LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER; 
 
 OB, 
 
 NOTES OF THINGS 
 
 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 
 
 BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 156 BROADWAY, 
 
 LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY. 
 1850.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, 
 
 BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 
 
 In the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District 
 of New York. 
 
 BILLIN <t BROS., 
 10 N. WILL1AM-ST. 
 
 F. C. GUTIERREZ, 
 PRINTER, 
 
 John st., corner of Dutch.
 
 G- 
 
 470 
 
 1X50 
 
 TO THE EEADEE. 
 
 THE letters composing this volume were written 
 at various times, during the last sixteen years, and 
 during journeys made in different countries. They 
 contain, however, no regular account of any tour 
 or journey made by the writer, but are merely occa- 
 sional sketches of what most attracted his attention. 
 The greater part of them have already appeared in 
 print. 
 
 The author is sensible that the highest merit such 
 a work can claim, if ever so well executed, is but 
 slight. He might have made these letters more in- 
 teresting to readers in general, if he had spoken of 
 distinguished men to whose society he was admitted; 
 but the limits within which this may be done, with
 
 4 TCK THE READER. 
 
 propriety and without offense, are so narrow, and 
 so easily overstepped, that he has preferred to abstain 
 altogether from that class of topics. He offers his 
 book to the public, with expectations which arili l/ 
 satisfied by a very moderate success. 
 
 NEW YORK, April, 1850.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 10 THE Rt 
 
 LETTER 1. First Impressions of an American in France. Tokens of An- 
 tiquity: churches, old towns, cottages, colleges, costumes, donkeys, shep- 
 herds and their flocks, magpies, chateaux, formal gardens, vineyards, 
 fig-trees. First Sight of Paris; its Gothic churches, statues, triumphal 
 arches, monumental columns. Parisian gaiety, public cemeteries, burial 
 places of the poor 9 
 
 LETTER II. Journey from Paris to Florence. Serenity of the Italian Climate. 
 Dreary country between Paris and Chalons on the Saone. Autun. Cha- 
 lons. I .yons. Valley of the Rhine. Avignon. Marseilles ; its growth and 
 prosperity. Banking in France. Journey along the Mediterranean. 
 American and European Institutions 15 
 
 LETTER III. Tuscan Scenery and Climate. Florence in Autumn. Defor- 
 mities of Cultivation. Exhibition of the Academy of the Fine Arts. Re- 
 spect ofthe Italians for Works of Art 24 
 
 LETTER IV. A Day in Florence. Bustle and Animation ofthe Place. Sights 
 seen on the Bridges. Morning in Florence. Brethren of Mercy. Drive on 
 the Cascine. Evening in Florence. Anecdote of the Passport System. 
 Mildness of tlie Climate of Pisa 29 
 
 LETTER V. Practices of the Italian Courts. Mildness of the Penal Code in 
 Tuscany. A Royal Murderer. Ceremonies on the Birth of an Heir to the 
 Dukedom of Tuscany. Wealth of the Grand Duke 37 
 
 LETTER VI. Venice. Its peculiar Architecture. Arsenal and Navy Yard. 
 The Lagoons. Ceneda. Serravalle. Lago Morto. Alpine Scenery. A 
 June Snow Storm in the Tyrol. Splendor of the Scenery in the Sunshine. 
 Lamlro. A Tyrolese Holiday. Devotional Character of the People. 
 Nunioro is Chapels. Sterzing. Bruneck. The Brenner. Innsbruck. 
 Bronze Tomb 01' Maximilian I. Entrance into Bavaria 42 
 
 LETTER VII. An Excursion to Rock River in Illinois. Birds and Quadru- 
 peds of the Prairies. Dad Joe's Grove. Beautiful Landscape. Traces of 
 the Indian Tribes. Lost Rocks. Dixon. Rock River ; beauty of its banks. 
 A Horse-Thief. An Association of Felons. A Prairie Rattlesnake. The 
 Prairie- Wolf ; its habits. The Wild Parsnip 55 
 
 LETTER VIII. Examples of Lynch Law. Practices of Horse-Thieves in Il- 
 linois. Regulators. A Murder. Seizure of the Assassins, their trial and 
 execution. One of the Accomplices lurking in the Woods. Another 
 Horse-Thief shot.... .. 64
 
 C O N T E N T S. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LETTER IX. An Example of Senatorial Decorum. The National Museum 
 at Washington. Mount Vernon. Virginia Plantations. Beauty of Rich- 
 mond. Islands of James Kiver. An Old Churdi. Inspection olTobacco. 
 Tobacco Factory. Work and Psalmody. Ho-.v Jim's Statue of Washington. 69 
 
 LETTER X. .Tourney from Richmond to Charleston. Pino Forests of Norili 
 Carolina. Collection of Turpentine. Harbor of Charleston. Aspect of 
 the City 77 
 
 LETTER XI. Interior of South Carolina. Pine Woods. Plantations. 
 Swamps. Birds. A Con>-Sluidiiii'_r. Negro Sony's. A .N'cicro Military 
 Parade. Character of the Blacks. Winter Climate of South Carolina 82 
 
 LETTER XII. Picolata. Beauty of the Season. The St. John's. A Ham- 
 mock. Voyage from Charleston to Savannah. City of Savannah. Quoit 
 Club. A Negro Burial-Place. Curious Epitaphs. Bonaveuture. Majestic 
 Avenues of Live-Oaks. Alligators. Black Creek 90 
 
 LETTER XIII. Woods of Florida. Anecdotes of the Florida War. Aspect 
 of St. Augustine. Its Streets. Former Appearance of the City. < iran_re 
 Groves. Fort of St. Mark. Palm Sunday. A Frenchman preaching in 
 Spanish 99 
 
 LETTER XIV. Climate of St. Augustine. Tampa Bay. Melons in January. 
 Insects in Southern Florida. Healthfulness of Kast Florida. A Sugar 
 Plantation. Island of St. Anastasia. Quarries of Shell-Hock. Customs of 
 the Mahonese. A Mahonese or Minorcan hymn 100 
 
 LETTER XV. Florida the "Poor Man's Country." H ettlement of the Penin- 
 sula. The Indian War. Its Causes. Causes of (he Peace. The Ever- 
 glades. St. Mary's in Georgia. Plague of Sand-Flies. Alligator Shooting. 
 Tobacco Chewing 121 
 
 LETTER XVI. The Champlain Canal. Beauty of its Banks. Whitehall. 
 Canadian French. A Family setting out for the West. The .Michigan 
 Lay. Vermont Scenery 128 
 
 LETTER XVII. Grasshoppers. White Clover. Domestic Arrangements of 
 two unmarried Ladies. Canadian French Laborers. Quakers. A Pretty 
 Mantua-Maker. Anecdote told by a Quakeress. Walpole. Keene. A 
 Family of healthy young Women 134 
 
 LETTER XVIII. A Voyage to Liverpool. Mountains of Wales. Growth of 
 Liverpool. Aspect of the Place. /oological C;irdens. --.Cemetery among 
 the Rocks. Ornamental Cultivation. Prince's P.irk.-- - ( 'hester. Manches- 
 ter. Calico Printing 1-1-1 
 
 LETTER XIX. Edale in Derbyshire. A Commercial Traveller. Chapel-en- 
 le-Frith. The Winnets. Mam Tor. Heathy Hills. The Lark. Caverns 
 of the Peak of Derbyshire. Castle of the Peverils. People of Derbyshire. 
 Matlock. Derby.". 154 
 
 LETTER XX. Works of Art. Power's Greek Slave. Exhibition of the 
 lloyal Academy. Turner's late Pictures. Webster. Thorbarn. New 
 Houses of Parliament. Artists in Water-Colors Hi 1 
 
 LETTER XXI. The Parks of London. -Their Extent. Want of Parks in New 
 York. Sweeping of the Streets. Safety from Hotisebreaking. Beggars. 
 Increase of Poverty 108 
 
 LETTER XXII Edinburg. The Old Town. The Castle. Solid Architec- 
 ture of the New Town. Views from the different Eminences. Poverty in 
 the Wynds and Alleys. Houses of Refuge for the Destitute. Xi-ht \s\- 
 lums for the Houseless. The Free Church. The Maynooth Grant. Effect 
 of Endowments ... ... 174
 
 CONTENTS. / 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LETTER XXUL FIshwomen of Xewhaven. Frith of Forth. Stirling. 
 Callander. The Trosachs. Locli Achray. Loch Katrine. Loch Lomond. 
 Glenfalloch. Dumbarton. The Leven 181 
 
 LETTER XXIV. Glasgow. Its Annual Fair. Its Public Statues. The Free 
 Church. Free Church College. Odd Subject of a Sermon. Alloway. 
 Burns's Monument. The Doon. The Sea. Burns's Birthplace. The 
 River Ayr 191 
 
 LETTER XXV. Voyage to Ireland. Ailsa Craig. County of Down. County 
 of Lowth. Difference in the Appearance of the Inhabitants. Peat-Diggers. 
 A Park. Samples of different Races of Men. Round Towers. Valley 
 of the Boyne. Dublin. Its Parks. O'Connell. The Repeal Question. 
 Wall, the Artist. Exhibition of the Royal Hibernian Society 200 
 
 LETTER XXVI. Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell. Humanity and Skill. Quiet 
 Demeanor of the Patients. Anecdotes of the Inmates. The Corn-law 
 Question. Coleman's Improvement on the Piano 210 
 
 LETTER XXVII. Changes in Paris. Asphaltum Parements. New and 
 Showy Buildings. Suppression of Gaming-Houses. Sunday Amusements. 
 Physical Degeneracy. Vanderlyu's Picture of the Landing of Columbus 219 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. A Journey through the Netherlands. Brussels. Water- 
 loo. Walloons and Flemings. Antwerp. Character of Flemish Art. 
 The Scheldt. Rotterdam. Country of Holland. The Hague. Scheveling. 
 Amsterdam. Broek Saardam. Utrecht 223 
 
 LETTER XXIX. American Artists abroad. Diisseldorf : Leutze. German 
 Painters. Florence : Greenough, Powers, Gray, G. L. Brown. Rome : 
 H. K. Brown, Rossiter, Lang 234 
 
 LETTER XXX.-Buffalo. The New Fort. Leopold de Meyer.-Cleveland. 
 Detroit 241 
 
 LETTER XXXI. Trip from Detroit to Mackinaw. The Chippewa Tribe. 
 The River St. Clair. Anecdote. Chippewa Village. Forts Huron and 
 Saranac. Bob Low Island. Mackinaw 248 
 
 LETTER XXXII. Journey from Detroit to Princeton. Sheboygan.Mil- 
 waukie. Chicago. A Plunge in the Canal. Aspect of the Country 256 
 
 LETTER XXXIIL Return to Chicago. Prairie-Hens. Prairie Lands of Lee 
 County. Rock River District 204 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. Voyage to Fault Ste. Marie. Little Fort. Indian Women 
 gathering Rice. Souttiport. Island of St. Joseph. Muddy Lake. Gir- 
 dled Trees 2o!> 
 
 LETTER XXXV. Falls of the St. Mary. Masses of Copper and Silver. 
 Drunken Indians. Descent of the Rapids. Warehouses of the Hudson 
 Bay Company. Canadian Half-breeds. La Maison de Pierre. Tanner 
 the Murderer 277 
 
 LETTER XXXVI. Indians at the Sault. Madeleine Island. Indian Dan- 
 cing-girls. Methodist Indians. Indian Families. Return fo Mackinaw.. 287 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. The Straits of Mackinaw. American Fur Company. 
 Peculiar Boats.-British Landing.-Battle-field. Old Mission Church. 
 Arched Rock C9fi 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. Excursion to Southern New Jersey. Easton. The Del- 
 fiwiii-f. -The Water Gap. Bite of a Copper-head Snake :
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. The Banks of the Pocano. Deer in the Laurel Swamps. 
 Cherry Hollow. The Wind Gap. Nazareth. Moravian Burying Grounds. 
 A Pennsylvania German 311 
 
 LETTER XL. Paint on Brick Houses. The New City of Lawrence. Oak 
 Grove... 320 
 
 LETTER XLI. Islands of Casco Bay. The Building of Ships. A Seal in the 
 Kennebeck. Augusta. Multitude of Lakes. Appearances of Thrift 325 
 
 LETTER XLII. The Willey House. Mount Washington. Scenery of the 
 White Mountains. A Hen Mother of Puppies 331 
 
 LETTER XLIII. Passage to Savannah. Passengers in the Steamer. Old 
 Times in Connecticut. Cape Hatteras. Savannah. Bonaventure. 
 Charleston. Augusta 336 
 
 LETTER XLIV. Southern Cotton Mills. Factory Girls. Somerville 345 
 
 LETTER XLV. The Florida Coast. Key West. Dangerous Navigation. A 
 H urricane and Flood. Havana 351 
 
 LETTER XLVI. Women of Cuba. Airy Rooms. Devotion of the Women. 
 Good Friday. Cascarilla. Cemetei 
 ing. Valla de Gallos. A Masked Ba 
 
 Good Friday. Cascarilla. Cemetery of Havana. Funerals. Cock-flght- 
 - lall. 
 
 LETTER XLVI I. Scenery of Cuba. Its Trees. Sweet-Potato Plantation. 
 -San Antonio de los "Bafios. Black and Red Soil of Cuba. A Coffee 
 Estate. Attire of the Cubans 370 
 
 LETTER XLVIII. Matanzas. Valley of Yumuri. Cumbre. Sugar Estate. 
 Process of its Manufacture 381 
 
 LETTER XLIX. Negroes in Cuba. Execution by the Garrote. Slave Mar- 
 ket. African. Indian, and Asiatic Slaves. Free Blacks in Cuba. Annex- 
 ation of Cuba to the United States 3S9 
 
 LETTER L. English Exhibitions of Works of Art. The Society of Arts 
 Royal Academy. Jews in Parliament 402 
 
 LETTER LI. A Visit to the Shetland Isles. Highland Fishermen. Ler- 
 wick. Churchgoers in Shetland. Habitations of the Islanders. The 
 Noup of the Noss. Sheep and Ponies. Pictish Castle. The Zetlandere. 
 A Gale in the North Sea. Cathedral of St. Magnus. Wick 408 
 
 LETTER LH. Europe under the Bayonet. Uses of the State of Siege. 
 Stuttgart. The H ungarians. Bavaria. St. Gall .Zurich. Target-shoot- 
 ing. France. French Expedition to Rome 426 
 
 LETTER LIII. Vol terra ; its Desolation. The Balza. Etruscan Remains. 
 Fortress of Volterra 436
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AN AMERICAN IN FRANCE. 
 
 PAKIS, August 9, 1834. 
 
 SINCE we first landed in France, every step of our 
 journey has reminded us that we were in an old country. 
 Every thing we saw spoke of the past, of an antiquity 
 without limit ; everywhere our eyes rested on the handi- 
 work of those who had heen dead for ages, and we were 
 in the midst of customs which they had bequeathed to 
 their descendants. The churches were so vast, so solid, 
 so venerable, and time-eaten ; the dwellings so gray, and 
 of such antique architecture, and in the large towns, like 
 Rouen, rose so high, and overhung with such quaint projec- 
 tions the narrow and cavernous streets ; the thatched cots 
 were so mossy and so green with grass! The very hills 
 about them looked scarcely as old, for there was youth 
 in their vegetation their shrubs and flowers. The coun- 
 trywomen wore such high caps, such long waists, and
 
 10 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 such short petticoats ! the fashion of bonnets is an irmova* 
 tion of yesterday, which they regard with scorn. We passed 
 females riding on donkeys, the Old Testament beast of bur- 
 den, with panniers on each side, as was the custom hun- 
 dreds of years since. We saw ancient dames sitting 
 at their doors with distaffs, twisting the thread by twirl- 
 ing the spindle between the thumb and finger, as they 
 did in the days of Homer. A flock of sheep was grazing 
 on the side of a hill ; they were attended by a shepherd, 
 and a brace of prick-eared dogs, which kept them from 
 straying, as was done thousands of years ago. Speckled 
 birds were hopping by the sides of the road ; it was the 
 magpie, the bird of ancient fable. Flocks of what I at 
 first took for the crow of our country were stalking in 
 the fields, or sailing in the air over the old elms ; it was 
 the rook, the bird made as classical by Addison as his 
 cousin the raven by the Latin poets. 
 
 Then there were the old chateaus on the hills, built 
 with an appearance of military strength, their towers 
 and battlements telling of feudal times. The groves by 
 which they were surrounded were for the most part 
 clipped into regular walls, and pierced with regularly 
 arched passages, leading in various directions, and the 
 trees compelled by the shears to take the shape of obe- 
 lisks and pyramids, or other fantastic figures, according 
 to the taste of the middle ages. As we drew nearer 
 to Paris, we saw the plant which Noah first committed
 
 HISTORICAL MONUMENTS, 11 
 
 to the earth after the deluge you know what that was 
 I hope trained on low stakes, and growing thickly and 
 luxuriantly on the slopes by the side of the highway. 
 Here, too, was the tree which was the subject of the 
 first Christian miracle, the fig, its branches heavy with 
 the bursting fruit just beginning to ripen for the mar- 
 ket. 
 
 But when we entered Paris, and passed the Barriere 
 d'Etoile, with its lofty triumphal arch; when we swept 
 through the arch of Neuilly, and came in front of the 
 Hotel des Invalides, where the aged or maimed soldiers, 
 the living monuments of so many battles, were walking 
 or sitting under the elms of its broad esplanade ; when 
 we saw the colossal statues of statesmen and warriors 
 frowning from their pedestals on the bridges which be- 
 stride the muddy and narrow channel of the Seine ; 
 when we came in sight of the gray pinnacles of the 
 Tuilleries, and the Gothic towers of Notre-Dame, and 
 the Roman ones of St. Sulpice, and the dome of the 
 Pantheon, under which lie the remains of so many of 
 the great men of France, and the dark column of Place 
 Vendome, wrought with figures in relief, and the obelisk 
 brought from Egypt to ornament the Place Louis Q/uatorze, 
 the associations with antiquity which the country pre- 
 sents, from being general, became particular and historical. 
 They were recollections of power, and magnificence, and 
 extended empire ; of valor and skill in war which had
 
 12 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 held the world in fear ; of dynasties that had risen and 
 passed away ; of battles and victories which had left no 
 other fruits than their monuments. 
 
 The solemnity of these recollections does not seem to 
 press with much weight upon the minds of the people. 
 It has been said that the French have become a graver 
 nation than formerly ; if so, what must have been their 
 gayety a hundred years ago ? To me they seem as light- 
 hearted and as easily amused as if they had done nothing 
 but make love and quiz their priests since the days of 
 Louis XIV. as if their streets had never flowed with 
 the blood of Frenchmen shed by their brethren as if they 
 had never won and lost a mighty empire. I can not 
 imagine the present generation to be less gay than that 
 which listened to the comedies of Moliere at their first 
 representation ; particularly when I perceive that even 
 Moliere's pieces are too much burdened with thought for a 
 Frenchman of the present day, and that he prefers the 
 lighter and more frivolous vaudeville. The Parisian has 
 his amusements as regularly as his meals, the theatre, 
 music, the dance, a walk in the Tuilleries, a refection 
 in the cafe, to which ladies resort as commonly as the 
 other sex. Perpetual business, perpetual labor, is a thing 
 of which he seems to have no idea. I wake in the middle 
 of the night, and I hear the fiddle going, and the sound of 
 feet keeping time, in some of the dependencies of the large 
 building near the Tuilleries, in which I have my lodgings.
 
 CEMETERIES. 13 
 
 When a generation of Frenchmen 
 
 " Have played, and laughed, and danced, and drank their fill" 
 
 when they have seen their allotted number of vaudevilles 
 and swallowed their destined allowance of weak wine and 
 bottled small-beer, they are swept off to the cemetery of 
 Montmartre, or of Pere la Chaise, or some other of the 
 great burial-places which lie just without the city. I went 
 to visit the latter of these the other day. You are re- 
 minded of your approach to it by the rows of stone-cutters' 
 shops on each side of the street, with a glittering display of 
 polished marble monuments. The place of the dead is 
 almost a gayer-looking spot than the ordinary haunts of 
 Parisian life. It is traversed with shady walks of elms 
 and limes, and its inmates lie amidst thickets of orna- 
 mental shrubs and plantations of the most gaudy flowers. 
 Their monuments are hung with wreaths of artificial 
 flowers, or of those natural ones which do not lose their 
 color and shape in drying, like the amaranth and the ever- 
 lasting. Parts of the cemetery seem like a city in minia- 
 ture ; the sepulchral chapels, through the windows of which 
 you see crucifixes and tapers, stand close to each other 
 beside the path, intermingled with statues and busts. 
 
 There is one part of this repository of the dead which is 
 little visited, that in which the poor are buried, \vhere those 
 who have dwelt apart from their more fortunate fellow- 
 creatures in life lie apart in death. Here are no walks,
 
 14 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 no shade of trees, no planted shrubbery, but ridges of raw 
 earth, and tufts of coarse herbage show where the bodies 
 are thrown together under a thin covering of soil. I was 
 about to walk over the spot, but was repelled by the 
 sickening exhalations that rose from it.
 
 THE ARNO. 15 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 A JOURNEY TO FLORENCE. 
 
 FLORENCE, Sept 27, 1834. 
 
 I HAVE now been in this city a fortnight, and have estab- 
 lished myself in a suite of apartments lately occupied, as 
 the landlord told me, in hopes I presume of getting a 
 higher rent, by a Russian prince. The Arno flows, or 
 rather stands still, under my windows, for the water is low, 
 and near the western wall of the city is frugally dammed 
 up to preserve it for the public baths. Beyond, this stream 
 so renowned in history and poetry, is at this season but a 
 feeble rill, almost lost among the pebbles of its bed, and 
 scarcely sufficing to give drink to the pheasants and hares 
 of the Grand Duke's Cascine on its banks. Opposite my 
 lodgings, at the south end of the Ponte alia Carraia, is a 
 little oratory, before the door of which every good Catholic 
 who passes takes off* his hat with a gesture of homage ; and 
 at this moment a swarthy, weasel-faced man, with a tin box 
 in Ms hand, is gathering contributions to pay for the services 
 of the chapel, rattling his coin to attract the attention of 
 the pedestrians, and calling out to those who seem disposed 
 to pass without paying. To the north and west, the peaks
 
 16 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of the Appenines are in full sight, rising over the spires of 
 the city and the groves of the Cascine. Every evening I 
 see them through the soft, delicately-colored haze of an Italian 
 sunset, looking as if they had caught something of the 
 transparency of the sky, and appearing like mountains of 
 fairy-land, instead of the hleak and barren ridges of rock 
 which they really are. The weather since my arrival in 
 Tuscany has heen continually serene, the sky wholly cloud- 
 less, and the temperature uniform oppressively warm in 
 the streets at noon, delightful at morning and evening, with 
 a long, beautiful, golden twilight, occasioned by the reflec- 
 tion of light from the orange-colored haze which invests 
 the atmosphere. Every night I am reminded that I am in 
 the land of song, for until two o'clock in the morning I hear 
 " all manner of tunes" chanted by people in the streets in 
 all manner of voices. 
 
 I believe I have given you no account of our journey from 
 Paris t-o this place. That part of it which lay between 
 Paris and Chalons, on the Saone, may be described in a 
 very few words. Monotonous plains, covered with vine- 
 yards and wheat-fields, with very few trees, and those 
 spoiled by being lopped for fuel sunburnt women driving 
 carts or at work in the fields gloomy, cheerless-looking 
 towns, with narrow, filthy streets troops of beggars sur- 
 rounding your carriage whenever you stop, or whenever the 
 nature of the roads obliges the horses to walk, and chanting 
 their requests in the most doleful whine imaginable such
 
 AUTUN. CHALONS. 17 
 
 are the sights and sounds that meet you for the greater part 
 of two hundred and fifty miles. There are, however, some 
 exceptions as to the aspect of the country. Autun, one of 
 the most ancient towns of France, and yet retaining some 
 remains of Roman architecture, lies in a beautiful and 
 picturesque region. A little beyond that town we ascended 
 a hill by a road winding along a glen, the rocky sides of 
 which were clothed with an impruned wood, and a clea; 
 stream ran dashing over the stones, now on one side of the 
 road and then on the other the first instance . of a brook 
 left to follow its natural channel which I had seen in France. 
 Two young Frenchmen, who were our fellow-passengers, 
 were wild with delight at this glimpse of unspoiled nature. 
 They followed the meanderings of the stream, leaping from 
 rock to rock, and shouting till the woods rang again. 
 
 Of Chalons I have nothing to tell you. Abelard died there, 
 and his tomb was erected with that of Eloise in the church 
 of St. Marcel ; but the church is destroyed, and the monu- 
 ment has been transported to the cemetery of Pere la 
 Chaise, and with it all the poetry of the place is vanished. 
 But if you would make yourself supremely uncomfortable, 
 travel as I did in a steamboat down the Saone from Chalons 
 to Lyons, on a rainy day. Crowded into a narrow, dirty 
 cabin, with benches on each side and a long table in the 
 middle, at which a set of Frenchmen with their hats on are 
 playing cards and eating dejeuners a la fourchette all day 
 long, and deafening you with their noise, while waiters are 
 2*
 
 18 LETTEKS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 running against your legs and treading on your toes every 
 moment, and the water is dropping on your head through 
 the cracks of the deck-floor, you would he forced to ad- 
 mit the superlative misery of such a mode of travelling. 
 The approach to Lyons, however, made some amends 
 lor these inconveniences. The shores of the river, hither- 
 to low and level, hegan to rise into hills, broken with 
 precipices and crowned by castles, some in ruins and 
 others entire, and seemingly a part of the very rocks 
 on which they stood, so old and mossy and strong did 
 they seem. "What struck me most in Lyons was the supe- 
 riority of its people in looks and features to the inhabit- 
 ants of Paris the clatter and jar of silk-looms with which 
 its streets resounded and the picturesque beauty of its 
 situation, placed as it is among steeps and rocks, with the 
 quiet Saone on one side, and the swiftly-running Rhone on 
 the other. In our journey from Lyons to Marseilles we 
 travelled by land instead of taking the steamboat, as is 
 commonly done as far as Avignon. The common books of 
 travels will tell you how numerous are the ruins of feudal 
 times perched upon the heights all along the Rhone, 
 remnants of fortresses and castles, overlooking a vast extent 
 of country and once serving as places of refuge to the culti- 
 vators of the soil who dwelt in their vicinity how frequently 
 alto are to be met with the earlier yet scarcely less fresh 
 traces of Roman colonization and dominion, in gateways, 
 triumphal arches, walls, and monuments how on entering
 
 19 
 
 Provence you find yourself among a people of a cliiicrent 
 physiognomy from those of the northern provinces, speaking 
 a language which rather resembles Italian than French 
 how the beauty of the women of Avignon still does credit to 
 the taste of the clergy, who made that city for more than 
 half a century the seat of the Papal power and how, as 
 you approach the shores of the Mediterranean, the moun- 
 tains which rise from the fruitful valleys shoot up in wilder 
 forms, until their summits become mere pinnacles of rock 
 wholly bare of vegetation. 
 
