldy animal when he had lost his sight; he bellowed, he groaned, he pawed the ground, and gave out every sign of conscious ruin and immitigable fury ; he leaned against the sapling for support; and twice knocked himself down by rusrnng with his head at the large tree. The second fall terminated this strange tragic combat, which had now lasted nearly six hours. The buffalo had not strength to rise, and the conqueror, step- ping up to him, and lifting up his nigh shoulder, cut all the flesh and ligaments loose, and turned it over his back. He then, after resting himself a few minutes, skinned the beast, took a part of the meat to his canoe, made a fire, broiled and ate it. Of the intense anxiety of mind produced in the hunter by this conflict, an idea may be form- ed from the fact that when he joined his com- panions after a separation of forty days, they asked why he looked so pale and emaciated, and inquired "if he had been down with the fever." He then related to them his adventure with the buffalo, adding that from that very evening when he prevailed over the animal, he had never got any quiet rest; and so severely had his nervous system been shaken, that as soon as the occu- pations of the day were over and he had lain down to rest, the image of the resolute and pow- erful animal always came before him, putting his life in jeopardy in a thousand ways, and cre- ating in him such a desperate agitation of mind, that he was constantly jumping up from the ground to defend himself; such was his state, that he who had been formerly proverbial for his daring and resolution, now trembled with appre- hension, even when a covey of quails unexpect- edly flushed before him. Mr. Percival told me that three months had elapsed after this adven- ture before his sleep became tranquil, and that, although twenty-seven years had now passed away, every sudden noise would disconcert him, ven if it were the crowing of a cock. Ten years ago he had the curiosity to visit the place where so memorable a passage in his life oc- curred, and he found the bark of the tree suffi- ciently torn and abraided to have identified it, even if the bones of his ancient adversary had not been there. CHAPTER XXXI. Leave the Hot Springs Regain the " Military Road," and cross the Washita How to drink coffee made of Acorns The Caclo River Mrs. Barkman, her extraordinary ac- complishments A Hunter's House and Family Tertiary Deposits A Travelling Court-house A Knot of Gam- blersA Paddy going to Texas. THE preparations for our departure having been made, we took leave of Mr. Percival and onr acquaintances here on the 6th of December Humble as the lodgings assigned to ourselves and the hogs had been, and rude as was our fare. yet nothing could be more obliging than the con- duct of every body to us. None of the cavalieros of Littlfc Rock were here, we led very quiet lives, and we left the place with our sincere' good wishes for the welfare of its inhabitants. On reaching the Gulfer* we found it very much swelled and too difficult to cross at the usual ford. We therefore went a little lower down and sounded with a long pole. The bank was two feet from, the water, and it was evident that we must either both of us sit in the waggon and make Missouri drop into the flood, which was roaring furiously, at the risk of all tumbling over together, or one of us must first get into the river to encourage the horse. My son, therefore, went into the stream, and I drove up to the edge of the bank. Our nag, though very docile, had not nerve euough for the noise the water made, and all we could prevail upon him to do was to slide down with his fore-feet and lie down in the shafts, leaving me in the waggon on the bank at the mercy of any of his side-jerks, the least of which would have overturned the waggon. As this would most probably have been attended with the loss of everything we had, I felt very anxious ; but my son coaxing him in front and the whip coaxing him in the rear, he suddenly sprang up, dragged the waggon into the river, and, taking care to keep him on the stretch in the shallow- est part of the rapid, we happily succeeded in. getting to the opposite bank without breaking anything. Here we stopped to change our clothes, and then pursued our journey. When we had proceeded eight miles from the Hot Springs, I left the vehicle, and walked about a mile to take a look at the Washita, which is here a broad muddy stream flowing over the slate through a very picturesque country. Four miles farther on, in attempting to cross another stream near one Turner's, we fairly upset our concern amongst the hidden rocks, but happily broke no- thing, though it took us some time to make a fire and put our persons into a comfortable state again. The traveller upon an excursion of this kind finds it the greatest of all evils to be put hors de combat as to proceeding on. As long as everything is new he is delighted; but he has to endure so much privation when unexpectedly de- tained perhaps in a wilderness which presents no novelty that he is ready to bear any incon- venience rather than remain stationary. In the evening we took up our old quarters at Mrs. Conway's, in Magnet Cove, who received us in a very friendly manner. When we rose in the morning we had the pleasure of meeting her husband, who had arrived during the night, and of breakfasting with him ; after which, having received his direction for a short cut to the Washita, we made our bows, and, going about two miles through Ihe open pine-woods at the foot of the exterior part of the cove, which was entirely covered with deciduous trees, got into a track which led us for eight miles through a wild romantic flinty country, abounding in knobs and little vales admirably watered. Out of this track we emerged upon the Military Road, a mile and * In June, 133, when the great rise of the Arkansas took place, the backwater of the Mississippi pressed upon Red River and its tributaries so much, that the waters of the Washita covered all the low country 'through which the Gulfer flows. I was informed by some settlers in the neigh- bourhood that for near three weeks *hey were completely isolated ; the cows had to swim backwards and forwards from the uplands where they grazed to suckle their calves, the lower floors of the cabins were in the water, and th settlers went to the woods in canoes. 114 TRAVELS IN AMERICA a half from the ferry at the Washita. This fine river, at the point where we reached it, is about 200 yards broad, and the view to the west is very beautiful, a graceful little island presenting it- self in the centre of the. stream, which terminates in a lofty hill of sandstone covered with pines and oaks. Having crossed the river in a ferry- boat, we found that the road for a considerable distance ran parallel with it, and was exceeding- ly wet and springy. At the end of four miles we left this wet ground, and got again upon a sandstone country with high knolls, and continu- ed on it for five miles, until we descended into a bottom through which a stream called Prairie Bayou runs, and here we stopped at a settler's called Mitchell. This was one of the most wretched places we had yet met with in our journey. The supper con- sisted of some pieces of dirty-looking fried pork, corn-bread eight days old, mixed up with lumps of dirt, and coffee made of burnt acorns and maize ; they had neither milk, sugar, nor butter. Just as we were sitting down to it two hours after dark, Colonel Conway rode up: he laughed at our fastidiousness, and advised us to drink some of the corn- coffee, which he had often done witti success when he could get nothing else; and he showed us how to get through the operation, by nipping his nose with his fingers and swallowing it exactly as if it had been castor-oil. He left us soon afterwards, saying that he was obliged to ride the greatest part of the night to the place where the sale of government lands was taking place. We passed a wretched night on the hard boards of a sort of barrack, into which the wind freely entered, and were glad when morning dawned to creep to the fire. We now discovered that our waggon was in want of serious repairs, and that if we advanced any farther with it we should probably break down where we could obtain no assistance. This was, indeed, a dilemma, as we had only one horse and no saddle; upon consultation, however, with our host, he engaged to let Us have a horse and an old saddle, and sent to his next neighbour to borrow another, upon securing which we determined to leave the waggon with our trunks as a deposit until we returned the horse. Our breakfast was in keeping with every- thing we had found here ; so after putting a few things up in a bag, we started for the Caddo River, about seventeen miles off. For fourteen miles of this distance our route lay amongst sandstone hills and isolated knolls of petro-sili- ceous matter, many of which approached in their structure to the novaculite of the Hot Springs. The streams were numerous, and some of them very much swelled. The Candleberry Myrtle (Myrica cerifera) was exceedingly abundant on these knolls, amongst which we had constantly sorne deer in sight, besides numerous flocks of well-grown wild turkeys; these often came strut- ting across the road showing their beautiful glossy plumage to the greatest advantage, and on per- ceiving us would take flight with as strong a wing as the wild-goose, wheeling around and then alighting upon the tallest pine trees. It was altogether a fine wild romantic ride, changing from broken hills to numerous streams some of which were very much swollen that flowed through limited bottoms of great fertility. Three miles before we reached the Caddo, the country began to descend, and a change soon took place in the aspect of nature, and of every- thing around us. Having crossed the ferry where the river is about 100 yards wide, we en- tered upon an extensive rich bottom of cane- brake, and not long after came to a no less ex- traordinary thing than a brick house, belonging to a person of the name of Barkman. This man, whose father was a German, came into the country many years ago in the character of a. pedlar, and having married the daughter of one Davis, a famous hunter, settled here, became a trader, and was now very well to do in the world. In the mean time old Davis and his sons all of whom were brought up without any other school- master than the rifle continued their favourite wandering vocation, looking up to the opulent Barkman as the great man of the family. Mr. Barkman we did not see, but 1 shall certainlv not forget his lady soon, as I have never seen any one, as far as manners and exterior went, with less pretensions to be classed with the fem- inine gender. All her accomplishments seem- ed to me to have a decided learning the other way. She chewed tobacco, she smoked a pipe, she drank whiskey, and cursed and swore as heartily as any backwoodsman, all at the same time; doing quite as much vulgarity as four male blackguards could do, and with as much ease as if she had been an automaton set to do- it with clockwork machinery. She must have been a person of surprising powers in her youth, for I was informed that she was now compara- tively refined to what she had been before her marriage ; at that period, so full of interest to a lover, she was commonly known by the name of old Davis's "She Bar.'" We had an opportunity of seeing one of her extraordinary brothers, a genuine hunter, dress- ed in leather prepared by himself from the skins of animals he had killed, as he was going with his rifle on his shoulder, and his dogs, some twenty miles off to hunt bears. This man, al- though between thirty and forty years old, had never been out of this neighbourhood, and had no idea of the world beyond his own pursuits, and that which he saw going on around him. His brother-in-law Barkman he considered to be the first man in the whole country ; people that came from Little Rock he had not a strong oredilection for, not because they were unworthy, 3ut because so many lawyers lived there; the government of the United States he looked upon with horror, because they sold the lands and aroke up the cane-brakes : but Texas he appro- ved of highly, saying that he had " heern there was no sich thing as a government there, and not one varmint of a lawyer in the hull place." As his house was not very far from Barkman's, I accompanied this worthy there to see it, and on our way had a good deal of curious conver- sation with him, learning from him amongst Dther things that he had " been raised on fat bar's meat," as all his family had been, and that he oved it better than anything. The cabin of this ellow corresponded with his manners, and was a sort of permanent camping out of doors ; the logs of it were at least six inches apart, the in- ;erstices, without any filling in, staring wide open; one of the gable ends was entirely want- ing, the roof was only closed at one end, and at :he other some bed clothes were heaped togeth- er in a corner upon a rough floor, and his fami- y, consisting of a wife and several young chil- dren, were warming themselves at a fire not in '.he house, but out of doors. How they managed during long periods of cold wet weather may be magined, but they all seemed contented, and TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 115 even cheerful. As to himself, he seemed quite itnlirtereni about this al-fresco style of living: his happiness was found only in the cane-brake Si living the bars about," as he said, and sleep ing near a good fire. Mrs. Barkman, notwith- standing her habits, was not' deficient in good man re to us: they had killed a young steer the day beibre our arrival, and a dish of fat boiled ribs was set before us, with good bread, of which we made an excellent meal, having been with- out food ever since we left Mrs. Conway's the morning before. This place is the site of an ancient village of the Caddo Indians; a large mound with trees growing on it, and other indications of their res i'dence, still exist there; and a sweet sequester- ed situation it must have been to them, for the river contains good fish, the country abounds in game, and the sandstone, with its pines, is here exchanged for a loose soil of the greatest fertili- ty, and deciduous trees peculiar to these latitudes. O sallying out, after our good cheer, we were exceedingly pleased with the scene around us; the sun was shining brilliantly, flocks of parro- quets were wheeling and screaming around, and the trumpet tone of the ivory-billed woodpecker was frequently heard. On examining the bed of the Caddo, I found it consisted of tertiary limestone, exactly the same as that I had seen at Little Rock, and pro- cured some good specimens of turritella and oth- er fossils. The Caddo empties into the Washita, 'u<> miles below Barkman's, and about four niles farther down I was informed there were lie salt wells from which he annually makes ,">od deal of salt. The wells are dug through l)l;sck soil, but whether the brine comes through lower rock, or they have had to bore into one, i.o one could explain to me: the process of ma- king it, however, seems to be a very rough one, and the salt produced is dirty and imperfect. Prom the account they gave me, the brine in the wells is so diluted with the water from the Washita, that it takes 150 gallons of water to make one bushel of bad salt. There is also said to lie gypsum about six miles off, near one Will- iams's, in the "rotten limestone" which they said overlaid the whole country. From Barkman's we proceeded to the Tour- noise Creek, said to be 15 miles off, always upon flat good land, occasionally sandy, with heavy beds of a bluish green calcareous clay in all the ravines; and from the description I obtained of the country farther to the south,,! thought it probable we should keep upon the tertiary beds all the way to the Mexican frontier. We found no fossils nor casts of shells in the blue clay, which strongly resembles some of the beds ex- tending from Richmond, in Virginia, down to Shirley, on James River, where the clay con- tains lumps of calcareous matter with traces of sulphate of lime. We crossed several large creeks during the afternoon, and at night put up at a famous hunter's called Hignife, who lived in a solitary log cabin that had once been the court-house for the county of Clark. From the conspicuous manner in which the word " Crit- tenden" appeared upon our maps as the princi- pal county town, I had formed some slight ex- pectations of seeing something a little out of the way, and of getting some sort of lodgings for a day or two to look at the country: all this after- noon we had been expecting to arrive at Crit- tenden in vain, and indeed thought of inquiring at an old cabin we passed, how far it was ahead of us. but not wishing to lose time, we drove on until we came to Hignite's. Our first question was, " How far is it to- Crittenden 1". The an- swer we received was, that the old cabin we had passed five miles back was Crittenden, that it had been once at his house, but that he believed it was going to be at Cfreenville. Finding that Crittenden, like the house of Loretto, was a non- resident, we determined to stop where we were, especially when we found we were at a hunter's whose name had already reached us. This bandying about of court-houses is insp- arable from such a state of the settlements in this new country as requires some administra- tion of law. The counties are tsn times as large as they are eventually destined to be, and every- thing is a matter of expediency until population fills up the space a little. Before there are any county towns or court-houses, the cabin of some settler is made temporarily the court-house, which is changed from place to place to accommodate those at a distance; and as the population in- creases, new counties are set off from the old one, into territories sufficiently compact to con- stitute a county where every man can live con- tentedly, bearing his share of the taxes and the public duties. On entering Hignite's we found several sportsr men there not powder-and-shot sportsmen, but knights of the faro and rouge et noir tables. The principal person was the Mr. Tunstall whose house we had passed a little south of White River. My host, old Meriwether, had let us a. little into his character, which had been confirm- ed to me by others. He was said to be a very enterprising man, to possess some property, but to indulge excessively in horse-racing and cards. We had heard also that he generally travelled with some persons who passed for travellers like himself, but who, in fact, were in his pay, for the purpose of inciting others to play and to pro- cure him bets. The moment, therefore, our host told me that " Tunstall was in his house," I was fully prepared for the scene that followed. Whilst supper was preparing, Mr. Tunstall entered into conversation with me, stating that he had been at some races where the sale fas government lands on Red River was in prog- ress, but that it "was dull times," for people seemed to be thinking of nothing but going to Texas. His conversation was sensible and en- tertaining, and he evidently wanted to inspire roe with a favourable opinion of himself: the other men in the house kept themselves silent,, and appeared to know as little about him as they did about us. This was rather over-acting their part, and I began to suspect their intentions. As oon as we had supped, and drew near to the fire, one of the company, who hau all the marks of a broken-down swell about hi'm, vent to, a box, and taking out some cards, laid uT 1 ver ^ artistically down on the table. Upon which after awhile, two others went to the table, one of them saying in a drawling tone, " I reckon I'll take a hand." But Mr. Tunstall seeing that we did not even look at the party, remained with us. at the fire, and it was some time before he turn- ed to me, and in a very winning manner said, " Well, I don't care if I take a hand, if you (Jo." [ told Mr. Tunstall that we were both very much fatigued, and should go to bed as soon as we knew where we were to sleep. One of the fel- pws at the table now said, "Mister, if you pre- fer roulette, I'll take one out of the box what IVe got here." Tunstall, perceiving ^at this was 116 TRAVELS IN AMERICA letting the cat out of the bag too early, said no more to me about playing, but sat down to faro with the rest, and they all pretended to be play- ing very earnestly. They had not played off, however, their last coup upon me, and in about a quarter of an hour Mr. Tunstall went to a box belonging to himself, and took out a runlet con- taining brandy : pouring some of it out, he very courteously offered it to myself and my son. I made him my acknowledgments, but said that we were not in the habit of drinking brandy or any kind of spirituous liquors; that we were al- ways happy when we could get milk, and never wanted anything else. After this milksop dec- laration, Mr. Tunstall seemed to think us worth no further attention ; he poured the brandy back into the runlet, without offering any to the other gentlemen travellers, and they put their cards back again into the box, for it seemed somehow as if the game could not proceed unless we join- ed in it. Such a coarse trap, and set in such a coarse manner, was fitted for such low gamblers as these, who have an idea perhaps justified by their success that no man can resist cards and brandy. We passed the night miserably, stretch- ed on some wretched boards in the same room with these fellows, but taking especial care of our purses and bag. The voice and language of one of these men, who was called Smith perhaps an assumed name were those of a northern man ; I was, therefore, disposed to be- lieve him when he said he was a New Yorker: he had a haggard and very unhappy appearance, with a sinister expression, and seemed altogether devoted to Mr. TunstaH, in whose base service perhaps he had consciously reached the lowest stage of human degradation. In the morning, these contemptible wretches sat down at the same table with us to breakfast; their conversation was infamous, and accorded well wiih their degraded condition. They had evidently been engaged in all sorts of frauds and villanie*, and seemed to glory in their infamy. A kind of waggon, belonging to Tunstall, now c;nne to the door, with two negro boys belonging to him, who had acted as jockeys at the races. Into this they all got, and Mr. Tunstall who had pretended the preceding evening that he was a stranger to the other men could not avoid seeing that I was aware he was the head of a t-ravt- Iling gang of sharpers. A short time before they drove from the door, a foolish Irishman, who was going to Texas, rode up on a neat sprightly poriv that had a great many good points. Tunstall offered to swap a huge raw- boned animal, which one of his negro boys rode, fbr this pony, telling the Irishman "it was worth tfiree times as much, but he somehow liked the appearance of V>* nonv." Taking Paddy into I s " House, they'plie'd hi., with brandy until his discreti'" ecame endan^ ' ,-d by the dimensions of the horse : it was evir 1 f when he came out, thai to be at the top of suai " a baste" was run- nin<* in his l^ead. Hignite endeavoured to make him prudent, and told him if his ponv was a good one he had better stick to him. The poor silly fellow hesitated for a moment, ana just whe! we were hoping he would be wise, brandy and ambition got the better of him, and he said, "Well, I'll just take ye at your word." No time was lost; saddles were exchanged, and the gamblers drove off with a horse laugh. Within twenty minutes after their departure, the brandy having evaporated a little, Hignite had perfectly persuaded Paddy that the "big baste" was foun- iered all to nothing, and was not worth more than six dollars. I should certainly have imer- ? ered, a r .A perhaps have prevented this piece of tnavery, if I had not found out, by the conver- sation of Paddy, that he was a " no-government" man, and was sure to do something more absurd if any body would take the trouble to make him drunk again. CHAPTER XXXII. ear-hunting Approach a subcretaceous Country Judge Cross Disputed Territory betwixt Mexico and the Uni- ted States A Prairie Country and subcretaceous Fossils General Houston Plot to wrest Texas from Mexico- Beauty of the Country. THIS morning had been appointed by Hignite, our host, to go on his great annual bear-hunt; he was a well-known hunter, and we had found aim an honest, soberly-disposed person. We lad witnessed his preparations, and saw with admiration how perfectly he was prepared to supply all his wants during his absence, without assistance from any one. His dress consisted of a hunting jacket and leggings, made of skins tanned by himself, and secured by strings formed either of the same materials or the integuments of animals. He had a close cap on made of skin, a girdle round his waist, in which were stuck his hatchet and his butcher's knife, and a heavy rifle weighing sixteen pounds on his shoulder. He had two pack-horses to carry In- dian corn ibr their subsistence, some necessary articles for himself, and to bring back the returns of his hunting. The most important part of his retinue consisted of eight dogs, which he valued very highly, especially the old ones, on account of their great sagacity and prudence. This kind of sport is so captivating that we would willingly have accompanied him, if it would not have oc- casioned such a deviation from our plans, and have taken up so much time. As Hignite was going part of our road, I was, therefore, obliged to content myself with drawing from him a de- tailed account of the nature of one of these ex- peditions. The Washita, in its course to the south-east to join Red River, has in many places an im- mense margin of cane-brakes, six or more miles broad on each side, and which, before it reaches the point of junction, are of much greater mag- nitude. These rich bottoms, which are covered with stout-jointed canes twenty feet high, as thick as they can stand, can never be reclaimed until a system of levies or embankments is es- tablished to keep them from being inundated. Into these brakes the bears (Ursus Amci~icanus), being now excessively fat with the mast they have been living upon the whole autumn, retire in the month of December, making huge beds for themselves of the cane, and lying there four or five months. The hunters, however, assert that in this climate that animal does not doze away the whole of this long period, but that he walks out in fine weather, although he does not eat. Some of them had ceased to eat even when I was on the Caddo, for Mrs. Barkman's brother told me that he had killed a barren she-bear with clean intestines, and that he knew thereby that the season had arrived for their going into the cane- brakes. When the hunter arrives near the scene of his operations and has fixed his camp, he generally TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 117 first tries the higher woodlands in the neighbour- hood of the brakes, not far from some place where a hurricane has uprooted the trees, and where brambles, shrubs, and other plants are growing amongst them, these being situations which the bears love to resort to. Having col- lected wood for fuel, he makes a lodge with poles and bushes sufficient to keep the weather out, hopples his horses to prevent their straying far, and puts a bell round the neck of one of them. Iteing perfectly prepared he enters upon his ground, the breeze comes tainted with the scent, the dogs holding up their heads snuff it in, and the old ones warily take the lead. They find Master Bruin, ponderous with acorns, more disposed to lie still than to run ; but the hunter, soon hearing by the voices of his dogs that they are closely engaged, hurries on. He finds the angry brute hastening away from his assailants, after perhaps putting more than one of the young ones hors de combat,- but the old dogs seize him by the haunch behind, and leave and head him the moment he turns round to avenge himself. His enemies now encircle him ; wherever his rear is, it is sure to be bit: he can no longer fly, and furious with rage he dashes at the most for- ward, seizes him, grasps him with his muscular fore-paw, gives him the fraternal hug, and fin- ishes him sometimes by applying his powerful tusks. The rest of the dogs now throw him down, jump upon him, and the hunter, to save his dogs from being killed, watches his moment, goes rapidly behind the bear, grasps a handful of his fur with his left hand to prevent his turning to bite him, and "sarves him home" with his sharp butcher's knife. After a short struggle, the beast dies. At other times the hunter waits until the dogs have got him into a good position, and lodges a rifle-ball under his fore-arm. The bears are im- mediately skinned, and the fleece, consisting of the lard from which the oil is extracted, is se- cured. The lean parts are kept for the dogs, and the hunter himself if he likes them, every thing being secured from the wolves by hoisting the meat into some tree, if the animal has been kill- ed too far from camp to get it there by daylight. Such is the account I received from one of the most experienced bear-hunters, who frequents the brakes of the Washita. From Hignite's we pursued our journey in a south-west direction, over good bottom land, with a great abundance of holly and laurel growing in every direction, occasionally coming upon hills of moderate elevation of sandstone, with pine trees, all the streams being transparent, and hav- ing gravelly bottoms. At the end of a ride of eighteen miles the country descended again, and we perceived that we were approaching the Lit- tie Missouri, a. considerable stream which rises to the N.W., empties into the Washita, and has received its name from its waters being of a dusky red muddy colour, like those of the great Missouri. We crossed the river in a ferry boat, the wa- ters being high, and then entered upon a close low bottom, densely covered with cane, laurel, holly, arid swamp timber of every kind, which lasted for three miles. It was intersected by nu- merous bayous, over which, it being the military road, nine bridges had been erected, five of which were impassable owing to the greater part of the thick planks, which formed their floors, not hav- ing been secured by pegs or tree-nails, so that they had floated away the very first inundation. tt was evident that this had been purposely neg- ected by the contractors who built the bridges, hat they might make a second job out of it. In this, however, they appear to have been dis- appointed, and the consequence has been, that the persons who have emigrated to Texas by this route have taken that part of the flooring off which remained, and put it in the shallowest part of the bayous, to enable them to cross the bayous in safety with their heavy waggons. Thus have the provident cares of the United States government been frustrated, travellers placed in great danger, and a state of things pro- duced which in a short time will render this route impracticable ; for although this military road, opened at so great an expense by the gov- ernment, has been made the county road in the counties it passes through, the overseers of the road pay no attention to it, and far from repair- ing the floors of the bridges, will not even cut a tree out when one falls across the road. This low bottom lasted three miles, and on emerging from it, the country began to rise a little again. As we advanced, a new kind of soil appeared of a singularly waxy nature, and a dark black car- bonaceous colour, such as I had not seen before, except on the surface of the travertin, at the hot springs, where it abounds; and here the soil was like that, accompanied with a profusion of dead land shells. Late in the afternoon we made the unpleasant discovery that the horse we had obtained of our host, Mitchell, was foundered, and that it would be impossible to proceed on with him. This was rather a distressing affair, for he was a dead weight upon our hands, and the farther we went with him, the greater would be our difficulty in. returning him to his owner. His lameness, too, was evidently chronic ; so that, in fact, we had no security whatever for our waggon and lug- gage, which was not a pleasant reflection. After some deliberation, my son proposed returning with him, and letting me proceed on, trusting to be able to make some other arrangement to join. me again. Mitchell, too, having told him that he was going out on a panther hunt to a place frequented by several of these animals, he was not sorry to have an opportunity of accompany- ing him, as he had a strong desire to see a little of that kind of sport before we left this part of the country ; so after sharing each other's privations and being most faithful and inseparable compan- ions to each other for four months, we shook hands. My son, with his rifle on his shoulder, and leading the lame horse, took one way, and I the other. After riding about seven miles through a pretty good country, I turned off to the left to a gentle- man's of the name of Judge Cross, to whom I had a letter of introduction. He was a judge under the United States government, and had federal jurisdiction as far as the Mexian frontier. The house was on a knoll about half a mile from the road, and I reached it a little after dark. Fastening my horse to a paling which sur- rounded a neat-tooking wooden house, built upon, the double cabin plan, I entered the courtyard, and then the open space that separates the two cabins. There was a cheerful light in the room to the right, and, knocking at the door with a pilgrim's feeling, I modestly entered a neat par- lour, and saw a lady and two gentlemen sitting near a blazing fire. Pleasing as the aspect of all this was, that which really astonished me was a piece of furniture my wondering eyes could 118 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. scarce give credit to a real carpet. I now felt doubly full of respect for everybody and every- thing, and, without venturing to intrude upon the carpet, I inquired if the Judge was at home. Upon this a gentlemanly-looking person, about thirty-five years old, rose and said he was Judge Cross. I now presented my letter, which being read, the most unaffected kind reception was given to me, and in five minutes I had the satis- faction of knowing my good horse Missouri was taken care of, and of forming one of the family circle. Mrs. Cross was a lady-like and agree- able woman, full of the most amiable attentions to me. The supper was excellent, and the even- ing was concluded by a very instructive conver- sation I had with the Judge on the geography of the country, its mineral resources, and the move- ments which for some time I had not been able to shut my eyes upon, in relation to the Mexican province of Texas. i The Judge informed me that his jurisdiction extended far to the west, near 200 miles, and even across Red River; for although by a treaty between Mexico and the United States the bound- ary betwixt the two countries was settled to be by a north line to Red River, from where the 32nd degree of N. lat. intersects the Sabine Riv- er, yet, to the astonishment of the Mexicans, a pretension was set up by the American specula- tors that the river which from time immemorial tad been known as the Sabine, there never hav- ing been any other stream which bore that name was not the Sabine, but that in fact another stream lying farther to the west, and which was known by the name of Neches, was the true Sa- bine. Unfortunately for this pretension, the 32nd degree did not intersect this Neches ; but as the claim had been asserted, this was deemed of no consequence by the speculators, so the ter- ritory involved in the dispute fell under the juris- diction of Judge Cross until the dispute was ad- justed ; for the land being valuable, American settlers had flocked into it, and there he was obliged to go to administer justice, traversing the wilderness alone, swimming the rivers upon his horse, and picking up his jurymen here and there, as he went along, to try his causes. I was glad of an opportunity of asking so intelligent a person, and who was so well acquainted with everything that was going on around him, how so preposterous a claim as that of carrying Amer- ican j urisdiction into an acknowledged part of a neighbouring republic could be supported ; but I soon found that he was too prudent to say any- thing to a stranger about the merits of the case, and that he rather seemed to consider the dispute decided by the fact of American citizens having taken possession of the territory. I could per- ceive that this gentleman, who appeared in ev- erything else to be a man of candour, entertain- ed, in common with his countrymen, the opinion that the United States were always in the right, and that all countries that differed with them were necessarily in the wrong. When the hour for retiring arrived, I was conducted to a bed-room, where I found a good fire, nicely plastered walls, and not a space in any part of them through which you could put your head to see what it was the hogs were making such a noise about. The bed looked nice and clean, but there was one thing I did not like about it, and that was a pillow too much, for there were two on the bolster. And there was something else in the room 1 liked still less, in the form of a not very agreeable-looking person, ex- ceedingly out of health, who took his seat near the fire after the Judge had retired, and whose attitude created a strong suspicion and misgiving in me that he had a deliberate intention of laying his long thin head upon one of the pillows, a privilege he was at least as much entitled as my- self to exercise, being the Judge's brother. I was contriving various plans how to avoid this un- welcome association, when he suddenly relieved my anxiety by bidding me good night and leav- ing the room. Of all the distressing situations in which I could be placed, the keenest of'all would be to be compelled to pass the night on the same bed with another man, and that man a stranger, a tobacco eater, and perpetual expectorator. Much as I dreaded my worthy friend whilst these fears were operating upon me, I felt quite amiably disposed towards him as soon as he had left the room, and approached the bed and examined it. Cer- tainly never did man feel more delighted at drawing the highest prize in the lottery than I did at beholding two fine white linen sheets, it being the first time I had seen such a phenome- non for several months. Having satisfied my- self that I was to have the undisputed possession of this luxury and performed my rapid ablutions, I hastened to the perfect enjoyment of all this comfort that the kind Mrs. Cross had provided for me. As soon as the dawn appeared and the first ray of light always awakens me as if some for- eign body impinged upon my eyes I rose and dressed myself, and, being perfectly refreshed with a sweet night's rest, walked out to look at one of the most lovely countries I had ever seen. Everything had become changed since the pre- ceding day, the sandstone and its constant con- comitants, the pine-trees, had been left behind, and I had now got to a fine, gentle, undulating country, usually called rolling here, which ap- peared to consist of a chain of prairies running westward and parallel with R.ed River for a great distance, until the whole country becomes one vast prairie, devoid of trees, except those which grow immediately upon the water-courses. Some of these prairies were mere bald spots of half an acre and more, whilst others contained several hundred acres, in every instance sur- rounded with a belt of timber and plants pecu- liar to the country. It seemed doubtful from the first superficial examination whether the trees were gradually gaining upon the prairies or those upon the for- est. The woods and the copses where Judge Cross had erected his neat cabin were very love- ly, and there were from thirty to fifty acres of land attached to the house without being dis- figured by the coarse stumps of American clear- ings. I was gratified to find also that the whole soil consisted of the same dark waxy substance I had passed the preceding day; it was as black as charred wood, and had a much more inky colour than the rich vegetable mould usually found in low grounds, although it was mild to the taste, and did not appear to owe its colour to sulphate of iron, which is always more or less astringent, especially in the black clayey earths of New Jersey and other portions of the Atlantic coast. On stooping down to examine the soil in a small corn-field, I perceived it abounded with fine specimens of helices, and whilst I was aai ti- ering these I saw fragments of the large thick shells of Gryphasa oonvexa; in the course of half an hour I had eollected besides thce ^mic TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 119 perfect shells of Exogyra costata, both valves adhering, and which had never been disturbed. Returning to the house, I procured a spade and a negro to assist me, and digging in a low part where a stream had worn a channel in the soil, I found reasons to believe that this portion of the country, which had the quasi prairie character, was bottomed upon immense beds of rotten lime- stone, probably derived from the testaceous re- mains of the mollusca I have named, since en- tire shells in a soft state are found embedded in the limestone. These mollusca are the charac- teristic fossils of the subcretaceous* deposits of Monmouth in New Jersey, which are most prob- ably contemporaneous with these in the southern parts of Arkansas. At breakfast, having turned the conversation upon the fossils which were in such abundance here, the Judge informed me that his corn-field whence I had taken the shells was part of a nat- ural prairie, one of an immense number that ex- tended to the west; and that he believed, from the personal observations he had made, that the black land of which all these prairies consisted, and which in a rainy time was so waxy that it was difficult to walk or stir in it, was about five miles in breadth, and extended an immense dis- tance. This exceedingly increased my desire to see more of this southern country in company with the Judge; so after breakfast he very obli- .gingly mounted his horse, and we made an agree- able excursion in the neighbourhood, calling for a short time at the little insignificant wooden vil- lage of Washington, where the government land- sales were holding. I was not desirous of remaining long at this place. General Houston was here, leading a mysterious sort of life, shut up in a small tavern, seeing nobody by day and sitting up all night. The world gave him credit for passing these his waking hours in the study of trente et quarante and sept a lever ; but I had been in communica- tion with too many persons of late, and had seen too much passing before my eyes, to be ignora'nt that this little place was the rendezvous where a much deeper game than faro or rouge-et-noir was playing. There were many persons at this time in the village from the States lying adjacent to the Mississippi, under the pretence of pur- chasing government lands, but whose real ob- ject was to encourage the settlers in Texas to throw off their allegiance to the Mexican gov- ernment. Many of these individuals were per- sonally acquainted with me; they knew I was not with them, and would naturally conclude I was against them. Having nothing whatever in common with their plans, and no inclination to forward or oppose them, I perceived that the longer I staid the more they would find reason to suppose I was a spy upon their actions, and as soon as the Judge had spoken to a few of his friends we came away. On our way back, in crossing the zone of black land, we invariably found grypheous valves, * The term " subcretaceous" i here used in reference to the order of the geological strata in England, chalk, in place, not having yet been seen in America. But as the Gryphiea convexa and Exogyra costata are identically the same in Arkansas as those found in the New Jersey depos- its, and as these conform as to succession to the order of doposit of the English beds, and contain numerous mollus- cous and vertebrated fossils bearing undoubted generic re- lations to the fossi s of the subcretaceous beds in England, I conceive myself justified in applying this term as an equiv- alent, especially as I am of opinion that there is not a stra- tum of any kind in North America which does not more or less add to the proofs of a co-existent order of succession. sometimes profusely scattered around with their opercula separated from them, and at other times with their valves closed and a small quantity of calcareous matter lying upon the place of the muscular attachment, which the Judge said his negroes called " petrified oysters." Sometimes, in low situations, the black earth gave place to a deep red marie of great fertility, but in this marie I never perceived any shells, and upon considering the situations in which it lay, I saw that it must have been deposited there by fresh water that had passed over these low places pos- terior to the abandonment by the sea of the sub- cretaceous beds. The shell's invariably seemed to be most perfect and abundant on the highest part of the knolls on the prairie land, probably from the land draining sooner there and the shells being consequently kept drier. The fer- tility of the soils in this part of the country ren- ders them eminently fitted for cotton, which, as I had many opportunities of observing, succeeds extremely well : the staple is fine, and the pro- duce in good seasons reaches from 1500 to 2000 Ibs. of cotton in the seed to the acre. Wheat has not yet been fairly tried, but the few experi- mental essays which have been made are en- couraging. Indian corn yields from 40 to 60 bushels to the acre. I was told, however, that if these plants were cultivated where the black earth had been very much washed from the sub- jacent limestone, they pined in dry seasons, the leaves drying up and the stalks gradually dying. In moderately wet seasons this is not tne case, the maize then does very well, and cotton does not require so much moisture. Take it altogether, this is a very lovely and desirable country; picturesque prairies, charm- ing woods, and lively streams abound every- where. Amongst other plants I remarked the Crab- Apple (Mains coronaria) and the Bois d'Arc (Madura aurantiaca) : the former is in prodigious abundance, and attains an orchard-like growth, some of the trees being twenty feet high and ten. inches in diameter, and in the seasons o'f blos- soms are said to scent the whole country around. The Bois d'Arc, or bow-wood, with its orange- like fruit and leaf, also flourishes here, but is more rare ; its wood is of a beautiful yellow col- our, something resembling the sumac, and of it the Indians make their best bows, from which it has its trivial name. CHAPTER XXXIII. Probable origin of Prairies Land most attractive when to be obtained without paying for Mr. Prior Great abuse of the Government Land Sales An Oasis in the Wilder- ness Contrast between the educated and uneducated Classes Two patriotic Members of the Sovereign People. IN regard to the origin of prairies, an opinion has been expressed by Mr. Jefferson and others, that all prairies have been produced by the In- dian practice of firing the herbage annually, and thus eventually destroying the grown timber as well as inferior plants. This cause would cer- tainly seem to be a sufficient one in those districts upon which no other could apparently operate ; but the geological phenomena of this part of the country suggest, perhaps, a more probable rea- son why such extensive areas of country should be without trees. The surface presents broken- down marine shelly matter, accumulated into local beds and extensive hill deposits, after the manner in which we know the oyster and some 120 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. other testaceous families accumulate their shells in recent times ; and the general irregularity of the surface is not dissimilar to that which is presented by soundings made upon many marine coasts. These accumulations are more or less covered with a vegeto-aniinaj deposit, probably derived from fuci, algae, molluscae, and other vegetable and animal products of the ocean, that by the constantly acting power of the elements has been partially removed, and carried by rains towards the lowlands and streams. Hence this covering, which originally had been equally de- posited, is now diminished in some places and thickened in others. These characteristics of the prairie country, as far as this particular zone of prairies is con- cerned, are common to a vast extent of country. Eastwards from hence, the zone extends from 33 40' to 32 30' N. lat., in the State of Alabama, where wells have been dug 500 feet deep through this rotten limestone into slate with quartzose veins; and throughout this extended line, all of which I have personally examined, the charac- teristic shells of this subcretaceous formation have been found. In my cabinet I possess gry- phaea, exogyra, and other fossils from localities far up the False Washita, one of the most im- portant forks of Red River, from the Kiamesha, 200 miles farther east ; from the state of Missis- sippi, from the Prairie Bluffs in the state of Ala- bama, and from the state of New Jersey ; all of them identical with those found in this part of Arkansas. We are warranted, therefore, in con- sidering this zone of prairies as part of an ancient floor of the ocean, and may reasonably expect, when further investigations shall have been made, to trace the littoral bounds of the North American sea during the snbcretaceous and ter- tiary periods, parts of which are now clearly marked by all the unequivocal circumstances which I have described. When the ocean abandoned these areas, they were of course without plants. Now, by what- ever method plants begin first to take possession of the soil, whether by spontaneous growth or by the agency of seeds transported thither, they are, where the vegetable matter is thin and the sea- son unfavourable, liable to perish; and even where they are not thus exposed it is to be re- membered that these prairies were overrun, as the more distant western prairies still are, with countless herds of roaming buffaloes, which, by their periodical occupation of the country, would assist in exterminating all young plants and plants of a vigorless constitution. These may be enumerated amongst the efficient causes of a prairie or meadow state of extensive tracts of country, a view of the subject which is some- what strengthened by the admitted fact of plants in modern times encroaching on the prairies; for it is observed, that they now begin to flourish where vegetable matter has accumulated, being secured from the devastating teeth and hooffs of the buffalo, all of which have left this part of the country, for where man settles that animal never remains long. The singular contrast too betwixt so many prai- rie tracts without plants, and those dense and in- terminable forests which cover so large a portion of the continent of North America, is to be ac- counted for by geological causes. With the ex- ception of the tertiary and subcretaceons areas referred to, the other mineral formations in North America appear not to rise higher in the geolo- gical column than the beds of the carboniferous series, the entire oolitic series being deficient; and when we consider the immense period of time that must have intervened betwixt the de- posit of the coal series and the subcretaceous beds, we find no difficulty in supposing that when the ocean retired from these last and they became terra firtna, the dry land which had preceded them was in the forest state. Unless, therefore, we call to our aid spontaneous growth, we have only to choose betwixt prairies destined to remain for ever without plants, or prairies slowly filling up with plants derived from the seeds of those forests which clothed the more ancient forma- tions. The borders of the prairies would be planted first, and thus we can conceive of every new generation of plants giving some of its seeds their structure being eminently fitted for so great a purpose to the winds and the waters, and gradually extending the forests ; as the pres- ent members of the human family who now pos- sess the land send forth their generations to ad- vance upon and settle the country for the uses of posterity. This seems a more natural and just method of accounting for the immense prairies of the west, and the pampas of the southern portion of the American continent, than conjectural opin- ions founded on a convenient method adopted by the Indians to secure their game ; a method which, they have successfully practised at all times, to burn the cane and high grass in the upland forests, and which has somewhat thinned but has not destroyed them, as we see from the state of the more open woods in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and Arkansas ; where, now that the Indians have abandoned the country, the undergrowth is rapidly occupying the ground again. It therefore appears to me that- those prairies, instead of having been de- nuded by fire, have never, since the ocean aban- doned them, been covered by any vegetables of greater importance than the gramina. Fertile and beautiful as the country is where Judge Cross resides, it is singular, that although it is one of the most salubrious parts of Arkan- sas, and enjoys such a temperate climate, yet American citizens from great distances are con- stantly traversing it, amidst all sorts of priva- tions and difficulties, to seek a precarious exist- ence in the unknown lands of Texas. Hundreds of thousands of acres of the very first quality, and which they could obtain at the insignificant price established by law of a dollar and a quarter an acre, are passed by as if they did not deserve their attention. Put in motion by the insidious arts of the unprincipled adventurers who have for a long period contemplated this great robbery of the Mexican government, and their cupidity awakened by the vision of magnificent farms fc be obtained far nothing, they hasten on to a country possessing fewer advantages, little suspecting- that they are but tools employed by their tempt- ers to defend the plunder these have in contem- plation. I never meet with waggons filled with these Texas emigrants, without looking upon the men as victims and the women and children as widows and orphans. Having taken leave of the respectable family by whom I had been so agreeably entertained, I pursued my road to Red River, and after pro- ceeding three miles came upon a barren sand which lasted all the way to the village of Wash- ington, a miserable affair, built on a dry scorch- ing sand-hill, and which has no resource or at- traction whatever. On my previous visit here TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 121 I had been made acquainted with a Mr. Prior, a Virginian, who had moved into the neighbourhood of Red River about three years before, and had established a cotton plantation in Texas ; but as it was very unhealthy in the autumn on account of malaria, he had built a cabin on the uplands in Arkansas, as a place of refuge for his family. I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Prior again whilst my horse was feeding, and finding that I was going in the direction of his cabin, he said that, as he was returning home, he should be happy to accompany me, and give me lodgings for the night. Gladly accepting this offer, we left the village together, and I soon discovered that my companion was a gentlemanly and in- telligent person, and wide awake to everything that was passing around him. During our ride, that absorbing topic in this part of the world, the proceedings of the land speculators, was of course adverted to. The passion for speculation in almost every part of this country is singularly absorbing, but is intelligible enough. As there is no rank in the United States except official rank, all those who are excluded from it are theoretically upon an equality; but this is a very different thing from practical equality, which seems to be be- yond the powers of demonstration. The consti- tution of a country may require all men to be equally stupid, may forbid any man to be of a more lofty nature than the rest, and may declare that the top and the bottom are one and the same thing: all these dogmas may be proclaimed on the 4th of July from Da"n to Beersheba, but will not deter men an instant from endeavouring to surpass each other in the possession of worldly advantages of every kind. Whilst these theories are brought forward to flatter the people, sub- stantial inequality is what every man in Amer- ica is engaged in establishing, and this by the agency of the almighty dollar, a superabundance of which being a substitute for other virtues, stands in the place of all distinction. Wealth, therefore, since it implies virtue of every imagin- able kind, must be had at any cost ; and good faith and fair dealing, both public and private, are not to be permitted to stand too inconveni- ently in the way of its acquisition. In America, where so many have no objection to obtain it at this price, there certainly can be no avenue to its possession so tempting as speculating in the public laixds; for without denying that the scheme under which they are sold in detail to the public is simple, and ostensibly fair for bond fide purchasers, yet nothing can be more admi- rably contrived to facilitate the proceedings of unprincipled speculators. The country