 Marseilles is seated in the midst of a semicircle of moun- 
 tains of whitish rock, the steep and naked sides of which 
 scarce afford " a footing for the goat." Stretching into the 
 Mediterranean they inclose a commodious harbor, in front of 
 which are two or three rocky islands anchored in a sea of 
 more vivid blue than any water I had ever before seen. 
 The country immediately surrounding the city is an arid 
 and dusty valley, intersected here and there with the bed of 
 a brook or torrent, dry during the summer. It is carefully 
 cultivated, however, and planted with vineyards, and 
 orchards of olive, fig, and pomegranate trees. The trees 
 being small and low, the foliage of the olive thin and pale, 
 the leaves of the fig broad and few, and the soil appearing 
 everywhere at their roots, as well as between the rows of 
 vines, the vegetation, when viewed from a little distance, 
 has a meagre and ragged appearance. The whiteness of 
 the hills, which the eye can hardly bear to rest upon at
 
 20 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 nooii, the intense blue of the sea, the peculiar forms of the 
 foliage, and the deficiency of shade and verdure, made me 
 almost fancy myself in a tropical region. 
 
 The Greeks judged well of the commercial advantages 
 of Marseilles when they made it the seat of one of their 
 early colonies. I found its streets animated with a bustle 
 which I had not seen since I left New York, and its port 
 thronged with vessels from all the nations whose coasts 
 border upon the great midland sea of Europe. Marseilles is 
 the most nourishing seaport in France ; it has already 
 become to the Mediterranean what New York is to the 
 United States, and its trade is regularly increasing. The 
 old town is ugly, but the lower or new part is nobly built 
 of the light-colored stone so commonly used in France, and 
 so easily wrought with broad streets and, what is rare in 
 French towns, convenient sidewalks. New streets are laid 
 out, gardens are converted into building-lots, the process of 
 leveling hills and filling up hollows is going on as in New 
 York, the city is extending itself on every side, and large 
 fortunes have been made by the rise in the value of landed 
 property. 
 
 In a conversation with an intelligent gentleman resident 
 at Marseilles and largely engaged in commercial and 
 moneyed transactions, the subject of the United States Bank 
 was mentioned. Opinions in France, on this question of our 
 domestic politics, differ according as the opportunities of 
 information possessed by the individual are more or less
 
 APmOACII TO ITALY. 21 
 
 ample, or as he is more or less in favor of chartered banks. 
 The gentleman remarked that without any reference to the 
 question of the United States Bank, he hoped the day would 
 never come when such an institution would be established 
 in France. The project he said had some advocates, but 
 they had not yet succeeded, and he hoped never would 
 succeed in the introduction of that system of paper currency 
 which prevailed in the United States. He deprecated the 
 dangerous and uncertain facilities of obtaining credit which 
 are the fruit of that system, which produce the most ruinous 
 fluctuations in commerce, encourage speculation and ex- 
 travagance of all kinds, and involve the prudent arid labo- 
 rious in the ruin which falls upon the rash and reckless. 
 He declared himself satisfied with the state of the currency 
 of France, with which, if fortunes were not suddenly built 
 up they were not suddenly overthrown, and periods of ap- 
 parent prosperity were not followed by seasons of real 
 distress. 
 
 I made the journey from Marseilles to Florence by land. 
 How grand and wild are the mountains that overlook the 
 Mediterranean ; how intense was the heat as we wound our 
 way along the galleries of rock cut to form a road ; how ex- 
 cellent are the fruits, and how thick the mosquitoes at Nice ; 
 how sumptuous are the palaces, how narrow and dark the 
 streets, and how pallid the dames of Genoa ; and how 
 beautiful we found our path among the trees overrun with 
 vines as we approached southern Italy, are matters which I
 
 22 L T; T T E Jl S O F A T R A V E L L E R . 
 
 v.-ill take some other opportunity of relating. On the 12th 
 of September our vcttitriiin set us down safe at the Hotel de 
 r ]^,ifope in Florence. 
 
 I think I shall return to America even a better patriot 
 than when I left it. A citizen of the United States travel- 
 ling on the continent of Europe, finds the contrast between 
 a government of power and a government of opinion forced 
 upon him at every step. He finds himself delayed at every 
 large town and at every frontier of a kingdom or princi- 
 pality, to submit to a strict examination of the passport with 
 which the jealousy of the rulers of these countries has com- 
 pelled him to furnish himself. He sees everywhere guards 
 and sentinels armed to the teeth, stationed in the midst of a 
 population engaged in their ordinary occupations in a time 
 of profound peace ; and to supply the place of the young 
 and robust thus withdrawn from the labors of agriculture 
 he beholds women performing the work of the fields. He 
 sees the many retained in a state of hopeless dependence 
 and poverty, the effect of institutions forged by the ruling 
 class to accumulate wealth in their own hands. The want 
 of self-respect in the inferior class engendered by this state 
 of things, shows itself in the acts of rapacity and fraud 
 which the traveller meets with throughout France and 
 Italy, and, worse still, in the shameless corruption of the 
 Italian custom-houses, the officers of which regularly solicit 
 a paltry bribe from every passenger as the consideration of 
 leaving his baggage unexamined. I am told that in this
 
 BRIBERY IN THE COURTS. 23 
 
 place the custom of giving presents extends even to the 
 courts of justice, the officers of which, from the highest to 
 the lowest, are in the constant practice of receiving them. 
 No American can see how much jealousy and force on the 
 one hand, and necessity and fear on the other, have to do 
 with keeping up the existing governments of Europe, 
 without thanking heaven that such is not the condition of 
 his own country.
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 TUSCAN SCENERY AND CLIMATE. \ 
 
 FLORENCE, October 11, 1834. 
 
 THE bridge over the Arno, immediately under my window, 
 is the spot from which Cole's fine landscape, which you per- 
 haps remernher seeing in the exhibition of our Ac.ademy, was 
 taken. It gives, you may recollect, a view of the Arno travel- 
 ling off towards the west, its hanks overhung with trees, 
 the mountain-ridges rising in the distance, and above them 
 the sky flushed with the colors of sunset. The same rich 
 hues I behold every evening in the quarter where they were 
 seen by the artist when he made them permanent on his 
 canvas. 
 
 There is a great deal of prattle about Italian skies : the 
 skies and clouds of Italy, so far as I have had an opportu- 
 nity of judging, do not present so great a variety of beau- 
 tiful appearances as our own ; but the Italian atmosphere 
 is far more uniformly fine than ours. Not to speak of its 
 astonishing clearness, it is pervaded by a certain warmth 
 of color which enriches every object. This is more remark- 
 able about the time of sunset, when the mountains put on 
 an aerial aspect, as if they belonged to another and fairer
 
 AUTUMN IN FLORENCE. ' Z6 
 
 world ; and a little after the sun has gone down, the air is 
 flushed with a glory which seems to transfigure all that it 
 incloses. Many of the fine old palaces of Florence, you 
 know, are built in a gloomy though grand style of arcliitec- 
 ture, of a dark-colored stone, massive and lofty, and over- 
 looking narrow streets that lie in almost perpetual shade. 
 But at the hour of which I am speaking, the bright warm 
 radiance reflected from the sky to the earth, fills the dark- 
 est lanes, streams into the most shadowy nooks, and makes 
 the prison-like structures glitter as with a brightness of 
 their own. . 
 
 It is now nearly the middle of October, and we have had 
 no frost. The strong summer heats which prevailed when 
 1 came hither, have by the slowest gradations subsided into 
 an agreeable autumnal temperature. The trees keep their 
 verdure, but I perceive their foliage growing thinner, and 
 when I walk in the Cascine on the other side of the Arno, the 
 rustling of the lizards, as they run among the heaps of crisn 
 leaves, reminds me that the autumn is wearing away, 
 though the ivy which clothes the old elms has put forth a 
 profuse array of blossoms, and the walks murmur with bee! , 
 like our orchards in spring. As I look along the declivitie ; 
 of the Appenines, I see the raw earth every day mors 
 visible between the ranks of olive-trees and the well-pruned 
 maples which support the vines. 
 
 If I have found my expectations of Italian scenery, 
 in some respects, below the reality, in other respecta they
 
 26 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 have been disappointed. The forms of the mountains are 
 wonderfully picturesque, and their effect is heightened by 
 the rich atmosphere through which they are seen, and by 
 the buildings, imposing from their architecture or venera- 
 able from time, which crown the eminences. But if the 
 hand of man has done something to embellish this region, 
 it has done more to deform it. Not a tree is suffered to re- 
 tain its natural shape, not a brook to flow in its natural 
 channel. An exterminating war is carried on against the 
 natural herbage of the soil. The country is without woods 
 and green fields ; and to him who views the vale of the 
 Arno " from the top of Fiesole," or any of the neighboring 
 heights, grand as he will allow the circle of the mountains 
 to be, and magnificent the edifices with which the region 
 is adorned, it appears, at any time after midsummer, a 
 huge valley of dust, planted with low rows of the pallid 
 and thin-leaved olive, or the more dwarfish maple on which 
 the vines are trained. The simplicity of nature, so far as 
 can be done, is destroyed ; there is no fine sweep of forest, 
 no broad expanse of meadow or pasture ground, no ancient 
 and towering trees clustered about the villas, no rows of 
 natural shrubbery following the course of the brooks and 
 rivers. The streams, which are often but the beds of tor- 
 rents dry during the summer, are confined in straight channels 
 by stone walls and embankments ; the slopes are broken up 
 and disfigured by terraces ; and the trees are kept down by 
 constant pruning and lopping, until half way up the sides
 
 FLORENTINE ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS. 27 
 
 of the Appenines, where the limit of cultivation is reached, 
 and thence to the summit is a barren steep of rock, without 
 herbage or soil. The grander features of the landscape, 
 however, are fortunately beyond the power of man to in- 
 jure ; the lofty mountain-summits, bare precipices cleft with 
 chasms, and pinnacles of rock piercing the sky, betokening, 
 far more than any thing I have seen elsewhere, a breaking 
 up of the crust of the globe in some early period of its exist- 
 ence. I am told that in May and June the country is much 
 more beautiful than at present, and that owing to a drought 
 it now appears under a particular disadvantage. 
 
 The Academy of the Fine Arts has had its exhibition 
 since I arrived. In its rooms, which were gratuitously open 
 to the public, I found a large crowd of gazers at the pic- 
 tures and statues. Many had corne to look at some work 
 ordered by an acquaintance ; others made the place a morn- 
 ing lounge. In the collection were some landscapes by 
 Morghen, the son of the celebrated engraver, very fresh and 
 clear ; a few pieces sent by Bezzoli, one of the most emi- 
 nent Italian painters of his time ; a statue of Galileo, not 
 without merit, by Costoli, for there is always a Galileo or two, 
 I believe, at every exhibition of the kind in Florence ; por- 
 traits good, bad, and indifferent, in great abundance, and 
 many square feet of canvas spoiled by attempts at historical 
 painting. 
 
 Let me remark, by the way, that a work of art is a sacred 
 thing in the eyes of Italians of all classes, never to be do-
 
 28 LETTERS OF A TKAVELLEH. 
 
 faced, never to be touched, a thing to be looked at merely. 
 A statue may stand for ages in a public square, within the 
 reach of any one who passes, and with no sentinel to guard 
 it, and yet it shall not only be safe from mutilation, but the 
 surface of the marble shall never be scratched, or even 
 irreverently scored with a lead pencil. So general is this 
 reverence for art, that the most perfect confidence is re- 
 posed in it. I remember that in Paris, as I was looking at 
 a colossal plaster cast of Napoleon at the Hotel des In- 
 valides, a fellow armed with a musket who stood by it bolt 
 upright, in the stiff attitude to which the soldier is drilled, 
 gruffly reminded me that I was too near, though I was not 
 within four feet of it. In Florence it is taken for granted 
 that you will do no mischief, and therefore you are not 
 watched.
 
 DAY IN 1M.O HENCE. 29 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 A DAY IN FLORENCE. 
 
 PISA, December 11, 1834. 
 
 IT is gratifying to be able to communicate a piece of po 
 litical intelligence from so quiet a nook of the world as this. 
 Don Miguel arrived here the other day from Genoa, where 
 you know there was a story that he and the Duchess of 
 Berri, a hopeful couple, were laying their heads together. 
 He went to pay his respects to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, 
 who is now at Pisa, and it was said by the gossips of the 
 place that he was coldly received, and was given to under- 
 stand that he could not be allowed to remain in the Tuscan 
 territory. There was probably nothing in all this. Don 
 Miguel has now departed for Rome, and the talk of to-day is 
 that he will return before the end of the winter. He is 
 doubtless wandering about to observe in what manner he is 
 received at the petty courts which are influenced by the 
 Austrian policy, and in the mean time lying in wait for 
 some favorable opportunity of renewing his pretensions to 
 the crown of Spain. 
 
 Pisa offers a greater contrast to Florence than I had im- 
 agined could exist between two Italian cities. This is the 
 3*
 
 30 LETTERS 01' A TRAVELLER. 
 
 very seat of idleness and slumber ; while Florence, from 
 being the residence of the Court, and from the vast number 
 of foreigners who throng to it, presents during several 
 months of the year an appearance of great bustle and 
 animation. Four thousand English, an American friend 
 tells me, visit Florence every winter, to say nothing of the 
 occasional residents from France, Germany, and Russia. 
 The number of visitors from the latter country is every year 
 increasing, and the echoes of the Florence gallery have 
 been taught to repeat the strange accents of the Sclavonic. 
 Let me give you the history of a fine day in October, passed 
 at the window of my lodgings on the Lung' Arno, close to 
 the bridge Alia Carraja. Waked by the jangling of all 
 the bells in Florence and by the noise of carriages departing 
 loaded with travellers, for Rome and other places in the 
 south of Italy, I rise, dress myself, and take my place at 
 the window. I see crowds of men and women from the 
 country, the former in brown velvet jackets, and the latter 
 in broad-brimmed straw hats, driving donkeys loaded with 
 panniers or trundling hand -carts before them, heaped with 
 grapes, figs, and all the fruits of the orchard, the garden, and 
 the field. They have hardly passed, when large flocks of 
 sheep and goats make their appearance, attended by 
 shepherds and their families, driven by the approach of 
 winter from the Appenines, and seeking the pastures of the 
 Maremma, a rich, but, in the summer, an unhealthy tract 
 on the coast. The men and boys are dressed in knee-
 
 MOR.NINU IN FLORENCE. 31 
 
 | 
 
 breeches, the women in bodices, and both sexes wear 
 capotes with pointed hoods, and felt hats with conical 
 crowns ; they carry long staves in their hands, and their 
 arms are loaded with kids and lambs too young to keep 
 pace with their mothers. After the long procession of 
 sheep and goats and dogs and men and women and chil- 
 dren, come horses loaded with cloths and poles for tents, 
 kitchen utensils, and the rest of the younglings of the flock. 
 A little after sunrise I see well-fed donkeys, in coverings of 
 red cloth, driven over the bridge to be milked for invalids. 
 Maid-servants, bareheaded, with huge high carved combs in. 
 their hair, waiters of coffee-houses carrying the morning cup 
 of coffee or chocolate to their customers, baker's boys with a 
 dozen loaves on a board balanced on their heads, milkmen 
 vvith rush baskets filled with flasks of milk, are crossing the 
 streets in all directions. A little later the bell of the small 
 chapel opposite to my window rings furiously for a quarter 
 of an hour, and then I hear mass chanted in a deep strong 
 nasal tone. As the day advances, the English, in white 
 hats and white pantaloons, come out of their lodgings, 
 accompanied sometimes by their hale and square-built 
 spouses, and saunter stiffly along the Arno, or take their 
 way to the public galleries and museums. Their massive, 
 clean, and brightly-polished carriages also begin to rattle 
 through the streets, setting out on excursions to some part 
 of the environs of Florence to Fiesole, to the Pratolino, to 
 the Bello Sguardo, to the Poggio Imperiale. Sights of a
 
 32 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 different kind now present themselves. Sometimes it is 
 a troop of stout Franciscan friars, in sandals and brown 
 robes, each carrying his staff and wearing a brown broad- 
 brimmed hat with a hemispherical crown. Sometimes it iri 
 a band of young theological students, in purple cassocks with 
 red collars and cuffs, let out on a holiday, attended by their 
 clerical instructors, to ramble in the Cascine. There is 
 a priest coming over the bridge, a man of venerable age 
 and great reputation for sanctity the common people crowd 
 around him to kiss his hand, and obtain a kind word from 
 him as he passes. But what is that procession of men in 
 black gowns, black gaiters, and black masks, moving swiftly 
 along, and bearing on their shoulders a litter coA^ered with 
 black cloth ? These are the Brethren of Mercy, who 
 have assembled at the sound of the cathedral bell, and are 
 conveying some sick or wounded person to the hospital. As 
 the day begins to decline, the numbers of carriages in the 
 streets, filled with gaily-dressed people attended by servants 
 in livery, increases. The Grand Duke's equipage, an ele- 
 gant carriage drawn by six horses, with coachmen, footmen, 
 and outriders in drab-colored livery, comes from the Pitti 
 Palace, arid crosses the Arno, either by the bridge close to 
 my lodgings, or by that called Alia Santa Trinita, which 
 is in full sight from the windows. The Florentine nobility, 
 with their families, and the English residents, now throng 
 to the Cascine, to drive at a slow pace through its thickly- 
 planted walks of elms, oaks, and ilexes. As the sun is-
 
 EVENING IN FLORENCE. 33 
 
 sinking I perceive the Q,uay, on. the other side of the Arno, 
 filled with a moving crowd of well-dressed people, walking 
 to and fro, and enjoying the beauty of the evening. Travel- 
 lers now arrive from all quarters, in cabriolets, in calashes, 
 in the shabby vettura, and in the elegant private carriage 
 drawn by post-horses, and driven by postillions in the tight- 
 est possible deer-skin breeches, the smallest red coats, and the 
 hugest jack-boots. The streets about the doors of the hotels 
 resound with the cracking of whips and the stamping of 
 horses, and are encumbered with carriages, heaps of bag- 
 gage, porters, postillions, couriers, and travellers. Night at 
 length arrives the time of spectacles and funerals. The 
 carriages rattle towards the opera-houses. Trains of people, 
 sometimes in white robes and sometimes in black, carrying 
 blazing torches and a cross elevated on a high pole before a 
 coffin, pass through the streets chanting the service for the 
 dead. The Brethren of Mercy may also be seen engaged in 
 their office. The rapidity of their pace, the flare of their 
 torches, the gleam of their eyes through their masks, and 
 their sable garb, give them a kind of supernatural appear- 
 ance. I return to bed, and fall asleep amidst the shouts of 
 people returning from the opera, singing as they go snatches 
 of the music with which they had been entertained during 
 the evening. 
 
 Such is a picture of what passes every day at Florence 
 in Pisa, on the contrary, all is stagnation and repose even 
 the presence of the sovereign, who usually passes a part of
 
 
 34 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the winter here, is incompetent to give a momentary liveli- 
 ness to the place. The city is nearly as large as Florence, 
 with not a third of its population ; the number of strangers 
 is few ; most of them are invalids, and the rest are the 
 quietest people in the world. The rattle of carriages is 
 rarely heard in the streets ; in some of which there prevails 
 a stillness so complete that you might imagine them desert- 
 ed of their inhabitants. I have now been here three weeks, 
 and on one occasion only have I seen the people of the 
 place awakened to something like animation. It was the 
 feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin ; the Lung' 
 Arno was strewn with boughs of laurel and myrtle, arid the 
 Pisan gentry promenaded for an hour under my window. 
 
 On my leaving Florence an incident occurred, which will 
 illustrate the manner of doing public business in this 
 country. I had obtained my passport from the Police 
 Office, vised for Pisa. It was then Friday, and I was told 
 that it would answer until ten o'clock on Tuesday morning. 
 Unluckily I did not present myself at the Leghorn gate of 
 Florence until eleven o'clock on that day. A young man 
 in a military hat, sword, and blue uniform, came to the 
 carriage and asked for my passport, which I handed him. 
 In a short time he appeared again and desired me to get 
 out and go with him to the apartment in the side of the 
 gate. I went and saw a middle-aged man dressed in the 
 same manner, sitting at the table with my passport before 
 him. " I am sorry," said he, " to say that your passport is
 
 USES OF A PASSPORT. 35 
 
 not regular, and that my duty compels me to detain you." 
 " What is the matter with the passport?" "The vise is 
 of more than three days standing." I exerted all my elo- 
 quence to persuade him that an hour was of no consequence, 
 and that the public welfare would not suffer by letting me 
 pass, but he remained firm. " The law," he said, " is 
 positive ; I am compelled to execute it. If I were to suffer 
 you to depart, and my superiors were to know it, I should 
 lose my office and incur the penalty of five days' im- 
 prisonment." 
 
 I happened to have a few coins in my pocket, and put- 
 ting in my hand, I caused them to jingle a little against 
 each other. " Your case is a hard one," said the officer, 
 "I suppose you are desirous to get on." "Yes my 
 preparations are all made, and it will be a great incon- 
 venience for me to remain." "What say you," he called 
 out to his companion who stood in the door looking into the 
 street, " shall we let them pass ? They seem to be decent 
 people." The young man mumbled some sort of answer. 
 "Here," said the officer, holding out to me my passport, 
 but still keeping it between his thumb and finger, " I give 
 you back your passport, and consent to your leaving 
 Florence, but I wish you particularly to consider that in so 
 doing, I risk the loss of my place and an imprisonment of 
 five days." He then put the paper into my hand, and I 
 put into his the expected gratuity. As I went to the 
 carriage, he followed and begged me to say nothing of the
 
 36 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 matter to any one. I was admitted into Pisa with less 
 difficulty. It was already dark ; I expected that my bag- 
 gage would undergo a long examination as usual ; and I 
 knew that I had some dutiable articles. To my astonish- 
 ment, however, my trunks were allowed to pass without 
 being opened, or even the payment of the customary 
 gratuity. I was told afterwards that my Italian servant 
 had effected this by telling the custom-house officers some 
 lie about my being the American Minister. 
 
 Pisa has a delightful winter climate, though Madame de 
 Stael has left on record a condemnation of it, having passed 
 here a season of unusually bad weather. Orange and 
 lemon trees grow in the open air, and are now loaded with 
 ripe fruit. The fields in the environs are green with grass 
 nourished by abundant rains, and are spotted with daisies 
 in blossom. Crops of flax and various kinds of pulse are 
 showing themselves above the ground, a circumstance 
 sufficient to show that the cultivators expect nothing like 
 what we call winter.
 
 PRACTICES OF THE ITALIAN COURTS. 37 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 PRACTICES OF THE ITALIAN COURTS. 
 
 FLORENCE, May 12, 1835. 
 
 NIGHT before last, a man-child was born to the Grand 
 Duke of Tuscany, and yesterday was a day of great rejoi- 
 cing in consequence. The five hundred bells of Florence 
 kept up a horrid ringing through the day, and in the even- 
 ing the public edifices and many private houses were il- 
 luminated. To-day and to-morrow the rejoicings continue, 
 and in the mean time the galleries and museums are closed, 
 lest idle people should amuse themselves rationally. The 
 Tuscans are pleased with the birth of an heir to the Duke- 
 dom, first because the succession is likely to be kept in 
 a good sort of a family, and secondly because for want of 
 male children it would have reverted to the House of Aus- 
 tria, and the province would have been governed by a 
 foreigner. I am glad of it, also, for the sake of the poor 
 Tuscans, who are a mild people, and if they must be under 
 a despotism, deserve to live under a good-natured one. 
 
 An Austrian Prince, if he were to govern Tuscany as the 
 Emperor governs the Lombardo-Venetian territory, would 
 introduce a more just and efficient system of administering 
 4
 
 38 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the laws between man und man, but at the same time a more 
 barbarous severity to political offenders. I saw at Volterra, 
 last spring, four persons who were condemned at Florence 
 for an alleged conspiracy against the state. They were 
 walking with instruments of music in their hands, on the 
 top of the fortress, which commands an extensive view of 
 mountain, vale, and sea, including the lower Val d'Arno, and 
 reaching to Leghorn, and even to Corsica. They were 
 well-dressed, and I was assured their personal comfort was 
 attended to. A different treatment is the fate of the state 
 prisoners who languish in the dungeons of Austria. In Tus- 
 cany no man's life is taken for any offense whatever, and 
 banishment is a common sentence against those who are 
 deemed dangerous or intractable subjects. In all the other 
 provinces a harsher system prevails. In Sardinia capital 
 executions for political causes are frequent, and long and 
 mysterious detentions are resorted to, as in Lombardy, with a 
 view to strike terror into the minds of a discontented people. 
 The royal family of Naples kill people by way of amuse- 
 ment. Prince Charles, a brother of the king, sometime in 
 the month of April last, found an old man cutting myrtle 
 twigs on some of the royal hunting-grounds, of which he 
 has the superintendence. He directed his attendants to 
 seize the offender and tie him to a tree, and when they had 
 done this ordered them to shoot him. This they refused, 
 upon which he took a loaded musket from the hands of 
 one of them, and with the greatest deliberation shot him
 
 A ROYAL MURDERER. 39 
 
 dead upon the spot. His Royal Highness soon after set out 
 for Rome to amuse himself with the ceremonies of the Holy 
 Week, and to figure at the balls given by Torlonia and 
 other Roman nobles, where he signalized himself by his at- 
 tentions to the English ladies. 
 
 Of the truth of the story I have related I have been as- 
 sured by several respectable persons in Naples. About the 
 middle of May I was at the spot where the murder was 
 said to have been committed. It was on the borders of the 
 lake of Agnano. We reached it by a hollow winding road 
 cut deep through the hills and rocks thousands of years ago. 
 It was a pretty and solitary spot ; a neat pavilion of the royal 
 family stood on the shore, and the air was fragrant with 
 the blossoms of the white clover and the innumerable flowers 
 which the soil of Italy, for a short season before the summer 
 heats and drought, pours forth so profusely. The lake is 
 evidently the crater of an old volcano : it lies in a perfect 
 bowl of hills, and the perpetual escape of gas, bubbling up 
 through the water, shows that the process of chemical de- 
 composition in the earth below has not yet ceased. Close 
 by, in the side of the circular hill that surrounds the lake, 
 stands the famous Grotto del Cane, closed with a door to 
 enable the keeper to get a little money from the foreigners 
 who come to visit it. You may be sure I was careful not 
 to trim any of the myrtles with my penknife. 
 
 But to return to Tuscany it is after all little better than 
 an Austrian province, like the other countries of Italy. The
 
 40 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Grand Duke is a near relative of the Emperor; he has the 
 rank of colonel in the Austrian service, and a treaty of 
 offense and defense obliges him to take part in the wars 
 of Austria to the extent of furnishing ten thousand soldiers. 
 It is well understood that he is watched by the agents of the 
 Austrian Government here, who form a sort of high police, 
 to which he and his cabinet are subject, and that he would 
 not venture upon any measure of national policy, nor even 
 displace or appoint a minister, without the consent of Met- 
 ternich. 
 