which is to be sold is surveyed into sections, land-offices are established, and a period is appointed by the highest authority in the country when a public sale is to be held, and the sections or their sub-divisions* to be struck off to the highest bidder : any of the sections, however, which remain unsold after the sale for want of bidders, being free to be entered at the minimum price established bylaw, of one dollar and a quarter. Nothing can appear more fair, more moderate, and more encouraging to the in- creasing population of the country than the scheme of this law, which was enacted by the Congress, with the sanction of many honourable and unsuspecting individuals. But what is often the practice under it 1 The future settler leaves A section is one square mile, or 640 acres. hisfamilv, proceeds perhaps one thousand miles, gets a description of the sections at the land- office of the district, finds a section that suits- him, builds a cabin upon it, clears a field, plants corn for the coming winter, and returns to con- duct his family to his future home ; there to await with the hard dollars prescribed by law for payment of the land the time to be appointed for the public sale, when he hopes to obtain a Government title for his land, at a price not ex- ceeding one dollar and a quarter per acre. In. the mean time active speculators who find it convenient to be political partisans combine with larger views, and form plans which often materially interfere with the industrious and un- suspecting settler. First contriving by a little political manage- ment to place one of their number as principal person in the land-office of the district to be oper- ated in, they next make themselves well acquaint- ed with the nature of the soil, and other natural ad-vantages appertaining to each of the most valuable sections of land. If one of them lies near a public road, if it has a navigable stream near it, if it is the probable site of a future court- house, and is of the first class for fertility, they send an agent to the settler who is upon it, to tell him that they mean to bid against him at the sale- and to get a government title to the land at any price whatever. The dismayed settler consults his family, he knows what they are capable of doing, and that if even the section were knocked down to him at a speculating price, he could not obtain the money to pay for it. He has only to choose then between abandoning the land where he has expended so much labour, and to which he and his family have become attached, or to- make a ruinous compromise. This is sometimes effected by his consenting to let the speculators purchase the land at the sale, and to take a title from them instead of the government. In many cases the poor settlers have agreed to pay tea dollars an acre to these rapacious and unfeeling wretches, delivering to them the ready money they had prepared to pay to the government, and executing a mortgage to them for the remainder. Thus is the once cheerful settler weighed down to the earth with a heavy debt that presses upon, him for the remainder of his life, and converted into the slave of a set of unprincipled harpies who make enormous profits by their nefarious transactions, without advancing any capital whatever. But this is not the most atrocious thing that takes place. If the settler refuses to compro- mise, the parties attend the sale ; the speculators constantly overbid the settler, even if they have to bid four times more than the value of the land, and of course it is struck down to them, and the settler has lost his home. Now comes the oper- ation of a regulation of these land-offices, which is of this nature : if the price at which a section, or a half or a quarter section of land has been, knocked down to any one, is not all paid within. a certain number of hours, the fact is to be sta- ted at the opening of the sale the next morning, and the sale declared void. The next morning, the clerk of the land-office commences by read- ng the numbers of the sections the price for which has not been paid, and declares the sales of each of them void. The settler, overjoyed to find his own section is amongst the number, goes to the clerk as soon as he is told the register is open, and directs his name to be put down as the purchaser at the minimum price of one dol- 122 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 3ar and a quarter an acre. The clerk opens the register and with affected surprise informs the applicant that another person has just before en- tered his name for that section. The deludec and unfortunate man now sees that there is n remedy ; that the clerk is a confederate of these speculators, and that the whole has been arran ged in concert with them to defraud him am . give them after the pretended competition ai the public sale a government title at the mini mum price. These vile transactions have been repeated too often, and in some instances the names of individuals have been coupled with them that ought to have been free from every taint of suspicion : so true it is that where money is the principal avenue to distinction in a coun- try, every honest principle is too often tramplec upon to obtain it. Mr. Prior and myself continued on this sandy pine land for some miles, and then entered upon a dead level of fine black land, underlaid by rot- ten testaceous matter. It continued for a great distance entirely on the same level, so that the water laid upon it as if it were a moss, and made it very unpleasant travelling, being black and ex ceedingly muddy and plastic : this is so much the case, that in consequence of the pigs coming home with loads of black matter behind them, jl is now the custom to cut off their tails. The land at length began to rise, and we got upon a siliceo-calcareous ridge that was a sort of water- shed, sending off streams to the north and south Here, from the great profusion of those plants a chance of preserving even the decen- cies of existence. I hart been told at the post of Arkansas that en passengers were waiting to come on board, and that several of them were notorious swin- dlers and gamblers, who, whilst in Arkansas, lived by the most desperate cheating and bully- ing, and who skulked about alternately betwixt Little Rock, Natchez, and New Orleans, in search of any plunder that violent and base means could bring into their hands. Some of their names were familiar to me, having heard them frequently spoken of at Little Rock as scoundrels of the worst class. From the mo- ment I heard they were coming on board as passengers I predicted to Mr. T******** that every hope of comfort was at an end. But I had also been told that two American officers, a Captain D***** and a Lieut, c****** the lat- ter a gentleman entrusted with the construction of the military road in Arkansas were also coming on board ; and I counted upon them as persons who would be, by the force of educa- tion and a consciousness of what was due to their rank as officers, on the side of decency at least, if not of correct manners ; and if those persons had passed through the national mili- tary academy at West Point, or had served un- der the respectable chief* of the Topographical Bureau at Washington, I should not have been as grievously disappointed as it was my fate to be. It was true I had heard that these officers had been passing ten days with these scoundrels at a low tavern at this place, in the unrestrain- ed indulgence of every vicious extravagance, night and day, and that they were the familiar intimates of these notorious swindlers. Never- theless, believing that there must be some ex- aggeration in this, I continued to look forward with satisfaction to having them for fellow pas- sengers, confident that they would be our allies against any gross encroachments of the others. Very soon after I had retired to the steamer at sunset, the whole clique came on board, and the effect produced on us was something like that which would be made upon passengers in a peaceful vessel forcibly boarded by pirates of the most desperate character, whose manners seemed to be what they aspired to imitate. Rushing into the cabin, all but red-hot with whiskey, they crowded round the stove and ex- cluded all the old passengers from it as much as if they had no right whatever to be in the cabin. Putting on a determined bullying air of doing what they pleased because they were the majori- ty, and armed with pistols and knives, expressly made for cutting and stabbing, eight inches long and an inch and a half broad ; noise, confusion, spitting, smoking, cursing and swearing, drawn from the most remorseless pages of blasphemy, commenced and prevailed from the moment of this evasion. I was satisfied at once that all resistance would be vain, and that even remon- strance might lead to murder ; for a sickly old man in the cabin happening to say to one of them that there was so much smoke he could tiardly breathe, the fellow immediately said, " If any man tells me he don't like my smoking I'll put a knife into him." As soon as supper was over they all went to gamblimg, during which, at every turn of the cards, imprecations and blasphemies of the most revolting kind were loudly vociferated. Observing them from a distance where Mr. Colonel Abert. 136 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. T******** and myself were seated, I perceived that one. of them was the wretched looking fellow I had seen at Hignite's, on my way to Texas, who went by the name of Smith, and that his keeper Mr. Tunstall was with him. The most blasphemous fellows o-'nongst them were two men of the names of Ki-otor and Wilson. This Rector at that time held a commission under the national government as Marshal for the terri- tory of Arkansas, was a man of mean stature, low and sottish in his manners, and as corrupt and reckless as it was possible for human being to be. The man named Wilson was a suttler from cantonment Gibson, a military post about 250 miles up the Arkansas : he had a remark- able depression at the bottom of his forehead ; and from this sinus his nose rising with a sud- den spring, gave a fural expression to his face that exactly resembled the portrait of the wick- ed apprentice in Hogarth. The rubric on his countenance too was a faithful register of the numerous journeys the whiskey bottle had made to his proboscis. If the Marshal, Mr. Rector, was the most con- stant blasphemer, the suttler was the most em- phatic one. It was Mr. Rector's invariable custom, when the cards did not turn up to please him, to express a fervent wish that " his soul might he sent to ," whilst Mr. Wilson never neglected a favourable opportunity of hoping that his own might be kept there to a thousand eternities. This was the language we were compelled to listen to morning, noon, and night, without remission, whenever we were in the cabin. In the morning, as soon as day broke, they began by drinking brandy and gin with sugar in it, without any water, and after break- fast they immediately went to gambling, smo- king, spitting, blaspheming, and drinking for the rest of the day. Dinner interrupted their orgies for a while, but only for a short time, and after supper these wretches, maddened with the in- flaming and impure liquors they swallowed, fill- ed the cabin with an infernal vociferation of curses, and a perfect pestilence of smoking and spitting in every direction. Lieut. C****** oc- casionally exchanged a few words with me, and appeared to be restrained by my presence; he never sat down to play, but was upon the most intimate terms with the worst of these black- guards, and drank very freely with them. Capt. D*****, with whom I never exchanged a word, was a gentlemanly-looking youth, and was not vulgar and coarse like the others, but I never saw a young man so infatuated with play, be- ing always the first to go to the gambling table and the last to quit it. Such was his passion for gambling that it overcame everything like decent respect for the feelings and comfort of the other passengers; and one night, after the others had become too drunk and tired to sit up, I was kept awake by his sitting up with Rector and continuing to play at high, low, jack, and the game, until a very late hour in the morning. Perhaps, however, the most remarkable char- acter amongst them was Smith, the New Eng- lander, with his pale dough face, every feature of which was a proclamation of bully, sneak, and scoundrel. I never before saw in the countenance of any man such incontrovertible evidences of a fallen nature. It was this fel- low that had charge of the materials for gam- bling, and who spread the faro table out the first evening of their coming on board, in hopes to lure some of the passengers ; none of whom,. however, approached table except the drunken youth who had behaved so ill on a previous oc- casion, and they never asked him to play, prob- ably knowing that he had no money. Having found no birds to pluck on board, they were compelled to play against each other, al- ways quarrelling in the most violent manner, and using the most atrocious menaces : it was always known when these quarrels were not made up, by the parties appearing the next time at the gambling-table with their Bowie-knives near them. In various travels in almost every part of the world I never saw such a collection of unblushing, low, degraded scoundrels, and I became at length so unhappy as often to think 1 of being set on shore and taking a chance fate in the wild cane-brakes, rather than have my senses continually polluted with scenes that had every appearance of lasting until the end of the voyage : but for the comfort I derived from the society of Mr. T********, who was as misera- ble as myself, and who relied altogether upon/ me to set a good countenance upon the whole matter, I certainly should have executed my in- tention. Above the cabin where these scenes were enacted was a smaller one called the Ladies' Cabin, and when I found what sort of a set we had got, I applied to the steward to give Mr.. T******** and myself berths there ; but he in- formed us this could not be done, because Capt. D*****' s s j s ter was there, having come on board, with him at the post. She might be his sister for aught I ever learnt to the contrary, but. whatever she was she kept very close, for she never appeared either below or upon deck. My, remonstrances with the captain produced no effect whatever; when I talked to him about iis printed rules, he plainly told me that he did not pretend to execute them ; that what I com- plained of were the customs and manners of the country, and that if he pretended to enforce the y rules he should never get another passenger, adding, that one of the rules left it to a majori- ty of the passengers to form their own by-laws "or the government of the cabin. On recurring to them I found it was so, the erms being that by-laws were to be so made, ' provided they were in conformity with the aolice of the boat." As there was no police ia. ;he boat, it was evident the printed rules were fiothing but a bait to catch passengers with, and, [ never spoke to him on the subject again. I lad heard many stories of gangs of scoundrels - who wandered abou^ from New Orleans to- Matchez, Vicksburg, and Little Rock, with no laggage but broad, sharp butcher knives, loaded pistols, and gambling apparatus, and I was now ompelled to witness the proceedings of such ruffians. These would have been less intolera- ble if the two U. S. officers had kept aloof from these fellows and formed a little society with, us, as I reasonably expected they would do when I first heard they were coming on hoard ; nit Capt. D***** never once offered either Mr. T******** or myself the least civility, or ex- changed a word with us ; and although that was not the case with Lieut. C******, yet an. ncident took place very early in the voyage TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 137 which convinced me we had nothing to expect from him. Wilson, the man with the nose, was standing with his hack to the stove before hreakfast, unrestrainedly indulging in incohe- rent curses ahout some one he had quarrelled with, when Mr. C****** in the most amiable manner put his hand inside of the ruffian's waistcoat, drew forth his stabbing knife, un- sbeathed it, felt the edge as if with a connois- seur's ringer and thumb, and was lavish in its praise. Such were the unvarying scenes which were re-enacted for the many days we were shut up in the steamer with these villains, and with this statement of them I return to the topographical details of the voyage. We had a favourable run down the river the day of our departure from the post of Arkansas, and in the afternoon turned into what is called the Cut-off, a natural passage or canal which connects the Arkansas with the waters of White River. It 'is more convenient tp take this Cut- off to reach the Mississippi, as it is a clear ca- nal-like navigation about 250 feet broad, with- out any snags or sawyers. To the right lies a considerable island cut off from the main land, upon which we saw two miserable cabins, on each side of which lofty canes about 25 feet high were growing. There was no current in this Cut-off, the Arkansas rushing past it at the south end, and White River at the north end, damming up its waters as if it were a millpond ; we therefore soon got into the current of White River itself, which is here a powerful stream, and at night, to our great joy, we reached the Mississippi River, and brought up for a short time at Montgomery's, a notorious place. We were now at length on a great fluviatile highway where other steamers were occasion- ally to be met, and Mr. T******** and myself comforted ourselves with the belief that we should have many opportunities of abandoning the wretches we were compelled to live with and exchange their detested society for any other, since none could be more irksome to us. The Mississippi at this point appeared to be about three-quarters of a mile wide, was a fine open stream without sandbars and snags, along which we could freely proceed all night without danger: disgusted as we were, we rejoiced at our escape from the contracted banks and end- less forests of the Arkansas, the very air of which seemed to breathe of corruption. I rose early in the morning and hastened on deck to look at the shores ; we had the state of Missis- sippi on our left, and the territory of Arkansas on our right. The water of the river was of a grey, muddy colour, not red like that of the Arkansas, but the banks, like those of this last stream, were low, and were constantly crumbling and wear- ing away, carrying along with them trees and masses of cane-brake. Everything which de- pended upon the action of the river was the same as in the one we had just left, although upon a larger scale ; there was the same ser- pentine course, the same reaches, but more ex- tensive, and the same sand-bars. In the course of the day we passed Columbia, the county- town of the county of Chicot in Arkansas, said to he the most fertile part of the whole territory. After passing a most horrible night, kept awake by the tobacco and imprecations of the drunken S f amblers, we arrived early in the morning of anuary 1st at Vicksburg, and greatly disap- pointed wpre we not to find any steamer there bound to New Orleans. Here we remained several hours, and thought of going to a favern to wait for a steamer, for which purpose we en- tered the town with the intention of looking out for lodgings. Vicksburg is a modern settlement situated on the side of a hill very much abraded and cut up into gullies by the rains. The land rises about 200 feet above the Mississippi, but sinks again very soon to the east, forming a sort of ridge which appears at intervals as far as Baton Rouge. On returning to the steamer we were informed that eight or ten gentlemen, some of whom were planters of great respectability, and* amongst the rest, a Mt. Vick, after whom the place was called, were coming on board with the intention of going to New Orleans. This de- termined us to continue on with the boat, con- ceiving that we should be too many for the ruf- fians in the cabin, and that the captain who was anxious to keep up a good understanding with the planters would now interfere to keep- some order there. But supper being over, and the faro-table spread as usual, what was my horror and astonishment at seeing these Missis- sippi gentlemen, with the respectable Mr. Vick, sitting down to faro with these swindlers, and in the course of a very short time gambling, drinking, smoking, and blaspheming, just as des- perately as the worst of them ! The cabin be- came so full of tobacco smoke that it was im- possible for me to remain in it, so wrapping my- self up as warm as T could, I retreated to the deck to pass the night, Mr. T******** soon fol- lowing me ; there we met the captain, and told" him we could not endure this any longer, and were desirous of being put on shore at the very first settlement we should reach by daylight. He said it would be best for us to go on shore at Natchez, and that he really pitied us, but that he could not disoblige these planters, for that if he was to interfere with their amusements, they would never ship any freight with him ; adding that the competition amongst the steamers was so great, that every man was obliged to look out for his own interests : as a proof that it was ne- cessary for him to act with some policy, he told us that a captain of his acquaintance having. once put a disorderly fellow belonging to Vicks- burg on shore, had, when he stopped there on: his return, been boarded by fifteen persons, arm- ed with knives and pistols, who proceeded to spit in his face, kick him, and treat him in the most savage manner. Some of these fifteen persons, he said, he thought were now on board- This I could readily believe, for nothing could be more reckless or brutal than their conduct and conversation. They had escaped the re- straints which society imposed in the place they nhabited if any such existed and seemed de- termined to exhaust all the extravagances that brutality and profanity are capable of. I shall never forget these specimens of gentlemen be^ longing to the State of Mississippi. During the day, we passed Rockport or the Grand Gulf, where the Mississippi pursues a broad straight channel for several miles, the riv- er having lost its serpentine character, and the shore assuming an unusual height, with pictu* 138 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. -resque hills here and there. Generally speaking there is an oppressive monotony in the appear- ance of the shores of this fine river to the south, but the view here was sufficiently pleasing to in- duce cne to sketch it. The sand has indurated and formed a rock, which in this universal al- luvial country furnishes an excuse for the name of the pretty little settlement of Rockport. Rod- ney, farther to the south, is built on a similar ridge, but the inhabitants have abandoned the upland for the low ground, finding this last less unhealthy. It was after midnight when we reached Natch- ez, where we had determined to land, and where we did not remain a long time, for we had hut a short time to make up our minds. The prin- cipal or upper town, where the planters reside, is some distance from the shore, and we could not reach it that night without leaving our lug- gage at the low town by the water's edge : but the engineer of the steamer, in whom I placed some confidence, had assured me that this low town was a notorious rendezvous for the very worst desperadoes in the country, more infa- mous if possible even than the party we had on board, and that if we left anything there we should never see it again ; whilst if we staid there all night we should expose ourselves both to robbery and murder, many persons having been traced to that place, without ever having been further heard of. Whilst I was pondering upon this obvious difficulty I saw all the fellows "we took in at the post of Arkansas come upon deck as if they were about to leave the steamer, and being informed by the steward that the whole yarty, tutti quanti, officers, mysterious lady and all, were going no farther, I determin- ed to remain. Here then we had the satisfac- tion to see these degraded wretches leave the boat, and a short time after to know that we were on the bosom of the Mississippi without them.* The captain, too, seemed to be glad to * A few months afterwards the outrageous conduct of this gang of lawless men drew upon some of them a sum- mary and tragical fate ; and the incident is so highly char- acteristic of the manners of the part of the country it con- cerns, that it deserves to be related. Encouraged by the acquaintances they had formed on board of the steamer, some of these wretches removed to Vicksburg and established gambling tables at various low taverns, to which they decoyed the young men of tho place, and having plundered and debauched them, they at length became as depraved as themselves, and their constant asso- ciates. Emboldened by their numbers, and by the impunity which their desperate character. appeared to invest them with, they threw off all restraint, and by their constant drunkenness, and their crimes, rendered themselves objects of terror to the rest of the inhabitants ; occupying the streets in the day-time, armed with deadly weapons, and insulting every one that was obnoxious to them. This anarchy be- coming' intolerable, the citizens were driven to combine against them, antl a crisis was soon reached upon the occa- sion of a public dinner, at which one of these men having contrived to get admittance, interrupted the festivity, and struck an inhabitant who endeavoured to keep him in order. Upon this an uproar took place, which ended by his being turned into the street. This fellow, whose name was Cab- ler, now hastened to his confederates, and arming himself, returned with some of them to the public square, proclaim- ing aloud his intention to put'lo death the individuals who had been most forward in expelling him. At the square, however, he was met by the company he had insulted, and a small corps of volunteers, who hud been dining with them was seized, disarmed, and immediately taken to the woods. Tying him to a tree, they first proceeded to Lynch him in a severe manner, then tarred and. feathered him, and peremp- torily ordered him to leave the place. The citizens being now roused, held a general meeting, . and there passed a resolution that all these gamblers should leave the town in twenty-fi ur hours, and had it placarded , on the walls On the morning succeeding to the stipulated be rid of them, and to have an opportunity of being civil to me, for he voluntarily offered to time, the inhabitants in great numbers, accompanied by the volunteers, went to the haunts of the gamblers, and deputed a part of their number to seize all the faro and rouge et noir tables ; but on reaching a house occupied by a very desper- ate fellow of the gang, named North, they found it garrison- ed by several of the most obnoxious of these scoundrels, all of them completely armed. The posse having surrounded the house and broken open a back door, a volley was fired from within, by which a Dr. Hugh S. Bodley, one of the most respected inhabitants of the place, was killed on the spot. The fire was instantly returned, and one of the gang wounded ; but the conflict was of short duration, for the as- sailants, enraged at the death of one whom they valued so much, stormed the place, and captured all who had not es- caped : there were five in number, amongst whom was Smith, the pale dough- faced New Englander, who has been already alluded to as one of the gamblers on board the steamer. Shriving time was not allowed to these miserable wretch- es ; a gallows was instantly erected, and the extraordinary spectacle exhibited of the whole population of a town, head"- ed by the leading inhabitants, many of whom were magis- trates, conducting five men to execution one of whom was desperately wounded before any preliminary step whatever had been taken to bring them to a trial by the laws of their country. Such are the excesses to which the people of these climes abandon themselves when their passions are roused never stopping to consider consequences, but madly sacri- ficing human life, and incurring the gravest responsibilities, upon the impulse of the moment ! The person from whom I had these particulars which were to a great extent confirmed by the public journals at the time told me that the scene which preceded the death of these men baffled all description. A tumultuous mob, showing a savage impatience to hurry on t he execution, filled the air with execrations ; whilst the captured and crest- fallen gamblers, preceded by a drunken black fiddler, were reluctantly dragged to the fatal tree by the volunteers and citizens. The names of these doomed wretches were North, Hallums, Smith, Dutch Bill, and M'Call ; some of whom were dogged and malignant to the last : Smith, however, was thoroughly terror-stricken ; he wept, he implored, he cried aloud for mercy, and evinced the most abject despair : vain were these appeals, for the instant the gallows was ready, they were all launched into eternity, including the wounded man. It was the next morning before their bodies were cut down and buried together in a ditch. This transaction passed over without any subsequent in- quiry by the constituted authorities. The murdered men were known to be scoundrels of the worst kind, and received little or no sympathy : out of the State of Mississippi the act was far from being approved of, although it was ho)>ed it might check the profligate career of a set of individuals whose vicious lives were a perpetual defiance to society. But in the State of Mississippi, public opinion unanimously sustained the conduct of the citizens of Vicksburg, who themselves seem after the transaction, and when their blood must have been cool to have been quito unconscious of having done anything that was inconsistent either with the dictates of humanity or of justice ; for, in an elaborate justification of their ferocious conduct, which was subse- quently drawn up in that town and published, there is the following extraordinary passage, which not Only invites the other towns of the State to pursue the same barbarous sys- tem, but also admits that the most respectable inhabitants of Vicksburg participated in the proceedings of that mem- orable day. and were far from being dissatisfied with what they had done 1 " Society may be compared to the elements, which, al though ' order is their first law,' can sometimes be purified only by a storm. Whatever, therefore, sickly sensibility or mawkish philanthropy may say against the course pursued by us, we hope that our citizens will not relax the code of punishment which they have enacted against this infamous, unprincipled, and baleful class of society ; and we invite Natchez, Jackson, Columbus, Warrenton, and all our sister ns throughout the State, in the name of our insulted laws, of offended virtue, and of slaughtered innocence, to aid us in exterminating this deep-rooted vice from our land. The revolution has been conducted here by the most respect- able citizens, heads of families, members of all classes, pro- fessions, and pursuits. None have been heard to utter a syllable of censure against either the act or the manner in which it was performed ; and so far as we know, public opinion, both in town and country, is decidedly in favour of the course pursued. We have never known tho public so unanimous on any subject." It will scarcely be credited that on the morning prece- ding this wholesale murder, a still more ferocious scone waf acting about forty miles from the same place, of which the particulars appeared in the newspapers of the day TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 139 give Mr. T ladies' cabin, now vacant embraced, and from that moment never entered the lower cabin but to snatch a hasty meal The Vicksburg gentlemen, seeing we avoided their society, behaved as ill as they could when and myself berths in the I exhibited in the Delta of that mighty river. This cant, an offer we joyfully ' immense fluviatile deposit may be described as an irregular triangle, formed hy the line of the Atchafalaya River from the point where it leaves Red River to where it intersects the 29th de- gree of N. lat., continuing thence along that we were present, trying to mock us when we parallel until all the mouths of the Mississippi were speaking French or German, merely to i are passed, and completing the triangle by aline provoke us into a quarrel ; but we had made up | around Chandeleur in St. Bernard, and north of Lake Pontchartrain to the 31st degree of N. lat. an area of low alluvial country, comprehend- ing not less than 14,000 square miles, or some- our minds to continue to bear their vulgarity, and not to lose our tempers, unless provoked by personal violence, in which case we had con- certed what to do, and told the captain of our intentions. They, either because he spoke to them, or that our coolness had its effect upon them, never dared to go so far. At the best we passed our time miserably, and were much de- tained hy fogs. We passed Baton Rouge in the night time, and after daylight soon became fatigued with the monotony of sugar planta- tions succeeding to each other, the sight of which became as tedious as that of the forests and cane-brakes had been. In fact we were worn out with the horrid scenes we had gone through, and were sighing for an end to this painful voyage. At length, on Sunday morning the 4th of January, we reached the long crescent of shipping moored at the wharfs of New Or- leans, in one of the deep curvatures of the riv- er ; and going ashore amidst a crowd of ill look- ing people working as steadily as if they had never heard of Sunday, and cursing and swear- ing in French and English, we proceeded to a Mons. Marty's, a countryman of Mr. T*******, and there took our lodgings. CHAPTER XXXIX. The Delta of the Mississippi Shirtings of the Channel of the River Formation of new land at its mouth Visit the Cemeteries Mode of contriving dry Graves Pirati- cal-looking Population Green Peas out of doors, Jan. 1 Literature and the Sciences New Orleans American- isedSunday Evening Meetings Faro the principal business transacted in New Orleans The Legislature in Session Good Theatres. IT is impossible for an observant traveller, accustomed to trace the effects produced by the action of such powerful streams as the Arkan- sas and Red River, both in their abrasive power and in the reproduction of the sedimentary mat- ter they bear along, not to be struck with those geological modifications established on the sur- face of the country by the combined efforts of all the tributaries of the Mississippi, as they are Upon this occasion the charge brought against those whose lives were sacrificed, was a of the sla as a conspiracy to organize an insur- The following extract is made from ne of the newspapers : "Twenty miles from this pl ace (Jackson in Madison county), a company of white men and negroes were detected before they did any mischief. On Sunday last they hung two steam doctors, one named Cotton and the other Saun- terry-boats at the rivers for " the con- veyance ol me,n and horses." In this treaty, which threw the whole Creek territory open to the whites, nothing is said about the right of the Creeks to punish intruders on their lands ; hut the United States agreed to give to the nation 12,000 dollars, in money or goods, for the term of eight years, and 11,000 dollars, in money or goods, for the term of the ten succeed- ing years, without interest. The work of plunder and corruption was now rising to a great height ; the increasing popula- tion of Georgia was pressing upon the Indians, and the legislature of that State in which the speculators upon Indian lands had a predomina- ting influence carried its political weight to the Congress to effect these treaties that were to aggrandize their own State and satisfy the ra- pacity of their own citizens, who were the spec- ulators and politicians for whose benefit these treaties were to be made. At all times there have been honourable and just men in the Con- gress, who saw into these machinations, and opposed them, but always in vain ; and the ex- ecutive government, who perceived how irresit- ibly events were tending to accomplish the ab- sorption of all the lands which had been so solemnly guaranteed to the Indians, could do no more, even if it were otherwise disposed, than to modify the injustice which was perpetrating, by executing the treaties as impartially as cir- cumstances admitted of. Every thing seemed to concur to nourish the increasing passion of ^the Americans to appropriate all territories that were contiguous to them, and to create an ex- travagant opinion in the minds of the rising gen- erations, that there was no moral impropriety in any claim made by the Uuited States, as they could not by any possibility be in the wrong. The chiefs of the Upper Creek nation, who im- mediately adjoined the Americans the Judases who had betrayed their country and through whose hands these annuities passed, became now, many of them, as eager to earn these pen- sions by the destruction of their nation, as the Georgians were to encourage them ; they bad their own friends to reward, and the fruits of their treachery being soon dissipated in whiskey and personal indulgences, their partisans became clamorous for the means of gratifying their pro- pensities. On the other hand the Lower Creeks, who had not tasted so abundantly the sweets of these treaties of peace and friendship, were be- coming more and more estranged from the up- per nation ; and when the United States declared war against Great Britain in 1812, they took* op arms against the Americans, and led by Weatk- erfordone of those half-breeds that are some- times gifted with such a surprising degree of eloquence, courage, and resources, as raises them at once to be the leaders of their nation performed acts as conspicuous for their daring as they were for savage ferocity. Amongst these was the surprisal of Fort Minims, a fort built by the United States in the Creek territory. At the head of 1500 warriors Weatherford bold- ly attacked the fort at noonday. Major Beasley, the Commandant, had a garrison in it of 275> persons, some of whom were women and chil- dren. He had been already apprised of the ap- proach of Weatherford ; and if he had takea proper precautions, could, with about 200 mea that he had under his command, have effectually resisted the attack. Despising his enemy, he appears to have strangely neglected the safety of the fort, which gave Weatherford an opportu- nity of surprising it before they had time to close the gates, at which point a most sanguinary con- test took place hand to hand. The Americans fought bravely, and disputed the entrance withi desperate valour : they were however unable lo> close the gates, and a furious contest of sworas^ bayonets, knives, arid tomahawks, at length ter- minated in favour of the Indians, the brave Ma- jor Beasly and his gallant brother officers being: every one slain on the spot. Having massacred the garrison, the Indians set fire to the block- houses where the women and children had taken. refuge, and, with the exception of a few, burnt them all up. Of the whole number of 275, only 17 survived, some of whom were severely wounded. The news of this disastrous affair caused a great excitement in the states that were conter- minous with the Indian territory. Amongst these was the State of Tennessee, which border- ed upon the Cherokee and Creek lands; and a this success was considered to be (/. a very u u an- gerous character, since it might lead to a com- bination of all the Indian tribes, most of whom, would willingly have entered into a general war,, it was determined to oppose to Weatherfnrd^ man whose reputation for courage and deter- mination was at that time well established in lus own State. This man was the now cHeftratedl General Jackson, who, beinpular in Tennessee, soon succeeded in raising 2000 tight- ing men, equipped for Indian warfare, and burn- ing to retaliate upon the Indians the dest ructions of the garrison of Fort Minims. General Jack- 148 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. son took the field before a regular commissariat could be established, crossed the Tennesse River, and trusting often to casual supplies plunged into the wild country drained by th Black Warrior and Coosa rivers. On his lei were a party of the upper Creeks, friendly t the United States, under the command of anoth er famous half-breed named William M'lntosh who, being bitterly opposed to Weatherford ani the lower Creeks, sought every opportunity t damage them. Such was the fury of this mai against his own countrymen, that at the battl of Autossee a place on the south bank of thi Tallapoosa, about twenty miles north of eas from Montgomery he assisted most ferociousl) in the massacre of 200 wretched Creeks, whc ware surprised in their wigwams. After a great many fights in which the Creek were uniformly defeated and sustained severe losses, they were induced by their prophets tc fortify themselves upon a neck of land forme by a great curve in the Tallapoosa River, which the Creeks call Tohopeka, or Horse-Shoe. In this desperate state of their affairs the poor In dians clung with more than their accustomed confidence to the conjurers of their nation wh< pretended to divine the future, and who ha( assumed the title of prophets. They were as- sured that this was the place where they were to conquer, and at any rate it was evident, from what was observed after the battle, that the las struggle was intended to be made here. They had fortified themselves with great ingenuity, the points of resistance afforded by the locality were very favourable to them, and having about 1000 tried men, they were not afraid of being taken by storm. Here Jackson followed them. His army had repeatedly mutinied for want of provisions, and he only kepi it together by sharing in an unosten- tatious manner all the privations of his men ; making no regular repasts, hut sustaining him- self by the grains of corn which he carried in his pocket, and which he sometimes offered to his men when they were sinking from weakness and fatigue. With such an example in the chief," soldiers with any generous feelings will follow wherever he leads them. As soon as he reach- ed the place where the wretched Creeks them- selves undergoing every sort of privation were about to play their last stake, he attacked the place with a settled purpose to finish the war at this point. In his official letter he says, " Deter- mined to exterminate them, I detached General Coffee with the mounted and nearly the whole af the Indian force early in the morning of yes- terday ' March 27th > 18 14)> to cross the river about two miles below their encampment, and to surround the bend in such a manner as that none of them skcvld escape by attempting to cross the river." The piaOe. after a severe contest of five hours, was stormed, and the Americans en- tered it. Five hundred and fifty-seven Indians were slain on the bend, and many others who attempted to cross the Tallapoosa were sabred by the horsemen: but to pursue the official letter " The fighting continued with some se- verity about five hours, but we continued to destroy many of them who had concealed them- selves under the banks of the river until we were prevented by night. This morning we kill- ed sixteen who laid been concealed. We took about I 250 prisoners, all women and children, except two or three. Our loss is 106 wounded, and 25 killed. Major M'Intosh, the Cowetau, who joined my army with a part of his tribe, greatly distinguished himself." If it had been a den of rattlesnakes their de- struction could not have been accomplished or related in a more energetic manner. Some of the Creeks now fled to Florida, and others into the Cherokee country, whilst Weath- erford and the few Indians adhered to him, were hunted into the swamps, and hemmed in in such a manner as to be reduced to the last extremity, feeding upon the roots and the barks of trees until famine and disease rapidly diminished their numbers. In the meantime Jackson had re- quired of the Indians who adhered to the Amer- icans to cause that chief to be delivered* bound to him to undergo his fate. Weatherford soon received information of this, and unable any longer to endure the misery of his followers, and determined not to submit to the indignity of be- ing bound, he resolved upon a step that marks the elevation of his character, and that produced consequences that reflect great honour even up- on the successful American general. It happened to me many years ago to hear the relation of what took place from an eye- wit- ness of the first interview which Weatherford had with his conqueror. Jackson was one day in his tent with some of his officers, when an Indian was seen on horseback galloping into the encampment, and who did not stop until he reached the General's tent. Throwing himself from his horse, he en- tered the tent boldly, and in a moment stood before the commander-in-chief. The Indian was tall and well-proportioned, his countenance ndicated great intelligence, and was distinguish- ed by" that particular beauty which is sometimes ;iven i>y a thin aquiline nose. His person was squalid and emaciated, his dress dirty and rag- ged, but K'is brilliant and still fierce black eyes bowed at once that he was no common man. Addressing himself to Jackson, he instantly be- gan to this eifect : " I am Wea therford ; I fought you as long as could ; I can fight no longer ; my people are ying in the swa mp. Do with m as you please ; give myself up. I know you are a brave man ; ave pity on my pt 10 P le - Let them have some- hingtoeat; send a good talk to them; they will do what you wist'- Here I am." The inexorable temper of Jackson was soft- ned by the abject cond. ^ion of the fallen chief, nd his generosity awakt ' ned b y this heroic con- uct: he spoke kindly to \Veatherford, and bade im be comforted, declaring wit h warmth that o man should hurt a hair of his head, and that the Indians would submit, b e would take care fthem and give them peace. Thus did this enerous step, which could only have been su-g- ested by a lofty mind, produce th>e happiest ef- ;cts. The Creeks had now received a fatal blovr oth to their power and their pride. "They were t the mercy of their conquerors, and ot.i the 9th f August, 1814, signed articles of " Agreement nd Capitulation" with the successful General at 'ort Jackson. These articles began as follow.s : " Whereas an unprovoked, inhuman, and san- uinary war, waged by the hostile Creeks against TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 149 the United States, hath been repelled, prosecu- ted, and determined successfully on the part of the said States, in conformity vrith principles of national justice and honourable warfare," &c. By this treaty the Creeks ceded every part of the territory that was required of them. All the upper part of the Coosa country was surren- dered, and that river as far as Wetumpka be- came their boundary. Within the space of twenty-four years the Creeks had now surren- deredwith a few local exceptions all that portion of their native country extending from the Coosa eastward to the Savannah ; compre- hending about 250 miles in breadth of the finest land in the United States. But a fine territory was still left to them, and if there was any virtue in words, the United States were bound by the following article in the treaty to protect them in its possession : "Art. 2. The United States will guarantee to the Creek nation the integrity of all their ter- ritory eastwardly and northwardly of the said line, to be run and described as mentioned in the first article." Further concessions, however, were made by the treaty of January 22, 1818, in consideration of the United States paying the sum of 120,000 dollars, in certain instalments; and on the 8th of January, 1821, a subsequent treaty of cession took place for other valuable considerations. William M'Intosh, the half breed, who had contributed so effectually to the destruction of his countrymen, the lower Creeks, was now the leading Sachem, and was the chief under whose management these treaties of cession were made. Emboldened by his success, and urged on by the speculators who were still watching for oppor- tunities to despoil the nation of everything, he now ventured upon a proceeding which roused the lower Creeks from their apathy, and signed a convention, February 12, 1825, with certain American commissioners who were Georgians, in which it was provided that a further impor- tant cession should be made to the United States, for which the parties interested were to be com- pensated in the following manner. They were to receive acre for acre upon the Arkansas Riv- er, west of the Mississippi, upon condition of their emigrating to that country, and were be- sides to be paid a sum amounting to four hun- dred thousand dollars in money, to compensate them for their losses in removing from their na- tive country and to enable them " to obtain sup- plies in their new settlement." The Creeks had submitted with impatient re- luctance to the previous cession made by M'In- tosh, but this, which expatriated a great portion of them into the bargain, was intolerable. In vain had the chiefs told the American commis- sioners, at a council to which they were sum- moned, " We have no land to sell. M'Intosh knows that no part of the land can be sold with- out a full council, and with the consent of all the nation ; and if a part of the nation choose to leave the country, they cannot sell the land they have, but it belongs to the nation." A deaf ear was turned to this, and M'Intosh, tempted by the personal advantages that were to be secured to him, and believing that the United States government would carry out the execution of the treaty, signed the document, with a few of the chiefs connected with him, I whilst thirty-six of them, present at the coun- ' cil, refused to put their marks to it. Many of the chiefs now openly denounced him ; and let- ters he had written to some of the half-breeds, offering to bribe them with part of the money he was to receive from the American commis- sioners, being produced at a subsequent council, his treachery to the nation was apparent to every one. Perceiving that a great majority of the Creeks were inclined against him, M'Intosh repaired to the State of Georgia, where his abettors were, and claimed the protection of the governor. Having been assured that he should receive it, he retgrned to his house, on the Chatahoochie, w&gje two of his wives lived, and where some Americans and sub-chiefs of his own party soon joined him. While here, relying upon the powerful protection of Gover- nor Troup of Georgia, Menaw-way, a chief of the lower country, accompanied by a very large party of armed Oakfuskee warriors, suddenly surrounded the house on Sunday morning the 1st of May, about two hours before daylight. As soon as day broke he sent an interpreter to inform the white people in the house that they and the women and children must instantly leave it ; that it was not his intention to hurt them, but that General M'Intosh having broken the law of the nation, they intended to execute him immediately. All now left the house but M'Intosh and one Tustenugge, who was his principal confederate in executing the obnoxious treaties. Menaw-way, who seemed determin- ed to hold no conversation with the delinquent chiefs, now directed his warriors to set fire to the house ; and the inmates, making a despe- rate sally from the door to escape being burnt alive, were both shot dead. The governor of Georgia, incensed at this exe- cution of his proteges, breathed nothing but ven- geance against their enemies, who, probably, but for the wise and humane view which the federal government (then administered by Pres- ident Adams) took of the causes which had led to this characteristic and summary proceeding, would have had to undergo new persecutions from their white neighbours. The President not only used his authority upon this occasion to protect the Indians from further injury, but entered into a treaty with them on 24th of Jan- uary, 1826, whereby the last convention signed by M'Intosh was declared null and void. This treaty contained also a cession of some lands, to make it acceptable to the Georgians, for which sum of 217,600 dollars was to be paid to the chiefs and warriors, as well as an additional jerpetual annuity of 20,000 dollars. The inter- ests also of the friends of M'Intosh were provided for ; they were to emigrate to the west side of he Mississippi an arrangement which met ;heir approbation and were to be liberally pro- rided for, and to be under the protection of the Jnited States. This treaty, which was no doubt made in a spirit of fairness to the Indians, ilso contained the usual guarantee to all the ands " not herein ceded, to which they have a ust claim." A further treaty of cession, how- ever, was entered into on the 25th of November, .827, for the purpose of quieting, some titles in he "chartered limits of Georgia," the sum of 42,000 dollars being the consideration paid bv he United States. 150 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. The last treaty of cession was made on the 24th of March, 1832, when the government of the United States was administered by Presi- dent Jackson, the person who had given the Creeks such a fatal blow in 1814. The treaty commenced in the following significant words : " Art. 1. The Creek tribe' of Indians cede to the United States all their land east of the Mis- sissippi river." Thus was extinguished the title of the Mus- kogee people to every foot of land comprehended in their ancient territory, consisting of about twenty-five millions of acres of fertile land, all of which had been now ceded in a little more than forty years to the white population of the adjacent States. The speculators had now effected their great object of despoiling the Creeks of their native country. Ostensibly, the treaty provided for the interests of the Indians, but, substantially, it -was a provision for their plunderers. Ninety of the principal chiefs were to have one section * of land each, as soon as the survey of the land had been effected by the United States ; and every head of a Creek family was also to have a half section. Those who consented to emigrate and join their countrymen west of the Mississippi were to be removed at the expense of the Amer- ican government, and to be subsisted by it one year after their arrival there. To the specula- tors the most interesting portion of the treaty was contained in the following words : "Art. 3. The tracts [those provided for the chiefs and heads of families] may be conveyed by the persons selecting the same to any other persons, for a fair consideration, in such manner as the President may direct." Now these chiefs and heads of families, thus to be provided for, were illiterate, wretched beings, broken down in spirit by the ruin of their nation, and most of them addicted to excessive drunkenness. There was not a part of the terri- tory where white men were not to be found vending whiskey to the poor Indians on credit ; so that at -the time this treaty was made they were all deeply indebted ; or if any of them had had but slight dealings with these men, being entirely illiterate, they neither knew how to keep an account of their transactions, nor what the nature of the paper was which they had been induced to sign before witnesses on coming to a settlement. So degraded and miserable was their condi- tion, that almost any of them could be brought to sign any thing when sufficiently excited by whiskey ; and although the third article pro- vided that the conveyance of their lands to others should be made under the direction of the President, yet he could do no more than delegate agents to inquire into the transactions of the Indians and their white creditors, which agents were always presumed to be favourable to these last, and to be easily" satisfied of the " fair consideration" that had been given. Sub- stantially, therefore, this treaty was a liquida- tion of accounts betwixt them and their credi- tors, and transferred to these last the lands which it ostensibly assigned to the Indians : indeed if any of them had even succeeded in retaining possession of their sections, it was * 640 acres. evident, that under such a state of things it was impossible for isolated individuals to live amongst the white men that were now about to pour in amongst them : they could follow the chase no longer, all their occupations were at an end, and nothing would soon be left for them but acts of violence and drunkenness, until disease should destroy them, or until they should be forcibly removed from the country. Such was the situation, and such the future prospects, of the remains of the great Muskogee people at the ratification of this treaty. It is due, however, to truth to say that there had never been wanting virtuous and excellent persons in other parts of the United States to inveigh loudly against the whole system of pro- ceedings by which such an atrocious spoliation was consummated. Nearer to the scene of action a more moderate degree of disapproba- tion was sometimes expressed, and it was not unusual to hear a qualified apology for these transactions from sensible and respectable per- sons, who would shrink from committing acts of injustice and inhumanity themselves ; and who observed that, however criminal such pro- ceedings might