 The birth of a son to the Grand Duke has been signal- 
 ized, I have just learned, by a display of princely munifi- 
 cence. Five thousand crowns have been presented to the 
 Archbishop who performed the ceremony of christening the 
 child ; the servants of the ducal household have received 
 two months' wages, in addition to their usual salary ; five 
 hundred young women have received marriage portions of 
 thirty crowns each ; all the articles of property at the 
 great pawnbroking establishments managed by goverment, 
 pledged for a less sum than four livres, have been restored 
 to the owners without payment ; and finally, all persons 
 confined for larceny and other offences of a less degree than 
 homicide and other enormous crimes, have been liberated 
 and turned loose upon society again. The Grand Duke 
 can well afford to be generous, for from a million and three 
 hundred thousand people he draws, by taxation, four mil- 
 lions of crowns annually, of which a million only is com-
 
 WEALTH OF THE GRAND DUKE. 41 
 
 puted to be expended in the military and civil expenses 
 of his government. The remainder is of course applied to 
 keeping up the state of a prince and to the enriching of 
 his family. He passes, you know, for one of the richest 
 
 potentates in Europe. 
 
 4*
 
 42 LK'l'IKr. S OF .* TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 V E N I C E. T HE TYROL. 
 
 MUNICH, August 6, 1835. 
 
 SINCE my last letter I have visited Venice, a city which 
 realizes the old mythological fable of beauty bom of the sea. 
 I must confess, however, that my first feeling on entering 
 it was that of disappointment. As we passed in our gon- 
 dola out of the lagoons, up one of the numerous canals, 
 which permeate the city in every direction in such a 
 manner that it seems as if you could only pass your time 
 either within doors or in a boat, the place appeared to me a 
 vast assemblage of prisons surrounded with their moats, 
 and I thought how weary I should soon grow of my island 
 prison, and how glad to escape again to the main-land. But 
 this feeling quickly gave way to delight and admiration, 
 when I landed and surveyed the clean though narrow 
 streets, never incommoded by dust nor disturbed by the 
 noise and jostling of carriages and horses, by which you 
 may pass to every part of the city when I looked again 
 at the rows of superb buildings, with their marble steps as- 
 cending out of the water of the canals, in which the 
 gondolas were shooting by each other when I stood in the
 
 VENETIAN ARCHITECTURE. 43 
 
 immense square of St. Mark, surrounded by palaces resting 
 on arcades, under which the shops rival in splendor those 
 of Paris, and crowds of the gay inhabitants of both sexes as- 
 semble towards evening and sit in groups before the doors 
 of the coffee-houses and when I gazed on the barbaric 
 magnificence of the church of St. Mark and the Doge's 
 palace, surrounded by the old emblems of the power of 
 Venice, and overlooking the Adriatic, once the empire of 
 the republic. The architecture of Venice has to my eyes, 
 something watery and oceanic in its aspect. Under the 
 hands of Palladio, the Grecian orders seemed to borrow the 
 lightness and airiness of the Gothic. As you look at the 
 numerous windows and the multitude of columns which give 
 a striated appearance to the fronts of the palaces, you think 
 of stalactites and icicles, such as you might imagine to orna- 
 ment the abodes of the water-gods and sea-nymphs. The 
 only thing needed to complete the poetic illusion is trans- 
 parency or brilliancy of color, and this is wholly wanting ; 
 for at Venice the whitest marble is soon clouded and 
 blackened by the corrosion of the sea-air. 
 
 It is not my intention, however, to do so hackneyed a 
 thing as to give a description of Venice. One thing, I must 
 confess, seemed to me extraordinary : how this city, de- 
 prived as it is of the commerce which built it up from the 
 shallows of the Adriatic, and upheld it so long and so 
 proudly, should not have decayed even more rapidly than it 
 has done. Trieste has drawn from it almost all its trade,
 
 44 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLEB.. 
 
 and flourishes by its decline. I walked through the arsenal 
 of Venice, which comprehends the Navy Yard, an enormous 
 structure, with ranges of broad lofty roofs supported by 
 massive portions of wall, and spacious dock-yards ; the 
 whole large enough to build and fit out a navy for the 
 British empire. The pleasure-boats of Napoleon and his 
 empress, and that of the present Viceroy, are there : but 
 the ships of war belonging to the republic have mouldered 
 away with the Buceiitaur. I saw, however, two Austrian 
 vessels, the same which had conveyed the Polish exiles to 
 New York, lying under shelter in the docks, as if placed 
 there to show who were the present masters of the place. 
 It was melancholy to wander through the vast unoccupied 
 spaces of this noble edifice, and to think what must have 
 been the riches, the power, the prosperity, and the hopes of 
 Venice at the time it was built, and what they are at the 
 present moment. It seems almost impossible that any thing 
 should take place to arrest the ruin which is gradually 
 consuming this renowned city. Some writers have asserted 
 that the lagoons around it are annually growing shallower 
 by the depositions of earth brought down by streams from 
 the land, that they must finally become marshes, and that 
 their consequent insalubrity will drive the inhabitants from 
 Venice. I do not know how this may be ; but the other 
 causes I have mentioned seem likely to produce nearly the 
 same effect. I remembered, as these ideas passed through 
 my mind, a passage in which one of the sacred poets fore-
 
 CENEDA. 45 
 
 tells the desertion and desolation of Tyre. " the city that 
 made itself glorious in the midst of the seas " 
 
 " Thy riches and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners and thy 
 pilots, thy calkers and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy 
 men of war that are in thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the 
 day of thy ruin." 
 
 I left this most pleasing of the Italian cities which I had 
 seen, on the 24th of June, and took the road for the Tyrol. 
 We passed through a level fertile country, formerly the 
 territory of Venice, watered by the Piave, which ran blood 
 in one of Bonaparte's battles. At evening we arrived at 
 Ceneda, where our Italian poet Da Ponte was born, situated 
 just at the base of the Alps, the rocky peaks and irregular 
 spires of which, beautifully green with the showery season, 
 rose in the background. Ceneda seems to have something 
 of German cleanliness about it, and the floors of a very com- 
 fortable inn at which we stopped were of wood, the first we 
 had seen in Italy, though common throughout the Tyrol and 
 the rest of Germany. A troop of barelegged boys, just 
 broke loose from school, whooping and swinging their books 
 and slates in the air, passed under my window. Such a 
 sight you will not see in southern Italy. The education of 
 the people is neglected, except in those provinces which are 
 under the government of Austria. It is a government se- 
 vere and despotic enough in all conscience, but by provi- 
 ding the means of education for all classes, it is doing more
 
 4*1 LETTEJIS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 than it is aware of to prepare them for the enjoyment of 
 free institutions. In the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom, as it 
 is called, there are few children who do not attend the pub- 
 lic schools. 
 
 On leaving Ceneda, we entered a pass in the mountains, 
 the gorge of which was occupied by the ancient town of 
 Serravalle, resting on arcades, the architecture of which 
 denoted that it was built during the middle ages. Near it 
 I remarked an old castle, which formerly commanded the 
 pass, one of the finest ruins of the kind I had ever seen. It 
 had a considerable extent of battlemented wall in perfect 
 preservation, and both that and its circular tower were so 
 luxuriantly loaded with ivy that they seemed almost to 
 have been cut out of the living verdure. As we proceeded 
 we became aware how worthy this region was to be the 
 birthplace of a poet. A rapid stream, a branch of the 
 Piave, tinged of a light and somewhat turbid blue by the 
 soil of the mountains, came tumbling and roaring down the 
 narrow valley ; perpendicular precipices rose on each side ; 
 and beyond, the gigantic brotherhood of the Alps, in two 
 long files of steep pointed summits, divided by deep ravines, 
 stretched away in the sunshine to the northeast. In the 
 face of one the precipices by the way-side, a marble slab is 
 fixed, informing the traveller that the road was opened by 
 the late Emperor of Germany in the year 1830. We 
 followed this romantic valley for a considerable distance, 
 passing several little blue lakes lying in their granite
 
 A SNOW STORM IN JUNE. 47 
 
 basins, one of which is called the Lago morto or Dead 
 Lake, from having no outlet for its waters. At length we 
 began to ascend, by a winding road, the steep sides of the 
 Alps the prospect enlarging as we went, the mountain 
 summits rising to sight around us, one behind another, some 
 of them white with snow, over which the wind blew with a 
 wintery keenness deep valleys opening below us, and 
 gulfs yawning between rocks over which old bridges were 
 thrown and solemn fir forests clothing the broad declivi- 
 ties. The farm-houses placed on these heights, instead of 
 being of brick or stone, as in the plains and valleys below, 
 were principally built of wood ; the second story, which 
 served for a barn, being encircled by a long gallery, and 
 covered with a projecting roof of plank held down with 
 large stones. We stopped at Venas, a wretched place with 
 a wretched inn, the hostess of which showed us a chin 
 swollen with the goitre, and ushered us into dirty comfort- 
 less rooms where we passed the night. When we awoke 
 the rain was beating against the windows, and, on looking 
 out, the forest and sides of the neighboring mountains, at a 
 little height above us, appeared hoary with snow. We set 
 out in the rain, but had not proceeded far before we heard 
 the sleet striking against the windows of the carriage, and 
 soon came to where the snow covered the ground to the 
 depth of one or two inches. Continuing to ascend, we 
 passed out of Italy and entered the Tyrol. The storm had 
 ceased before we went through the first Tyrolese village,
 
 48 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and we could not help being struck with the change in the 
 appearance of the inhabitants the different costume, the 
 less erect figures, the awkward gait, the lighter com- 
 plexions, the neatly-kept habitations, and the absence of 
 beggars. As we advanced, the clouds began to roll off from 
 the landscape, disclosing here and there, through openings 
 in their broad skirts as they swept along, glimpses of the 
 profound valleys below us, and of the white sides and sum- 
 mits of mountains in the mid-sky above. At length the sun 
 appeared, and revealed a prospect of such wildness, 
 grandeur, and splendor as I had- never before seen. Lofty 
 peaks of the most fantastic shapes, with deep clefts between, 
 sharp needles of rocks, and overhanging crags, infinite in 
 multitude, shot up everywhere around us, glistening in the 
 new-fallen snow, with thin wreaths of mist creeping along 
 their sides. At intervals, swollen torrents, looking at a dis- 
 tance like long trains of foam, came thundering down the 
 mountains, and crossing the road, plunged into the verdant 
 valleys which winded beneath. Beside the highway were 
 fields of young grain, pressed to the ground with the snow ; 
 and in the meadows, ranunculuses of the size of roses, large 
 yellow violets, and a thousand other Alpine flowers of the 
 most brilliant hues, were peeping through their white 
 covering. We stopped to breakfast at a place called Lan- 
 dro, a solitary inn, in the midst of this grand scenery, with 
 a little chapel beside it. The water from the dissolving 
 snow was dropping merrily from the roof in a bright June
 
 A TYROL ESE HOLIDAY. 49 
 
 sun. We needed not to be told that we were in Germany, 
 for we saw it plainly enough in the nicely-washed floor of 
 the apartment into which we were shown, in the neat cup- 
 oard with the old prayer-book lying upon it, and in the 
 general appearance of housewifery, a quality unknown in 
 T .taly ; to say nothing of the evidence we had in the beer 
 ,nd tobacco-smoke of the travellers' room, and the guttural 
 dialect and quiet tones of the guests. 
 
 7rorn Landro we descended gradually into the beautiful 
 valleys of the Tyrol, leaving the snow behind, though the 
 white peaks of the mountains were continually in sight. 
 At Bruneck, in. an imi resplendent with neatness so at 
 least it seemed to our eyes accustomed to the negligence 
 und dirt of Italian housekeeping we had the first specimen 
 of a German bed. It is narrow and short, and made so 
 high at the head, by a number of huge square bolsters and 
 pillows, that you rather sit than lie. The principal cover- 
 ing is a bag of down, very properly denominated the uppei 
 bed, and between this and the feather-bed below, the 
 traveller is expected to pass the night. An asthmatic 
 patient on a cold winter night might perhaps find such a 
 couch tolerably comfortable, if he could prevent the narrow 
 covering from slipping off on one side or the other. The 
 next day we were afforded an opportunity of observing more 
 closely the inhabitants of this singular region, by a festival, 
 or holiday of some sort, which brought them into the roads 
 in great numbers, arrayed in their best dresses the men in
 
 50 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 short jackets and small-clothes, with broad gay-colored sus- 
 penders over their waistcoats, and leathern belts ornamented 
 with gold or silver leaf the women in short petticoats 
 composed of horizontal bands of different colors and both 
 sexes, for the most part, wearing broad-brimmed hats with 
 hemispherical crowns, though there was a sugar-loaf variety 
 much affected by the men, adorned with a band of lace and 
 sometimes a knot of flowers. They are a robust, healthy- 
 looking race, though they have an awkward stoop in the 
 shoulders. But what struck me most forcibly was the 
 devotional habits of the people. The Tyrolese might be 
 cited as an illustration of the remark, that mountaineers are 
 more habitually and profoundly religious than others. 
 Persons of all sexes, young and old, whom we meet in the 
 road, were repeating their prayers audibly. We passed a 
 troop of old women, all in broad-brimmed hats arid short 
 gray petticoats, carrying long staves, one of whom held a 
 bead-roll and gave out the prayers, to which the others 
 made the responses in chorus. They looked at us so 
 solemnly from under their broad brims, and marched along 
 with so grave arid deliberate a pace, that I could hardly 
 help fancying that the wicked Austrians had caught a ' 
 dozen elders of the respectable society of Friends, and put 
 them in petticoats to punish them for their heresy. We 
 afterward saw persons going to the labors of the day, or re- 
 turning, telling their rosaries and saying their prayers as 
 they went, as if their devotions had been their favorite
 
 NUMEROUS CHAPELS. 51 
 
 amusement. At regular intervals of about half a mile, we 
 saw wooden crucifixes erected by the way-side, covered from 
 the weather with little sheds, bearing the image of the 
 Saviour, crowned with thorns and frightfully dashed with 
 streaks and drops of red paint, to represent the blood that 
 flowed from his wounds. The outer walls of the better 
 kind of houses were ornamented with paintings in fresco, 
 and the subjects of these were mostly sacred, such as the 
 Virgin and Child, the Crucifixion, and the Ascension. The 
 number of houses of worship was surprising ; I do not 
 mean spacious or stately churches such as we meet with in 
 Italy, but most commonly little chapels dispersed so as best 
 to accommodate the population. Of these the smallest 
 neighborhood has one for the morning devotions of its in- 
 habitants, and even the solitary inn has its little consecrated 
 building with its miniature spire, for the convenience of 
 pious wayfarers. At Sterzing, a little village beautifully 
 situated at the base of the mountain called the Brenner, and 
 containing, as I should judge, not more than two or three 
 thousand inhabitants, we counted seven churches and 
 chapels within the compass of a square mile. The observ- 
 ances of the Roman Catholic church are nowhere more 
 rigidly complied with than in the Tyrol. When we stop- 
 ped at Bruneck on Friday evening, I happened to drop a 
 word about a little meat for dinner in a conversation with 
 the spruce-looking landlady, who appeared so shocked that 
 I gave up the point, on the promise of some excellent and
 
 OZ LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 remarkably well-flavored trout from the stream that flowed 
 through the village a promise that was literally fulfilled. 
 At the post-house on the Brenner, where we stopped on 
 Saturday evening, we were absolutely refused any thing but 
 soup-maigre and fish ; the postmaster telling us that the 
 priest had positively forbidden meat to be given to travellers. 
 Think of that ! that we who had eaten wild-boar and 
 pheasants on Good Friday, at Rome, under the very nostrils 
 of the Pope himself and his whole conclave of Cardinals, 
 should be refused a morsel of flesh on an ordinary Saturday, 
 at a tavern on a lonely mountain in the Tyrol, by the 
 orders of a parish priest ! Before getting our soup-maigre. 
 we witnessed another example of Tyrolese devotion. Eight 
 or ten travellers, apparently laboring men, took possession 
 of the entrance hall of the inn, and kneeling, poured forth 
 their orisons in the German language for half an hour with 
 no small appearance of fervency. In the morning .when 
 we were ready to set out, we inquired for our coachman, an 
 Italian, and found that he too, although not remarkably re- 
 ligious, had caught something of the spirit of the place, and 
 was at the Gotteslutus, as the waiter called the tavern 
 chapel, offering his morning prayers. 
 
 "VYe descended the Brenner on the 28th of June in a 
 snow-storm, the wind whirling the light flakes in the air as 
 it does with us in winter. It changed to rain, however, as 
 we approached the beautiful and picturesque valley watered 
 by the river Ian, on the banks of which stands the fine old
 
 JNNSBKUCK. 53 
 
 town of Innsbruck, the capital of the Tyrol. Here we vis- 
 ited the Church of the Holy Cross, in which is the bronze 
 tomb of Maximilian I. and twenty or thirty bronze statues 
 ranged on each side of the nave, representing fierce warrior 
 chiefs, and gowned prelates, and stately damsels of the mid- 
 dle ages. These are all curious for the costume ; the war- 
 riors are cased in various kinds of ancient armor, and 
 brandish various ancient weapons, and the robes of the 
 females are flowing and by no means ungraceful. Almost 
 every one of the statues has its hands and fingers in some 
 constrained and awkward position ; as if the artist knew as 
 little what to do with them as some awkward and bashful 
 people know what to do with their own. Such a crowd of 
 figures in that ancient garb, occupying the floor in the midst 
 of the living worshipers of the present day, has an effect 
 which at first is startling. From Innsbruck we climbed 
 and crossed another mountain-ridge, scarcely less wild and 
 majestic in its scenery than those we had left behind. On 
 descending, we observed that the crucifixes had disappeared 
 from the roads, and the broad-brimmed and sugar-loaf hats 
 from the heads of the peasantry ; the men wore hats con- 
 tracted in the middle of the crown like an hour-glass, and 
 the women caps edged with a broad band of black fur, the 
 frescoes on the outside of the houses became less frequent ; 
 in short it was apparent that we had entered a different 
 region, even if the custom-house and police officers on the 
 frontier had not signified to us that we were now in the 
 5*
 
 54 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 kingdom of Bavaria. We passed through extensive forests 
 of fir, here and there checkered with farms, and finally 
 came to the broad elevated plain bathed by the Isar, in 
 which Munich is situated.
 
 QUADRUPEDS AN]/ B I il i) j> OF Till; I'll A FRIES. 55 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 AN EXCURSION TO ROCK RIVER. 
 
 PRINCETON, Illinois, June 21, 1841. 
 
 I HAVE just returned from au excursion to Rock River, 
 one of the most beautiful of our western streams. 
 
 We left Princeton on the 17th of the month, and after 
 passing a belt of forest which conceals one of the branches 
 of the Bureau River, found ourselves upon the wide, un- 
 fenced prairie, spreading away on every side until it met 
 the horizon. Flocks of turtle-doves rose from our path 
 scared at our approach ; quails and rabbits were seen run- 
 ning before us ; the prairie-squirrel, a little striped animal 
 of the marmot kind, crossed the road ; we started plovers 
 by the dozen, and now and then a prairie-hen, which flew 
 off heavily into the grassy wilderness. With these animals 
 the open country is populous, but they have their pursuers 
 and destroyers ; not the settlers of the region, for they do not 
 shoot often except at a deer or a wild turkey, or a noxious 
 animal ; but the prairie-hawk, the bald-eagle, the mink, and 
 the prairie-wolf, which make merciless havoc among them 
 and their brood. 
 
 About fifteen miles we came to Dad Joe's Grove, in the
 
 56 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 shadow of which, thirteen years ago, a settler named Joe 
 Smith, Avho had fought in the battle of the Thames, one of 
 the first white inhabitants of this region, seated himself, and 
 planted his corn, and gathered his crops quietly, through 
 the whole Indian war, without being molested by the 
 savages, though he was careful to lead his wife and family 
 to a place of security. As Smith was a settler of such long 
 standing, he was looked to as a kind of patriarch in the 
 county, and to distinguish him from other Joe Smiths, 
 he received the venerable appellation of Dad. He has 
 since removed to another part of the state, but his well- 
 known, hospitable cabin, inhabited by another inmate, is 
 still there, and his grove of tall trees, standing on a ridge 
 amidst the immense savannahs, yet retains his name. As 
 we descended into the prairie we were struck with the 
 novelty and beauty of the prospect which lay before us. 
 The ground sank gradually and gently into a low but 
 immense basin, in the midst of which lies the marshy 
 tract called the Winnebago Swamp. To the northeast the 
 sight was intercepted by a forest in the midst of the basin, 
 but to the northwest the prairies were seen swelling up 
 again in the smoothest slopes to their usual height, and 
 Stretching away to a distance so vast that it seemed bold- 
 ness in the eye to follow them. 
 
 The Winnebagoes and other Indian tribes which formerly 
 possessed this country have left few memorials of their 
 existence, except the names of places. Now and then, as
 
 LOST ROCKS. DIXON. 57 
 
 at Indiantown, near Princeton, you are shown the holes in 
 the ground where they stored their maize, and sometimes 
 on the borders of the rivers you see the trunks of trees 
 which they felled, evidently hacked by their tomahawks, 
 but perhaps the most remarkable of their remains are the 
 paths across the prairies or beside the large streams, called 
 Indian trails narrow and well-beaten ways, sometimes a 
 foot in depth, and many of them doubtless trodden for hun- 
 dreds of years. 
 
 As we went down the ridge upon which stands Dad 
 Joe's Grove, we saw many boulders of rock lying on the 
 surface of the soil of the prairies. The western people, 
 naturally puzzled to tell how they came there, give them 
 the expressive name of " lost rocks." We entered a forest 
 of scattered oaks, and after travelling for half an hour 
 reached the Winnebago Swamp, a tract covered with tall 
 and luxuriant water-grass, which we crossed on a causey 
 built by a settler who keeps a toll-gate, and at the end of 
 the causey we forded a small stream called Winnebago 
 Inlet. Crossing another vast prairie we reached the neigh- 
 borhood of Dixon, the approach to which was denoted by 
 groves, farm-houses, herds of cattle, and inclosed corn fields, 
 checkering the broad green prairie. 
 
 Dixon, named after an ancient settler of the place still 
 living, is a country town situated on a high bank of Rock 
 Eiver. Five years ago two log-cabins only stood on the 
 solitary shore, and now it is a considerable village, with
 
 58 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 many neat dwellings, a commodious court-house, several 
 places of worship for the good people, and a jail for the 
 rogues, built with a triple wall of massive logs, but I was 
 glad to see that it had no inmate. 
 
 Rock River flows through high prairies, and not, like 
 most streams of the West, through an alluvial country. 
 The current is rapid, and the pellucid waters glide over a 
 bottom of sand and pebbles. Its admirers declare that its 
 shores unite the beauties of the Hudson and of the Con- 
 necticut. The banks on either side are high and bold ; 
 sometimes they are perpendicular precipices, the base of 
 which stands in the running water ; sometimes they are 
 steep grassy or rocky bluffs, with a space of dry alluvial 
 land between them and the stream ; sometimes they rise 
 by a gradual and easy ascent to the general level of the 
 region, and sometimes this ascent is interrupted by a broad 
 natural terrace. Majestic trees grow solitary or in clumps 
 on the grassy acclivities, or scattered in natural parks along 
 the lower lands upon the river, or in thick groves along the 
 edge of the high country. Back of the bluffs, extends a fine 
 agricultural region, rich prairies with an undulating surface, 
 interspersed with groves. At the foot of the bluffs break 
 forth copious springs of clear water, which hasten in little 
 brooks to the river. In a drive which I took up the left 
 bank of the river, I saw three of these in the space of as 
 many miles. One of these is the spring which supplies the 
 town of Dixon with water ; the next is a beautiful fountain
 
 ROCK RIVER. 59 
 
 rushing out from the rocks in the midst of a clump of trees, 
 as merrily and in as great a hurry as a boy let out of school : 
 the third is so remarkable as to have received a name. It 
 is a little rivulet issuing from a cavern six or seven feet 
 high, and about twenty from the entrance to the further 
 end, at the foot of a perpendicular precipice covered with 
 forest-trees and fringed with bushes. 
 
 In the neighborhood of Dixon, a class of emigrants have 
 established themselves, more opulent and more luxurious in 
 their tastes than most of the settlers of the western country 
 Some of these have built elegant mansions on the left bank 
 of the river, amidst the noble trees which seem to have 
 grown up for that very purpose. Indeed, when I looked at 
 them, I could hardly persuade myself that they had not 
 been planted to overshadow older habitations. From the 
 door of one of these dwellings I surveyed a prospect of 
 exceeding beauty. The windings of the river allowed us a 
 sight of its waters and its beautifully diversified banks to a 
 great distance each way, and in one direction a high prairie 
 region was seen above the woods that fringed the course of 
 this river, of a lighter green than they, and touched with 
 the golden light of the setting sun. 
 
 I am told that the character of Rock River is, throughout 
 its course, much as I have described it in the neighborhood 
 of Dixon, that its banks are high and free from marshes, 
 and its waters rapid and clear, from its source in Wisconsin 
 to where it enters the Mississippi amidst rocky islands.
 
 60 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 
 What should make its shores unhealthy I can not see, yet 
 they who inhabit them are much subject to intermittent 
 fevers. They tell you very quietly that every body who 
 comes to live there must take a seasoning. I suppose that 
 when this country becomes settled this will no longer be 
 the case. Rock River is not much subject to inundations, 
 nor do its waters become very low in summer. A project 
 is on foot, I am told, to navigate it with steam-vessels of a 
 light draught. 
 
 When I arrived at Dixon I was told that the day before 
 a man named Bridge, living at Washington Grove, in Ogle 
 county, came into town and complained that he had re- 
 ceived notice from a certain association that he must leave 
 the county before the seventeenth of the month, or that he 
 would be looked upon as a proper subject for Lynch law. 
 He asked for assistance to defend his person and dwelling 
 against the lawless violence of these men. The people of 
 Dixon county came together and passed a resolution to the 
 effect, that they approved fully of what the inhabitants of 
 Ogle county had done, and that they allowed Mr. Bridge 
 the term of four hours to depart from the town of Dixon. He 
 went away immediately, and in great trepidation. This 
 Bridge is a notorious confederate and harborer of horsc- 
 thieves and counterfeiters. The thinly-settled portions of 
 Illinois are much exposed to the depredations of horse- 
 thieves, who have a kind of centre of operations in Ogle 
 county, where it is said that they have a justice of the
 
 HORSE-THIEVES. 61 
 
 peace and a constable among their own associates, and 
 where they contrive to secure a friend on the jury when- 
 ever any one of their number is tried. Trial after trial 
 has taken place, and it has been found impossible to obtain 
 a conviction on the clearest, evidence, until last April, when 
 two horse-thieves being on trial eleven of the jury threat- 
 ened the twelfth with a taste of the cowskin unless he 
 would bring in a verdict of guilty. He did so, and the men 
 were condemned. Before they were removed to the state- 
 prison, the court-house was burnt down and the jail was in 
 flames, but luckily they were extinguished without the 
 liberation of the prisoners. Such at length became the 
 general feeling of insecurity, that three hundred citizens of 
 Ogle county, as T understand, have formed themselves into 
 a company of volunteers for the purpose of clearing the 
 county of these men. Two horse-thieves have been seized 
 and flogged, and Bridge, their patron, has been ordered to 
 remove or abide the consequences. 
 
 As we were returning from Dixon on the morning of the 
 1 9th, we heard a kind of humming noise in the grass, which 
 one of the company said proceeded from a rattlesnake. "We 
 dismounted and found in fact it was made by a prairie- 
 rattlesnake, which lay coiled around a tuft of herbage, and 
 which we soon dispatched. The Indians call this small 
 variety of the rattlesnake, the Massasauger. Horses are fre- 
 quently bitten by it and come to the doors of their owners 
 with their heads horribly swelled but they are recovered by
 
 62 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the application of hartshorn. A little further on, one of the 
 party raised the cry of wolf, and looking we saw a prairie- 
 wolf in the path before us, a prick-eared animal of a reddish- 
 gray color, standing and gazing at us with great composure. 
 As we approached, he trotted off into the grass, with his 
 nose near the ground, not deigning to hasten his pace for our 
 shouts, and shortly afterward we saw two others running 
 in a different direction. 
 
 The prairie-wolf is not so formidable an animal as the 
 name of wolf would seem to denote ; he is quite as great a 
 coward as robber, but he is exceedingly mischievous. He 
 never takes full-grown sheep unless he goes with a strong 
 troop of his friends, but seizes young lambs, carries off 
 sucking-pigs, robs the henroost, devours sweet corn in the 
 gardens, and plunders the water-melon patch. A herd of 
 prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about 
 the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many 
 politicians. It is their way to gnaw a hole immediately 
 into the first melon they lay hold of. If it happens to be 
 ripe, the inside is devoured at once, if not, it is dropped and 
 another is sought out, and a quarrel is picked with the dis- 
 coverer of a ripe one, and loud and shrill is the barking, and 
 fierce the growling and snapping which is heard on these 
 occasions. It is surprising, I am told, with what dexterity 
 a wolf will make the most of a melon, absorbing every rem- 
 nant of the pulp, and hollowing it out as clean as it could 
 be scraped by a spoon. This is when the allowance of
 
 THE WILD PARSNIP. 63 
 
 melons is scarce, but when they are abundant he is as care- 
 less and wasteful as a government agent. 
 
 Enough of natural history. I will finish my letter an- 
 other day. 
 
 June 26<A. 
 
 Let me caution all emigrants to Illinois not to handle too 
 familiarly the "wild parsnip," as it is commonly called, an 
 umbelliferous plant growing in the moist prairies of this 
 region. I have handled it and have paid dearly for it, 
 having such a swelled face that I could scarcely see for 
 several days. 
 
 The regulators of Ogle county removed Bridge's family on 
 Monday last and demolished his house. He made prepara- 
 tions to defend himself, and kept twenty armed men about 
 him for two days, but thinking, at last, that the regulators 
 did not mean to carry their threats into effect, he dismissed 
 them. He has taken refuge with his friends, the Aikin 
 family, who live, I believe, in JefFerson Grove, in the same 
 county, and who, it is said, have also received notice to quit.
 
 64 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 EXAMPLES OF LYNCH LAW. 
 
 PRINCETON, Illinois, July 2, 1841. 
 
 IN my last letter I mentioned that the regulators in Ogle 
 county, on Rock River, in this state, had pulled down the 
 house of one Bridge, living at Washington Grove, a well- 
 known confederate of the horse-thieves and coiners with 
 which this region is infested. 
 
 Horse-thieves are numerous in this part of the country. 
 A great number of horses are bred here ; you see large 
 herds of them feeding in the open prairies, and at this sea- 
 son of the year every full-grown mare has a colt running by 
 her side. Most of the thefts are committed early in the spring, 
 when the grass begins to shoot, and the horses are turned 
 out on the prairie, and the thieves, having had little or no 
 employment during the winter, are needy ; or else in 
 the autumn, when the animals are kept near the dwellings 
 of their owners to be fed with Indian corn and are in 
 excellent order, The thieves select the best from the drove, 
 and these are passed from one station to another till they 
 arrive at some distant market where they are sold. It is 
 said that they have their regular lines of communication
 
 REGULATORS. 65 
 
 from Wisconsin to St. Louis, arid from the Wabash to the 
 Mississippi, In Ogle county they seem to have been bolder 
 than elsewhere, and more successful, notwithstanding the 
 notoriety of their crimes, in avoiding punishment. The 
 impossibility of punishing them by process of law, the 
 burning of the court-house at Oregon City last April, and 
 the threats of deadly vengeance thrown out by them against 
 such as should attempt to bring them to justice, led to the 
 formation of a company of citizens, " regulators" they call 
 themselves, who resolved to take the law into their own 
 hands and drive the felons from the neighborhood. This 
 is not the first instance of the kind which has happened 
 in Illinois. Some twenty years since the southern counties 
 contained a gang of horse-thieves, so numerous and well- 
 organized as to defy punishment by legal means, and they 
 were expelled by the same method which is now adopted in 
 Ogle county. 
 
 I have just learned, since I wrote the last sentence, that 
 the society of regulators includes, not only the county of 
 Ogle, but those of De Kalb and Winnebago, where the 
 depredations of the horse-thieves and the perfect imprnity 
 with which they manage to exercise their calling, have ex- 
 hausted the patience of the inhabitants. In those counties, 
 as well as in Ogle, their patrons live at some of the finest 
 groves, where they own large farms. Ten or twenty stolen 
 horses will be brought to one of these places of a night, and 
 before sunrise the desperadoes employed to take them are
 
 G6 L-TTF. T.-5 OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 again mounted and ou their way to some other station. In 
 breaking up these haunts, the regulators, I understand, have 
 proceeded with some of the formalities commonly usod in 
 administering justice. The accused party has been allowed 
 to make his defense, and witnesses have been examined 
 both for and against him 
 
 These proceedings, however, have lately suffered a mosf 
 tragical interruption. Not long after Bridge's house waf 
 pulled down, two men, mounted and carrying rifles, called 
 at the dwelliug of a Mr Campbell, living at Whiterock 
 Grove, in Ogle county, who belonged to the company of 
 regulators, and who had acted as the messenger to convey 
 to Bridge the order to leave the county. Meeting Mrs. 
 Campbell without the house, they told her that they wished 
 to speak to her husband. Campbell made his appearance 
 at the door and immediately both the men fired. He fell 
 mortally wounded and lived but a few minutes. "You 
 have killed my husband," said Mrs. Campbell to one of the 
 murderers whose name was Driscoll. Upon this they rode 
 off at full speed. 
 
 As soon as the event was known the whole country was 
 roused, and every man who was not an associate of the 
 horse-thieves, shouldered his rifle to go in pursuit of the 
 murderers. They apprehended the father of Driscoll, a 
 man nearly seventy years of age, and one of his sons, Wil- 
 liam Driscoll, the former a reputed horse-thief, and the 
 latter, a man who had hitherto borne a tolerably fair char-
 
 AN EXECUTION BY THE REGULATORS. 67 
 
 acter. and subjected them to a separate examination. The 
 father was wary in hi's answers, and put on the appear- 
 ance of perfect innocence, but William Driscoll was greatly 
 agitated, and confessed that he, with his father and others, 
 had planned the murder of Campbell, and that David 
 Driscoll, his brother, together with another associate, was 
 employed to execute it. The father and son were then 
 sentenced to death ; they were bound and made to kneel ; 
 about fifty men took aim at each, and, in three hours from 
 the time they were taken, they were dead men. A pit was 
 dug on the spot where they fell, in the midst of a prairie 
 near their dwelling ; their corpses, pierced with bullet-holes 
 in every part, were thrown in, and the earth was heaped 
 over them. 
 
 The -pursuit of David Driscoll and the fellow who was 
 with him when Campbell was killed, is still going on with 
 great activity. More than a hundred men are traversing the 
 country in different directions, determined that no lurking- 
 place shall hide them. In the mean time various persons 
 who have the reputation of being confederates of horse- 
 thieves, not only in Ogle county, but in the adjoining ones, 
 even in this, have received notice from the regulators that 
 they cannot be allowed to remain in this part of the state. 
 Several suspicious-looking men, supposed to be fugitives 
 from Ogle county, have been seen, within a few days past, 
 lurking in the woods not far from this place. One of them 
 who was seen the day before yesterday evidently thought
 
 68 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 himself pursued and slunk from sight ; he was followed, 
 but 'escaped in the thickets leaving a bundle of clothing 
 behind him. 
 
 SAMONOK, Kane County, Illinois, July 5th. 
 I have just heard that another of the Driscolls has been 
 shot by the regulators. Whether it was David, who fired at 
 Campbell, or one of his brothers, 1 can not learn.
 
 G ULliNOUGll'S WASHINGTON. 69 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 RICHMOND IN VIRGINIA. 
 
 RICHMOND, Virginia, March 2, 1843. 
 
 I ARRIVED at this place last night from Washington, 
 where I had observed little worth describing. The statue of 
 our first President, by Greenough, was, of course, one of the 
 things which I took an early opportunity of looking at, and 
 although the bad light in which it is placed prevents the 
 spectator from properly appreciating the features, I could 
 not help seeing with satisfaction, that no position, however 
 unfavorable, could impair the majesty of that noble work, 
 or, at all events, destroy its grand general effect. 
 
 The House of Representatives I had not seen since 1832, 
 and I perceived that the proceedings were conducted with 
 less apparent decorum than formerly, and that the members 
 no longer sat with their hats on. Whether they had come 
 to the conclusion that it was well to sit uncovered, in order 
 to make up, by this token of mutual respect, for the too 
 frequent want of decorum in their proceedings, or whether the 
 change has been made because it so often happens that all 
 the members are talking together, the rule being that the 
 person speaking must be bareheaded, or whether, finally, it
 
 70 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 was found, during the late long summer sessions, that a hat 
 made the wearer really uncomfortable, are questions which 
 I asked on the spot, but to which I got no satisfactory 
 answer. I visited the Senate Chamber, and saw a member 
 of that dignified body, as somebody calls it, in preparing to 
 make a speech, blow his nose with his thumb and finger 
 without the intervention of a pocket-handkerchief. The 
 speech, after this graceful preliminary, did not, I confess, 
 disappoint me. 
 
 Whoever goes to Washington should by all means see the 
 Museum at the Patent Office, enriched by the collections 
 lately brought back by the expedition sent out to explore 
 the Pacific. I was surprised at the extent and variety of 
 these collections. Dresses, weapons, and domestic imple- 
 ments of savage nations, in such abundance as to leave, one 
 would almost think, their little tribes disfurnished ; birds of 
 strange shape and plumage ; fishes of remote waters ; 
 whole groves of different kinds of coral ; sea-shells of rare 
 form and singular beauty from the most distant shores ; 
 mummies from the caves of Peru ; curious minerals and 
 plants : whoever is interested by such objects as these 
 should give the museum a more leisurely examination than 
 I had time to do. The persons engaged in arranging and 
 putting up these collections were still at their task when I 
 was at Washington, and I learned that what I saw was by 
 no means the whole. 
 
 The night before we set out, snow fell to the depth of
 
 VIUGINIA PLANTATIONS. 71 
 
 three inches, aud as the steamboat passed down the 
 Potomac, we saw, at sunrise, the grounds of Mount Vernon 
 lying in a covering of the purest white, the snow, scattered 
 in patches on the thick foliage of cedars that skirt the 
 river, looking like clusters of blossoms. About twelve, the 
 steamboat came to land, and the railway took us through 
 a gorge of the woody hills that skirt the Potomac. In 
 about an hour, we were at Fredericksburg, on the Rappa- 
 hannock. The day was bright and cold, and the wind keen 
 and cutting. A crowd of negroes came about the cars, 
 with cakes, fruit, and other refreshments. The poor fel- 
 lows seemed collapsed with the unusual cold ; their faces 
 and lips were of the color which drapers call blue-black. 
 
 As we proceeded southward in Virginia, the snow gradu- 
 ally became thinner and finally disappeared altogether. It 
 was impossible to mistake the region in which we were. 
 Broad inclosures were around us, with signs of extensive and 
 superficial cultivation ; large dwellings were seen at a dis- 
 tance from each other, and each with its group of smaller 
 buildings, looking as solitary and chilly as French chateaus ; 
 and, now and then, we saw a gang of negroes at work in 
 the fields, though oftener we passed miles without the sight 
 of a living creature. At six in the afternoon, we arrived at 
 Richmond. 
 
 A beautiful city is Richmond, seated on the hills that 
 overlook the James River. The dwellings have a pleasant 
 appearance, often standing by themselves in the midst of
 
 72 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 gardens. In front of several, I saw large magnolias, their 
 dark, glazed leaves glittering in the March sunshine. The 
 river, as yellow as the Tiber, its waters now stained with 
 the earth of the upper country, runs by the upper part of 
 the town in noisy rapids, embracing several islands, shaded 
 with the plane-tree, the hackberry, and the elm, and prolific, 
 in spring and summer, of wild-flowers. I went upon one of 
 these islands, by means of a foot-bridge, and was pointed to 
 another, the resort of a quoit-club comprising some of the 
 most distinguished men of Richmond, among whom in his 
 lifetime was Judge Marshall, who sometimes joined in this 
 athletic sport. We descended one of the hills on which the 
 town is built, and went up another to the east, where 
 stands an ancient house of religious worship, the oldest 
 Episcopal church in the state. It is in the midst of a bury- 
 ing-ground, where sleep some of the founders of the colony, 
 whose old graves are greenly overgrown with the trailing 
 and matted periwinkle. In this church, Patrick Henry, at 
 the commencement of the American Revolution, made that 
 celebrated speech, which so vehemently moved all who 
 heard him, ending with the sentence : " Give me liberty or 
 give me death." We looked in at one of the windows ; it 
 is a low, plain room, with small, square pews, and a sound 
 ing board over the little pulpit. From the hill on. which 
 this church stands, you have a beautiful view of the sur- 
 rounding country, a gently undulating surface, closed in by 
 hills on the west ; and the James River is seen wandering
 
 A TOBACCO FACTORY. 73 
 
 through it, by distant plantations, and between borders of 
 trees. A place was pointed out to us, a little way down 
 the river, which bears the name of Powhatan ; and here, I 
 \ras told, a flat rock is still shown as the one on which 
 Captain Smith was placed by his captors, in order to be put 
 to death, when the intercession of Pocahontas saved his 
 life. 
 
 I went with an acquaintance to see the inspection arid 
 sale of tobacco. Huge, upright columns of dried leaves, 
 firmly packed and of a greenish hue, stood in rows, under 
 the roof of a broad, low building, open on all sides these 
 were the hogsheads of tobacco, stripped of the staves. The 
 inspector, a portly man, with a Bourbon face, his white 
 hair gathered in a tie behind, went very quietly and ex- 
 peditiously through his task of determining the quality, after 
 which the vast bulks were disposed of, in a very short time, 
 with surprisingly little noise, to the tobacco merchants. 
 Tobacco, to the value of three millions of dollars annually, 
 is sent by the planters to Richmond, and thence distributed 
 to different nations, whose merchants frequent this mart. 
 In the sales it is always sure to bring cash, which, to those 
 who detest the weed, is a little difficult to understand. 
 
 I went afterwards to a tobacco factory, the sight of which 
 amused me, though the narcotic fumes made me cough. 
 In one room a black man was taking apart the small 
 bundles of leaves of which a hogshead of tobacco is com- 
 posed, and carefully separating leaf from leaf ; others were 
 7
 
 74 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 assorting the leaves according to the quality, and others 
 again were arranging the leaves in layers and sprinkling 
 each layer with the extract of liquorice. In another room 
 weie ahout eighty negroes, boys they are called, from the 
 age of twelve years up to manhood, who received the 
 leaves thus prepared, rolled them into long even rolls, and 
 then cut them into plugs of about four inches in length, 
 which were afterwards passed through a press, and thus 
 became ready for market, As we entered the room we 
 heard a murmur of psalmody running through the sable 
 assembly, which now and then swelled into a strain of very 
 tolerable music. 
 
 " Verse sweetens toil " 
 
 says the stanza which Dr. Johnson was so fond of quoting, 
 and really it is so good that I will transcribe the whole 
 of it 
 
 " Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound 
 
 All at her work the village maiden sings, 
 
 Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around, 
 
 Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things." 
 
 Verse it seems can sweeten the toil of slaves in a tobacco 
 factory. 
 
 " We encourage their singing as much as we can," said 
 the brother of the proprietor, himself a diligent masticator 
 of the weed, who attended us, and politely explained to us 
 the process of making plug tobacco ; "we encourage it as
 
 WORK AND r SAL. MOD V. 75 
 
 much as we can, for the boys work better while singing. 
 Sometimes they will sing all day long with great spirit ; at 
 other times you will not hear a single note. They must 
 sing wholly of their own accord, it is of no use to bid them 
 do it." 
 
 " What is remarkable," he continued, "their tunes are 
 all psalm tunes, and the words are from hymn-books ; their 
 taste is exclusively for sacred music ; they will sing nothing 
 else. Almost all these persons are church-members ; we 
 have not a dozen about the factory who are not so. Most 
 of them are of the Baptist persuasion ; a few are Metho- 
 dists." 
 
 I saw in the course of the day the Baptist church in 
 which these people worship, a low, plain, but spacious briclc 
 building, the same in which the sages of Virginia, a genera- 
 tion of great men, debated the provisions of the constitution. 
 It has a congregation of twenty-seven hundred persons, and 
 the best choir, I heard somebody say, in all Richmond. 
 Near it is the Monumental church, erected on the site of 
 the Richmond theatre, after the terrible fire which carried 
 mourning into so many families. 
 
 In passing through an old part of Main-street, I was 
 shown an ancient stone cottage of rude architecture and 
 humble dimensions, which was once the Best hotel in 
 Richmond. Here, I was told, there are those in Rich- 
 mond who remember dining with General Washington, 
 Judge Marshall, and their cotemporaries. I could not help
 
 76 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 comparing it with the palace-like building put up at Rich- 
 mond within two or three years past, named the Exchange 
 Hotel, with its spacious parlors, its long dining-rooms, its 
 airy dormitories, and its ample halls and passages, echoing 
 to the steps of busy waiters, and guests coming and depart- 
 ing. The Exchange Hotel is one of the finest buildings for 
 its purpose in the United States, and is extremely well- 
 kept. 
 
 I paid a visit to the capitol, nobly situated on an emi- 
 nence which overlooks the city, and is planted with trees. 
 The statue of Washington, executed by Houdon for the 
 state of Virginia, in 1788, is here. It is of the size of life, 
 representing Gen. Washington in the costume of his day, 
 and in an ordinary standing posture. It gratifies curiosity, 
 but raises no particular moral emotion. Compared with 
 the statue by Greenough, it presents a good example of the 
 difference between the work of a mere sculptor skillful in- 
 deed, but still a mere sculptor and the work of a man of 
 genius. 
 
 I shall shortly set out for Charleston, South Carolina. 

 
 CROSSING THE ROANOKE BY NIGHT. 77 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 A JOURNEY FROM RICHMOND TO CHARLESTON. 
 
 CHARLESTON, March 6, 1843. 
 
 I LEFT Richmond, on the afternoon of a keen March day, 
 in the railway train for Petersburg, where we arrived after 
 dark, and, therefore, could form no judgment of the appear- 
 ance of the town. Here we were transferred to another 
 train of cars. Among the passengers was a lecturer on 
 Mesmerism, with his wife, and a young woman who ac- 
 companied them as a mesmeric subject. The young woman, 
 accustomed to be easily put to sleep, seemed to get through 
 the night very comfortably ; but the spouse of the operator 
 appeared to be much disturbed by the frequent and capri- 
 cious opening of the door by the other passengers, which let 
 in torrents of intensely cold air from without, and chid the 
 offenders with a wholesome sharpness. 
 
 About two o'clock in the morning, we reached Blakely 
 on the Roanoke, where we were made to get out of the 
 cars, and were marched in long procession for about a quar- 
 ter of a mile down to the river. A negro walked before us 
 to light our way, bearing a blazing pine torch, which scat- 
 tered sparks like a steam-engine, and a crowd of negroes
 
 78 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 followed us, bearing our baggage. We went down a steep 
 path to the Roanoke, where we found a little old steamboat 
 ready for us, and in about fifteen minutes were struggling 
 upward against the muddy and rapid current. In little 
 more than an hour, we had proceeded two miles and a half 
 up the river, and were landed at a place called Weldon. 
 Here we took the cars for Wilmington, in North Carolina, 
 and shabby vehicles they were, denoting our arrival in a 
 milder climate, by being extremely uncomfortable for cold 
 weather. As morning dawned, we saw ourselves in the 
 midst of the pine forests of North Carolina. Vast tracts of 
 level sand, overgrown with the long-leaved pine, a tall, 
 stately tree, with sparse and thick twigs, ending in long 
 brushes of leaves, murmuring in the strong cold wind, ex- 
 tended everywhere around us. At great distances from each 
 other, we passed log-houses, and sometimes a dwelling of 
 more pretensions, with a piazza, and here and there fields 
 in which cotton or maize had been planted last year, or an 
 orchard with a few small mossy trees. The pools beside 
 the roads were covered with ice just formed, and the negroes, 
 who like a good fire at almost any season of the year, and 
 who find an abundant supply of the finest fuel in these 
 forests, had made blazing fires of the resinous wood of the 
 pine, wherever they were at work. The tracts of sandy 
 soil, we perceived, were interspersed with marshes, crowded 
 with cypress-trees, and verdant at their borders with a 
 growth of evergreens, such as the swamp-bay, the gall-
 
 MODE OF COLLECTING TURPENTINE. 79 
 
 berry, the holly, and various kinds of evergreen creepers, 
 which are unknown to our northern climate, and which be- 
 came more frequent as we proceeded. 
 
 We passed through extensive forests of pine, which had 
 been boxed, as it is called, for the collection of turpentine. 
 Every tree had been scored by the axe upon one of its sides, 
 some of them as high as the arm could reach down to the 
 roots, and the broad wound was covered with the turpen- 
 tine, which seems to saturate every fibre of the long-leaved 
 pine. Sometimes we saw large flakes or crusts of the tur- 
 pentine, of a light-yellow color, which had fallen, and lay 
 beside the tree on the ground. The collection of turpentine 
 is a work of destruction ; it strips acre after acre of these 
 noble trees, and, if it goes on, the time is not far distant 
 when the long-leaved pine will become nearly extinct in this 
 region, which is so sterile as hardly to be fitted for producing 
 any thing else. We saw large tracts covered with the 
 standing trunks of trees already killed by it ; and other 
 tracts beside them had been freshly attacked by the spoiler. 
 I am told that the tree which grows up when the long- 
 leaved pine is destroyed, is the loblolly pine, or, as it is 
 sometimes called, the short-leaved pine, a tree of very infe- 
 rior quality and in little esteem. 
 
 About half-past two in the afternoon, we came to Wil- 
 mington, a little town built upon the white sands of Cape 
 Fear, some of the houses standing where not a blade of 
 grass or other plant can grow. A few evergreen oaks, in
 
 80 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 places, pleasantly overhang the water. Here we took the 
 steamer for Charleston. 
 
 I may as well mention here a fraud which is sometimes 
 practiced upon those who go by this route to Charleston. 
 Advertisements are distributed at New York and elsewhere, 
 informing the public that the fare from Baltimore to Charles- 
 ton, by the railway through Washington and Richmond, is 
 but twenty-two dollars. I took the railway, paying from 
 place to place as I went, and found that this was a false- 
 hood ; I was made to pay seven or eight dollars more. In 
 the course of my journey, I was told that, to protect myself 
 from this imposition, I should have purchased at Baltimore 
 a " through ticket," as it is called ; that is, should have paid 
 in advance for the whole distance ; but the advertisement 
 did not inform me that this was necessary. No wonder 
 that "tricks upon travellers" should have become a pro- 
 verbial expression, for they are a much-enduring race, more 
 or less plundered in every part of the world. 
 
 The next morning, at eight o'clock, we found ourselves 
 entering Charleston harbor ; Sullivan's Island, with Fort 
 Moultrie, breathing recollections of the revolution, on our 
 right ; James Island on our left ; in front, the stately dwell- 
 ings of the town, and all around, on the land side, the hori- 
 zon bounded by an apparent belt of evergreens the live-oak, 
 the water-oak, the palmetto, the pine, and, planted about 
 the dwellings, the magnolia and the wild orange giving to 
 the scene a summer aspect. The city of Charleston strikes
 
 CHARLESTON. 81 
 
 the visitor from the north most agreeably. He perceives at 
 once that he is in a different climate. The spacious houses 
 are surrounded with broad piazzas, often a piazza to each story, 
 for the sake of shade and coolness, and each house generally 
 stands by itself in a garden planted with trees and shrubs, 
 many of which preserve their verdure through the winter. 
 We saw early flowers already opening ; the peach and 
 plum-tree were in full bloom ; and the wild orange, as they 
 call the cherry-laurel, was just putting forth its blossoms. 
 The buildings some with stuccoed walls, some built of large 
 dark-red bricks, and some of wood are not kept fresh with 
 paint like ours, but are allowed to become weather-stained 
 by the humid climate, like those of the European towns. 
 The streets are broad and quiet, unpaved in some parts, but 
 in none, as with us, offensive both to sight and smell. The 
 public buildings are numerous for the size of the city, and 
 well-built in general, with sufficient space about them to 
 give them a noble aspect, and all the advantage which they 
 could derive from their architecture. The inhabitants, judg- 
 ing from what I have seen of them, which is not much, I 
 confess, do not appear undeserving of the character which 
 has been given them, of possessing the most polished and 
 agreeable manners of all the American cities. 
 
 I may shortly write you again from the interior of South 
 Carolina.
 
 82 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA. A CORN-SHUCKING. 
 
 BAEXWELL DISTRICT, l 
 South Carolina, March 29, 1843. J 
 
 SINCE I last wrote, I have passed three weeks in the 
 interior of South Carolina ; visited Columbia, the capital 
 of the state, a pretty town ; roamed over a considerable part 
 of Barnwell district, with some part of the neighboring one 
 of Orangeburg ; enjoyed the hospitality of the planters 
 very agreeable and intelligent men ; been out in a racoon 
 hunt ; been present at a corn-shucking ; listened to negro 
 ballads, negro jokes, and the banjo ; witnessed negro dances ; 
 seen two alligators at least, and eaten bushels of hominy. 
 
 Whoever comes out on the railroad to this district, a dis- 
 tance of seventy miles or more, if he were to judge only by 
 what he sees in his passage, might naturally take South 
 Carolina for a vast pine-forest, with here and there a clear- 
 ing made by some enterprising settler, and would wonder 
 where the cotton which clothes so many millions of the hu- 
 man race, is produced. The railway keeps on a tract of 
 sterile sand, overgrown with pines ; passing, here and there, 
 along the edge of a morass, or crossing a stream of yellow
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA PLANTATIONS. Ob 
 
 water. A lonely log-house under these old trees, is a sight 
 for sore eyes ; and only two or three plantations, properly sc, 
 called, meet the eye in the whole distance. The cultivated 
 and more productive lands lie apart from this tract, near 
 streams, and interspersed with more frequent ponds ant! 
 marshes. Here you find plantations comprising severa! 
 thousands of acres, a considerable part of which always lie* 
 in ibrest ; cotton and corn fields of vast extent, and a negn 
 village on every plantation, at a respectful distance from the 
 habitation of the proprietor. Evergreen trees of the oal. 
 family and others, which I mentioned in my last letter, are 
 generally planted about the mansions. Some of them are 
 surrounded with dreary clearings, full of the standing trunks 
 of dead pines ; others are pleasantly situated in the edge of 
 woods, intersected by winding paths. A ramble, or a ride 
 a ride on a hand-gallop it should be in these pine 
 woods, on a fine March day, when the weather has all the 
 spirit of our March days without its severity, is one of the 
 most delightful recreations in the world. The paths are 
 upon a white sand, which, when not frequently travelled, is 
 very firm under foot ; on all sides you are surrounded by 
 noble stems of trees, towering to an immense height, from 
 whose summits, far above you, the wind is drawing deep 
 and grand harmonies ; and often your way is beside a 
 marsh, verdant with magnolias, where the yellow jessamine, 
 now in flower, fills the air with fragrance, and the bamboo- 
 briar, an evergreen creeper, twines itself with various other
 
 84 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 plants, which never shed their leaves in winter. These 
 woods abound in game, which, you will believe me when I 
 say, I had rather start than shoot, flocks of turtle-doves, 
 rabbits rising and scudding before you ; bevies of quails, 
 partridges they call them here, chirping almost under your 
 horse's feet ; wild ducks swimming in the pools, and wild 
 turkeys, which are frequently shot by the practiced sports- 
 man. 
 