appear, the removal of Indians from their lands did not attach as a crime to the nation that removed them ; for where the white population increased so rapidly, the neces- sity of their removal became unavoidable ; and the act, therefore, being involuntary, could not be a crime. If a contrast were to be drawn between the intrinsic importance to the world, of a nation of aboriginal savages and a community of civilised and religious white people, all men would prob- ably be found to agree which of the two should be preserved, even if it involved the destruction of the other. In the eyes of the educated white man, the life of the Indian is divested of every rational comfort, that could encourage him to hope he could ever be reconciled to it. It is a mere animal life, without religion, and without any law except the law of revenge. Restrained neither by education nor example, passion alone rules, and war and the chase become his sole occupations. His children pursue the savage customs of their forefathers ; and as they in- crease in numbers, only extend the deadly spec- tacle of whole nations living and dying without the desire of knowledge. With a well-trained white man, every thing is in a state of religious and moral progression. Education engrafts the desire of knowledge in his young mind, and renders its acquisition cer- tain. His labour, successfully applied in one direction, opens other avenues to him still more profitable, and leads to the development of every recourse of human talent and ingenuity. He abounds in the substantial comforts of life, and is the friend of peace and law, knowing that they alone furnish a secure protection to the fu- ture enjoyment by his generations of the proper- ty he has acquired by his own honourable la- bours. We may believe, therefore, that men who thus, by their sobriety, industry, fidelity, and integrity in social life, exemplify a con- sciousness of their responsibility to their Crea- tor, are, whilst extending their generations, worthily pursuing the true purposes of their ex- istence, and are qualifying themselves for a more perfect state of enjoyment herealter, such, per- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 151 haps, as we can hardly conceive the mere ani- mal Indian to be capable of aspiring to. This contrast, however, if it is not altogether theo retical, is not by any means applicable to the people of Georgia. They, at any rate, were not under the necessity of expelling the Creeks to make room for an increasing virtuous popula- tion : their proceedings had been at all times marked by fraud and violence, against which their victims had in vain looked up for protec- tion to the federal government. a protection it was bound upon every consideration, divine and human, to have given them, and which, per- haps, it was alone restrained from doing by sor- did political management. If the federal gov- ernment could not have done every thing the Creeks could fairly claim under its repeated so- lemn guarantees, -there was still something left in its power. Having repeatedly treated with them as an independent people under their pro- tection, it was bound to give them a domestic government, to have provided for their conver- sion to Christianity, and to have afforded them every facility of becoming cultivators, and form- ing themselves into contented communities, as some of the Choctaws and Cherokees are at this day. CHAPTER XLIII. The ruins of a Nation Kateebee Swamp A Turkey im- plumis Emigrants with their Slaves Phlebotomy- Diamond Rattle Snakes Reach Columbus, in Georgia Falls of the Chatahoochie Leave Columbus Ob- servations upon the Family of Naiades Arrive at Au- gusta Railroad to Charleston, in South Carolina Reach Columbia, in South Carolina. WITH these events, as they are just sketched, uppermost in my mind, I now entered the Creek territory. The lands had been surveyed, the chiefs who had deluded the nation into the treaty had been well provided for, and the rest, with very few exceptions, had transferred their rights to white men. I was now to be a wit- ness, not of the ruins of a Palmyra or a Baby- lon, but of a nation of famous warriors degraded to the lowest pitch of drunkenness and despair, and surrounded in every direction by the least industrious and most dissolute white men on the continent of America. Everything as we advanced was Indian, the road was crooked, bad, and made without any system, and by its side occasional ragged-look- ing pieces of ground, badly cleared up, on which were built miserable-looking cabins without any fences near them. We had not been half an hour in the territory before we came to a filthy cabin where a villanous-looking white man sold tobacco and whiskey. A stream was running close by, and at the door of the cabin three other brutal-looking whites were standing with this man, all engaged in making game of a fine tall Indian, about forty-five years old, who was remarkably well made. He was excessively drunk, and was staggering about stark naked and vociferating in an unintelligible manner, whilst the foam from his mouth was falling on his prominent breast. These fellows were pro- mising him another drink if he would jump into the stream, but although they had persuaded him to strip, the morning was so cold and the water on account of the late rains so high, that he seemed to have sense enough left not to go any farther. We left the place thoroughly disgust- ed, but I have no doubt they prevailed upon him at length, for the Indian, when tipsy, is outra- geous for more liquor until he becomes dead drunk; and the men told us that he had olten done it before. Our road was indescribably bad, going over beds of black waxy plastic clay, of the consistency of that on the small prairies in Arkansas, and entirely cut up by the immense number of waggons containing families that were emigrating from South Carolina to Alaba- ma. Being on foot, and always a-head of the carriage, I used to enter the Indian cabins I came up with, and enter into conversation with those of the people who could speak a little English. Nothing could exceed the dirt and stench of these places. In one of them I stop- ped half an hour, and saw breakfast cooked for some Indian women by a negress who was the : r slave ; it consisted of some rotten-looking meat, and her manner of cooking it, in a dirty pan which seemed never to have been cleaned, was something quite shocking. On reaching the Kateebee swamp we found the bridge of logs, which extended about a mile, quite dislocated with the incessant passage of waggons and the rise of the waters. A file of them had just passed it with great difficu'ty, and on taking a look at the numerous holes made in it, some of which were four feet deep, I de- spaired of getting our vehicle over. A person on horseback, who was accompanying one of the waggons, and with whom I had entered into conversation, very kindly lent me his horse to cross the swamp with, and gave me directions how to proceed ; by observing these I succeed- ed, after a hard struggle ; and on reaching the other end, where were some more waggons, I sent the horse back to him by a negro slave be- longing to one of them. Almost the whole of the bridge was under water, and in one part of it the structure had been quite broken up for a distance of at least 200 yards, the horse treading fearfully amongst the logs, some of which were floating and some sticking in the mud, not a little puzzled how to get out of these chasms after I had forced him. into them. From hence I proceeded on foot to Walton's, a house of entertainment, where the carriage finally overtook me, to the great satisfaction of Mr. T********, who considered the log-bridge, when he got upon it, as the ne plus ultra of his travels in this direction ; but the driver was ac- customed to scenes of this kind, and telling him to sit still, at length extricated him. At this house I met two ladies, both of them very gen- teel persons, on their way from Charlestown, in South Carolina, to Mobile : one of them was a Mrs. H*****, and the other was a Mrs. B****, her niece, an extremely beautiful and interest- ing young person, who had lately been left a widow. Having heard unpromising accounts of the Kateebee Swamp, they had stopped here to get information from some one who had crossed it. We took a late repast together, and I do not know that I ever felt more sympathy for any individuals than for these amiable wo- men, who were travelling through such an in- hospitable country at this unpropitious season, with no attendants but a boy and a negro who 152 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. drove their carriage. On parting I gave him in- structions how to proceed, and was glad to find he was an intelligent and careful man. As to his fair charge, they were both resolutely bent upon making the best of everything, and were prepared to meet events in that admirable spirit which frequently characterises the sex upon perilous occasions. Everything as we advanced into the Creek country announced the total dissolution of or- der. Indians of all ages were wandering about listlessly, the poorest of them having taken to begging, and when we came in sight would come and importune us for money. Some of them, imitating the whites, were doing their best to prey upon each other, for we frequently saw squaws belonging to some of the chiefs seated by the roadside at a log or rude table with a bottle of whiskey, and a glass to supply their unfortunate countrymen who had anything to give in return, if it were only the skin of an animal. These women seemed to laugh at the distresses of the others, and gave us a great deal of their eloquence when we passed them, but fortunately we did not understand what they said, though by their lifting up the whiskey bot- tle it was evident they wanted to make some- thing out of us also. In other places we met young men in the flower of their age, dressed in ragged hunting-shirts and turbans, staggering along, and often falling to the ground, with emp- ty bottles in their hands : in this wretched state of things, with the game almost entirely destroy- ed, it is evident that nothing will soon be left to those who have beggared themselves but to die of want, or to emigrate, a step they are so very averse to take, that in their desperation they have already committed some murders. The jurisdiction of this part of the territory had now passed over from the United States to the State of Alabama, which not having yet commenced its exercise, the Indians did just as they pleased. One of them lately shot a sort of itinerant preacher, named Davis, with whom he had had some dealings, and afterwards came to Walton's and said he was very sorry, but he thought it was a wild turkey he had fired at. This no doubt was a piece of Indian wit, and meant not that he was sorry for what he had done, but that he was sorry it was not a wild turkey he had shot. The few white families who have established themselves on the road were beginning, and with reason, to be alarmed at their situation, for it would require very little combination on the part of the Indians to mas- sacre them all in one night. At the Persimmon Creek and Swamp we met with another broken-down log-bridge that was dangerous in some places ; but several Indians who were here behaved very well, giving us most effectual assistance in getting the carriage across, for which we paid them liberally. From hence we proceeded to one Macgirt's a white man, living in a filthy, Indian-looking place, who pretended to give us some breakfast, but it was so disgustingly bad that we were unable to touch it. This man said he expected every night to have his throat cut, which induced me to tell him, that if it would be any consolation, he might be quite sure they would not touch his victuals. We now got upon an excessively bad road, so cut up that the horses could hardly drag the carriage through the deep ruts, and the soil being of the red, waxy kind, we found it almost as difficult to walk upon it. In the course of the day we met a great many families of plant- ers emigrating to Alabama and Mississippi to take up cotton plantations, their slaves tramping through the waxy ground on foot, and the heavy waggons containing the black women and chil- dren slowly dragging on, and frequently break- g down. All that were able were obliged to walk, and being wet with fording the streams were shivering with cold. The negroes suffer ery much in these expeditions conducted in the winter season, and upon this occasion must have been constantly wet, for I am sure we ford- ed from forty to fifty streams this day, which, although insignificant in dry weather, were at this time very much swollen with rain. We passed at least 1000 negro slaves, all trudging on foot, and worn down with fatigue. The Indian cabins, as we advanced, were somewhat different from those we observed on entering the territory, being merely circular spaces covered with bark, and apparently ex- posed to all the rains : on examining them, how- ever, 1 found that a small trench was dug round them which prevented the superficial water get- ting in, and that the bark was lapped over so well that it kept all the rain out. But no lan- guage can describe the filth in&ide of them, and the disgusting appearance of their tenants, espe- cially the old crones. The women seemed to be fond of being bled, for in one of the largest cab- ins a young man had been bleeding several of them with a rude lancet. Amongst the rest was an old creature turned sixty, the most thoroughly hideous, wrinkled, dark, and dirty hag I had ever seen amongst them : she had the features and hair of an Alecto, and was completely stark naked. We made only twenty-five miles this day, and arrived after dark excessively fatigued at one Cook's, a cheerful, dissipated sort of fellow; whose wife, however, being a very respectable woman, gave us a tolerable clean supper and separate beds. In the morning I found that Mr. Cook was a collector of natural curiosities, the stuffed skins of three extraordinarily thick Diamond rattlesnakes being hung up in the porch, of his little tavern, one of which was seven feet ten inches long, and thirteen inches and a quar- ter in circumference. He said that great num- bers of these enormous snakes, which I believe have not yet been described, were found in the pine lands of this part of the Creek nation. There is also some limestone near his house, in which I observed imperfect specimens of Gry- phaea vesiculosa. From hence we got into a very pretty sandy district, and found a tolerably good road on the sand ridges. Streams, whose banks were covered with laurels, live oaks, and other evergreens, were running pleasingly at the base of graceful pine hills, which overlaid a rot- ten limestone, and wild grass was growing ev- ery where in great profusion. This day we met an almost uninterrupted line of emigrants, with innumerable heavy and light waggons. Some of them had got stuck fast in the deep bottoms, and the men around them were pulling, hauling, whipping, and cursing and swearing to get them out ; there were also some lighter carriages, indicating a better class of emigrants. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 153 Amongst the rest was an old-fashioned gig, with a lame horse guided by an aged grand- mother, with several white and black children stuck in it around her. The whole scene would have reminded me of the emigrations in patriar- chal times, but for the very decided style of the cursing and swearing. As we advanced they all inquired if the road was not better a-head ; and our answer generally was, " Keep up your spirits and you'll get through." At one time of the day we certainly passed 1200 people, black and white, on foot. We found very few Indians in this part of the territory a circum- stance I was glad of, as the spectacle they fur- nished was always a distressing one ; and oc- casionally some of the young men, who were rather drunk, had been very insolent to us. About eight miles before we reached the Cha- tahoochie we met boulders of gneiss and quartz, always an indication, in this part of North America, of the limits of the subcretaceous and tertiary beds. In the afternoon we reached the Chatahoochie, it having taken us four days to travel a distance of ninety miles. This fine stream is crossed by an excellent bridge, and divides the state of Georgia from the Creek ter- ritory now forming part of Alabama. On the opposite bank is the pretty town of Columbus, in Georgia, where we stopped for the night at a noisy tavern, which seemed to be a general boarding-house for the town. My first care was to secure places for the mail-stage in the morning ; the next, to hasten to the Falls of the Chatahoochie, about a mile from Columbus, where I had the pleasure of meeting the gneiss rocks again in place, and of seeing this fine river tumble over them just as it does at Fred- ericsburgh and Richmond, in Virginia : indeed, there is a strong scenic resemblance betwixt the falls of all the rivers on the east side of the chain which fronts the Atlantic. After gratify- ing my curiosity, I recrossed the bridge to the Indian side of the Chatahoochie, where I saw a great many huts, and some dwellings apparent- ly belonging to white persons. Here I found the lowest stage of drunkenness and debauchery, prevailing to such an extent that the settlement had acquired the nickname of Sodom : and on my return into Columbus the street was swarm- ing with drunken Indians, and young prosti- tutes, both Indian and white, a sufficient indi- cation of the manners of the place. Having reached the tavern again, we endea- voured to get something to eat, and were told to wait until the supper-bell rang ; which havr ing done with great patience, we moved, as soon as the tumultuous rush common upon such occasions was effected, to the supper-table ; but it was so full that it was quite impossible to get a seat there, neither was there another chair or bench in the room ; so, knowing it would serve no purpose to show any impatience, we remain- ed standing and looking on. The art of bolting was practised here with as much success as I had seen it done at any other place, and in less than ten minutes every man, without exception, had gone back again to the bar-room ; a circum- stance that would have given us unalloyed pleasure, if they had not taken every scrap that had been set on the table along with them. We now made our wants known ; and the mistress of the house, learning that we were the two U "men" that had come from the "nation" in a carriage, very obligingly ordered some food to- be produced for us, which after a little more patience, we had the satisfaction of eating alone. We left Columbus, January 17, at 5J- A. M., keeping on the edge of the gneiss, which is covered with sand, gravel, and clay, bearing oak, hickory (Juglans), and pine trees. During the day we got upon the red lands, formed appa- rently by the decomposition of primary ferrugi- nous slates, and proceeded on over what is call- ed a rolling and broken country. At the end of fifteen miles we stopped at Ellerslie to break- fast, and were heartily glad we should not have to encounter any more of the distressing scenes we had left behind, for we had now got into a white community, if a population can properly be called so where nine out of ten are black. From thence we proceeded seventeen miles to Talbotton, the soil being generally red, and strewed with quartz boulders. On our road from this place to Flint River a tributary of the Appalachicola, and a very fine stream the driver incautiously overturned the mail-stage, without however, doing us any great harm. Having crossed the Flint, we proceeeed through a sandy country, with pine timber, seven miles to Knoxville ; and thence to Macon, a very pretty town, with a population of from 3000 to 4000 inhabitants, and which, like all the towns in this part of the United States, has a cheerful appearance, not being cramped up as they are in the Northern States. The principal street in Macon is so wide that I took the trouble to measure it, and found it 150 feet broad. The Ocmulgee River, upon which Macon is situated, is a branch of the Alatamaha, the first river which empties into the Atlantic Ocean, north of the peninsula of Florida, and the Flint, which we have just left behind, being a branch of the Appalachicola River, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico, I determined to stay a short time here for the purpose of collecting some of the fresh-water shells called Unios from the Ocmulgee, and comparing them with, those I had taken from the various waters which, flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The fact had been for some time ascertained that, farther to the north, the Unios, which are one of the divi- sions of the family Naiades of Lamarck, consist- , ed as to numbers, of comparatively few species, and these generally homely in their appearance, thin and unornamented, when contrasted with those so unrivalled for their beauty, which in- habit the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexi- co ; the Atlantic shells being without that re- splendent nacre, that rare pearly and delicately- coloured interior, that rich velvetty tuberculated and plicated exterior, and those curious alated, forms which distinguish the Unios of the west- ern waters. An opportunity now occurred of observing whether so extraordinary a difference in the ex- terior and interior structure of shells belonging: to the same genus was geographically true at this point, where rivers emptying into the At- lantic and into the Gulf of Mexico, were flow- ing through the same region, and only distant thirty rriiles from each other. Owing to the state of the waters, I was not fortunate in procuring many shells. The Unia purpurcus, however, which I had not found in 154 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. any of the Gulf waters, and which is the char- acteristic shell of the Atlantic rivers, I did find in the Ocmulgee, without being accompanied by a single specimen of any of the beautiful west- ern species, with most of which I had now be- some extremely conversant : nor could I find out from any of the people at Macon, to whom I showed specimens of the western shells, that such were found in the Ocmulgee at any stage of its waters. This examination, therefore, tended to confirm the opinion that an extra- ordinary diversity of character prevails in the Unios inhabiting these two classes of rivers, a diversity which appears to amount to a total separation of kinds. Nor does the fact militate against this opinion of their general separation, that at various points lying farther to the north, the inhabitants of these two classes of rivers are, for a limited distance, found partially intermixed in the sources of streams which interlock each other, as well as in some of the upper lakes, such as Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan ; for the western Unios found at those points do not appear to travel to great distances from their native waters, and never to descend the Atlantic rivers to where the tide flows ; so that even the exception proves the fact of a real ge- ographical separation of these mollusca, leav- ing the intermixture to be explained by the oc- casional inundations that frequently connect the eastern and western waters at points where the difference of level is never more than twen- ty feet. Mr. Conrad, the only American naturalist "who appears to have travelled for the purpose of studying this interesting Naiad family, has communicated to me the specific names of more than one hundred species (1) of the Unio inhabiting the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, of which not one of the preponderating species has been found in the Atlantic streams : and, as I have before observed, the Unio purpu- reus, that is the characteristic shell of about twenty species inhabiting the Atlantic streams, is not found to the west of Flint River. The causes which have produced so striking a difference in the shells of these mollusca, or have led to this curious geographical distribution of their different species, well deserve the atten- tion of philosophic naturalists. If what have hitherto been called species are, in most instan- ces, only varieties produced by expediency, then the mineral character of the strata through which the rivers flow, the degree of dynamic ac- tion of the streams, and the peculiarity of food and climate, may be amongst the efficient causes of geographical distribution and general variety. On the other hand, as there was undoubtedly a time preceding the existence of all the rivers, viz., when the whole continent of North Ameri- ca was covered by the ocean, the origin of all fresh-water mollusca must necessarily be as- signed to a period subsequent to the upraising of the dry land from the bosom of the ocean, and the establishment of rivers; a state of things which admits a conclusion capable, perhaps, of reconciling the anomaly of the case, since it would bring all these widely separated mollusca into the general category of organized beings, created with inherent faculties capable of secu- uring all the advantages of the varying regions in which they were produced, and in which they were fitted to live, without a chance of any ma- terial deviation in their constitutional structure, The power of accommodating themselves to a partial change of country has no doubt been ac- corded to all beings, and, in the case of these mollusca, we see how they are subject to ad- mixture, and to a casual separation from their original habitats. The differences in the exterior of their shells, even when they are so slight as to escape the notice of other observers, have made them ob- jects of the most intense anxiety to many of those ardent conchologists who indulge in ex- tensive generalization over the fireside, and who rush into immortality upon the strength of any difference, often unreal, which appears to sepa- rate one shell from another, and to justify them in adding to the list of species, already cumbrous and perplexing, by the multiplication of conflict- ing synonymes. The grand object of some of these sedentary naturalists appears to be to coin a new Latin name, and add the magical word "nobis" to it. Accidental characters are just as valuable to them as natural ones. If a shell in a particular stream is soft and friable and easily decorticated at the beaks, \\ here it is most exposed to disintegration, it is forthwith raised into a species, and becomes Unio cariosus, al- though practical naturalists know that the same shell in other streams is never decorticated in the slightest degree. Other shells, which have been named circulus, orbiculatis, subrolundus, triangulans, and the like, according to their approximation to a round or angular shape, are often found with characters totally opposite to those specifically assigned to them ; so that it is not uncommon to find Unios without the specific characters upon which their rank depends in the books, whilst they have got those of almost every other shell. Unio cor- nutus, which in some streams has peculiar pro- tuberances on the exterior of the shell, is found in others without even the budding of horns ; so that there are horned shells without horns, and carious shells perfectly sound. What would be said of the want of sense of cattle-breeders, if they were to talk of long-horned cattle that had got no horns, and Durham short-horns with long horns? These races, which externally differ from all other animals of the same family, are artificial varieties produced by a departure from their natural habits, and would, if they were no longer influenced by art, go back to another and very different state. It is not, therefore, very surprising that the same Unio should differ occasionally so much in the shape of its shell, or that it should he carious in one stream and sound in another, since the modifi- cation in the first case may be produced by the circumstances it is exposed to, aided by an in- herent power of adaptation to them, and in the second, perhaps, by the absence or presence of parasites. As to the nature of that inherent power, we know that the shells of these mol- lusca are repaired again when they are injured; and may, without assuming either intelligence or volition for the animal in that act, infer that the same provident care which knits the broken limb of the unconscious child, has not only been extended to the mollusca, but modifies, when necessary, the primary form of their shells. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 155 When, therefore, we find them thus modified, it | is hut evidence of what nature is ever vigilant to do for conservative purposes. We cannot, therefore, hut regard the labours of th'ose neolo- gists who found their classification of the mol- lusca upon the shells of the animals, as idle and insecure. It is to be regretted, both for the sake of zoology and conchoiogy, that so many specie-makers are pursuing the shadow and not the substance. When conchologists make the knowledge of malacology the serious object of their labours, when they study the animal more and the shells less, every accession to our know- Sedge of this branch of natural history can be profitably carried to the general account of science, and will redound to the permanent hon- our of the discoverer ; whilst those who encum- ber the path of science ty their contests for priority in inventing names for shells will ac- quire no lasting reputation^ even when they succeed in establishing their claims. From Macon to Milledgeville we had thirty miles of bad road over a red clay exceedingly cut up. This town is situated on a hill near the Oconnee River, the east branch of the Ala- tamaha, and is, like the rest, an open, airy place, with fine broad streets. We were now an a part of the old colony of Georgia before it -was enlarged by acquisitions from the Creeks. Timber was comparatively scarce, the soil a deep red earth, still good for cotton, and the fields large and under good fence. On descend- ing a hill about ten miles from this place, I found gneiss near a small stream, with veins of porphyritic granite resembling that upon which the Chesterfield coal-field, in Virginia, reposes, which is of the same character as the granite of Shapfell, in England. The weather was singularly hot for January, Fahrenheit showing 74 upon the scale at noon. From hence we made twenty-three miles to Sparta, a pleasing rural-looking place, built upon a hill, and containing some neat houses, with a very good sort of tavern. The roads were very bad the next twenty-three miles to Warrenton ; we crossed the Ogeechee River at about- half the distance, and proceeding all night through wretched roads for forty-two miles, reached Augusta, on the Savannah River, a muddy stream about 200 yards wide, which is the boundary betwixt the States of South Carolina and Georgia. This is a long, straggling town, containing perhaps 4000 inhabitants; with a main street at least a mile long, and full of small stores and low taverns. All these south- ern towns are very much alike : there is always one endless street filled with small linen-dra- pers' shops or stores, the owners of which call themselves merchants. In some of these stores ready-made clothes are sold, in others boots and shoes ; a few of them contain the wares of ironmongers, and perhaps one or two of them are small book stores. These, with at least one hundred dram-shops and dirty taverns, are what is to be seen in one of these long streets crowded with men all upon a level in greedi- ness and vulgarity ; in short, there is nothing to detain a traveller who is in search of any thing that is rare and interesting, but everything conspires to make him anxious to take to the roads again, be they ever so bad. We crossed the Savannah over a bridge to a dirty suburb called Hamburgh, the termination, of a railroad 140 miles long, from Charleston, on the Atlantic. A great part of this railway, which is a single line, is raised, not on an ern- mnkment, but on piles from six to twenty feet high from the ground, standing upon stilts, as it were, and must be singularly dangerous. At the end of the first stage we passed a well-con- structed inclined plane about half a mile long. Almost the whole distance of eighty miles from Augusta to Columbia is over a pine and sand >untry of the poorest character, the latter part of it being a dead flat. One mile from Colum- bia we crossed a long wooden bridge, thrown over the Congaree at the confluence of the Sal- uda and Broad Rivers, both of which have their sources in the mountains of North Carolina. Not far from the bridge this river falls over gneiss rocks penetrated by granitic veins, and a short railway is laid from the bridge up a gen- tle acclivity to the town, which contains about 4000 inhabitants. The streets, like those of the other towns, ar-e broad, and planted with that gaudy tree, the Pride of China (Melia Aza- derach). Having travelled several nights in that exposed and most comfortless and lumbrous contrivance, an American stage-coach, I deter- mined to rest a day or two here and see a few acquaintances I had in the neighbourhood ; so being fortunate enough to get a private room at the tavern, I proceeded to spruce myself up a little, a thing I had not done since I left New Orleans. CHAPTER XLIV. The Gentlemen of America The Tariff and Nullification Wise conduct of Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun Warlike Propensities of an Octogenarian Philosopher A black Animal chained on the roof of a Stage-coach The char- acter of the White Man elevated by the Slavery of the Black one. COLUMBIA, the capital of South Carolina, is pleasantly situated, and in some of its airy streets there are genteel-looking houses, which at once indicate a respectable state of society ; but I was very much surprised to find the capital of the State built on a piece of ground so barren, that even grass will scarcely grow upon it. Having walked through the streets to see what the town looked like, I rambled in the afternoon about two or three miles off" to call upon Dr. Cooper, whom. I had met before in New York. This gentle- man, always conspicuous, had made himself particularly so of late, in the agitation of the Nullification question, which the Tariff law had given birth to, and which had so nearly brought fhe State of South Carolina into hostile collision. \vith the power of the federal government under the administration of President Jackson. Al- though the excitement which at one time threatened such fatal consequences had been calmed by the judicious conduct of Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun in agreeing to the Compromise Act, yet the same question is of such vital con- sequence to South Carolina, and so important to the Northern manufacturers, that it i-s always liable to be agitated again. The leading plant- ers of South Carolina are generally men who, having inherited large estates with numerous> slaves born upon them, and received liberal ed- ucations, consider themselves, not without some reason, the gentlemen of America; looking down 156 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. upon the trading communities in the Northern States, where slavery does not exist, with tha habitual sense of superiority which men born to command and above all others slaveholders always cherish when they are placed in compe tition with men engaged in mercantile pursuits, whom they consider to be, by the nature of their avocations, incapable of rising to their level : to this feeling, the seeds of which are planted in infancy, is added a distrust sometimes amount- ing to hatred. . The planter, although his crops of cotton and rice often produce him an annual income far ex- ceeding that of the cultivator of the North, and tempt him to live in a style corresponding to the rank he believes himself to hold in society, yet is frequently less independent than the opulent merchant or farmer he undervalues, his annual expenditures being large and certain, whilst his returns are somewhat precarious. He has per- haps to feed and clothe several hundred slaves, and it is not convenient for him to reduce his style of living: so that not unfrequently the merchant at the north, who is his agent, and to whom he con- signs his productions for sale, sends him an ac- count current, where, instead of small charges be- ing deducted from large returns, he finds the ad- vances made to him in money, the bills for feeding and clothing his slaves, his wines and luxuries, and other charges, swelled to an amount far ex- ceeding the sum-total that his crops have sold for; perceiving himself therefore the debtor and quasi slave of the man he despises, his pride, his interest, and his passions, all combine to rouse his indignation: at such moments the agitated planter is easily led to follow in the wake of any politicians who flatter him with the prospect of red ress. When the politicians and manufacturers of the Northern States combined to enact the tariff of 1828, " for the protection of home manufactures," alleging that the productions of the Southern States were admitted without competition into the ports of England, a general feeling of resist- ance arose in the State of South Carolina: the duties now to be levied upon those articles of Brit- ish manufacture which the planter was compell- ed to purchase for the use of his slaves, must necessarily greatly augment his expenditures, and to this was added the apprehension of another evil of still greater magnitude, viz. that Great Britain might lay retaliatory duties upon his ex- ports, and gradually look to other countries to be supplied with them. Politics and interests therefore combined in South Carolina to rouse the people into a resistance to that law, and the government of the State taking the lead, finished by declaring that when the United States gov- ernment manifestly exceeded its powers of which fact they held that the suffering State must be the best judgeevery single State had a natural and constitutional right to "nullify its acts." Armies now were raised, and everything was preparsd for resistance, as much as if a foreign invader was about to enter their territory. Such was the indomitable spirit that appeared to pre- vail, and the determination not to permit the rev- enue laws of the United States to be executed in South Carolina, that if President Jackson, as it was believed he was disposed to do, had attempt- ed to execute them by force, there is no doubt that a furious civil war would have raged in the State, of which the consequences let the ques- tionable result have been either one way or the other must have been signally fatal ; for no one can predict the ultimate consequences of giving military habits to a numerous slave population, which must upon so fatal a contingency have unavoidably taken place. Happily for the coun- try, the wise compromise which took place, the effect of which was to provide ibr the gradual reduction of those oppressive tariff duties to an amount limited by the wants of the public reve- nue, and not by the demands for protection, avert- ed this great danger. Mr. Clay, whom the pro- tection-party claimed as their leader, and Mr. Calhoun, the. avowed leader of the Nullifying party, patrictically concurred in making sacrifi- ces in favour of peace, by carrying the measure called the Compromise Act through the national legislature. No man had taken a more energetic and ani- mated part in this dangerous agitation than the veteran Dr. Cooper, now approaching his eighti- eth year, and one f the most remarkable men that have emigrated from England his native country to the United States. Cooper was a philoshpical tteve of the famous Dr. Priestley, and finding that everything in England was too long or too short for him, he passed over to the " asylum of oppressed humanity," with the in- tention of making it his home for life. He was a man of singular versatility of talent, of unceas- ing activity, and great natural benevolence. His attainments were various; there was nothing in law, physic, divinity, chemistry, or general sci- ence that he had -entirely overlooked ; and al- though some of his screws were uncommonly loose, particularly his religious ones, he was ca- pable of being a very useful member of society, and was always as such a man with so much, experience must be a most agreeable and in- structive companion. But that which above all hings made the Doctor happy, and which wher- ever he went seemed to be his study to provide a quantum sufficit of, was persecution, and this he was fortunate enough to find even in Ameri- ca. On his arrival his talents procured him an official appointment of some distinction in Penn- sylvania, but he soon contrived to be driven from it, and to be fined heavily into the bargain. At ength he took refuge in South Carolina, was well received by the leading planters there, and placed in the honourable and lucrative situation of President of the College in the town of Co- umbia. I Here the Doctor might have flourished in re- nown, and have pursued a career of usefulness, jut the current was too gentle for him, and pre- ferring troubled waters, he began to insinuate that it was unworthy of free men to be educated n religious prejudices, and ended by openly de- nouncing the Christian religion. If there were a few persons in the State to whom this was agreeable, there were a great many to whom it was very offensive. The friends of the college had hoped that in placing an amiable person with such various attainments at its head, he would have possessed sufficient judgment to lave looked to the interests of the institution, and would have endeavoured to support that which supported him. The sons of persons en- :ertaining different opinions both in religion and Dolitics were to be educated here, and it was ex- pected by all that though theology was not to be i principal branch of study, yet a reverence for religion would be inculcated; it was soon made evident, however, that anything but this was in- stilled into the young minds entrusted to his TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 157 care, and parents immediately began to withdraw their children from an institution where the Christian religion was openly derided. The Doctor having succeeded in driving away all those who were not disposed to imbibe his irre- ligious opinions, proceeded to practise the same tactics with those who would not agree with him in defying the government of the country, as established by law, in regard to Nullification ; so that his students became at length very few in numbers, and not long before I reached Co- lumbia, the friends of the college, to save it from total ruin, caused the Doctor to be removed from his situation. In doing this they acted with great .delicacy and generosity, creating for him a sort of sinecure office, under which, unless he again oscillates out of his orbit, he may enjoy a very competent salary for the rest of his life. I found Doctor Cooper in a pleasant little villa, which the ladies of his family had fur- nished with a great many comforts. He re- ceived me very cordially, and although about eighty years old, began to talk with wonderful energy and vivacity upon a variety of subjects. The Compromise Act, however, was uppermost in the Doctor's mind, and I soon saw that he did not like it at all, for it had extinguished all the eloquence, patriotism, and achievement which Nullification might have brought forth at a future day. Upon my congratulating him upon that measure, and the happy consequences which would flow from it, he rose from his easy chair, and although almost bent double like a h'ook, he seized the hearth-brush, and with his eyes full of fire, and wielding the brush as if it were a broadsword, denounced the Compromise Act as an ignoble measure which he never could ap- prove of; declared that the'Nullifiers were quite in the wrong to make peace with the Union men (their opponents in South Carolina), and that it would have been a much better course for them to have taken the field against General Jackson, and have fought all the power he could have brought against them. " We have lost a fine opportunity, sir, of carrying this State to the highest renown," said this little crooked octo- genarian; and then giving General Jackson a desperate cut with the hearth-brush, he went back to his easy chair again. I was perfectly delighted with the vivacity of the old gentleman, and never passed a pleasanter evening. At tea we were joined by some very well-bred neighbours, amongst whom were sever- al ladies, to whom the Doctor, constantly paddling about amongst them, paid his lively compliments, and then returned to his chair to laugh and dis- pute about chemistry, geology, law, and, above all, religion and politics. Whatever side of the question he took he maintained it with wonder- ful energy, and always with pertinacity when he could not do it with reason, as if it was too late in life for him to be convinced about such matters. The next morning I visited the college, which had the appearance of being very much neglect- ed; there was a collection of minerals, but it was in wretched disorder; indeed everything seemed to be out of place. On my return I learnt that some gentlemen, with whom I had 'been previously acquainted, had called upon me, and I willingly accepted an invitation to dine with one of them. Our party consisted of .some gentlemen of the place, Dr. Cooper, and a few professors belonging to the cojlege. Some of them were very intelligent men. and hearty in their manners. What particularly struck me at this dinner was the total want of caution and reserve in the ultra opinions they expressed about religion and politics; on these topics their conversation was not at all addressed to me, but seemed to be a resumption of the opinions they were accustomed to express whenever they met, and upon all occasions. A stranger dropped in amongst them from the clouds would hardly have supposed himself amongst Americans, the language they used and the opinions they ex- pressed were so diametrically opposed to the self-laudatory strain they too generally indulge in when speaking of their country or themselves. It was quite new to me to hear men of the better class express themselves openly against a re- publican government, and to listen to discus- sions of great ability, the object of which was to show that there never can be a good govern- ment if it is not administered by gentlemen. Not having shared in the conversation, I ven- tured at one time to name Mr. Madison, at whose house I was in the habit of making au- tumnal visits, as a person that would have ranked as a gentleman in any country ; but I was immediately stopped by a declaration that he was a false hypocritical dissembler, that he was one of the favourites of the Sovereign Peo- ple, and one of the worst men the country had produced. At a period of less excitement such, a, sentiment would not have been tolerated, and I could not but attribute their present pique against this eminent statesman to the inflexible opposition he had given to Nullification, which went to destroy the efficacy of the constitution he had been one of the principal framers of. A short time after, something very extravagant having been said, I could not help asking, in a good-natured way, if they called themselves Americans yet; the gentleman who had inter- rupted me before, said, "If you ask me if I am an American, my answer is, No, sir, I am a South Carolinian." If the children of these Nullifiers are brought up in the same opinions, which they are very likely to be, here are fine elements for future disunion ; for, imbibing from their infancy the notion that they are born to command, it will be intolerable to them to sub- mit to be, in their own estimation, the drudges of the northern manufacturers, whom they de- spise as an inferior race of men. Even now there is nothing that a southern man resents so much as to be called a Yankee, a term which in the Southern States is applied exclusively to the New England people, and in quite as sarcastic a sense as it is sometimes applied in Europe to all citizens of the United States. ) Having secured seats in the mail for the north on the 22nd of January, we were standing near the stage-coach at the door of the tavern waiting the arrival of the mail from Charleston, when it drove up with a negro male slave, about thirty- years old, chained flat on the roof, the poor devil having been overtaken by his master after an ineffectual attempt to run away. It happened, oddly enough, that a gentleman whom I had met at dinner, and with whom I had had more than once a good deal of conversation, having called to bid me good bye, was at this * very moment talking rather earnestly with me on the subject of slavery. Admiring his intelli- gence and the liberality of his sentiments on other subjects, I had ventured to observe what I had cautiously abstained from doing when in. society that it detracted very much from the 158 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. estimation in which the gentlemen of South Carolina otherwise deserved to be held, that no relaxation was to be found in their opinions about slavery, and that it seemed to me their state could never be as prosperous as the north- ern states, as long as they held men in bondage, and relied entirely upon slave labour. The line of argument he took up in answer to my obser- vation was really very curious, and deserves to be recorded. He observed that the working of the institution of slavery (so he dignified this bondage) was not understood out of the slave states ; that it elevated the character of the master, by comparison, made him jealous of his own, and the natural friend of public liberty ; that the dignity of character which had belonged to southern gentlemen, from Wash- ington down to the present times, was unknown to the men of the northern states, and must al- ways be, since one effect of their laws and cus- toms was to cause a division of the estate of every head of a family, on his decease, equally amongst his children, and so compel every one of them to reconstruct a fortune as well as he could; that every body knew this generated a rapacious spirit, and made the accumulation of wealth the sole object of every man's life. This was not the case in South Carolina, where the planter, whatever might be his transactions, was careful not to encroach upon the character of the gentleman ; and he adduced Mr. Calhoun, the leader of the Nullifying party, as an eminent instance of the justice of what he said. This gentleman, he remarked, was a planter and a slaveholder, who in private life never had been known to be guilty of a mean action, and in pub- lic life had never omitted an opportunity of vin- dicating the constitution from the attempts of sordid persons to pervert its intentions. For these reasons, he said, Mr. Calhoun, independent of his great intellectual powers, was universally honoured in his native state, and was justly look- ed up to by all as the vigilant guardian of its rights. All these great principles of action, he added, were developed and strengthened by the institution of slavery; that the slaves were not an unhappy race of men; they were well fed, well clothed ; and if there had been a necessity for it in the late dispute with the United States government, the slaves would have shown to a man their well-known fidelity to their masters. I was struck with this justification of slavery, which, notwithstanding its excluding humanity, benevolence, and justice from the list of our du- ties to others, would seem to qualify white men in a very high degree for the enjovment of the compulsory labour of men of a different colour. If it means any thing, it must mean that every man should he a slaveholder in order to the suc- cessful development of his own inherent dignity. Just at the moment my friend had finished, the exception to this fidelity before noticed drove Up to where we were talking, chained at full length flat upon the top of the stage. I had seen turtles, and venison, and wild turkeys, and things of that sort, fastened to the top of a stage-coach before, but this was the first black man I ever saw arranged in that manner. Catching a glimpse of him as the stage drove up, I thought it was a bear, or some other animal on its way to the larder; but in a few minutes they handed him down from the top, holding him by the end of his chain, exactly as if he had been a baboon, and then proceeded to hoist him to the top of the stage we were .to travel in, and fasten him down there just as he had been before. CHAPTER XLV. Inside and Outside Passengers in chains Bob Chatwood and the Game of All Fours A Social Bottle An Over- turn in the dark Reach Charlotte, in North Carolina Description of the Gold Region in North Carolina and Virginia-Richmond, in Virginia-The Chesterfield Coal- Field Speculations respecting it. I NOW bade adieu to my friend, and pointing to the poor fellow in bonds, told him that, since I was going to travel with the institution of slavery, I hoped 1 should turn out to be a perfect Hamp- den before the day was over. He laughed and went away, and Mr. T******** and myself took our seats in the stage-coach, not in the least dreaming of what was now going to occur. We were left alone for a few minutes, and I was ru- minating upon the fine theory of the person who had just gone away, and contrasting it with the practical consequences attending the "institu- tion," as exemplified over my head, when a num- ber of persons came out of the kitchen door of the tavern, approached the stage, opened the door with something of a bustle, and handed a young white man into it, about twenty-five years old, wjth his legs fettered and manacles on his hands. This agreeable object took the hind seat exactly opposite to me, and after him entered a deputy sheriff, in whose custody he was, and a, number of low vulgar fellows all seeming very much in want of shackles until the stage was full. I was so exceedingly struck with the nov- elty of my situation, travelling in a stage-coach, with a black man in chains at the top, and a white man chained in the inside, that I could not help calling the agent of the stage to the window next to my seat, to ask him if he could not get me a yellow man from the mulattos in the street, to chain at the bottom. The man laughed heart- ily, and gave me the history of my opposite neighbour. His name was Bob Chatwood, a desperate, gambling, dissolute fellow, from his earliest years. One of Bob's practices was to persuade negroes that he was acquainted with to steal whatever they could from their masters, convert it into money, and then play with them at all fmirs, a game some of them are very fond of. There was a black amateur, a great adept at the game, quite equal to Bob at it; and upon one occasion, when they were playing together in a: shed by the light of an old lamp, the negro won. every game. Bob lost his temper, and after keeping the black man up almost all night, re- fused in the end to pay his losses; but producing- two silver dollars, told him if he could win them, he would pay him. Luck still continued on Sambo's side, who, having won the game, in- stantly snatched up the money and ran off. Bob soon overtook him, and in the scuffle which en- sued, finding the black man too strong, he ran a knife into his throat and mortally wounded the poor fellow, who had just strength to get home, tell his story, and expire. For this offence Bob was tried, and, being a white man, great sympathy was manifested in his favour. If it had been nothing but an angry scuffle between them, he would probably have- been acquitted, but he had committed the unpar- donable sin of playing at cards with a slave for stolen property: this was proved against him at Chesterville, a town through which we were to- pass, and he was found guilty of murder. His friends, however, had influence to procure a new trial before the superior court at Columbia, where he had beert removed ; but the example was too TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 159 dangerous, and the first sentence had just been confirmed, and Bob ordered to be hung in April next. The silence which prevailed in the stage-coach for the first mile or two was broken by the dep- uty taking a bottle of liquor from his pocket, putting it to his mouth, and passing it round, when each one, taking his quid of tobacco out for an instant, took a swig. Bob took a very hearty one, and then kindly passed the bottle to me ; who having declined touching it, the deputy extended his arm, took it out of Bob's manacled paw, corked it, and replaced it in. his pocket. They now began to talk politics ; all of them were Nullifiers except Bob, and Bob was for General Jackson, probably thinking that the best chance he stood for his life depended upon a suc- cessful invasion of the state, and a general clear- ing out of the gaols. The bottle continued to circulate from time to time; but Bob, finding me so unsocial, ceased offering it to me, whether from policy or displeasure I could not tell. He looked very thoughtful at times, as if his fate was uppermost in his mind ; but he was always ready for the bottle, and, after he had drunk, was sometimes livelier than any of them, getting into long stories about cock-fighting, and horse-ra- cing, and card-playing, that showed he was a perfect character in his line. The deputy and the other fellows laughed and joked and told their stories, treating Bob exactly as if they were his equals. This agreeable illusion seemed to cheer him a little, and to last until the last swig at the bottle had ceased to warm him, and until there was a momentary silence; then I used to ob- serve, especially towards the close of the day, that a dreadful change would come over his features, as if the unfortunate wretch was picturing to himself his last moments, when the gallows and the hemp were standing ready to receive him. They had soon emptied the first bottle, and had replenished it at some place where we had chan- ged horses; but this too became nullified, and then the whole party of blackguards seemed disposed to sleep, and left me to such reflections as could not fail to occupy my mind, shut up as I was in a vehicle conveying such a horrid combination of beings. We had made fifty-five miles, and were dri- ving on rather rapidly in the dark, having only five miles more to Chesterville, when the stage, having got into a deep rut, was suddenly upset on the side where I was, and my head coming to the hard ground with a violent blow, I received a severe contusion. All had now to get out and assist to replace the stage on its wheels. The black fellow who was chained to the top was ex- ceedingly amused with the incident, and got into one of his negro fits of laughter; he was tired of his recumbent position, and had now, without any trouble or hurt, got into a vertical one. We could scarce see each other, and an opportunity might have occurred of Bob's hiding himself away in the woods ; but the deputy and the other fellows immediately convinced him that he was not quite one of themselves, by lashing him to a tree, before they assisted the driver with the stage. As for myself, I had such a violent head- ache with the blow I had got, that it was impos- sible for me to assist them or bear the motion of the stage. I determined therefore to walk, dark as it was, slowly on to Chesterville, where I ar- rived in about two hours and a half, the stage coming up with me as I was entering the place. Our drive this day was over decomposed fer- ruginous slates ; and occasionally, as we drew northward, gneiss and greenstone appeared in the ravines, with a decomposing rock, which looked like elvan, frequent veins and beds of which are found in the Gold Region of Norths Carolina, which we were now approaching. From Chesterville, where we left the motley crew we had been travelling with, black and white, we continued twenty-one miles to York- ville, a small village, and pursuing our journey thirty miles to Charlotte, in North Carolina,, crossed the Catawba River, which lies half way betwixt these two towns, into that state. It was. night before we reached Charlotte; and I went immediately to bed, suffering severely from the contusion I had received. Feeling myself refreshed by my night's rest, and my headache having very much abated, I .descended the next morning to a comfortable breakfast; and afterwards sallied out to examine the neighbourhood, which has acquired a little celebrity by the establishment of some mills here, for the purpose of crushing the gold ore which. abounds so much in this part of the country. What is called the Gold Region in the United States, may be described as a metalliferous belt extending in a south-west direction from the Po- tomac River to the heads of the Talapoosa, in. the State of Alabama, running in its course through the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The length of this belt is about 600 miles, and it has a mean, breadth from its southern to its northern edge of about eighty. In every part of this extensive line native gold is found in alluvial deposits, and in various streams, whilst the contiguous rocky strata abound in quartzose veins more or les& auriferous. From the nature and position of the alluvial deposits, the manner in which they are situated in relation to the stream, and the gen- eral modification which the surface has received from one end of the line to the other, it is impos- sible to avoid the conclusion that there has been, at some remote period, a great degradation of the ancient surface, and that the metallic and. stony contents of the alluvial deposits are com- posed of the ruins of the old rocks. Nothing is more common in these deposits than to find, masses of quartz with small lumps of native gold imbedded in them, resembling in every par- ticular others which are taken from veins now in place, the heaviest masses being always found nearest to the auriferous strata, and the particles of gold dust at the greatest distance from them. The auriferous quartzose veins in the gold region are singularly abundant, and are either found in a formation of which talcose slate is the characteristic rock as in Virginia or are sheathed with talcose slate, and hold an almost vertical position in elvan beds and beds of ferity ginous slates, as in North Carolina ; so that tal- cose rocks characterize the entire Gold Region, from one extreme to the other. These talcose rocks are continued north from the Potomac, running in the same north-east direction through, the northern portion of the United States to the River St. Lawrence, south of Quebec. I have traced them through the whole of this extended line, and although gold is not found in every part of it as on the south side of the Potomac, yet it is eminently metalliferous in copper and lead, and native gold has been found upon it in various localities even as far as the extreme point to which it has been traced. As a metal- liferous deposit it is, therefore, one of the most 160 remarkable geological features of the continent of North America, running parallel to, and in some parts forming a portion of, th'e great ele- vated Allegheny belt. The gold region in Virginia is a singularly beautiful country, especially in a western direc- tion from the town of Fredericsburg, on the Rapahannock River. When the discovery of this metal there began to be first talked of some years ago, I passed a great deal of my time in those lovely woodland districts, where the whole country is thrown into hills gracefully rounded by the action of water, and where the clear streams in the valleys run through the alluvial deposits, consisting of the ruins of the rocks which had once united the hills by a more ele- vated surface. With a clean room to retire to at a settler's residing far in the woods, and abundance of milk and bread, and bacon, and lea and sugar to comfort myself with when I re- turned at night fatigued with my day's excur- sion, the time stole away most agreeably and rapidly. Many a time, when wandering by one of those murmuring brooks, and listening to the rich and varied melody of the mocking-bird, whose favourite breeding-place is in these groves, have I dipped out the auriferous gravel, washed it in a pan that I carried about with me, and thus collected in the course of the day native gold of the value of from five to ten shillings. In a few of the streams the grains were very abundant, and I have known some of those per- sons who then began to follow gold-finding as an occupation, collect as much as the value of a guinea or two in the course of a day. Upon one occasion I visited an extensive allu- vial deposit in the county of Louisa, where great success had attended the operations, .some per- sons having unexpectedly come upon an extra- ordinary rich bed of auriferous gravel, from which in six days they extracted native gold, in grains, of the value often thousand dollars. This treasure, when I saw it, had a very odd appear- ance, for the proprietors had put it into glass bottles ; it was a large sum, and people at a dis- tance were not disposed to believe so much gold had been found there ; but there it was, I saw it weighed, and could entertain no doubt upon the subject. Soon after this discovery, the vein from whence it was derived was also found, consist- ing of a pale pc*ous quartz, thickly studded with knobs and lamina of native gold, and upon com- paring specimens of it which I was permitted to do with the contents of the bottles, I found that man res was rounded and worn by the action of water. I also visited another very interesting place. Some children playing on the side of a hill, on* pulling up some bunches of grass, found numer- ous particles of gold mixed up with the earth, which inducing their father to dig into it, he came to a very extensive pocket or cavity, at the bottom of which was an immense quantity of yellow earthy matter (decomposed felspar) with pepitas in it, some of the finest specimens of which I purchased for my cabinet. He now got two or three hired negroes to assist him, and this stuff was wheeled to the brook which ran at the foot of the hill and washed. Although the operation was conducted in a very wasteful manner, he nevertheless sometimes obtained gold to the amount of one thousand dollars in the course of the day. The last time I visited his mine I was sorry to find him under very TRAVELS IN AMERICA. at many of the pepitas, or knobs of gold, cor- sponded in form, although the alluvial gold changed circumstances, for having extracted aL the loose earth from the pocket, he had made his assistants dig various adits at random into the hill without propping the roofs up, in conse- quence of which a ponderous mass of earth gave way and killed one of his hired negroes, whose full value he was obliged to pay to the proprie- tor. This untoward event had created a preju- dice against his mind, and, as he told me, " had turned all the luck against him." I found, how- ever, that the true cause of the reverses which overtook him was more deeply seated than this, for in his confidence in the resources of the mine, he had, a short time before, purchased the fee- simple of the place of the owner, had paid him on account almost all the cash he had obtained for his gold, and had mortgaged the place for the remainder. Having no ready money left, and the mine requiring both skill and capital nei- ther of which he possessed to carry it on, the mortgagee took advantage of his necessity and proceeded to foreclose the mortgage ; so that he was in a likely way to lay down his character of gold-miner and go back to his first occupation of gold-finder by washing gravel at the brooks. The general direction of the auriferous veins of quartz in this part of Virginia is north-east and south-west a fact which appears to identi- fy their origin with that of the great belt of the Alleghanies : they are very numerous, and oc- cur in some places every two or three hundred yards, often branching out into narrow ramifica- tions, and uniting again into one vein from four to six feet broad. The veins go down almost vertically, and upon being broken up are gener- ally found loaded with ferruginous matter, or crystals of sulphuret of iron containing thin la- mina of gold. Near the surface these crystals are very much decomposed, and often present particles of gold lying free amongst a quantity af oxide of iron. In some instances the crystal- line structure of the pyrites is beautifully ex- hibited, the incipient decomposition of the crys- tal showing the complex laminated structure of the interior, where bright lamina of native gold are seen leaning against the parietes, with trans- parent crystals of sulphur formed from the de- composition of the sulphuret. In some instan- ces the veins of quartz contai* BO sulphuret of "ron, but present, on being fractured, knobs and particles of native gold, which form a brilliant contrast to the pure whiteness of the quartz. In almost every case, however, where shafts have been sunk upon a vein, the quartzose matter de- creases in quantity as the vein descends, and at a mine in Orange County which I visited, the contents of the vein became more and more pv- ritical as it descended, until, at a depth of 120 feet, no more quartzose matter appeared, and the entire vein was composed of a finely granulated sulphuret of iron. Although there are a few known localities in Virginia where the native old is alloyed with silver, and many where tel- lurium abounds in the veins, yet the native gold s generally very little alloyed, rising as high as twenty-three or twenty-three and a half carats, vhich is gold nearly in its pure state. Through the kindness of Mr. Bissel, an intel- igent and experienced gold-miner, who has su- perintended the operation of the gold-mills in the vicinity of Charlotte, I had an opportunity of examining the ores of this part of the State of North Carolina. Those which are now broken at the Charlotte Mills are brought from a mine at some distance called Capp's, which in com- TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 161 pany with Mr. Bissel I visited, and went down the shaft that has been sunk to a depth of 160 Feet. The quartz vein here was sheathed with a case of talcose slate, and the elvan rocks through which it descended, although in some places hard, were very prone to decomposition. The gold was everywhere associated with iron, and seldom visible. Near to this 1 saw an in- stance of a flat vein or floor of auriferous quartz, which seemed in its progress from below, when in a semiliquid state, to have poured itself out right and left, and to have completely covered the elvan to a considerable distance. We visit- ed also another vein which had been opened, in one part of which specks of gold appeared, but which was very rich in sulphuret of copper. From various copper ores which were shown to me, 1 imagine that that metal will hereafter be found more productive in North Carolina than gold. The ores are unusually rich, and I think will repay those who at some future day may cause them to be skilfully treated. At present there seems to be no information of this kind in the State. As to gold-mining, I do not learn that any person has become enriched by it: it is a fascinating pursuit and has attracted many, but the average value of the ore, as far as I can learn, does not exceed two shillings and sixpence the bushel of lOOlbs. ; and whether such ore can be extracted from deep mines, brought to the surface, broken, triturated, amalgamated, and its precious material finally melted into bars of pure gold, at a profit, is very doubtful. That some localities may yield a fair return for the great capital which gold-mining involves is very prob- able, and I have seen some ores that would in- spire me with confidence; but I should as soon think of purchasing every ticket in a lottery for the sake of securing the great prize, as of expend- ing capital in working some of the mines I have visited. Having passed my first day here very agree- ably and instructively, I sallied out alone on the next, and wandered around the neighbourhood, in many parts of which are feldsphatic rocks chequered with a great number of auriferous quartz veins, whilst in particular areas talcose and other slates are found loaded with fer- ruginous matter. Wherever the ferruginous slates occur the soil is red, and where the elvan rocks prevail it is dry, sandyish, and has a pale arenaceous colour; the colour and constitution of the soil conspLuously announcing the nature of the subjacent rocks. But the most remark- able mineral which I have seen in America, both on account of its great beauty and its rarity, is a singular felspatbic dyke of a pale colour, of the variety which the Germans have named Weiss-stein, but spotted with brown and brown- ish black cylindrical or oblong infiltrations, often several inches in length, and from the size of a pin's head to half an inch in diameter. These, in transversal sections, appear more or less in the form of orbicular spots in proportion as the slabs are cut parallelly to the horizontal rifts in the rock, and somewhat resemble the spots on a leopard's skin. They appear to owe their origin to infiltrations of oxides of manganese and iron in solution, and contain, as weir as the mass in which they are enclosed, minute double six-sided pyramids of quartz, and small reddish particles, probably of the garnet kind.* There is also an- * I brought a magnificent specimen of this rock to Eng- land in 1839, weighing about SOOlbs. ; and my friend Dr. X other variety in the same dyke, perhaps not less beautiful, where the infiltrations have uniformly taken the dendritic form. The dyke is very ex- tensive, and is a short half-hour's walk from the village of Charlotte. At midnight on the 26th, we got again into the stage and drove to a small place called Lexing- ton to breakfast, passing through the town of Salisbury and crossing the Yadkin Rivereen pro- duced up to that period, and that their appearance was re- served for a time approaching nearer to the present order of nature. We are entitled, therefore, to draw the legiti- mate inference that the coal beds of North America are de- rived not from such forest-trees as grow in our own times, but from the tropical vegetation which the high tempera- ture of the globe produced at that period, and from the Sphagna or Mosses which grew in the immense areas of the low, swampy country which represented America when this country first emerged from the ocean. We have al- ready seen how progressively 'dry land' has been redeem- ed from the ocean'in every part of the world, aud how, by causes of a providential character inherent in our planet, it has been gradnally raised to a height above the water suffi- cient for the economical uses of those destined to live upon it. Amongst the instances of upheaval of the surface, may lie conspicuously named the elevation of mountain chains, bearing along with them the once horizontal strata with their associate minerals, and especially the system of the Great Belt of the Alleghanies, which has divided the car- boniferous area of the continent by coming up in the centre of its axis, and leaving the upraised mineral deprived of its Jiitumen by the influence of the cause which upheaved the chain itself. That such was the modification of the sur- face at that peculiar period we can appeal to the highly inclined state of the formations subjacent to the coal strata fc very where, and to the general horizontality of the sncceed- Jlig deposits." From the State of Alabama to Pictou. in Nova Scotia, the coal-beds, wilh some interruptions, can be followed, in a north-east direction, for about 1500 miles; and from Richmond, in Vir- ginia, to Rock River, in the State of Illinois, the,y are continually crossed at right angles for a dis- tance of about 800 miles. The vast geographi- cal extent of these carboniferous strata would seem of itself to exclude the drifting theory ; the objections to which are increased by the varying nature of the mineral, and the manner in which it is brought to the surface, as exhibited upon the transverse line. At Richmond we find the coal bituminous, and proceeding on that line in a di- rection west-north-west to Rock River, we cross the great Alleghany belt, where the coal is of the anthracite or non-bituminous variety, and con- forms to the rock strata in their flexures and tilted state; but having passed this belt, the stra- ta become horizontal, and the coal assumes the same level position. Now these varieties of coal found upon this transverse line appear to belong to the same part of the geological series, for the mineral is always found associated with the same conglomerate grit and shale, except in a few instances where it lies upon other beds of the carboniferous rocks, and excepting the gran- ite basin in the Richmond district. No argu- ment, therefore, can be raised in favour of the drifting theory, from the difference in any of the circumstances which separate the anthracitic and bituminous beds, although a fair inference may be raised that the anthracite coal was lifted out of its horizontal position when the great Al- leghany belt was upheaved, and that its non-bi- tuminous quality is owing to the influence of the calorific intensity which accompanied that up- heaval. The next link in this argument is the period at which this great dynamic action took place. We have before seen that the entire oolitic se- ries is wanting in North America, and that, with few exceptions, the coal formations are the latest deposits there. Considering, therefore, the high- ly inclined state of the subjacent formations, and the horizontality of the succeeding deposits in every known part of the world, we cannot but admit the accordance of these disturbing opera- tions of nature at the same period in both hem- ispheres, and come to the conclusion that these coal-fields were formed before the period of the oolitic system, and, consequently, before mono- cotyledonous plants or forest trees existed. From these data, it would appear more consistent with the progressive simplicity of the providential plan for enlarging and preparing the surface of this planet for the increasing wants of man, to suppose that, immediately preceding the eleva- tion of the Alleghany belt, the American conti- nent had barely emerged from the ocean, and was in a general marecageous state. From the common tropical character of coal plants, wher- ever found, we infer a high degree of tempera- ture for the globe even in the northern latitudes, and may suppose an extraordinary exuberance of growth in the vegetable bodies of that period. The plants, therefore, whose impression we find in the coal shales, may have grown in the driest parts of the nascent land; and where great swampy basins or depressions existed, these, as the land gradually rose, would become partially drained, and be subsequently occupied with sphagna, or mosses. The causes which were in action at that geological period are far from be- ing understood, but we have abundant evidence, 164 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. in numerous parts of the world, that portions of the surface were subject to frequent submersion and re-appearance, becoming submarine and terrestrial by turns, and receiving additional de- posits every time they were depressed. In this manner a bed of sphagnum, 100 feet deep, being submerged, would receive a deposit of earthy matter that would press it down ; and upon coming to the surface again its growth might be repeated, and the area be again submitted to submersion and receive a new sedimentary de- posit. I have seen beds of sphagnum in North America probed for sixty fqet without coming to the bottom, all of them connected with lakes or ponds in a partial state of desiccation, and which, if acted upon by similar causes, would end in the production of similar phenomena. This probably was the case with the coal basin in the Richmond district, the seams there being separ- ated by earthy deposits, and the basin itself at length filled up with near 100 different beds of sedimentary matter. Everything concurs to prove that "these were not deposited simultane- ously, but that their deposition was effected at distinct intervals ; for they are not only frequent- ly different in their nature and quality, but in various seams of bituminous shale, some of which-are at least 100 feet Jujve the coal, fossil coal plants of which I ma<'e an ample collec- tion are found, of great beauty. The dynamic periods, then, must have been succeeded by pe- riods of repose sufficiently long to have permit- ted the growth of equiseta, catamites, and oth- er plants, whose impressions are found there. These may have grown in the shaly mud where their impressions are now seen; but whether or not, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that immense periods of time are involved in the structure of this coal-field. It is a matter of great utilitarian consideration for the United States to have it ascertained whether this coal-field forms part of a line con- necting those carboniferous localities lying far- ther to the south in North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, which run parallel with the coal strata to the west. Those in Alabama are well known ; but of those in Georgia only obscure indications have hitherto existed. As far as 1 have been able to make myself acquainted with them, all these coal strata trend in the same mag- netic direction of N.E. S.W. ; and as they are all on the east side of the Alleghany belt, it may be that hereafter they may be found to be upon the same magnetic line, and to be contempora- neous. If this should be the case, the coal-fields of North America will exhibit the singularly in structive geological phenomenon of a carbonif- erous area, 1500 miles long and 800 miles broad divided into two bituminous districts by an ele vated belt, in which the central part of the coal has lost its bitumen through the agency of the force which lifted it up. Having finished my observations at this place I had the happiness of rejoining my family the evening of the day of my departure from Rich- mond, after accomplishing a tour of at leas 3000 miles. CONCLUDING CHAPTER. THE manner in which Mr. Jefferson has been alluded to in the preceding pages, may, perhaps, be deemed unjustifiable by those who. unac- quainted with the details of the life and charac- ter of that celebrated person, have formed their opinions of him either from those who have eulo- gised him for the conspicuous part he took in en- couraging his fellow-countrymen to throw oft their allegiance to Great Britain, or from other writers, who. in their admiration of the talents for which he was distinguished, have ranked him amongst the most conspicuous benefactors of human liberty. But, if proofs can be adduced that no one, in or out of America, has gone fur- ther to. poison the ears of men with principles utterly subversive of the well-being of society, he claims which have been set up for him to he gratitude of mankind will appear somewhat questionable. United as the world is in an unqualified ad- miration of the virtues of Washington, it is to- tally inconsistent with the respect due to the memory of that great man to attempt to place Jefferson, as has lately been done,* upon a par- allel with him; especially when evidences have seen for some time before it, which sufficiently prove that the evils which have interrupted the prosperity of the United States are owing to a ieparture from the precepts and the moral exam- ples of the former, and that the principles of Jef- ferson have been the direct cause of that fatal deviation. Injurious as these principles have been to America, the extent to which they have been enabled to disturb mankind can never be appreciated until they are stated in some detail ; and as perhaps hastily a passage has been rinted from the MS. journal whence this work as been taken, which it is too late now to recall, the best justification for the expression of an opinion so hostile to the reputation of Mr. Jef- ferson will be afforded by a sketch of his career, the facts of which will be drawn from the pages of his very able biographer.t To render the subject more clear to those of the present generation who are but imperfectly acquainted with the history of the old British colonies, and the circumstances which led to the establishment of their independence, the author of this work proposes in the first instance to give a slight review of their condition introductory to the period when Mr. Jefferson bore so conspicu- ous a part in the affairs of his country. A state- ment of the principal causes which led to a relax- ation of the connexion of Great Britain with those colonies, and finally to their separation, cannot but be instructive to the lovers of our an- cient monarchy, especially at this time, when other dependencies of the crown are rapidly growing up into importance, and will soon be- come so vitally interwoven with her power and the influence she exercises in preserving the peace of the world, that the importance of at- taching them to her as well by their sympathies as by their interest, is one of the gravest ques- , tions for her statesmen. The descendants of our common forefathers who colonised North Amer- ica were at all times, as they are now, proud of their origin ; but the strength the mother country derived from that pride, was from the first more than counteracted by the seeds of disaffection that were too rankly sown there, and which, al- most unheeded and unchecked, only waited to be strong enough to overcome a feeling of at- tachment that derived its support as much from that pride as from affection. Statesmen of the Timo of George III. Third Series, pi 237. London, 1843. 