 But you must hear of the corn-shucking. The one at 
 which I was present was given on purpose that I might 
 witness the humors of the Carolina negroes. A huge fire 
 of light-wood was made near the corn-house. Light-wood 
 is the wood of the long-leaved pine, and is so called, not be- 
 cause it is light, for it is almost the heaviest wood in the 
 world, but because it gives more light than any other fuel. 
 In clearing land, the pines are girdled and suffered to 
 stand ; the outer portion of the wood decays and falls 
 off; the inner part, which is saturated with turpentine, 
 remains upright for years, and constitutes the planter's pro- 
 vision.of fuel. When a supply is wanted, one of these dead 
 trunks is felled by the axe. The abundance of light-wood 
 is one of the boasts of South Carolina. Wherever you are, 
 if you happen to be chilly, you may have a fire extempore ; 
 a bit of light-wood and a coal give you a bright blaze and a 
 strong heat in an instant. The negroes make fires of it in 
 the fields where they work ; and, when the mornings are 
 wet and chilly, in the pens where they are milking the
 
 NEGRO SONGS. 85 
 
 cows. At a plantation, where I passed a frosty night, I 
 saw fires in a small inclosure. and was told by the lady of 
 the house that she had ordered them to he made to warm 
 the cattle. 
 
 The light- wood fire was made, and the negroes dropped 
 in from the neighboring plantations, singing as they came. 
 The driver of the plantation, a colored man, brought out 
 baskets of corn in the husk, and piled it in a heap ; and the 
 negroes began to strip the husks from the ears, singing with 
 great glee as they worked, keeping time to the music, and 
 now and then throwing in a joke and an extravagant burst 
 of laughter. The songs were generally of a comic charac- 
 ter ; but one of them was set to a singularly wild and 
 plaintive air, which some of our musicians would do well 
 to reduce to notation. These are the words : 
 
 Johnny come down de hollow. 
 
 Oh hollow ! 
 Johnny come down de hollow. 
 
 Oh hollow ! 
 De nigger-trader got me. 
 
 Oh hollow ! 
 De speculator bought me. 
 
 Oh hollow ! 
 I'm sold for silver dollars. 
 
 Oh hollow ! 
 Boys, go catch de pony. 
 
 Oh hollow! 
 Bring him round de corner. 
 
 Oh hollow !
 
 86 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 I'm goin' away to Georgia. 
 
 Oh hollow ! 
 Boys, good-by forever ! 
 
 Oh hollow ! 
 
 The song of " Jenny gone away," was also given, and 
 another, called the monkey-song, probably of African origin, 
 in which the principal singer personated a monkey, with all 
 sorts of odd gesticulations, and the other negroes bore part 
 in the chorus, " Dan, dan, who's de dandy ?" One of the 
 songs, commonly sung on these occasions, represents the 
 various animals of the woods as belonging to some profession 
 or trade. For example 
 
 De cooter is de boatman 
 
 The cooter is the terrapin, and a very expert boatman 
 he is. 
 
 De cooter is de boatman. 
 
 John John Crow. 
 De red-bird de soger. 
 
 John John Crow. 
 De mocking-bird de lawyer. 
 
 John John Crow. 
 De alligator sawyer. 
 
 John John Crow. 
 
 The alligator's back is furnished with a toothed ridge, 
 like the edge of a saw, which explains the last line. 
 
 When the work of the evening was over the negroes 
 adjourned to a spacious kitchen. One of them took his
 
 NEGRO MILITARY PARADE. 87 
 
 place as musician, whistling, and beating time with two 
 sticks upon the floor. Several of the men came ibrward and 
 executed various dances, capering, prancing, and drumming 
 with heel and toe upon the floor, with astonishing agility 
 and perseverance, though all of them had performed their 
 daily tasks and had worked all the evening, and some had 
 walked from four to seven miles to attend the corn-shucking. 
 From the dances a transition was made to a mock military 
 parade, a sort of burlesque of our militia trainings, in which 
 the words of command and the evolutions were extremely 
 ludicrous. It became necessary for the commander to make 
 a speech, and confessing his incapacity for public speaking, 
 he called upon a huge black man named Toby to ad- 
 dress the company in his stead. Toby, a man of powerful 
 frame, six feet high, his face ornamented with a beard of 
 fashionable cut, had hitherto stood leaning against the wall, 
 looking upon the frolic with an air of superiority. He 
 consented, came forward, demanded a bit of paper to hold in 
 his hand, and harangued the soldiery. It was evident that 
 Toby had listened to stump-speeches in. his day. He spoke 
 of " de majority of Sous Carolina," " de interests of de 
 state," " de honor of ole Ba'nwell district," and these phrases 
 he connected by various expletives, and sounds of which we 
 could make nothing. A length he began to falter, when 
 the captain with admirable presence of mind came to his 
 relief, and interrupted and closed the harangue with an 
 hurrah from the company. Toby was allowed by all the
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 spectators, black and white, to have made an excellent 
 speech. 
 
 The blacks of this region are a cheerful, careless, dirty 
 race, not hard worked, and in many respects indulgently 
 treated. It is, of course, the desire of the master that his 
 slaves shall be laborious ; on the other hand it is the deter- 
 mination of the slave to lead as easy a Life as he can. The 
 master has power of punishment on his side ; the slave, on 
 his, has invincible inclination, and a thousand expedients 
 learned by long practice. The result is a compromise in 
 which each party yields something, and a good-natured 
 though imperfect and slovenly obedience on one side, is pur- 
 chased by good treatment on the other. I have been told by, 
 planters that the slave brought from Africa is much more 
 serviceable, though more high-spirited and dangerous than the 
 slave born in this country, and early trained to his condition. 
 
 I have been impatiently waiting the approach of spring, 
 since I came to this state, but the weather here is still what 
 the inhabitants call winter. The season, I am told, is more 
 than three weeks later than usual. Fields of Indian corn 
 which were planted in the beginning of March, must be re- 
 planted, for the seed has perished in the ground, and the 
 cotton planting is deferred for fine weather. The peach 
 and plum trees have stood in blossom for weeks, and the 
 forest trees, which at this time are usually in full foliage, are 
 as bare as in December. Cattle are dying in the fields for 
 want of pasture.
 
 WINTER CLIMATE OP SOUTH CAROLINA. 89 
 
 I have thus had a sample of the winter climate of South 
 Carolina. If never more severe or stormy than I have 
 already experienced, it must he an agreeable one. The cus- 
 tom of sitting with open doors, however, I found a little dif- 
 ficult to like at first. A door in South Carolina, except 
 perhaps the outer door of a house, is not made to shut. It is 
 merely a sort of flapper, an ornamental appendage to the 
 opening by which you enter a room, a kind of moveable 
 screen made to swing to and fro, but never to be secured by 
 a latch, unless for some purpose of strict privacy. A door is 
 the ventilator to the room ; the windows are not raised ex- 
 cept in warm weather, but the door is kept open at all 
 seasons. On cold days you have a bright fire of pine- wood 
 blazing before you, and a draught of cold air at your back. 
 The reason given for this practice is, that fresh air is whole- 
 some, and that close rooms occasion colds and consumptions. 
 8* 

 
 90 M; T T E :: s OF A x R A v E r, L E R. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 SAVANNAH. 
 
 PICOLATA, East Florida, April 7, 1843. 
 
 As I landed at this place, a few hours since, I stepped 
 into the midst of summer. Yesterday morning when I left 
 Savannah, people were complaining that the winter was 
 not over. The temperature which, at this time of the 
 year, is usually warm and genial, continued to be what 
 they called chilly, though I found it agreeable enough, and 
 the showy trees, called the Pride of India, which are 
 planted all over the city, and are generally in bloom at this 
 season, were still leafless. Here I find every thing green, 
 fresh, and fragrant, trees and shrubs in full foliage, and 
 wild roses in flower. The dark waters of the St. John's, 
 one of the noblest streams of the country, in depth and 
 width like the St. Lawrence, draining almost the whole 
 extent of the peninsula, are flowing under my window. 
 On the opposite shore are forests of tall trees, bright in 
 the new verdure of the season. A hunter who has ranged 
 them the whole day, has just arrived in a canoe, bringing 
 with him a deer, which he has killed. I have this moment 
 returned from a ramble with my host through a hammock,
 
 HAMMOCKS IN FLORIDA. 91 
 
 he looking for" his cows, and I, unsuccessfully, for a thicket 
 of orange-trees. He is something of a florist, and gathered 
 for me, as we went, some of the forest plants, which were 
 in bloom. " We have flowers here," said he, " every month 
 in the year." 
 
 I have used the word hammock, which here, in Florida, 
 has a peculiar meaning. A hammock is a spot covered 
 with a growth of trees which require a richer soil than 
 the pine, such as the oak, the mulberry, the gum-tree, the 
 hickory, &c. The greater part of East Florida consists of 
 pine barrens a sandy level, producing the long leaved pine 
 and the dwarf palmetto, a low plant, with fan-like leaves, 
 and roots of a prodigious size. The hammock is a kind of 
 oasis, a verdant and luxuriant island in the midst of these 
 sterile sands, which make about nine-tenths of the soil of 
 East Florida. In the hammocks grow the wild lime, the 
 native orange, both sour and bitter-sweet, and the various 
 vines and gigantic creepers of the country. The hammocks 
 are chosen for plantations ; here the cane is cultivated, and 
 groves of the sweet orange planted. But I shall say more 
 of Florida hereafter, when I have seen more of it. Mean- 
 time let me speak of my journey hither. 
 
 I left Charleston on the 30th of March, in one t)f the 
 steamers which ply between that city and Savannah. 
 These steamers are among the very best that float quiet, 
 commodious, clean, fresh as if just built, and furnished 
 with civil and ready-handed waiters. We passed along the
 
 92 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 narrow and winding channels which divide the broad 
 islands of South Carolina from the main-land islands 
 famed for the rice culture, and particularly for the excellent 
 cotton with long fibres, named the sea-island cotton. Our 
 fellow-passengers were mostly planters of these islands, and 
 their families, persons of remarkably courteous, frank, and 
 agreeable manners. The shores on either side had little of 
 the picturesque to show us. Extensive marshes waving 
 with coarse water-grass, sometimes a cane-brake, sometimes 
 a pine grove or a clump of cabbage-leaved palmettoes ; 
 here and there a pleasant bank bordered with live-oaks 
 streaming with moss, and at wide intervals the distant 
 habitation of a planter these were the elements of the 
 scenery. The next morning early we were passing up 
 the Savannah river, and the city was in sight, standing 
 among its trees on a high bank of the stream. 
 
 Savannah is beautifully laid out ; its broad streets are 
 thickly planted with the Pride of India, and its frequent 
 open squares shaded with trees of various kinds. Ogle- 
 thorpe seems to have understood how a city should be built 
 in a warm climate, and the people of the place are fond of 
 reminding the stranger that the original plan of the founder 
 has never been departed from. The town, so charmingly 
 embowered, reminded me of New Haven, though the 
 variety of trees is greater. In my walks about the place I 
 passed a large stuccoed building of a dull-yellow color, with 
 broad arched windows, and a stately portico, on each side
 
 SAVANNAH QUOIT-CLUB. 93 
 
 of which stood a stiff-looking palmetto, as if keeping guard. 
 The grim aspect of the building led me to ask what it was, 
 and I was answered that it was " the old United States 
 Bank." It was the building in which the Savannah 
 branch of that bank transacted business, and is now shut 
 up until the time shall come when that great institution 
 shall be revived. Meantime I was pained to see that there 
 exists so little reverence for its memory, and so little grati- 
 tude for its benefits, that the boys have taken to smashing 
 the windows, so that those who have the care of the build- 
 ing have been obliged to cover them with plank. In 
 another part of the city I was shown an African church, a 
 neat, spacious wooden building, railed in, and kept in ex- 
 cellent order, with a piazza extending along its entire front. 
 It is one of the four places of worship for the blacks of the 
 town, and was built by negro workmen with materials pur- 
 chased by the contributions of the whites. 
 
 South of the town extends an uninclosed space, on one 
 side of which is a pleasant grove of pines, in the shade of 
 which the members of a quoit-club practice their athletic 
 sport. Here on a Saturday afternoon, for that is their 
 stated time of assembling, I was introduced to some of the 
 most distinguished citizens of Savannah, and witnessed the 
 skill with which they threw the discus. No apprentices 
 were they in the art ; there was no striking far from the 
 stake, no sending the discus rolling over the green ; they
 
 94 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 heaped the quoits as snugly around the stakes as if the 
 amusement had been their profession. 
 
 In the same neighborhood, just without the town, lies the 
 public cemetery surrounded by an. ancient wall, built before 
 the revolution, which in some places shows the marks of 
 shot fired against it in the skirmishes of that period. I 
 entered it, hoping to find some monuments of those who 
 founded the city a hundred and ten years ago, but the in- 
 scriptions are of comparatively recent date. Most of them 
 commemorate the death of persons born in Europe, or the 
 northern states. I was told that the remains of the early 
 inhabitants lie in the brick tombs, of which there are many 
 without any inscription whatever. 
 
 At a little distance, near a forest, lies the burial-place of 
 the black population. A few trees, trailing with long moss, 
 rise above hundreds of nameless graves, overgrown with 
 weeds ; but here and there are scattered memorials of the 
 dead, some of a very humble kind, with a few of marble, 
 and half a dozen spacious brick tombs like those in the 
 cemetery of the whites. Some of them are erected by 
 masters and mistresses to the memory of favorite slaves. 
 One of them commemorates the death of a young woman 
 who perished in the catastrophe of the steamer Pulaski, of 
 whom it is recorded, that during the whole time that she 
 was in the service of her mistress, which was many years, 
 she never committed a theft, nor uttered a falsehood. A
 
 NEGRO BURIAL-PLACE. 95 
 
 brick monument, in the shape of a little tomb, with a mar- 
 ble slab inserted in front, has this inscription : 
 
 " In memory of Henrietta Gatlin, the infant stranger, born in East 
 Florida, aged 1 year 3 months." 
 
 A graveyard is hardly the place to be merry in, but I 
 could not help smiling at some of the inscriptions. A fair 
 upright marble slab commemorates the death of York 
 Fleming, a cooper, who was killed by the explosion of a 
 powder-magazine, while tightening the hoops of a keg of 
 powder. It closes with this curious sentence : 
 
 "This stone was erected by the members of the Axe Company, 
 Coopers and Committee of the 2nd African Church of Savannah for 
 the purpose of having a Herse for benevolent purposes, of which he 
 was the first sexton." 
 
 A poor fellow, who went to the other world by water, 
 has a wooden slab to mark his grave, inscribed with 
 these words : 
 
 " Sacred to the memory of Robert Spencer who came to his Death 
 by A Boat, July 9th, 1840, aged 21 years. 
 
 Reader as you am now so once I 
 
 And as I am now so Mus you be Shortly. 
 
 Amen." 
 
 Another monument, after giving the name of the dead, 
 has this sentence : 
 
 "Go home Mother dry up your weeping tears. Gods will be 
 done."
 
 96 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Another, erected to Sarah Morel, aged six months, has 
 this ejaculation : 
 
 " Sweet withered lilly farewell," 
 
 One of the monuments is erected to Andrew Bryan, a 
 black preacher, of the Baptist persuasion. A long inscrip- 
 tion states that he was once imprisoned " for preaching the 
 Gospel, and, without ceremony, severely whipped ;" and 
 that, while undergoing the punishment, " he told his perse- 
 cutors that he not only rejoiced to be whipped, fcut was 
 willing to suffer death for the cause of Christ." He died 
 in 1812, at the age of ninety-six ; his funeral, the inscrip- 
 tion takes care to state, was attended by a large concourse 
 of people, and adds : 
 
 " An address was delivered at his death by the Rev. Mr. Johnson, 
 Dr. Kollock, Thomas Williams, and Henry Cunningham." 
 
 While in Savannah, I paid a visit to Bonaventure, for- 
 merly a country seat of Governor Tatnall, but now aban- 
 doned. A pleasant drive of a mile or two, through a bud- 
 ding forest, took us to the place, which is now itself almost 
 grown up into forest. Cedars and other shrubs hide the old 
 terraces of the garden, which is finely situated on the high 
 bank of a river. Trees of various kinds have also nearly 
 filled the space between the noble avenues of live-oaks 
 which were planted around the mansion. But these oaks 
 I never saw finer trees certainly I never saw so many
 
 BONAVENTUKE. 97 
 
 majestic and venerable trees together. I looked far down 
 the immense arches that overshadowed the broad passages, 
 as high as the nave of a Gothic cathedral, apparently as old, 
 and stretching to a greater distance. The huge boughs 
 were clothed with gray moss, yards in length, which clung 
 to them like mist, or hung in still festoons on every side, 
 and gave them the appearance of the vault of a vast vapory 
 cavern. The cawing of the crow and the scream of the 
 jay, however, reminded us that we were in the forest. Of 
 the mansion there are no remains ; but in the thicket of 
 magnolias and other trees, among rosebushes and creeping 
 plants, we found a burial-place with monuments of some 
 persons to whom the seat had belonged. 
 
 Savannah is more healthy of late years than it formerly 
 was. An arrangement has been made with the owners of 
 the plantations in the immediate vicinity, by which the 
 culture of rice has been abandoned, and the lands are no 
 longer allowed to be overflowed within a mile from the city. 
 The place has since become much less subject to fevers 
 than in former years. 
 
 I left, with a feeling of regret, the agreeable society of 
 Savannah. The steamboat took us to St. Mary's, through 
 passages between the sea-islands and the main-land, similar 
 to those by which we had arrived at Savannah. In the 
 course of the day, we passed a channel in which we saw 
 several huge alligators basking on the bank. The grim crea- 
 tures slid slowly into the water at our approach. We passed
 
 96 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 St. Mary's in the night, and in the morning we were in the 
 mam ocean, approaching the St. John's, where we saw a 
 row of pelicans standing, like creatures who had nothing to 
 do, on the sand. We entered the majestic river, the vast 
 current of which is dark with the infusion of the swamp 
 turf, from which it is drained. We passed Jacksonville, a 
 little town of great activity, which has sprung up on the 
 sandy bank within two or three years. Beyond, we swept 
 by the mouth of the Black Creek, the water of which, prob- 
 ably from the color of the mud which forms the bed of its 
 channel, has to the eye an ebony blackness, and reflects 
 objects with all the distinctness of the kind of looking-glass 
 called a black mirror. A few hours brought us to Picolata, 
 lately a military station, but now a place with only two 
 houses.
 
 FORESTS IN FLORIDA. 99 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE, ) 
 
 East Florida, April 2, 1843. f 
 
 WHEN we left Picolata, on the 8th of April, we found 
 ourselves journeying through a vast forest. A road of 
 eighteen miles in length, over the level sands, brings you to 
 this place. Tall pines, a thin growth, stood wherever we 
 turned our eyes, and the ground was covered with the 
 dwarf palmetto, and the whortleberry, which is here an 
 evergreen. Yet there were not wanting sights to interest 
 us, even in this dreary and sterile region. As we passed a 
 clearing, in which we saw a young white woman and a boy 
 dropping corn, and some negroes covering it with their hoes, 
 we beheld a large flock of white cranes which rose in the 
 air, and hovered over the forest, and wheeled, and wheeled 
 again, their spotless plumage glistening in the sun like new- 
 fallen snow. We crossed the track of a recent hurricane, 
 which had broken oft' the huge pines midway from the 
 ground, and whirled the summits to a distance from their 
 trunks. From time to time we forded little streams of a 
 deep-red color, flowing from the swamps, tinged, as we 
 were told, with the roots of the red bay, a species of mag-
 
 100 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLi:il. 
 
 nolia. As the horses waded into the transparent crimson, 
 we thought of the hatcheries committed by the Indians, on 
 that road, and could almost fancy that the water was still 
 colored with the blood they had shed. 
 
 The driver of our wagon told us many narratives of these 
 murders, and pointed out the places where they were com- 
 mitted. He showed us jsvhere the father of this young 
 woman was shot dead in his wagon as he was going from 
 St. Augustine to his plantation, and the boy whom we had 
 seen, was wounded and scalped by them, and left for dead. 
 In another place he showed us the spot where a party of 
 players, on their way to St. Augustine, were surprised and 
 killed. The Indians took possession of the stage dresses, 
 one of them arraying himself in the garb of Othello, another 
 in that of Richard the Third, and another taking the cos- 
 tume of Falstaff. I think it was Wild Cat's gang who 
 engaged in this affair, and I was told that after the capture 
 of this chief and some of his warriors, they recounted the cir- 
 cumstances with great glee. At another place we passed a 
 small thicket in which several armed Indians, as they after- 
 Ward related, lay concealed while an officer of the United 
 States army rode several times around it, without any sus- 
 picion of their presence. The same men committed, 
 immediately afterward, several murders and robberies on 
 the road. 
 
 At length we emerged upon a shrubby plain, and finally 
 came in sight of this oldest citv of the United States, seated
 
 .STREETS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 101 
 
 among its trees on a sandy swell of land where it has stood 
 for three hundred years. I was struck with its ancient and 
 homely aspect, even at a distance, and could not help 
 likening it to pictures which I had seen of Dutch towns, 
 though it wanted a windmill or two, to make the resem- 
 blance perfect. We drove into a green square, in the midst 
 of which was a monument erected to commemorate the 
 Spanish constitution of 1812, and thence through the 
 narrow streets of the city to our hotel. 
 
 I have called the streets narrow. In few places are 
 they wide enough to allow two carriages to pass abreast. I 
 was told that they were not originally intended for carriages, 
 and that in the time when the town belonged to Spain, 
 many of them were floored with an artificial stone, com- 
 posed of shells and mortar, which in this climate takes and 
 keeps the hardness of rock, and that no other vehicle than a 
 hand-barrow was allowed to pass over them. In some 
 places you see remnants of this ancient pavement, but for 
 the most part it has been ground into dust under the wheels 
 of the carts and carriages, introduced by the new inhab- 
 itants. The old houses, built of a kind of stone which is 
 seemingly a pure concretion of small shells, overhang the 
 streets with their wooden balconies, and the gardens 
 between the houses are fenced on the side of the street with 
 high walls of stone. Peeping over these walls you see 
 branches of the pomegranate and of the orange-tree, now 
 fragrant with flowers, and, rising yet higher, the leaning 
 9*
 
 102 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 boughs of the fig, with its broad luxuriant leaves. Occa- 
 sionally you pass the ruins of houses walls of stone, with 
 arches and staircases of the same material, which once be- 
 longed to stately dwellings. You meet in the streets with 
 men of swarthy complexions and foreign physiognomy, and 
 you hear them speaking to each other in a strange language. 
 You are told that these are the remains of those who in- 
 habited the country under the Spanish dominion, and that 
 the dialect you have heard is that of the island of Minorca. 
 " Twelve years ago," said an acquaintance of mine, 
 " when I first visited St. Augustine, it was a fine old 
 Spanish town. A large proportion of the houses, which you 
 now see roofed like barns, were then flat-roofed, they were all 
 of shell-rock, and these modern wooden buildings were not 
 yet erected. That old fort, which they are now repairing, 
 to fit it for receiving a garrison, was a sort of ruin, for the 
 outworks had partly fallen, and it stood unoccupied by the 
 military, a venerable monument of the Spanish dominion. 
 But the orange-groves were the ornament and wealth of St. 
 Augustine, and their produce maintained the inhabitants in 
 comfort. Orange-trees, of the size and height of the pear- 
 tree, often rising higher than the roofs of the houses, em- 
 bowered the town in perpetual verdure. They stood so 
 close in the groves that they excluded the sun. and the 
 atmosphere was at all times aromatic with their leaves and 
 fruit, and in spring the fragrance of the flowers was almost 
 oppressive."
 
 F O II T S T . -M AUK. 103 
 
 These groves have now lost their beauty. A few years 
 since, a severe frost killed the trees to the ground, and when 
 they sprouted again i'rom the roots, a new enemy made its 
 appearance an insect of the coccus family, with a kind of 
 shell on its back, which enables it to withstand all the com- 
 mon applications for destroying insects, and the ravages of 
 which are shown by the leaves becoming black and sere, 
 and the twigs perishing. In October last, a gale drove in 
 the spray from the ocean, stripping the trees, except in 
 sheltered situations, of their leaves, and destroying the 
 upper branches. The trunks are now putting out new 
 sprouts and new leaves, but there is no hope of fruit for this 
 year at least. 
 
 The old fort of St. Mark, now called Fort Marion, a fool- 
 ish change of name, is a noble work, frowning over the Ma- 
 timzas, which flows between St. Augustine and the island of 
 St. Anastasia, and it is worth making a long journey to see. 
 No record remains of its original construction, but it is sup- 
 posed to have been erected about a hundred and fifty years 
 since, and the shell-rock of which it is built is dark with 
 time. We saw where it had been struck with cannon-balls, 
 which, instead of splitting the rock, became imbedded and 
 clogged among the loosened fragments of shell. This rock 
 is, therefore, one of the best materials for a fortification in 
 the world. We were taken into the ancient prisons of the 
 fort dungeons, one of which was dimly lighted by a grated 
 window, and another entirely without light ; and by the
 
 104 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 flame of a torch we were shown the half-obliterated inscrip- 
 tions scrawled on the walls long ago by prisoners. But in 
 another corner of the fort, we were taken to look at two 
 secret cells, which were discovered a few years since, in 
 consequence of the sinking of the earth over a narrow 
 apartment between them. These cells are deep under 
 ground, vaulted overhead, and without windows. In one 
 of them a wooden machine was found, which some supposed 
 might have been a rack, and in the other a quantity of 
 human bones. The doors of these cells had been walled up 
 and concealed with stucco, before the fort passed into the 
 hands of the Americans. 
 
 " If the Inquisition," said the gentleman who accom- 
 panied us, " was established in Florida, as it was in the 
 other American colonies of Spain, these were its secret 
 chambers." 
 
 Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and in the morning I at- 
 tended the services in the Catholic church. One of the 
 ceremonies was that of pronouncing the benediction over a 
 large pile of leaves of the cabbage-palm, or palmetto, 
 gathered in the woods. After the blessing had been pro- 
 nounced, the priest called upon the congregation to come 
 and receive them. The men came forward first, in the 
 order of their age, and then the women ; and as the con- 
 gregation consisted mostly of the descendants of Minorcans, 
 Greeks, and Spaniards, I had a good opportunity of observ- 
 ing their personal appearance. The younger portion of the
 
 TEMPERANCE. 105 
 
 congregation had, in general, expressive countenances. 
 Their forms, it appeared to me, were generally slighter 
 than those of our people ; and if the cheeks of the young 
 women were dark, they had regular features and brilliant 
 eyes, and finely formed hands. There is spirit, also, in this 
 class, for one of them has since been pointed out to me in 
 the streets, as having drawn a dirk upon a young officer 
 who presumed upon some improper freedoms of behavior. 
 
 The services were closed by a plain and sensible dis- 
 course in English, from the priest, Mr. Rampon, a worthy 
 and useful French ecclesiastic, on the obligation of tem- 
 perance ; for the temperance reform has penetrated even 
 hither, and cold water is all the rage. I went again, the 
 other evening, into the same church, and heard a person 
 declaiming, in a language which, at first, I took to be 
 Minorcan, for I could make nothing else of it. After listen- 
 ing for a few minutes, I found that it was a Frenchman 
 preaching in Spanish, with a French mode of pronunciation 
 which was odd enough. I asked one of the old Spanish 
 inhabitants how he was edified by this discourse, and he 
 acknowledged that he understood about an eighth part of it. 
 
 I have much more to write about this place, but must 
 reserve it for another letter.
 
 106 LETTER'S OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE. 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE, April 24, 18-tS 
 
 You can not be in St. Augustine a day without hearing 
 some of its inhabitants speak of its agreeable climate. Du- 
 ring the sixteen days of my residence here, the weather has 
 certainly been as delightful as I could imagine. We have 
 the temperature of early June, as June is known in New 
 York. The mornings are sometimes a little sultry, but aftei 
 two or three hours, a fresh breeze comes in from the sea, 
 sweeping through the broad piazzas and breathing in at the 
 windows. At this season it comes laden with the fragrance 
 of the flowers of the Pride of India, and sometimes of the 
 orange-tree, and sometimes brings the scent of roses, now in 
 full bloom. The nights are gratefully cool, and I have been 
 told, by a person who has lived here many years, that there 
 are very few nights in the summer when you can sleep 
 without a blanket. 
 
 An acquaintance of mine, an invalid, who has tried va 
 rious climates and has kept up a kind of running fight witr 
 Death for many years, retreating from country to country a 
 he pursued, declares to me that the winter climate of St. Au
 
 EQUABLE CLIMATE. 107 
 
 gustine is to be preferred to that of any part of Europe, even 
 that of Sicily, and that it is better than the climate of the 
 West Indies. He finds it genial and equable, at the sam; 
 time that it is not enfeebling. The summer heats are pre 
 vented from being intense by the sea-breeze, of which I have 
 spoken. I have looked over the work of Dr. Forry on th- 
 climate of the United States, and have been surprised 1i 
 see the uniformity of climate which he ascribes to Ke 
 West. As appears by the observations he has collected, the 
 seasons at that place glide into each other by the softest 
 gradations, and the heat never, even in midsummer, reaches 
 that extreme which is felt in higher latitudes of the Ameri- 
 can continent. The climate of Florida is in fact an insular 
 climate ; the Atlantic on the east and the Gulf of Mexico 
 on the west, temper the airs that blow over it, making their, 
 cooler in summer and warmer in winter. I do not wonder, 
 therefore, that it is so much the resort of invalids ; it would 
 be more so if the softness of its atmosphere and the beauty 
 and serenity of its seasons were generally known. Nor 
 should it be supposed that accommodations for persons in 
 delicate health are wanting ; they are in fact becoming 
 better with every year, as the demand for them increases. 
 Among the acquaintances whom I have made here, I re- 
 member many who, having come hither for the benefit of 
 their health, are detained for life by the amenity of the 
 climate. " It seems to me," said an intelligent gentleman 
 of this class, the other day, " as if I could not exist out of
 
 108 LETTEB.S OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Florida. When 1 go to the north, I feel most sensibly the 
 severe extremes of the weather ; the climate of Charleston 
 itself, appears harsh to me." 
 
 Here at St. Augustine we have occasional frosts in the 
 winter, but at Tampa Bay, on the western shore of the pen- 
 insula, no further from this place than from New York to 
 Albany, the dew is never congealed on the grass, nor is a 
 snow-flake ever seen floating in the air. Those who have 
 passed the winter in that place, speak with a kind of rap- 
 ture of the benignity of the climate. In that country grow 
 the cocoa and the banana, and other productions of the 
 West Indies. Persons who have explored Florida to the 
 south of this, during the past winter, speak of having re- 
 freshed themselves with melons in January, growing where 
 they had been self-sown, and of having seen the sugar-cane 
 where it had been planted by the Indians, towering un- 
 cropped, almost to the height of the forest trees. 
 
 I must tell you, however, what was said to me by a person 
 who had passed a considerable time in Florida, and had 
 journeyed, as he told me, in the southern as well as the 
 northern part of the peninsula, " That the climate is mild 
 and agreeable," said he, "I admit, but the annoyance to 
 which you are exposed from insects, counterbalances all the 
 enjoyment of the climate. You are bitten by mosquitoes 
 and gallinippers, driven mad by clouds of sand-flies, and 
 stung by scorpions and centipedes. It is not safe to go to 
 "bed in southern Florida without looking between the sheets,
 
 HEALTHFULNESS OF EAST FLORIDA. 109 
 
 to see if there be not a scorpion waiting to be your bed-fellow, 
 nor to put on a garment that has been hanging up in your 
 room, without turning it wrong side out, to see if a scorpion 
 has not found a lodging in it." I have not, however, been 
 incommoded at St. Augustine with these " varmint," as they 
 call them at the south. Only the sand-flies, a small black 
 rnidge, I have sometimes found a little importunate, when 
 walking out in a very calm evening. 
 
 Of the salubrity of East Florida 1 must speak less posi- 
 tively, although it is certain that in St. Augustine emigrants 
 from the north enjoy good health. The owners of the 
 plantations in the neighborhood, prefer to pass the hot sea- 
 son in this city, not caring to trust their constitutions to the 
 experiment of a summer residence in the country. Of 
 course they are settled on the richest soils, and these are the 
 least healthy. The pine barrens are safer ; when not inter- 
 spersed with marshes, the sandy lands that bear the pine 
 are esteemed healthy all over the south. Yet there are 
 plantations on the St. John's where emigrants from the 
 north reside throughout the year. The opinion seems every- 
 where to prevail, and I believe there is good reason for it, 
 that Florida, notwithstanding its low and level surface, is 
 much more healthy than the low country of South Carolina 
 and Georgia. 
 
 The other day I went out with a friend to a sugar plan- 
 tation in the neighborhood of St. Augustine. As we rode 
 into the inclosure we breathed the fragrance of young 
 10
 
 110 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 orange-trees in flower, the glossy leaves of which, green at 
 all seasons, were trembling in the wind, A troop of negro 
 children were at play at a little distance from the cabins, 
 and one of them ran along with us to show us a grove of 
 sour oranges which we were looking for. He pointed us to 
 a copse in the middle of a field, to which we proceeded. 
 The trees, which were of considerable size, were full of 
 flowers, and the golden fruit was thick on the branches, 
 and lay scattered on the ground below. I gathered a few 
 of the oranges, and found them almost as acid as the lemon. 
 We stopped to look at the buildings in which the sugar was 
 manufactured. In one of them was the mill where the 
 cane was crushed with iron rollers, in another stood the 
 huge cauldrons, one after another, in which the juice was 
 boiled down to the proper consistence ; in another were bar- 
 rels of sugar, of syrup a favorite article of consumption in 
 this city of molasses, and a kind of spirits resembling 
 Jamaica rum, distilled from the refuse of the molasses. 
 The proprietor was absent, but three negroes, well-clad 
 young men, of a very respectable appearance and intelligent 
 physiognomy, one of whom was a distiller, were occupied 
 about the buildings, and showed them to us. Near by in 
 the open air lay a pile of sugar cane, of the ribbon variety, 
 striped with red and white, which had been plucked up by 
 the roots, and reserved for planting. The negroes of St. 
 Augustine are a good-looking specimen of the race, and have 
 the appearance of being very well treated. You rarely see
 
 QUARRIES OF SHELL-ROCK. ] 1 1 
 
 a negro in ragged clothing, and the colored children, though 
 slaves, are often dressed with great neatness. In the colored 
 people whom I saw in the Catholic church, I remarked a 
 more agreeable, open, and gentle physiognomy than I have 
 been accustomed to see in that class. The Spanish race 
 blends more kindly with the African, than does the English, 
 and produces handsomer men and women. 
 
 I have been to see the quarries of coquina, or shell-rock, 
 on the island of St. Anastasia, which lies between St. 
 Augustine and the main ocean. We landed on the island, 
 and after a walk of some distance on a sandy road through 
 the thick shrubs, we arrived at some huts built of a frame- 
 work of poles thatched with the radiated leaves of the 
 dwarf palmetto, which had a very picturesque appearance. 
 Here we found a circular hollow in the earth, the place of 
 an old excavation, now shaded with red-cedars, and the pal- 
 metto-royal bristling with long pointed leaves, which bent 
 over and embowered it, and at the bottom was a spring 
 within a square curb of stone, where we refreshed ourselves 
 with a draught of cold water. The quarries were at a little 
 distance from this. The rock lies in the ridges, a little 
 below the surface, forming a stratum of no great depth. 
 The blocks are cut out with crowbars thrust into the rock. 
 It is of a delicate cream color, and is composed of mere 
 shells and fragments of shells, apparently cemented by the 
 fresh water percolating through them and depositing cal- 
 careous matter brought from the shells above. Whenever
 
 112 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 there is any mixture of sand with the shells, rock is not 
 formed. 
 
 Of this material the old fort of St. Mark and the greater 
 part of the city are built. It is said to become harder 
 when exposed to the air and the rain, but to disintegrate 
 when frequently moistened with sea-water. Large blocks 
 were lying on the shore ready to be conveyed to the fort, 
 which is undergoing repairs. It is some consolation to 
 know that this fine old work will undergo as little change 
 in the original plan as is consistent with the modern im- 
 provements in fortification. Lieutenant Benham, who has 
 the charge of the repairs, has strong antiquarian tastes, and 
 will preserve as much as possible of its original aspect. It 
 must lose its battlements, however, its fine mural crown. 
 Battlements are now obsolete, except when they are of no 
 use, as on the roofs of churches and Gothic cottages. 
 
 In another part of the same island, which we visited 
 afterward, is a dwelling-house situated amid orange-groves. 
 Closely planted rows of the sour orange, the native tree of 
 the country, intersect and shelter orchards of the sweet 
 orange, the lemon, and the lime. The trees were all young, 
 having been planted since the great frost of 1835, and many 
 of them still show the ravages of the gale of last October, 
 which stripped them of their leaves. 
 
 " Come this way," said a friend who accompanied me. 
 He forced a passage through a tall hedge of the sour orange, 
 and we found ourselves in a little fragrant inclosure, in the
 
 
 MliNORCANS. 113 
 
 midst of which was a tomb, formed of the artificial stone of 
 which I have heretofore spoken. It was the resting-place 
 of the former proprietor, who sleeps in this little circle of 
 perpetual verdure. It bore no inscription. Not far from 
 this spot, I was shown the root of an ancient palm-tree, the 
 species that produces the date, which formerly towered over 
 the island, and served as a sea-mark to vessels approaching 
 the shore. Some of the accounts of St. Augustine speak of 
 dates as among its fruits ; but I believe that only the male 
 tree of the date-palm has been introduced into the country. 
 On our return to the city, in crossing the Matarizas 
 sound, so named probably from some sanguinary battle with 
 the aborigines on its shores ; we passed two Minorcans in a 
 boat, taking home fuel from the island. These people are a 
 mild, harmless race, of civil manners and abstemious habits. 
 Mingled with them are many Greek families, with names 
 that denote their origin, such as Geopoli, Cercopoli, &c., and 
 with a cast of features equally expressive of their descent. 
 The Minorcan language, the dialect of Mahon, cl MaJumes, 
 as they call it, is spoken by more than half of the inhabitants 
 who remained here when the country was ceded to the 
 United States, and all of them, I believe, speak Spanish be- 
 sides. Their children, however, are growing up in disuse 
 of these languages, and in another generation the last traces 
 of the majestic speech of Castile, will have been effaced 
 from a country which the Spaniards held for more than two 
 hundred years. 
 | 10*
 
 114 LETTK.IS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Some old customs which the Minorcans brought with 
 them from their native country are still kept up. On the 
 evening before Easter Sunday, about eleven o'clock, I 
 heard the sound of a serenade in the streets. Going out, 
 I found a party of young men, with instruments of music, 
 grouped about the window of one of the dwellings, singing 
 a hymn in honor of the Virgin in the Mahonese dialect. 
 They began, as I was told, with tapping on the shutter. 
 An answering knock within had told them that their visit 
 was welcome, and they immediately began the serenade. If 
 no reply had been heard they would have passed on to 
 another dwelling. I give the hymn as it was kindly taken 
 down for me in writing by a native of St. Augustine. I 
 presume this is the first time that it has been put in print, 
 but I fear the copy has several corruptions, occasioned by 
 the unskillfulness of the copyist. The letter e, which I 
 have put in italics, represents the guttural French e, or 
 perhaps more nearly the sound of u in the word but. The 
 sh of our language is represented by sc followed by an i 
 or an e; the g both hard and soft has the same sound as 
 in our language. 
 
 Disciarera lu dol, 
 Cantarem anb' alagria, 
 Y n'arem a da 
 Las pascuas a Maria. 
 
 Maria! 
 
 Sant Grabiel, 
 
 Qiii portaba la anbasciada ;
 
 SERENADE. 
 
 Des nostrc rey del eel 
 Estarau vos prefiada. 
 Ya omiliada, 
 Tu o vais aqui serventa, 
 Fia del Deu contenta, 
 Para fe lo que el voL 
 
 Disciarem lu dol, &c. 
 
 Y a milla nit, 
 
 Pariguero vos regina ; 
 
 A un Deu infinit, 
 
 Dintra una establina. 
 
 Y a millo dia, 
 
 Que los Angles van cantant 
 
 Pau y abondant 
 
 De la gloria de Deu sol 
 
 Disciarem lu dol, <fcc. 
 
 Y a Libalam, 
 Alia la terra santa, 
 Nus nat Jesus, 
 Anb' alagria tanta. 
 Infant petit 
 
 Que tot lu mon salvaria ; 
 Y ningu y bastaria, 
 N"u mes un Deu tot sol. 
 
 Disciarem lu dol, etc. 
 
 Cuant d'Orien lus 
 Tres reys la stralla veran, 
 Deu omnipotent, 
 Ador4 lo vingaran. 
 Un present inferan, 
 De mil encens y or, 
 A lu beneit Seno, 
 Que conesce cual se voL 
 
 Disciarem lu dol, <fec. 
 
 115
 
 116 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Tot fu gayant 
 
 Para cumpli lu prumas ; 
 
 Y lu Esperit sant 
 
 De un angel fau gramas. 
 
 Gran foe ences, 
 
 Que crama lu curagia ; 
 
 Deu nos da lenguagia, 
 
 Para fe lo que Deu vol. 
 
 Disciarem lu dol, <fec. 
 
 Cuant trespasa 
 
 De quest mon nostra Senora, 
 
 Al eel s'empugia 
 
 Sun fil la matescia ora. 
 
 O emperadora, 
 
 Que del eel sou eligida ! 
 
 Lu rosa florida, 
 
 Me resplanden que un sol. 
 
 Disciarem lu dol, <fec. 
 
 Y el tercer giorn 
 Que Jesus resunta, 
 Deu y Aboroma, ' 
 Que la mort triumfa. 
 De alii se balla 
 Para perldra Lucife, 
 An tot a seu peuda, 
 Que de nostro ser el sol. 
 
 Disciarem lu dol, <fcc.* 
 
 * The following is a Spanish translation of this hymn as taken down 
 in writing from the mouth of one of the Mahonese, as they call them- 
 selves, a native of St. Augustine. The author does not hold himself 
 responsible for the purity of the Castilian. 
 
 Dcjaremos el duelo, 
 Cantarctnos con alegria,
 
 SERENADE. 117 
 
 After this hymn, the following stanzas, soliciting the cus- 
 tomary gift of cakes or eggs, are sung : 
 
 Ce set sois que vam cantant, 
 
 Regina celastial ! 
 Dunus pau y alagria, 
 
 Y bonas festaa tingau. 
 Yo vos dou sus bonas festas, 
 
 Danaus dines de sus nous ; 
 Sempre tarem lus mans llestas 
 
 Para recibi un grapat de ous. 
 
 E iremos a dar 
 Las pascuas 4 Maria. 
 
 O Maria. 
 
 San Gabriel 
 
 Aca porto la embajada. 
 De nuestro rey del ciel 
 
 Estareis prenada. 
 Ya humillada 
 
 Tu que vais aqui servente, 
 
 Hija de Dios contenta 
 Para hacer lo que el quiere. 
 
 Dejaremos el duelo, &a. 
 
 Y a media noche, 
 
 Paristeis reyna 
 A un Dios inflnito 
 
 Dentro de un establo. 
 Y a media dia, 
 
 Los Angeles van cantando 
 
 Paz y abundancia 
 De la gloria de Dios solo. 
 
 Dejaremos el duelo, &a. 
 
 Y a Belem, 
 
 Alia en la tierra santa, 
 Nos naci6 Gesus 
 
 Con alegria tanta.
 
 118 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Y el giorn de pascua florida 
 Alagramcs 7 giuntament ; 
 
 As qui es mort par darnos vida 
 Ya viu gloriosament. 
 
 Nino chiquito, 
 
 Que todo el mundo salvaria ; 
 
 Y ningun bastaria 
 Sino un Dios todo solo. 
 
 Dejaremos el duelo, &a. 
 
 Cuando del Oriente los 
 
 Tres reyes la estrella vieron, 
 Dios omnipotente, 
 
 Para adorarlo ivinieron. 
 Un regalo inferieron, 
 
 De mil incienaoa y oro, 
 
 Al bendito Senor 
 Que sabe qualquiera cosa. 
 
 Dejaremos el duelo, &a. 
 
 Todo fu pronto 
 
 Para cumplir la promesa ; 
 Del Espiritu Santo 
 
 Un Angel fue mandado. 
 Gran fuego encendido 
 
 Que quema el corage ; 
 
 Dios nos de lenguage 
 Para hacer lo que quiere. 
 
 Dejaremos el duelo, &a. 
 
 Cuando so fue 
 
 De este mundo nuestra Senora, 
 Al ciel se empujo 
 
 Su hijo la misme hora. 
 O emperadora, 
 
 Que del ciel soiselijida! 
 
 La rosa florida, 
 Mas resplandesciente que un sol ! 
 
 Dejaremos el duelo, &a.
 
 SERENADE. 119 
 
 Aquesta casa esta. empedrada, 
 
 Bien halla que la empedro ; 
 Sun amo de aquesta casa 
 
 Baldria duna un do. 
 Furmagiada, o empanada, 
 
 Cucutta o flao ; 
 Cual se vol cosa me grada, 
 
 Sol que no me digas que no.* 
 
 Y el tercer dia 
 
 Que Gesus resuscito, 
 Dios y Veronica 
 
 De la morte triunfo. 
 De alii se bajo 
 
 Para perder a Lucifer, 
 
 Con todo el suo poder, 
 Que dienuestro ser el sol. 
 
 Dejaremos el duelo, &a. 
 
 Thus in the Spanish translation furnished me : 
 Estos seis versos que cantamos 
 
 Eegina celestial ! 
 Dadnos paz y alegria, 
 
 Y buenas fiestas tengais. 
 Yo vos doy sus buenas fiestas ; 
 
 Dadnos dinero de nuestras nueces. 
 Siempre tendremos las manos prestas. 
 
 Para recibir un cuatro de huevos. 
 
 Y el dia de pascua florida, 
 Alegremonos juntamente ; 
 
 El que mori para darnos vida 
 Ya vive gloriosamente. 
 
 Aquesta casa esta empredrada, 
 
 Bien halla que la empedro ; 
 El amo de aquesta casa, 
 
 Quisiera darnos un don. 
 Quesadilla, o empanada, 
 
 Cucuta, o flnon, 
 Qualquiera cosa me agrada, 
 
 Solo que no me digas que no.
 
 120 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 The shutters are then opened by the people within, and a 
 supply of cheese-cakes, or other pastry, or eggs, is dropped 
 into a bag carried by one of the party, who acknowledge the 
 gift in the following lines, and then depart : 
 
 Aquesta casa esta empedrada, 
 Empedrada de cuatro vens ; 
 Sun amo de aquesta casa, 
 Es omo de compliment.* 
 
 If nothing is given, the last line reads thus : 
 No ea omo de compliment. 
 
 Thus in the Spanish : 
 
 Aquesta casa esta empedrada, 
 
 Empedrada de cuatro vientos ; 
 El amo de aquesta casa 
 
 Ea hombre de cortesia. 
 m-
 
 [ATANZAS SOUND. 121 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 SAVANNAH, April 28, 1843. 
 
 Ox the morning of the 24th, we took leave of our good 
 friends in St. Augustine, and embarked in the steamer for 
 Savannah. Never were softer or more genial airs hreathed 
 out of the heavens than those which played around us as 
 we ploughed the waters of the Matanzas Sound, passing 
 under the dark walls of the old fort, and leaving it behind 
 us, stood for the passage to the main ocean. 
 
 ft is a common saying in St. Augustine, that " Florida is 
 the best poor man's country in the world," and, truly, I be- 
 lieve that those who live on the shores of this sound find it 
 so. Its green waters teem with life, and produce abun- 
 dance of the finest fish, 
 
 " of shell or fin, 
 
 And exquisites! name." 
 
 Clams are dug up on the pure sands along the beach, 
 where the fishermen drag their boats ashore, and wherever 
 the salt water dashes, there is an oyster, if he can find 
 aught upon which to anchor his habitation. Along the 
 11
 
 122 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 edge of the marshes, next to the water, you see a row a wall 
 I should rather say of oysters, apparently sprouting one out 
 of another, as high as the tide flows. They are called here, 
 though I do not know why, ratoon oysters. The abun- 
 dance of fish solves the problem which has puzzled many, 
 how the Minorcan population of St. Augustine live, now 
 that their orange-trees, upon which they formerly depended, 
 are unproductive. 
 
 In the steamboat were two or three persons who had 
 visited Florida with a view of purchasing land. Now that 
 the Indian war is ended, colonization has revived, and 
 people are thronging into the country to take advantage of 
 the law which assigns a hundred and sixty acres to every 
 actual settler. In another year, the influx of population 
 will probably be still greater, though the confusion and un- 
 certainty which exists in regard to the title of the lands, 
 will somewhat obstruct the settlement of the country. 
 Before the Spanish government ceded it to the United 
 States, they made numerous grants to individuals, intended 
 to cover all the best land of the territory. Many of the 
 lands granted have never been surveyed, and their situation 
 and limits are very uncertain. The settler, therefore, if he 
 is not very careful, may find his farm overlaid by an old 
 Spanish claim. 
 
 I have said that the war is ended. Although the 
 Seminole chief, Sam Jones, and about seventy of his people 
 remain, the country is in profound peace from one end to
 
 THE FLORIDA WAR. 123 
 
 the other, and you may traverse the parts most distant 
 from the white settlements without the least danger or 
 molestation from the Indians. " How is it," I asked one 
 day of a gentleman who had long resided in St. Augustine, 
 " that, after what has happened, you can think it safe to let 
 these people remain ?" 
 
 " It is perfectly safe," he answered. " Sam Jones pro- 
 fesses, and I believe truly, to have had less to do with the 
 murders which have heen committed than the other chiefs, 
 though it is certain that Dr. Perrine, whose death we so 
 much lament, was shot at Indian Key by his men. Besides, 
 he has a quarrel with one of the Seminole chiefs, whose rel- 
 ative he has killed, and if he were to follow them to their 
 new country, he would certainly be put to death. It is his 
 interest, therefore, to propitiate the favor of the whites by 
 the most unexceptionable behavior, for his life depends upon 
 being allowed to remain. 
 
 " There is yet another reason, which you will understand 
 from what I am about to say. Before the war broke out, 
 the Indians of this country, those very men who suddenly 
 became so bloodthirsty and so formidable, were a quiet and 
 inoffensive race, badly treated for the most part by the 
 whites, and passively submitting to ill treatment without 
 any appearance of feeling or spirit. When they at length 
 resolved upon war, they concealed their families in the 
 islands of the Everglades, whither they supposed the whites 
 would never be able to follow them. Their rule of warfare
 
 124 LETTERS OF A THAVELLEil. 
 
 was this, never to endanger the life of one of their warriors 
 for the sake of gaining the greatest advantage over their 
 enemies ; they struck only when they felt themselves in 
 perfect safety. If they saw an opportunity of destroying 
 twenty white men by the sacrifice of a single Indian, the 
 whites were allowed to escape. Acting on this principle, 
 if their retreat had been as inaccessible as they supposed it, 
 they would have kept up the warfare until they had driven 
 the whites out of the territory. 
 
 " When, however, General Worth introduced a new 
 method of prosecuting the war, following up the Indians 
 with a close and perpetual pursuit, chasing them into their 
 great shallow lake, the Everglades, and to its most secret 
 islands, they saw at once that they were conquered. They 
 saw that further hostilities were hopeless, and returned to 
 their former submissive and quiet demeanor. 
 
 " It is well, perhaps," added my friend in a kind of 
 postscript, " that a few Indians should remain in Florida. 
 They are the best hunters of runaway slaves in the world, 
 and may save us from a Maroon war." 
 
 The Indian name of tire Everglades, I am told, signifies 
 Grass-water, a term which well expresses its appearance. 
 It is a vast lake, broader by thousands of acres in a wet 
 than in a dry season, and so shallow that the grass every- 
 where grows from the bottom and overtops its surface 
 The bottom is of hard sand, so firm that it can be forded 
 almost everywhere on horseback, and here and there are
 
 ST. MARY'S. SAND-PLIES. 125 
 
 deep channels which the traveller crosses by swimming his 
 horse. 
 
 General Worth's success in quelling the insurrection of 
 the Serninoles, has made him very popular in Florida, where 
 the energy and sagacity with which the closing campaign of 
 the war was conducted are spoken of in the highest terms. 
 He has lately fixed his head-quarters at St Augustine. 
 
 In the afternoon, our steamer put in between two sandy 
 points of land and we arrived at St Mary's, formerly a 
 buccaneer settlement, but now so zealous for good order 
 that our captain told us the inhabitants objected to his 
 taking in wood for his steamboat on Sunday. The place is 
 full of groves of the orange and lime young trees which 
 have grown up since 1835, and which, not having suffered, 
 like those of St. Augustine, by the gale, I found beautifully 
 luxuriant. In this place, it was my fate to experience the 
 plague of sand-flies. Clouds of them came into the steam- 
 boat alighting on our faces and hands and stinging 
 wherever they alighted. The little creatures got into our 
 hair and into our eyes, and crawled up our sleeves and down 
 our necks, giving us no rest, until late in the night the 
 vessel left the wharf and stood out into the river, where the 
 current of air swept most of our tormentors away. 
 