1 t Vide Professor Tucker'&Iafe of Jefferson. London, 183T TRAVELS IN AMERICA. The original British colonists of North Amer- ica may be divided into two classes, those en- terprising and speculative adventurers who went to Virginia in pursuit of wealth, and the Puri- tans, who left their native country for the sake of enjoying freedom of opinion. The southern, or Virginian colony, became in all material cir- cumstances a copy of the mother country. Re- ligion was established "according to the form and discipline of the Church of England;" each parish had its glebe and parsonage, and primo- geniture and entails were the law of the land. Indeed, the broadest foundations appeared to have been laid for a loyal administration of the province, if the government at home, attending carefully to the development of its prosperity, had given to those individuals, distinguished for their intelligence and the stake they held there, a just share of the honours and advantages of their territorial government. This, however, was not done, and the distinc- tions due to the colonial aristocracy being exclu- sively lavished upon the needy hangers-on of the aristocracy of the mother country, the seeds of disaffection were sown, and appeared in their season. Although dissatisfaction was evinced on this account in Virginia at an early period, yet the first germ of American aversion to monar- chical government is to be traced to the Puritans who settled the northern colony of Massachu- setts. The sole object for which the leaders of this class expatriated themselves was to be out of the reach of what they deemed an intolerable spiritual tyranny; and as the church and the temporal authority by which its power was en- forced were equally odious in their eyes, the love of spiritual and political independence became rooted in them. The consequent attachment to democratic principles formed a permanent fea- ture in their religious and civil government, and continued unabated, but dormant, until 1775, at which period they first assumed an attitude of rebellion to the monarchy of England. Passing over the colonization of other parts of North America, of the Carolinas, and Georgia, of Pennsylvania and New York, the Atlantic frontier of North America became gradually occupied with an enterprising people, rejoicing in absolute freedom from all restraint, enjoying all the privileges of the representative form of government, and indulging from time to time in the excitements peculiar to colonial govern- ments, derived from causes both real and ima- ginary. Although the differences in religious opinion were seldom the subject of open and ac- tive dissension amongst them, yet those also were spreading at the same time, sectarianism and democracy going hand in hand and waiting their day. Thus did these colonies grow in strength and importance until the middle of the eighteenth century, when a danger menaced them which united the planters of the South with the hardy farmers and merchants of the North, in defence of their country. France, at this period, had drawn a military cordon from duebec, by the way of the lakes and the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, to New Orleans, and had encouraged the tribes of sav- age nations under her influence, to fall upon the defenceless families that had gradually advanced into the interior from the coast. Her intention was to subdue the British colonies, and her preparations were of the most formidable kind. This peril was imminent, and the colonies must 165 inevitably have succumbed, but for the protect- ing arm of the mother country. A bloody and expensive war now began, in which some of the colonists engaged with vigour, but the bur- den of the contest fell upon the mother country, which had to furnish troops, money, and arms. The defeat of Braddock's army in 1755, a part Of which was saved by the firmness and judg- ment of Colonel Washington, then a loyal pro- vincial officer, increased the general dismay.* But as has so frequently occurred in our history, upon those great occasions which have called forth the power of Great Britain, France was attacked when she least expefted it, at the very seat of her colonial strength, and the immortal victory of the plains of Abraham, so dearly pur- chased by the life of Wolfe, was followed by the peace of 1763, and the abandonment by France of all her possessions in North America. This glorious termination of an arduous strug- gle, and the removal from the colonies of every apprehension from their powerful and dangerous neighbour, was hailed at the time as an auspi- cious event that would consolidate for ever their union with the mother country. Hard terms had been imposed upon France at that peace, but the interest and safety of the colonies appear- ed to require them. Few, or none, at the mo- ment of triumph adverted to the fact-thai in mor- als, as well as in physics, extremes are ever ready to meet, and that like the pendulum, which, when it is hurrying to one extreme point of its oscillation, is only preparing to return to the other, the actions of men often lead to results diametrically opposed to those towards which they seemed to be advancing. A striking proo of this was now about to be given, and England was to receive an unexpected lesson as to the policy of burdening herself with expensive wars for the protection of colonies, the leading men of which she had not propitiated ; and who, be- ing dissatisfied at heart with the neglect they had been treated with, found, in their own re- sources, and in their distance from the mother country, strong inducements to oppose her au- thority. If at the close of the seven years' war, and the subversion of the French dominion in Can- ada, the King's ministers had turned their atten- tion to a reform in the proprietary governments suited to the period, and had conferred distinc- tions upon the leading men of the colonies, a strong party would have existed there in favour of securing to England some return for the im- portant service she had rendered them ; even, public opinion, which, in America, as elsewhere, is generally little more than the influence of em- inent individuals operating upon the masses, would probably have concurred in its propriety. But this was neglected, and the Stamp Act, a measure founded in justice when we consider the immense and costly efforts England had made for her transatlantic subjects, was vainly attempted to be forced upon them. The historians who have justified the resist- ance of the colonies to the mother country, have * Nothing- contributed more to embolden the colonist* when they subsequently considered the chances of being able to resist the authority of the crown, than the circum- stances attending this disastrous defeat of a well-appointed army, by an ambush of French and Indians not amounting to 450 men. Dr. Franklin, alluding to it in his autobi- ography, says : " This whole transaction gave us Ameri- cans the first suspicion that our eta; ted ideas of the prow- ess of British regular troops had not been well founded." ' Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin,' vol. i., p. 230. 166 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. not treated this particular grievance in a very ingenuous manner; they have omitted to ex- plain that the King's government had given to them the option of contributing in any manner they pleased a part of the expenditure incurred on their account, and that to this they had given a most direct refusal: even Dr. Franklin, who has been considered by the world as the highest authority for the facts connected with these ne- gotiations, has not. only stated that the colonies were menaced with the Stamp Act, and that Mr. Grenville refused to permit any contribution to come from their "good will," but in the letter where he professes to give " the true history of that transaction," has kept out of sight the equi- table propositions made by Mr. Grenville before that Act was imposed.* This is an important point in the history of the causes which have been alleged to justify the colonies in taking up arms. Mr. Burke, who was agent for New- York, publicly denied in the House of Commons that an option had been given ; but there is a paper, in the 'Historical Collections of Massachusetts,' which fully proves the fact. This paper was written by Mr. Israel Mauduit, one of the agents for Massachusetts, and at that time an intimate friend of Franklin's; the original of it is now in the possession of the Historical Society of that State, and is entitled ' An account of a Confer- ence between the late Mr. Grenville and the sev- eral Colony Agents, in the year 1764, previous to the passing the Stamp Act.'t There is therefore * "But this gentleman (Mr. Grenville), instead of a de- cent demand, sent them a menace that they should certain- ly be taxed, and only left them the choice of the manner." " But he (Mr. Grenville) chose compulsion rather than persuasion, and would not receive from their good will what he thought he could obtain without it." Letter from Dr. Franklin to Wm. Alexander, Esq. ; Life of Franklin, vol. i., p. 324. London, 1818. t This paper appears to have been written in consequence of Mr. Burke's speech, and the following is an extract from it: " I shall give a plain narration of facts which fell within my own knowledge, and which, therefore, I think it a debt, due from me to Mr. Grenville's memory, to relate. In the beginning of March, 1764, a number of resolutions, relative to the plantation trade, were proposed by Mr. Grenville, and passed in the House of Commons. " The fifteenth of these was, ' That, towards the further defraying the said expenses, it may be proper to charge cer- tain stamp duties in the said colonies and plantations.' " The other resolutions were formed into the Plantation Act ; but the fifteenth was put off till the next session, Mr. Grenville declaring that he was willing to give time to con- sider of it, and to make their option of raising that, or some other tax. The agents waited separately on Grenville upon this matter, and wrote to their several colonies. At the end of the session we went to him, all of us together, to know if he still intended to bring in such a bill. He answered, he did ; and then repeated to us in form, what I had before heard him say in private, and in the House of Commons : 'that the late war had found us seventy milloins, and left us more than one hundred and forty millions in debt. He knew that all men wished not to be taxed ; but that in these unhappy circumstances, it was his duty, as a steward for the public, to make use of every just means of improving the public revenue : that he never meant, however, to charge the colonies with any part of the interest of the na- tional debt. But, besides that public debt, the nation .had incurred a great annual expense in the maintaining of the several new conquests which we had made during the war, and by which the colonies were so much benefited. That the American civil and military establishment, after the peace of Aix la Chapelle, was only 70,OOOZ. per annum. It was now increased to 350,0002. This was a great additional expense upon an American account ; and he thought, there- fore, that America ought to contribute towards it. He did not expe.ct that the. colonies should raise the whole, but some part of it he thought they ought to laise, and this stamp duty was intended for that purpose. , " ' That he judged this method ot raising the money the easiest and most equitable ; that it was a tax which would fall only upon property, would be collected by the fewest no room left for a doubt that the colonies had every opportunity afforded them of choosing their own manner of discharging a debt, the jus- tice of which could not be denied, and which, if they had consented to its being the subject of a negotiation, would most probably have been re- duced to an equitable amount, susceptible of a very easy liquidation. The Stamp Act having no friends in America, was the signal for insurrection secretly fomented by those who had been neglected; and the spirit of disaffection was fostered by the vacillatory policy of the King's ministers. Relieved from their apprehensions of French conquest, and con- scious of their strength, the colonies now formed plans for turning against the mother country the energies which had been awakened in them by their late dangers ; and from the passing of the Stamp Act to the breaking out of the rebellion, the misunderstanding increased. All the kind feelings which the protection given to the colo- nies had produced were effaced ; every measure that appeared to promote British commercial in- terests was resisted, and the whole energies of America becoming at length directed against the Crown, France, which had so many motives for crippling the power of England, and which had never pardoned her the hard terms she had re- ceived at the peace of 1763, united her arms to those of America, and the independence of the colonies was accomplished. England retired from the scene of her disasters with at least some consolation. She had laid the broad foundation of a nation gifted with her own courage, intelligence, and enterprise; and al- though it was severed from her dominion, men of experience soon began to see that the future commercial intercourse with the United States officers, and would be equally spread over America and the West Indies, so that all would bear their share of the pub- lic burthen.' He then went on : ' I am not, however, set upon this tax. If the Americans dislike it, and prefer any other method of raising the money themselves, I shall be content. Write therefore to your several colonies, and if they choose any other mode, I shall be satisfied, provided the money be but raised.' Upon reading over this narration with Mr. Montagu, who was then agent for Virginia, and pres- ent at this conference with Mr. Grenville, I have his au- thority to say that he entirely assents to every particular. All these particulars I had before heard from Mr. Grenville, in the House of Commons, and at his own house ; and had wrote to the Massachusetts Assembly accordingly. "The following extracts contain their answer on this head : " ' SIR, Boston, June, 14, 1764. " 'The House of Representatives has received your sev- eral letters. " ' The actual laying- the stamp duty, you say, is deferred till next year, Mr. Grenville being willing- to give the prov- inces their option to raise that, or some equivalent tax, de- sirous, as he was pleased to express himself, to consult the ease and quiet, and the good will of the colonies. " ' If the ease, the quiet, and the good will of the colo- nies are of any importance to Great Britain, no measures could be hit upon that have a more natural and direct ten- dency to enervate those principles than the resolutions you enclosed. " ' The kind offer of suspending the stamp duty in the manner, and upon the condition, you mention, amounts to no more than this, that if the colonies will not tax them- selves as they may be directed, the Parliament will tax them. " ' You are to remonstrate against these measures, and, if possible, to obtain n. repeal of the Sugar Act, and prevent the imposition of any further duties or taxes on the colonies. Measures will be taken that you may be joined by all the other agents.' ' One of those measures was the printing this letter, and sending it to the other colony assemblies. " After their own express acknowledgment, therefore, 10 one, I suppose, will doubt but they had the offer of rais- ng the money themselves, and that they refused it, which s all that I am concerned to prove." Historical Collections )/ Massachusetts, vol. ix. p. 268. TRAVELS IN AMERICA. 167 would be more advantageous to the mother coun- try than it could have been if they had remained in a colonial state. But that which gave the greatest satisfaction to all men of reflection sub- sequent to the establishment of this new govern- ment amongst the nations of the earth was, that the young republic was to be organised under the influence of the man whose conduct, during the struggle and after its termination, had raised him to the highest renown wherever civilization existed; for never had there been an instance in history where the private and public virtues of a chie'f had seemed to give a more certain guar- antee to the world for the future character of a people, in the first days of their national exist- ence, than those which had illustrated the career of George Washington. But whilst so glorious a future was open to the United States under his guidance, and as if a good and evil principle must be always con- flicting, it was their misfonune to possess anoth- er man eminent for his qualifications, and for the influence they had given him over a great portion of his countrymen; one, however, who had cherished from his youlh upwards, what are now called revolutionary views for the estab- lishment of liberty. Perhaps the most interest- ing truth which history reveals to us, is that that degree of national freedom which unites good men in the preservation of life, property, and or- der, is inherent to the calm and regular progress of society, and cannot be forced onwards by the- oretical impulses. Mr. Jefferson thought other- wise; hi* maxim wasTiot to assist the natural growth, and train and guide what he had found planted by the wisdom of other times; but whilst he rooted up what already existed, to bring for- ward new and experimental varieties, suited to the tastes of theoretical reformers and superfi- cial philosophers. Mr. Jefferson was born in Virginia in 1743, a period at which the colonists there looked exclu- sively to the mother country as their model. The church of England in that province was not only established by law, each parish having a cler- gyman with a fixed salary, a glebe, and a par- sonage-house, but the eldest sons of the opulent planters were usually sent to England to receive their education. Their tastes were thus formed for English arts, literature, and politics; and as the right of primogeniture existed, they natural- ly became the patrons of liberal pursuits on their return to their native country. Society in this colony was at that time upon an excellent foot- ing; the upper classes were distinguished from the others as much as they were in any other country, and were respected by the people. Mr. Jefferson, who did not belong to any of the old Virginian families, commenced the study of the law under one of the most violent oppo- nents of the measures of the crown, and at an early period took an active and zealous part upon every occasion when dissatisfaction was to be expressed with the British government. In the measures of the colonial burgesses and delegates that led to the final rupture with Lord Dunmore, in 1775, he took a very prominent part; and in 1776 he retired from the Congress to which he had been elected, in order to become a member of the Legislature of his native State, where he could have a better opportunity of carrying out his own revolutionary innovations. His talents and influence were now universally recognised, and enabled him to carry his measures against the leading families in the province, who feared the man, but had not the courage to oppose him. Almost as soon as he had taken his seat, he brought in a bill to convert estates in tail into fee simple, avowing as his reason that he wish- ed "to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent."* In the committee to which this matter was referred, he met with some op- position, which he answered by stating, " That the eldest son could have no claim, in reason, to twice as much a^his brothers or sis- ters, unless he could eat twite as much] or do double work."t The next step which he took, and which very naturally followed the abolition of entails, was to procure Ihe destruction of the church estab- lishment, and to place all religious sects ca the same footing of voluntary contribution. Vari- ous enactments were made for the accompplish- ment of this measure, the first of which suspend- ed the laws which provided salaries for the cler- gy: in 1779 these laws were all unconditionally repealed, and the final enactment on church mat- ters authorized the overseers of the poor to sell the glebe lands, as they became vacant. Having accomplished his favourite object of bringing down to the general level all the estab- lished families of his native state, as well as the Episcopal church, Mr. Jefferson's field of action was again transferred to the concerns of the na- tion, and in 1784 he joined his colleague, Dr. Franklin, at Paris, as joint minister to France. After remaining there some time, he paid a vis- it, in 1786, to Mr. Adams, the American minis- ter in London, and was presented at court, where, he says, he was "ungraciously received." If we are to judge from the bitterness of some of his expressions to his correspondents, it is prob- able he made no secret of the dislike he cherish- ed to England. Speaking of the country, in one of these letters, he says : " Her hatred is deep-rooted and cordial, and nothing is wanting with her but the power to wipe us and the land we live in out of existence."}* In one of his letters, written in 1786, is the fol- lowing curious passage, a part of which is re- markable for its prophetic character: " American reputation in' Europe is not such, as to be flattering to Us citizens._ Two circumstan- ces are particularly objected to us : the non-pay- ment of our debts, and the want of energy in our government. They discourage a connexion with us. I own it to be my opinion that good will arise from the destruction of our credit." Upon another occasiorrhe endeavours to stim- ulate that national vanity and self-sufficiency which are often so conspicuous in young soun tries, and to cherish in his fellow-citizens that iru- flated feeling of superiority over other nations, which many of them were even then beginning to attribute to their own, saying: "If all the sovereigns in Europe were to set themselves to work to emancipate the minds of their subjects from their present ignorance and prejudices, a thousand years will not place them on that high ground on which our common peo- ple are now setting out. Ours could not have | been so fairly placed under the control of the I common sense of the people, had they not been ! separated from their parent stock, and kept from | contamination, either from them or the other people of the old world, by the intervention of so wide an ocean. "II * Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i.,p. 97. London, 1837. t Ibid., p. 112. J Ibid., p. 218. Ubid.,p.231. II Ibid., p. 240. 168 TRAVELS IN AMERICA. During his residence in France, Mr. Jefferson was intimately connected with the leaders that were preparing the French revolution ; and from the following passage in a'letter respecting some disturbances in Massachusetts, which he wrote from Paris in 1787 to a friend, it would seem that all the steps necessary to carry out the views of these men were already familiar to his mind : "What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion 1 And what coun- try can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance 1 Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, par- don and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two 1 The tree of liberty must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of pa- triots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."* This sentiment has been lately attributed to another quarter. Immediately on the Conven- tion having voted the death of Louis XVI. in 1792, Barere, now justly esteemed the most infa- mous of all the terrorists, rose and addressed the Assembly in a speech containing the following passage : " The tree of liberty, as an ancient author re- marks, flourishes when it is watered with the blood of all classes of tyrants."t The able author of the article entitled ' Barere's Memoirs,' in that number of the 'Edinburgh Re- view' from which this passage is taken, observes, in quoting it, " We wish that a note had been added to inform us' from what ancient author Barere quoted. In the course of our own small (!) reading among the Greek and Latin writers, we have not happened to fall in with trees of liberty and watering-pots full of blood; nor can we, such is our ignorance of classical antiquity, even imagine an Attic or Roman orator employing imagery of that sort. In plain words, when Ba- rfcre talked about an ancient author, he was lying, as he generally was when he asserted any fact, great or small. Why he lied on this occasion we cannot guess, unless, indeed, it was to keep his hand in." It is, indeed, evident enough that we need not go to antiquity for such a sentiment ; jargon of that kind about the tree of liberty could belong to no author more ancient than Mr. Jefferson, who, it is to be remarked, at the time he expressed himself thus, was not a very young enthusiast having already reached the mature age of forty four years. Barfere, no doubt, veiled his authori- ty, because it was not*convenient^t quote the American minister. In 1789, when the Etats-Generaux met, Mr Jefferson, who still represented the United States drew up a charter of rights for the French peo- ple, but, although Lafayette and others gave i their sanction, it was not adopted. What chance the public creditor would have under Mr. Jefferson's first principles of govern- ment may be gathered from his opinions, as we find them recorded by his biographer:} " He (Mr. Jefferson} insists that the use of the earth belongs to the living generation, and tha the dead have no more right than they have pow- er over it. In the application of this principle he maintains that no generation can pledge or Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i., p. 282. London t Edinburgh Review. April, 1844, p. 297. i Tucker's Life of Jefferson, yol. i., p. 324-5. encumber the lands of a country oeyond the av- erage term of its own existence, which term, by reference to the annuity tables of Buffon, he es- timates first at thirty-four years, and afterwards reduces to nineteen years. By reason of this re- striction, founded in nature and the first princi- ples of justice, he maintains that every law,. and even constitution, naturally expires at the expira- tion of this term ; and that no public debt can be contracted which would be rightfully binding on. "he nation after the same lapse of time." This egregious argument which was very ably refuted by Mr. Madison, in a letter to Mr. Jefferson is the germ of that "first principle" called " repudiation," which he bequeathed to his country; a principle which, if admitted into civilized life, would strike at the root of that nat- ural feeling inherent in all rightly disposed com- munities, viz., to protect the interests and wel- fare of that posterity of which their own chil- dren form a part. In the year 1794, Mr. Jefferson, at the age of 56, left the Cabinet of President Washington, in which his opinions found but little support, and retired to his seat in the country, ostensibly to enjoy rural pursuits and domestic happiness. Professing to despise distinctions and employ- ments, he declared to a friend that he was so weaned from public pursuits that he should "never take another newspaper of any sort,"* yet at this very time his house was not only the general rendezvous of the most active opponents of Washington's administration, and the point where all their political measures were concert- ed,. but from thence Mr. Jefferson himself wrote the bitterest attacks for the democratic journals, upon the administration of the man to whom he continued to profess in public the most devoted attachment. Of the philosophic tone of his mind, and of the sincerity of his abandonment to rural pursuits, the following extract of a letter to a Mr. Tench Coxe, written soon after he had reached his country seat, Monticello, furnishes an admirable example: " Over the foreign powers, 1 am convinced they (the French) will triumph completely, and I cannot but hope that that triumph, and the con- sequent disgrace of the invading tyrants, is des- tined, in the order of events, to kindle the wrath of the people of Europe against those who have dared to embroil them in such wickedness, and to bring, at length, kings, nobles, and priests, to the scaffolds, which they have been so long deluging with human blood. I am still warm whenever I think of these scoundrels"^ With this example and these" precepts before us, we need not be surprised that having suc- ceeded in weaning a majority of the people from their confidence in Washington's principles of government, he should at length have achieved his object of being raised to the supreme power; and that his opinions so largely sown in the minds of a great portion of his countrymen, should have produced in them a scornful con- tempt of all the regular governments of Europe, the proscription of the most respectable of their own countrymen, and the accomplishment at length of those fatal acts which are at this day so injurious to the honour and character of Re- publican America. * Tucker's Life of Jefferson, rol. i., p. 528. London, 1 t Ibid., vol. i., p. 532. ,T ll p *sm - V i^ H M-U!-' UJ 1 ^aoj ***" ^1 ^w i ^ t ^f-LIBRARYQc University of California Library Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Phone Renewals ^ . T^s OJO*- % 1 tr" 1 i g fif AA 000694291 6 TI ? 5 * & 3i- < 1 1 S * V4- ^ g g S S i s i 1 s g > i S i r s ^? "i ^M'NIVER^ ^10 -^ / I I S I I 03 > 2- K 5 Univerj Soutj Libi