 The next morning, as we were threading the narrow 
 
 channels by which the inland passage is made from St. 
 
 Mary's to Savannah, we saw, from time to time, alligators 
 
 basking on the banks. Some of our fellow-passengers took 
 
 11*
 
 12() LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 rifles and shot at them as we went by. The smaller ones 
 were often killed, the larger generally took the rifle-balls 
 upon their impenetrable backs, and walked, apparently un- 
 hurt, into the water. One of these monstrous creatures I saw 
 receive his death-wound, having been fired at twice, the 
 balls probably entering at the eyes. In his agony he dashed 
 swiftly through the water for a little distance, and turning 
 rushed with equal rapidity in the opposite direction, the 
 strokes of his strong arms throwing half his length above 
 the surface. The next moment he had turned over and lay 
 lifeless, with his great claws upward. A sallow-com- 
 plexioned man from Burke county, in Georgia, who spoke a 
 kind of negro dialect, was one of the most active in this 
 sport, and often said to the bystanders. " I hit the 'gator 
 that time, I did.'' We passed where two of these huge 
 reptiles were lying on the bank among the rank sedges, one 
 of them with his head towards us. A rifle-ball from the 
 steamer, struck the ground just before his face, and he im- 
 mediately made for the water, dragging, with his awkward 
 legs, a huge body of about fifteen feet in length. A shower 
 of balls fell about him as he reached the river, but he pad- 
 dled along with as little apparent concern as the steamboat 
 we were in. 
 
 The tail of the alligator is said to be no bad eating, and 
 the negroes are fond of it. I have heard, however, that the 
 wife of a South Carolina cracker once declared her dislike 
 of it in the following terms :
 
 ALLHiATOU AND TURNIPS. 127 
 
 " Coon, and collards is pretty good fixins, but 'gator and 
 turnips I can't go, no how." 
 
 Collards, you will understand, are a kind of cabbage. In 
 this country, you will often hear of long collards, a favorite 
 dish of the planter. 
 
 Among the marksmen who were engaged in shooting 
 alligators, were two or three expert chewers of the Indian 
 weed frank and careless spitters who had never been 
 disciplined by the fear of woman into any hypocritical con- 
 cealment of their talent, or unmanly reserve in its exhibi- 
 tion. I perceived, from a remark which one of them let 
 fall, that somehow they connected this accomplishment 
 with high breeding. He was speaking of four negroes who 
 were hanged in Georgia on a charge of murdering their 
 owner. 
 
 " One of them," said he, " was innocent. They made no 
 confession, but held up their heads, chawed their tobacco, 
 and spit about like any gentlemen." 
 
 You have here the last of my letters from the south. 
 Savannah, which I left wearing almost a wintry aspect, is 
 now in the full verdure of summer. The locust-trees are in 
 blossom ; the water-oaks, which were shedding their winter 
 foliage, are now thick with young and glossy leaves ; the 
 Pride of India is ready to burst into flower, and the gardens 
 are full of rcses in bloorn.
 
 128 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 AN EXCURSION TO VERMONT AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 ADDISON COUNTY, Vermont, July 10, 1843. 
 I DO not recollect that I ever heard the canal connecting 
 the Hudson with Lake Champlain praised for its beauty, yet 
 it is actually beautiful that part of it at least which lies be- 
 tween Dunham's Basin and the lake, a distance of twenty-one 
 miles, for of the rest I can not speak. To form the canal, two 
 or three streams have been diverted a little from their original 
 course, and led along a certain level in the valley through 
 which they flowed to pour themselves into Champlain. In 
 order to keep this level, a perpetually winding course has 
 been taken, never, even for a few rods, approaching a 
 straight line. On one side is the path beaten by the feet of 
 the horses who drag the boats, but the other is an irregular 
 bank, covered sometimes with grass and sometimes wi'h 
 shrubs or trees, and sometimes steep with rocks. I was de- 
 lighted, on my journey to this place, to exchange a seat in a 
 stage-coach, driven over the sandy and dusty road north of 
 Saratoga by a sulky and careless driver, for a station on the 
 top of the canal-packet. The weather was the finest
 
 BEAUTY OF THE CHAMPLAIN CANAL. 129 
 
 imaginable ; the air that blew over the fields was sweet 
 with the odor of clover blossoms, and of shrubs in flower. 
 A canal, they say, is but a ditch ; but this was as urdike a 
 ditch as possible ; it was rather a gentle stream, winding in 
 the most apparently natural meanders. Goldsmith could 
 find no more picturesque epithet for the canals of Holland, 
 than " slow ;" 
 
 " The slow canal, the yellow blossomed vale " 
 
 but if the canals of that country had been like this, I am 
 sure he would have known how to say something better for 
 them. On the left bank, grassed over to the water's edge, 
 I saw ripe strawberries peeping out among the clover, and 
 shortly afterward a young man belonging to the packet 
 leaped on board from the other side with a large basket of 
 very fine strawberries. " I gathered them," said he " down 
 in the swamp ; the swamp is full of them." "We had 
 them afterward with our tea. 
 
 Proceeding still further, the scenery became more bold. 
 Steep hills rose by the side of the canal, with farm-houses 
 scattered at their feet ; we passed close to perpendicular 
 precipices, and rocky shelves sprouting with shrubs, and 
 under impending woods. At length, a steep broad moun- 
 tain rose before us, its sides shaded with scattered trees and 
 streaked with long horizontal lines of rock, and at its foot a 
 cluster of white houses. This was Whitehall ; and here 
 the waters of the canal plunge noisily through a rocky gorge
 
 130 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 into the deep basin which holds the long and narrow Lake 
 Champlain. 
 
 There was a young man on board who spoke English im- 
 perfectly, and whose accent I could not with certainty refer 
 to any country or language with which I was acquainted. 
 As we landed, he leaped on shore, and was surrounded at 
 once by half a dozen persons chattering Canadian French. 
 The French population of Canada has scattered itself along 
 the shores of Lake Champlain for a third of the distance 
 between the northern boundary of this state and the city of 
 New York, and since the late troubles in Canada, more nu- 
 merously than ever. In the hotel where I passed the night, 
 most of the servants seemed to be emigrants from Canada. 
 
 Speaking of foreigners reminds me of an incident which 
 occurred on the road between Saratoga Springs and Dun- 
 ham's Basin. As the public coach stopped at a place called 
 Emerson, our attention was attracted by a wagon-load of 
 persons who had stopped at the inn, and were just resuming 
 their journey. The father was a robust, healthy-looking 
 man of some forty years of age ; the mother a buxom dame ; 
 the children, some six or seven, of various ages, with flaxen 
 hair, light-blue eyes, and broad ruddy cheeks. " They are 
 Irish," said one of my fellow-passengers. I maintained on 
 the contrary that they were Americans. " Git ap," said 
 the man to his horses, pronouncing the last word very 
 long. "Git ap ; go 'lang." My antagonist in the dispute 
 immediately acknowledged that I was right, for "git ap."
 
 LAKE CHAM PL A IN. 131 
 
 and " go 'lang" could never have been, uttered with such 
 purity of accent by an Irishman. We learned on inquiry 
 that they were emigrants from the neighborhood, proceeding 
 to the Western Canal, to take passage for Michigan, where 
 the residence of a year or two will probably take somewhat 
 from the florid ruddiness of their complexions. 
 
 I looked down into the basin which contains the waters 
 of the Champlain, lying considerably below the level on, 
 which Whitehall is built, and could not help thinking that 
 it was scooped to contain a wider and deeper collection of 
 waters. Craggy mountains, standing one behind the other, 
 surround it on all sides, from whose feet it seerns as if the 
 water had retired ; and here and there, are marshy recesses 
 between the hills, which might once have been the bays of 
 the lake. The Burlington, one of the model steamboats for 
 the whole world, which navigates the Champlain, was lying 
 moored below. My journey, however, was to be by land. 
 
 At seven o'clock in the morning we set out from White- 
 hall, in a strong wagon, to cross the mountainous country 
 lying east of the lake. " Git ap," said our good-natured 
 driver to his cattle, and we climbed and descended one rug- 
 ged hill after another, passing by cottages which we were 
 told were inhabited by Canadian French. We had a 
 passenger from Essex county, on the west side of the lake, 
 a lady who, in her enthusiastic love of a mountainous 
 country, seemed to wish that the hills were higher ; and 
 another from the prairies of the western states, who, 
 9*
 
 132 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 accustomed for many years to the easy and noiseless 
 gliding of carriages over the smooth summer roads of that 
 region, could hardly restrain herself from exclaiming at 
 every step against the ruggedness of the country, and 
 the roughness of the ways. A third passenger was an 
 emigrant from Vermont to Chatauque county, in the state 
 of New York, who was now returning on a visit to his 
 native county, the hills of Vermont, and who entertained us 
 by singing some stanzas of what he called the Michigan 
 song, much in vogue, as he said, in these parts before he 
 emigrated, eight years ago. Here is a sample : 
 
 " They talk about Vermont, 
 
 They say no state's like that : 
 'Tis true the girls are handsome, 
 
 The cattle too are fat. 
 But who amongst its mountains 
 
 Of cold and ice would stay, 
 When he can buy paraira 
 
 In Michigan-i-a ?" 
 
 By " paraira" you must understand prairie. "It is a 
 most splendid song," continued the singer. " It touches off 
 one state after another. Connecticut, for example :" 
 
 " Connecticut has blue laws, 
 
 And when the beer, on Sunday, 
 Gets working in the barrel, 
 They flog it well on Monday." 
 
 At Benson, in Vermont, we emerged upon a smoother 
 country, a country of rich pastures, fields heavy with grass
 
 PASTORAL COUNTRY OF VERMONT. 133 
 
 almost ready for the scythe, and thick-leaved groves of the 
 sugar-maple and the birch. Benson is a small, hut rather 
 neat little village, with three white churches, all of which 
 appear to be newly built. The surrounding country is chiefly 
 fitted for the grazing of flocks, whose fleeces, however, just 
 at present, hardly pay for the shearing. 
 12
 
 134 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 AN EXCURSION TO VERMONT AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 KKKNE, New Hampshire, July 13, 1843. 
 
 I RESUME my journey where I stopped short in my last, 
 namely, on reaching Benson, in Vermont, among the high- 
 lands west of Lake Champlain. We went on through a 
 pastoral country of the freshest verdure, where we saw 
 large flocks of sheep grazing. From time to time we had 
 glimpses of the summits of a long blue ridge of mountains 
 to the east of us, and now and then the more varied and 
 airy peaks of the mountains which lie to the west of the 
 lake. They told me that of late years this part of the 
 country had suffered much from the grasshoppers, and that 
 last summer, in particular, these insects had made their 
 appearance in immense armies, devouring the plants of the 
 ground and leaving it bare of herbage. " They passed 
 across the country," said one person to me, " like hail 
 storms, ravaging it in broad stripes, with intervals between 
 in which they were less numerous."" 
 
 At present, however, whether it was the long and severe 
 winter which did not fairly end till the close of April, or 
 whether it was the uncommonly showery weather of the
 
 WHITE CLOVER. 135 
 
 season hitherto, that destroyed these insects, in some early 
 stage of their existence, I was told that there is now scarce 
 a grasshopper in all these meadows and pastures. Every- 
 where the herbage was uncommonly luxuriant, and every- 
 where I saw the turf thickly sprinkled with the blossoms of 
 the white clover, on the hill, in the valley, among rocks, by 
 streams, by the road-side, and whenever the thinner shade 
 of the woods allowed the plants of the field to take root. 
 We might say of the white clover, with even more truth 
 than Montgomery says of the daisy : 
 
 " But this bold floweret climbs the hill, 
 Hides in the forest, haunts the glen, 
 Plays on the margin of the rill, 
 Peeps o'er the fox's den." 
 
 All with whom I spoke hc.d taken notice of the uncom- 
 mon abundance of the white clover this year, and the idea 
 seemed to prevail that it has its regular periods of appearing 
 and disappearing, remaining in the fields until it has 
 taken up its nutriment in the soil, and then giving place to 
 other plants, until they likewise had exhausted the qualities 
 of the soil by which they were nourished. However this 
 may be, its appearance this season in such profusion, 
 throughout every part of the country which I have seen, is 
 very remarkable. All over the highlands of Vermont and 
 New Hampshire, in their valleys, in the gorges of their 
 mountains, on the sandy banks of the Connecticut, the
 
 136 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 atmosphere for many a league is perfumed with the odor of 
 its blossoms. 
 
 I passed a few days in the valley of one of those streams 
 of northern Vermont, which find their way into Champlain. 
 If I \vere permitted to draw aside the veil of private life, I 
 would briefly give you the singular, and to me most interest- 
 ing history of two maiden ladies who dwell in this valley. 
 I would tell you how, in their youthful days, they took each 
 other as companions for life, and how this union, no less 
 sacred to them than the tie of marriage, has subsisted, in 
 \minterrupted harmony, for forty years, during which they 
 have shared each other's occupations and pleasures and 
 works of charity while in health, and watched over each 
 other tenderly in sicknesss ; for sickness has made long and 
 frequent visits to their dwelling. I could tell you how they 
 slept on the same pillow and had a common purse, and 
 adopted each other's relations, and how one of them, more 
 enterprising and spirited in her temper than the other, 
 might be said to represent the male head of the family, and 
 took upon herself their transactions with the world without, 
 until at length her health failed, and she was tended by her 
 gentle companion, as a fond wife attends her invalid husband. 
 I would tell you of their dwelling, encircled with roses, which 
 now in the days of their broken health, bloom wild without 
 their tendance, and I would speak of the friendly attentions 
 which their neighbors, people of kind hearts and simple 
 manners, seem to take pleasure in bestowing upon them,
 
 CANADIAN FRENCH LABORERS. 137 
 
 tut I have already said more than I fear they will forgive 
 me for, if this should ever meet their eyes, and I must leave 
 the subject. 
 
 One day I had taken a walk with a farmer of the place, 
 over his extensive and luxuriant pastures, and was return- 
 ing by the road, when a well-made young fellow in a cap. 
 with thick curly hair, carrying his coat on his arm, wear 
 ing a red sash round his waist, and walking at a bri.sk 
 pace, overtook us. " Etes-vous Canadien ?" are you a 
 Canadian ? said my companion. " Un peu" a little 
 was the dry answer. " Where are you going?" asked the 
 farmer again, in English. " To Middlebury," replied he, 
 and immediately climbed a fence and struck across a field 
 to save an angle in the road, as if perfectly familiar with 
 the country 
 
 " These Canadian French," said the farmer, "come 
 swarming upon us in the summer, when we are about to 
 begin the hay-harvest, and of late years they are more nu- 
 merous than formerly. Every farmer here has his French 
 laborer at this season, and some two or three. They are 
 hardy, and capable of long and severe labor ; but many of 
 them do not understand a word of our language, and they 
 are not so much to be relied upon as our own countrymen ; 
 they, therefore, receive lower wages." 
 
 " What do you pay them ?" 
 
 " Eight dollars a month, is the common rate. When 
 they leave your service, they make up their packs, and 
 12*
 
 l38 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 brinir them for your inspection, that you may see that they 
 have taken nothing which does not belong to them. I have 
 heard of thefts committed by some of them, for I do not 
 suppose that the best of the Canadians leave their homes 
 for work, but I have always declined to examine their bag- 
 gage when they quit my house." 
 
 A shower drove us to take shelter in a farm-house by the 
 road. The family spoke with great sympathy of John, a 
 young French Canadian, " a gentlemanly young fellow," 
 they called him, who had been much in their family, and 
 who had just come from the north, looking quite ill. He 
 had been iu their service every summer since he was a boy. 
 At the approach of the warm weather, he annually made 
 his appearance in rags, and in autumn he was dismissed, a 
 sprucely-dressed lad, for his home. 
 
 On Sunday, as I went to church, I saw companies of 
 tnese young Frenchmen, in the shade of barns or passing 
 along the road ; fellows of small but active persons, with 
 thick locks and a lively physiognomy. The French have 
 become so numerous in that region, that for them and the 
 Irish, a Roman Catholic church has been erected in Middle- 
 bury, which, you know, is not a very large village. 
 
 On Monday morning, we took the stage-coach at Middle- 
 bury for tliis place. An old Quaker, in a broad-brimmed 
 hat and a coat of the ancient cut, shaped somewhat like the 
 upper shell of the tortoise, came to hand in his granddaugh- 
 ter, a middle-aged woman, whom he had that morning
 
 QUAKERS. 139 
 
 accompanied from Lincoln, a place about eighteen miles 
 distant, where there is a Quaker neighborhood and a Qua- 
 ker meeting-house. The denomination of Quakers seems to 
 be dying out in the United States, like the Indian race ; not 
 that the families become extinct, but pass into other denomi- 
 nations. It is very common to meet with neighborhoods 
 formerly inhabited by Gtuakers, in which there is not a trace 
 of them left. Not far from Middlebury, is a village on a 
 fine stream, called Q,uaker Village, with not a Gluaker in it. 
 Everywhere they are laying aside their peculiarities of cos- 
 tume, and in many instances, also, their peculiarities of 
 speech, which are barbarous enough as they actually exist, 
 though, if they would but speak with grammatical propri- 
 ety, their forms of discourse are as commodious as vener- 
 able, and I would be content to see them generally adopted. 
 I hope they will be slow to lay aside their better character- 
 istics : their abhorrence of violence, and the peaceful and 
 wholesome subjection in which, of all religious denomina- 
 tions, they seem to have best succeeded in holding the pas- 
 sions. In such remote and secluded neighborhoods as Lin- 
 coln, their sect will probably make the longest stand against 
 the encroachments of the world. I perceived, however, that 
 the old gentleman's son, who was with him, and, as I learned, 
 was also a Q,uaker, had nothing peculiar in his garb. 
 
 Before sunset we were in sight of those magnificent 
 mountain summits, the Pico, Killington Peak, and Shrews- 
 bury Peak, rising in a deep ultra-marine blue among the
 
 140 LETTERS OP A TRAVELLER. 
 
 clouds that rolled about them, for the day was showery. 
 We were set down at Rutland, where we passed the night, 
 and the next morning crossed the mountains by the passes 
 of Clarendon and Shrewsbury. The clouds were clinging 
 to the summits, and we travelled under a curtain of mist, 
 upheld on each side by mountain- walls. A young woman 
 of uncommon beauty, whose forefinger on the right hand 
 was dotted all over with punctures of the needle, and who 
 was probably a mantua-maker, took a seat in the coach for 
 a short distance. We made some inquiries about the coun- 
 try, but received very brief, though good-natured answers, 
 for the young lady was a confirmed stammerer. I thought 
 of an epigram I had somewhere read, in which the poet 
 complimented a lady who had this defect, by saying that 
 the words which she wished to utter were reluctant to 
 leave so beautiful a mouth, and lingered long about the 
 pearly teeth and rosy lips. 
 
 We passed through a tract covered with loose stones, and 
 the Quaker's granddaughter, who proved to be a chatty 
 person, told us a story which you may possibly have heard 
 before. " Where did you get all the stones with which you 
 have made these substantial fences ?" said a visitor to his 
 host, on whose grounds there appeared no lack of such ma- 
 terials. "Look about you in the fields, and you will see," 
 was the answer. " I have looked," rejoined the questioner, 
 " and do not perceive where a single stone is missing, and 
 that is what has puzzled me."
 
 BELLOWS FALLS. KEENE. 141 
 
 Soon after reaching the highest elevation on the road, we 
 entered the state of New Hampshire. Our way led us 
 into a long valley formed by a stream, sometimes con- 
 tracted between rough woody mountains, and sometimes 
 spreading out, for a short distance, into pleasant meadows ; 
 and we followed its gradual descent until we reached the 
 borders of the Connecticut. We crossed this beautiful river 
 at Bellows Falls, where a neat arid thriving village has its 
 seat among craggy mountains, which, at a little distance, 
 seem to impend over it. Here the Connecticut struggles 
 and foams through a narrow passage of black rocks, 
 spanned by a bridge. I believe this is the place spoken of 
 in Peters's History of Connecticut, where he relates that 
 the water of the river is so compressed in its passage be- 
 tween rocks, that an iron bar can not be driven into it. 
 
 A few miles below we entered the village of Walpole, 
 pleasantly situated on the knolls to the east of the mead- 
 ows which border the river. Walpole was once a place of 
 some literary note, as the residence of Dennie, who, forty 
 years since, or more, before he became the editor of the 
 Port Folio, here published the Farmer's Museum, a weekly 
 sheet, the literary department of which was amply and en- 
 tertainingly filled. 
 
 Keene, which ended our journey in the stage-coach, is a 
 flourishing village on the rich meadows of the Ashuelot, 
 with hills at % moderate distance swelling upward on all 
 sides. It is a village after the New England pattern, and
 
 142 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 a beautiful specimen of its kind broad streets planted 
 with rock-maples and elms, neat white houses, white 
 palings, and shrubs in the front inclosures. 
 
 During this visit to New Hampshire, I found myself in a 
 hilly and rocky region, to the east of this place, and in sight 
 of the summit of Monadnock, which, at no great distance 
 from where I was, begins to upheave its huge dark mass 
 above the surrounding country. I arrived, late in the even- 
 ing, at a dwelling, the door of which was opened to me by two 
 damsels, all health and smiles. In the morning I saw a 
 third sister of the same florid bloom and healthful propor- 
 tions. They were none of those slight, frail figures, copies of 
 the monthly plates of fashion, with waists of artificial slen- 
 derness, which almost force you to wonder how the different 
 parts of the body are kept together no pallid faces, nor 
 narrow chests, nor lean hands, but forms which might have 
 satisfied an ancient statuary, with a well-formed bust, faces 
 glowing with health, rounded arms, and plump fingers. 
 They are such women, in short, as our mothers, fifty years 
 ago, might have been. I had not observed any particular 
 appearance of health in the females of the country through 
 which I had passed ; on the contrary, I had been disap- 
 pointed in their general pallidness and look of debility. I 
 inquired of my host if there was any cause to which this 
 difference could be traced. 
 
 " I have no doubt of the cause," replied J^e. " These 
 girls are healthy, because I have avoided three great er-
 
 STRAWBERRIES. 143 
 
 rors. They have neither been brought up on unwhole- 
 some diet, nor subjected to unwholesome modes of dress, 
 nor kept from daily exercise in the open air. They have 
 never drunk tea or coffee, nor lived upon any other than 
 plain and simple food. Their dress you know that even 
 the pressure of the easiest costume impedes the play of 
 the lungs somewhat their dress has never been so tight as 
 to hinder free respiration and the proper expansion of the 
 chest. Finally, they have taken exercise every day in the 
 open air, assisting me in tending my fruit trees and in those 
 other rural occupations in which their sex may best take 
 part. Their parents have never enjoyed very good health ; 
 nor were the children particularly robust in their infancy, 
 yet by a rational physical education, they have been made 
 such as you see them." 
 
 I took much pleasure in wandering through the woods in 
 this region, where the stems of the primeval forest still 
 stand straight trunks of the beech, the maple, the ash, and 
 the linden, towering to a vast height. The hollows are 
 traversed by clear, rapid brooks. The mowing fields at 
 that time were full of strawberries of large size and admi- 
 rable flavor, which you could scarce avoid crushing by 
 dozens as you walked. I would gladly have lingered, 
 during a few more of these glorious summer days, in this 
 wild country, but my engagements did not permit it, and 
 here I am, abo^t to take the stage-coach for Worcester and 
 the Western Railroad.
 
 144 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 LIVERPOOL. MANCHESTER. 
 
 MANCHESTER, England, May 30, 1845. 
 
 I SUPPOSE a smoother passage was never made across the 
 Atlantic, than ours in the good ship Liverpool. For two- 
 thirds of the way, we slid along over a placid sea, before 
 the gentlest zephyrs that ever swept the ocean, and when at 
 length the winds became contrary, they only impeded our 
 progress, without making it unpleasant. The Liverpool is 
 one of the strongest, safest, and steadiest of the packet-ships ; 
 her commander prudent, skillful, always on the watch, and as 
 it almost seemed to me, in every part of the vessel at once ; 
 the passengers were good-tempered and quiet, like the sea 
 on which we were sailing ; and with all these advantages 
 in our favor, I was not disposed to repine that we were a 
 week longer in crossing the Atlantic, than some vessels which 
 left New York nearly the same time. 
 
 It was matter of rejoicing to all of us, however, when we 
 saw the Irish coast like a faint cloud upon the horizon, and 
 still more were we delighted, when after bating about for 
 several days in what is called the Chops of the Channel, \ve
 
 MOUNTAINS OF WALES. 145 
 
 beheld the mountains of Wales. I could hardly believe that 
 what I saw were actually mountain summits, so dimly were 
 their outlines defined in the vapory atmosphere of this 
 region, the nearer and lower steeps only being fully 
 visible, and the higher and remoter ones half lost in the 
 haze. It seemed to me as if I were looking at the reflection 
 of mountains in a dull mirror, and I was ready to take out 
 my pocket-handkerchief to wipe the dust and smoke from its 
 surface. About thirty miles from Liverpool we took on 
 board a pilot, whose fair complexion, unbronzed by the sun, 
 was remarked by the ladies, and soon after a steamer 
 arrived arid took us in tow. At twelve o'clock in the night, 
 the Liverpool by the aid of the high tide cleared the sand- 
 bar at the mouth of the port, and was dragged into the dock, 
 and the next morning when I awoke, I found myself in 
 Liverpool in the midst of fog and rain. 
 
 " Liverpool," said one of its inhabitants to me, " is more 
 like an. American than an English city ; it is new, bustling, 
 and prosperous." I saw some evidences of this after I had 
 got rny baggage through the custom-house, which was at- 
 tended with considerable delay, the officers prying very 
 closely into the contents of certain packages which I was 
 taking for friends of mine to their friends in England, cut- 
 ting the packthread, breaking the seals, and tearing the 
 wrappers without mercy. I saw the streets crowded with 
 huge drays, carrying merchandise to and fro, and admired 
 the solid construction of the docks, in which lay thousands 
 13
 
 146 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of vessels from all parts of the globe. The walls of these 
 docks are built of large blocks of red sandstone, with broad 
 gateways opening to the river Mersey, and when the tide 
 is at its height, which I believe is about thirty feet from low 
 water, the gates are open, and vessels allowed to enter and 
 depart. When the tide begins to retire, the gates are 
 closed, and the water and the vessels locked in together. 
 Along the river for miles, the banks are flanked with this 
 massive masonry, which in some places I should judge. to be 
 nearly forty feet in height. Meantime the town is spread 
 ing into the interior ; hew streets are opened ; in one field 
 you may see the brickmakers occupied in their calling, and 
 in the opposite one the bricklayers building rows of houses. 
 New churches and new public buildings of various kinds 
 are going up in these neighborhoods. 
 
 The streets which contain the shops have for the most 
 part a gay and showy appearance ; the buildings are 
 generally of stucco, and show more of architectural decora- 
 tion than in our cities. The greater part of the houses, 
 however, are built of brick which has a rough surface, and 
 soon acquires in this climate a dark color, giving a gloomy 
 aspect to the streets. The public buildings, which are 
 rather numerous, are of a drab-colored freestone, and those 
 which have been built for forty or fifty years, the Town Hall, 
 for example, and some of the churches, appear almost of a 
 sooty hue. I went through the rooms of the Town Hall and 
 was shown the statue of Canning, by Chantry, an impre^ive
 
 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 147 
 
 work as it seemed to me. One of the rooms contains a 
 portrait of him by Lawrence, looking very much like a 
 feeble old gentleman whom I remember as not long since 
 an appraiser in the New York custom-house. We were 
 shown a lofty saloon in which the Common Council of 
 Liverpool enjoy their dinners, and very good dinners the 
 woman who showed us the rooms assured us they were. 
 But the spirit of corporation reform has broken in upon the 
 old order of things, and those good dinners which a year or 
 two since were eaten weekly, are now eaten but once a 
 fortnight, and money is saved. 
 
 I strolled to the Zoological Gardens, a very pretty little 
 place, where a few acres of uneven surface have been orna- 
 mented with plantations of flowering shrubs, many of which 
 are now in full bloom, artificial ponds of water, rocks, and 
 bridges, and picturesque buildings for the animals. Wind- 
 ing roads are made through the green turf, which is now 
 sprinkled with daisies. It seems to be a favorite place of 
 resort for the people of the town. They were amused by 
 the tricks of an elephant, the performances of a band of 
 music, which among other airs sang and played " Jim along 
 Josey," and the feats of a young fellow who gave an illus- 
 tration' of the centrifugal force by descending a Montagne 
 Russe in a little car, which by the help of a spiral curve in 
 the railway, was made to turn a somerset in the middle of 
 its passage, and brought him out at the end with his cap 
 off: and his hair on end.
 
 148 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 One of the most remarkable places in Liverpool, is St 
 James's Cemetery. In the midst of the populous and bus- 
 tling city, is a chasm among the black rocks, with a narrow 
 green level at the bottom. It is overlooked by a little 
 chapel. You enter it by an arched passage cut through the 
 living rock, which brings you by a steep descent to the nar- 
 row level of which I have spoken, where you find yourself 
 among graves set with flowers and half concealed by shrub- 
 bery, while along the rocky sides of the hollow in which 
 you stand, you see tombs or blank arches for tombs which 
 are yet to be excavated. We found the thickets within and 
 around this valley of the dead, musical with innumerable 
 birds, which build here undisturbed. Among the monu- 
 ments is one erected to Huskisson, a mausoleum with a 
 glass door through which you see his statue from the chisel 
 of Gibson. On returning by the passage through the rock, 
 we found preparations making for a funeral service in the 
 chapel, which we entered. Four men came staggering ii 
 under the weight of a' huge coffin, accompanied by a clei 
 man of imposing stature, white hair, and florid complexion. 
 Four other coffins were soon after brought in and placed in 
 the church, attended by another clergyman of less pre-pos- 
 sessing appearance, who, to my disappointment, read the 
 service. He did it in the most detestable manner, with 
 much grimace, and with the addition of a supernumerary 
 syllable after almost every word ending with a consonant. 
 The clerk delivered the responses in such a mumbling tone, 
 
 ,
 
 ORNAMENTAL CULTIVATION. 149 
 
 and with so much of the Lancashire dialect, as to be almost 
 unintelligible. The other clergyman looked, I thought, as 
 if, like myself, he was sorry to hear the beautiful funeral 
 service of his church so profaned. . 
 
 In a drive which we took into the country, we had occa- 
 sion to admire the much talked of verdure and ornamental 
 cultivation of England. Green hedges, rich fields of grass 
 sprinkled with flowers, beautiful residences, were on every 
 side, and the wheels of our carriage rolled over the smoothest 
 roads in the world. The lawns before the houses are kept 
 smoothly shaven, and carefully leveled by the roller. A.t one 
 of these English houses, to which I was admitted by the 
 hospitality of its opulent owner, I admired the variety of 
 shrubs in full flower, which here grow in the open air, 
 rhododendrons of various species, flushed with bloom, azaleas 
 of different hues, one of which I recognized as American, 
 and others of various families and names. In a neighboring 
 field stood a plot of rye-grass two feet in height, notwith- 
 standing the season was yet so early ; and a part of it had 
 been already mown for the food of cattle. Yet the people 
 here complain of their climate. " You must get thick shoes 
 and wrap yourself in flannel," said one of them to me. 
 " The English climate makes us subject to frequent and 
 severe colds, and here in Lancashire you have the worst 
 climate of England, perpetually damp, with strong and 
 chilly winds." 
 
 It is true that I have found the climate miserably chilly 
 13* 
 
 *
 
 150 I. K T T F. II S O F A T R A V K I. L E R. 
 
 since I landed, b'lt I am told the season is a late one. The 
 apple-trees are just in hloom, though there are but few of 
 them to be seen, and the blossoms of the hawthorn are 
 only just beginning to open. The foliage of some of the 
 trees, rich as it is, bears the appearance in some places of 
 having felt the late frosts, and certain kinds of trees are not 
 yet in leaf. 
 
 Among the ornaments of Liverpool is the new park 
 called Prince's Park, which a wealthy individual, Mr. 
 Robert Yates, has purchased and laid out with a view of 
 making it a place for private residences. It has a pretty 
 little lake, plantations of trees and shrubs which have just 
 began to strike root, pleasant nooks and hollows, eminences 
 which command extensive views, and the whole is traversed 
 with roads which are never allowed to proceed from place to 
 place in. a straight line. The trees are too newly planted to 
 allow me to call the place beautiful, but within a few 
 years it will be eminently so. 
 
 I have followed the usual practice of travellers in visiting 
 the ancient town of Chester, one of the old walled towns of 
 England, distant about fifteen miles from Liverpool 
 rambled through the long galleries open to the street, above 
 the ground-story of the houses, entered its crumbling old 
 churches of red freestone, one of which is the church of St. 
 John, of Norman architecture, with round arches and low 
 massive pillars, and looked at the grotesque old carvings rep- 
 resenting events in Scripture history which ornament some
 
 of the houses in Watergate-street. The walls are said to 
 have been erected as early as the time of William the 
 Conqueror, and here and there are towers rising above them. 
 They are still kept in repair and afford a walk from which 
 you enjoy a prospect of the surrounding country ; but no an- 
 cient monument is allowed to stand in the wav of modern 
 improvements as they are called, and 1 found workmen at. 
 one corner tumbling down the stones and digging up the 
 foundation to let in a railway. The river Dee winds 
 pleasantly at the foot of the city walls. I was amused by 
 an instance of the English fondness for hedges which I 
 saw here. In a large green field a hawthorn hedge 
 was planted, all along the city wall, as if merely for the 
 purpose of hiding the hewn stone with a screen of 
 verdure. 
 
 Yesterday we took the railway for Manchester. The ar- 
 rangements for railway travelling in this country are much 
 more perfect than with us. The cars of the first class are 
 fitted up in the most sumptuous manner, cushioned at the 
 back and sides, with a resting-place for your elbows, so that 
 you sit in what is equivalent to the most luxurious arm- 
 chair. Some of the cars intended for night travelling are 
 so contrived that the seat can be turned into a kind of bed. 
 The arrangement of springs and other contrivances to pre- 
 vent shocks, and to secure an equable motion, are admirable 
 and perfectly effectual. In one hour we had passed over 
 the thirty-one miles which separate Manchester from
 
 152 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Liverpool ; shooting rapidly over Chat Moss, a black blot in 
 the green landscape, overgrown with heath, which, at this 
 season of the year, has an almost sooty hue, crossing bridge 
 after bridge of the most solid and elegant construction, and 
 finally entered Manchester by a viaduct, built on massive 
 arches, at a level with the roofs of the houses and churches. 
 Huge chimneys surrounded us on every side, towering above 
 the house-tops and the viaduct, and vomiting smoke like 
 a hundred volcanoes. We descended and entered Market- 
 street, broad and well-built, and in one of the narrowest 
 streets leading into it, we were taken to our comfortable 
 hotel. 
 
 At Manchester we walked through the different rooms of 
 a large calico-printing establishment. In one were strong- 
 bodied men standing over huge caldrons ranged along a 
 furnace, preparing arid stirring up the colors ; in another 
 were the red-hot cylinders that singe the down from the 
 cloth before it is stamped ; in another the machines that 
 stamp the colors and the heated rollers that dry the fabric 
 after it is stamped. One of the machines which we were 
 shown applies three different colors by a single operation. 
 In another part of the establishment was the apparatus for 
 steaming the calicoes to fasten the colors ; huge hollow 
 iron wheels into which and out of which the water Avas 
 continually running and revolving in another part to Avash 
 the superfluous dye from the stamped cloths ; the operation 
 of drying and pressing them came next arid in a large
 
 MANCHESTER COTTON- MILLS. 153 
 
 room, a group of young women, noisy, drab-like, and dirty, 
 were engaged in measuring and folding them. 
 
 This morning we take the coach for the Peak of Derby- 
 shire.
 
 154 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 EDALE IN DERBYSHIRE. 
 
 DERBY, England, June 3, 1845. 
 
 I HAVE passed a few pleasant days in Derbyshire, the 
 chronicle of which I will give you. 
 
 On the morning of the 30th of May, we took places at 
 Manchester in the stage-coach for Chapel-en-le-Frith. We 
 waited for some time before the door of the Three Angels in 
 Market-street, the finest street in Manchester, broad and 
 well-built, while the porters were busy in fastening to the 
 vehicle the huge loads of luggage with which the English 
 commonly travel. As I looked on the passers by, I was 
 again struck with what I had observed almost immediately 
 on entering the town the portly figures and florid com- 
 plexions of some, and the very diminutive stature and 
 sallow countenances of others. Among the crowds about 
 the coach, was a ruddy round-faced man in a box-coat and 
 a huge woollen cravat, walking about and occasionally 
 giving a look at the porters, whom we took to be the coach- 
 man, so well did his appearance agree with the description 
 usually given of that class. "We were not mistaken, for in
 
 A DERBYSHIRE MAN. 155 
 
 a short lime we saw him buttoning his coat, and delib- 
 erately disentangling the lash from the handle of a long 
 coach whip. We took our seats with him on the outside of 
 the coach, and were rolled along smoothly through a level 
 country of farms and hedge-rows, and fields yellow with 
 buttercups, until at the distance of seven miles we reached 
 Stockport, another populous manufacturing town lying in 
 the smoke of its tall chimneys. At nearly the same dis- 
 tance beyond Stockport, the country began to swell into 
 hills, divided by brooks and valleys, and the hedge-rows 
 gave place to stone fences, which seamed the green region, 
 bare of trees in every direction, separating it into innumer- 
 able little inclosures. A few miles further, brought us into 
 that part of Derbyshire which is called the Peak, where the 
 hills become mountains. 
 
 Among our fellow-passengers, was a powerfully made 
 man, who had the appearance of being a commercial trav- 
 eller, and was very communicative on the subject of the 
 Peak, its caverns, its mines, and the old ruined castle of the 
 Peverils, built, it is said, by one of the Norman invaders of 
 England. He spoke in the , Derbyshire dialect, with a 
 strong provincial accent. When he was asked whether the 
 castle was not the one spoken of by Scott, in his Peveril of 
 the Peak, he replied, 
 
 " Scott ? Scott ? I dunna know him." 
 
 Chapel-en-le-Frith is a manufacturing village at the bot- 
 tom of a narrow valley, clean-looking, but closely built upon
 
 156 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 narrow lanes ; the houses are of stone, and have the same 
 color as the highway. We were set down, with our Derby- 
 shire friend, at the Prince's Arms, kept by John Clark, a 
 jolly-looking man in knee-breeches, who claimed our fellow 
 passenger as an old acquaintance. " I were at school with 
 him," said he ; " we are both Peakerels." John Clark, 
 however, was the more learned man of the two, he knew 
 something of Walter Scott ; in the days when he was a 
 coachman, he had driven the coach that brought him to the 
 Peak, and knew that the ruined castle in the neighborhood 
 was once the abode of Scott's Peveril of the Peak. 
 
 We procured here an odd vehicle called a car, with seats 
 on the sides where the passengers sit facing each other, as 
 in an omnibus, to take us to Edale, one of the valleys of 
 Derbyshire. Our new acquaintance, who was about to pro- 
 ceed on foot to on of the neighboring villages, was per- 
 suaded to take a seat with us as far as his road was the 
 s.inie with ours. We climbed out of the valley up the bare 
 green hills, and here our driver, who was from Cheshire, 
 and whose mode of speaking English made him unintelli- 
 gible lo us, pointed to a house on a distant road, and made 
 an attempt to communicate something which he appeared 
 to think interesting. Our Derbyshire friend translated him. 
 
 " The water," said he, " that fall on one side of the roof 
 of that 'ouse go into the 'Umber, and the water that fall on 
 the other side go into the Mersey. Last winter that 'ouse 
 wore covered owre wi' snow, and they made a ^archway
 
 EDALE. HOPEDALE. 157 
 
 to go in and out. We 'ad a /^eighteen month's storm last 
 winter." 
 
 By an "eighteen month's storm" we learned, on inquiry, 
 that he meant eighteen weeks of continued cold weather, 
 the last winter having been remarkable for its severity. 
 
 Our kind interpreter now left us, and took his way across 
 the fields, down a path which led through a chasm between 
 high tower-like rocks, called the "Winnets, which etymolo- 
 gists say is a corruption of Windgates, a name given to this 
 mountain-pass from the currents of air which are always 
 blowing through it. Turning out of the main road, we 
 began to ascend a steep green declivity. To the right of us 
 rose a peaked summit, the name of which our driver told us 
 was Mam Tor. We left the vehicle and climbed to its top, 
 where a wide and beautiful prospect was out-spread before 
 us. To the north lay Edale, a deep and almost circular 
 valley, surrounded by a wavy outline of pastoral hills, bare 
 of trees, but clothed in living green to their summits, except 
 on the northern side of the valley, where, half-way down, 
 they were black with a thick growth of heath. At the 
 bottom of the valley winded a little stream, with a fringe of 
 trees, some of which on account of the lateness of the sea- 
 Bon were not yet in leaf, and near this stream were scat- 
 tered, for the most part, the habitations. In another 
 direction lay the valley of Hopedale, with its two villages, 
 Hope and Castleton, its ancient castle of the Peverils seated 
 on a rock over the entrance of the Peak Cavern, and its lead 
 14
 
 158 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 mines worked ever since the time of the Saxons, the Odin 
 mines as they are called, the white cinders of which lay in 
 heaps at their entrance. We left the driver to take our 
 baggage to its destination, and pursued our way across the 
 fields. Descending a little distance from the summit, we 
 came upon what appeared to be an ancient trench, thickly 
 overgrown with grass, which seemed to encircle the upper 
 part of the hill. It was a Roman circumvallation. The 
 grass was gemmed with wild pansies, yellow, " freaked 
 with jet," and fragrant, some of which we gathered for a 
 memorial of the spot. 
 
 In descending to the valley, we came upon a little rivulet 
 among hazels and hollies and young oaks, as wild and 
 merry as a mountain brook of our own country. Cow- 
 slips and wild hyacinths were in flower upon its banks, and 
 blue violets as scentless as our own. We followed it until 
 it fell into the larger stream, when we crossed a bridge and 
 ai'rived at a white house, among trees just putting out their 
 leaves with plots of flowers in the lawn before it. Here 
 we received a cordial welcome from a hospitable and warm- 
 hearted Scotchman. 
 
 After dinner our host took us up the side of the mountain 
 which forms the northern barrier of Edale. We walked 
 through a wretched little village, consisting of low cottages 
 built of stone, one or two of which were alehouses ; passed 
 the parsonage, pleasantly situated on the edge of a little brook, 
 and then the parson himself, a young man just from Cam- 

 
 THE LARK. 159 
 
 bridge, who was occupied in sketching one of the picturesque 
 points in the scenery about his new habitation. A few 
 minutes active climbing brought us among the heath, form- 
 ming a thick elastic carpet under our feet, on which we 
 were glad to seat ourselves for a moment's rest. We heard 
 the cuckoo upon every side, and when we rose to pursue our 
 walk we frequently startled the moor-fowl, singly or in 
 flocks. The time allowed by the game laws for shooting 
 them had not yet arrived, but in the mean time they had 
 been unmercifully hunted by the hawks, for we often found the 
 remains of such as had been slain by these winged sports- 
 men, lying in our path as we ascended. We found on the 
 top of the hill, a level of several rods in width, covered to a 
 considerable depth with peat, the produce of the decayed 
 roots of the heath, which has sprung and perished for cen- 
 turies. It was now soft with the abundant rains which 
 had fallen, and seamed with deep muddy cracks, over which 
 we made our way with difficulty. At length we came to 
 a spot from which we could look down into another valley. 
 " That," said our host, " is the Woodlands." We looked and 
 saw a green hollow among the hills like Edale, but still 
 more bare of trees, though like Edale it had its little 
 stream at the bottom. 
 
 The next day we crossed the Mam Tor a second time, on a 
 visit to the Derbyshire mines. On our way, I heard the 
 lark for the first time. The little bird, so frequently named 
 in English poetry, rose singing from the grass almost per-
 
 160 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 pendicularly, until nearly lost to the sight in the clouds, 
 floated away, first in one direction, then in another, descended 
 towards the earth, arose again, pouring forth a perpetual, 
 uninterrupted stream of melody, until at length, after the 
 space of somewhat more than a quarter of an hour, he 
 reached the ground, and closed his flight and his song to- 
 gether. The caverns which contain the Derbyshire spars 
 of various kinds, have been the frequent theme of tourists, 
 and it is hardly worth while to describe them for the 
 thousandth time. Imagine a fissure in the limestone rock, 
 descending obliquely five hundred feet into the bowels of 
 the earth, with a floor of fallen fragments of rock and 
 sand ; jagged walls, which seem as if they would fit closely 
 into each other if they could be brought together, sheeted, 
 in many places, with a glittering, calcareous deposit, and 
 gradually approaching each other overhead imagine this, 
 and you will have an idea of the Blue John mine, into 
 which we descended. The fluor-spar taken from this mine 
 is of a rich blue color, and is wrought into vases and cups, 
 which were extremely beautiful. 
 
 The entrance to the Peak Cavern, as it is called, is very 
 grand. A black opening, of prodigious extent, yawns in the 
 midst of a precipice nearly three hundred feet in height, and 
 you proceed for several rods in this vast portico, before the 
 cave begins to contract to narrower dimensions. At a little 
 distance from this opening, a fine stream rushes rapidly from 
 under the limestone, and flows through the village. Above,
 
 THE CASTLE OF THE PEVERILS. 161 
 
 and almost impending over the precipice, is the castle of the 
 Peverils, the walls of which, built of a kind of stone which 
 retains the chisel marks made eight hundred years since, 
 are almost entire, though the roof has long ago fallen in, 
 and trees are growing in the corners. " Here lived the 
 English noblemen," said our friend, " when they were 
 robbers before they became gentlemen." The castle is 
 three stories in height, and the space within its thick and 
 stronsr walls is about twenty-five feet square. These would 
 be thought narrow quarters by the present nobility, the race 
 of gentlemen who have succeeded to the race of robbers. 
 
 The next day we attended the parish church. The 
 young clergyman gave us a discourse on the subject of the 
 Trinity, and a tolerably clever one, though it was only 
 sixteen minutes long. The congregation were a healthy, 
 though not a very intelligent looking set of men and 
 women. The Derbyshire people have a saying 
 
 " Darbysliire born, and Darbyshire bred, 
 Strong o' the yarm and weak o' the yead." 
 
 The latter line, translated into English, would be 
 " Strong of the arm, and weak of the head ;" 
 
 and I was assured that, like most proverbs, it had a good 
 deal of truth in it. The laboring people of Edale arid its 
 neighborhood, so far as I could learn, are not remarkable for 
 good morals, and indifferent, or worse than indifferent, to 
 the education of their children. They are, however, more 
 14*
 
 1 G 2 LET T K IIS OF A T R A V Ii L I. K R. 
 
 fortunate in regard to the wagjs of their labor, than in 
 many other agricultural districts. A manufactory for pre- 
 paring cotton thread for the lace-makers, has been estab- 
 lished in Edale, and the women and girls of the place, who 
 are employed in it, are paid from seven to eight shillings a 
 week. The farm laborers receive from twelve to thirteen 
 shillings a week, which is a third more than is paid to the 
 same class in some other counties. 
 
 The people of the Peak, judging from the psalmody I 
 heard at church, are not without an ear for music. " I 
 was at a funeral, not long since," said our host, " a young 
 man, born deaf and dumb, went mad and cut his throat. 
 The people came from far and near to the burial. Hot ale 
 was handed about and drunk in silence, and a candle stood 
 on the table, at which the company lighted their pipes. The 
 only sound to be heard was the passionate sobbing of the 
 father. At last the funeral service commenced, and the 
 hymn being given out, they set it to a tune in the minor 
 key, and I never heard any music performed in a mannei 
 more pathetic." 
 
 On Monday we left Edale, and a beautiful drive we had 
 along the banks of the Derwent, woody and rocky, and 
 wild enough in some places to be thought a river of oiu 
 own country. Of our visit to Chatsworth, the seat of the 
 Duke of Devonshire, one of the proudest of the modern En- 
 glish nobility, and to Haddon Hall, the finest specimen re- 
 maining of the residences of their ancestors, I will say
 
 SCENE-PAINTING ATS MATLOCK. 163 
 
 nothing, for these have already been described till people 
 are tired of reading them. We passed the night at Matlock 
 in sight of the rock called the High Tor. In the hot 
 season it swarms with cockneys, and to gratify their taste, 
 the place, beautiful as it is with precipices and woods, has 
 been spoiled by mock ruins and fantastic names. There is 
 a piece of scene-painting, for example, placed conspicuously 
 among the trees on the hill-side, representing an ancient 
 tower, and another representing an old church. One place 
 of retreat is called the Romantic Rocks, and another the 
 Lover's Walk. 
 
 To-day we arrived at Derby, and hastened to see its 
 Arboretum. This is an inclosure of eleven acres, given by 
 the late Mr. Josiah Strutt to the town, and beautifully laid 
 out by Loudon, author of the work on Rural Architecture. 
 It is planted with every kind of tree and shrub which will 
 grow in the open air of this climate, and opened to the 
 public for a perpetual place of resort. Shall we never see 
 an example of the like munificence in New York ?
 
 164 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 WORKS OF ART. 
 
 LONDON, June 18, 1845. 
 
 I HAVE now been in London a fortnight. Of course you 
 will not expect me to give you what you will find in the 
 guide-books and the " Pictures of London." 
 
 The town is yet talking of a statue of a Greek slave, by 
 our countryman Powers, which was to be seen a few days 
 since at a print-shop in Pall Mall. I went to look at it. 
 The statue represents a Greek girl exposed naked for sale in 
 the slave-market. Her hands are fettered, the drapery of 
 her nation lies at her feet, and she is shrinking from the 
 public gaze. I looked at it with surprise and delight ; I 
 was dazzled with the soft fullness of the outlines, the grace 
 of the attitude, the noble, yet sad expression of the counte- 
 nance, and the exquisite perfection of the workmanship. I 
 could not help acknowledging a certain literal truth in the 
 expression of Byron, concerning a beautiful statue, that it 
 
 " fills 
 
 The air around with beauty."
 
 EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 165 
 
 It has fixed the reputation of Powers, and made his for- 
 tune. The possessor of the statue, a Mr. Grant, has refused 
 to dispose of it, except to a public institution. The value 
 which is set upon it, may be inferred from this circum- 
 stance, that one of the richest noblemen in England told 
 the person who had charge of the statue, that if Mr. Grant 
 would accept two thousand pounds sterling for it, he should 
 be glad to send him a check for the amount. Some whis- 
 pers of criticism have been uttered, but they appear to have 
 been drowned and silenced in the general voice of involun- 
 tary admiration. I hear that since the exhibition of the 
 statue, orders have been sent to Powers from England, for 
 works of sculpture which will keep him employed for years 
 to come. 
 
 The exhibition of paintings by the Royal Academy is 
 now open. I see nothing in it to astonish one who has 
 visited the exhibitions of our Academy of the Arts of De- 
 sign in New York, except that some of the worst pictures 
 were hung in the most conspicuous places. This is the 
 case with four or five pictures by Turner a great artist, 
 and a man of genius, but who paints very strangely of late 
 years. To my unlearned eyes, they were mere blotches of 
 white paint, with streaks of yellow and red, and without 
 any intelligible design. To use a phrase very common in 
 England, they are the most extraordinary pictures I ever 
 saw. Haydon also has spoiled several yards of good can- 
 vas wi*h a most hideous picture of Uriel and Satan, and
 
 166 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 to this is assigned one of the very best places in the collec- 
 tion. There is more uniformity of style and coloring than 
 with us ; more appearance of an attempt to conform to a 
 certain general model, so that of course there are fewer un- 
 pleasant contrasts of manner : but this is no advantage, 
 inasmuch as it prevents the artist from seeking to attain ex- 
 cellence in the way for which he is best fitted. The num- 
 ber of paintings is far greater than in our exhibitions ; but 
 the proportion of good ones is really far smaller. There are 
 some extremely clever things by Webster, who appears to 
 be a favorite with the public ; some fine miniatures by 
 Thorburn, a young Scotch artist who has suddenly become 
 eminent, and several beautiful landscapes by Stanfield, an 
 artist of high promise. We observed in the catalogue, the 
 names of three or four of our American artists ; but on look- 
 ing for their works, we found them all hung so high as to 
 be out of sight, except one, and that was in what is called 
 the condemned room, where only a glimmer of light enters, 
 and where the hanging committee are in the practice of 
 thrusting any such pictures as they can not help exhibiting, 
 but wish to keep in the dark. 
 
 My English friends apologize for the wretchedness of the 
 collection, its rows of indifferent portraits and its multitude 
 of feeble imitations in historical and landscape painting, by 
 saying that the more eminent artists are preparing them- 
 selves to paint the walls and ceilings of the new Houses of 
 Parliament in fresco. The pinnacles and turrets of that
 
 DRAWINGS IN W A T t R - C O L O R S. 167 
 
 vast and magnificent structure, built of a cream-colored 
 stone, and florid with Gothic tracery, copied from the ancient 
 chapel of St. Stephen, the greater part of which was not 
 long ago destroyed hy fire, are rising from day to day above 
 the city roofs. We walked through its broad and long 
 passages and looked into its unfinished halls, swarming 
 with stone-cutters and masons, and thought that if half of 
 them were to be painted in fresco, the best artists of En- 
 gland have the work of years before them. 
 
 With the exhibition of drawings in water-colors, which is 
 a separate affair from the paintings in oil, I was much bet- 
 ter pleased. The late improvement in this branch of art, 
 is, I believe, entirely due to English artists. They have 
 given to their drawings of this class a richness, a force of 
 effect, a depth of shadow and strength of light, arid a truth 
 of representation which astonishes those who are accus- 
 tomed only to the meagreness and tenuity of the old man- 
 ner. I have hardly seen any landscapes which exceeded, 
 in the perfectness of the illusion, one or two which I saw in 
 the collection I visited, and I could hardly persuade myself 
 that a flower-piece on which I looked, representing a bunch 
 of hollyhocks, was not the real thing after all, so crisp were 
 the leaves, so juicy the stalks, and with such skillful relief 
 was flower heaped upon flower and leaf upon leaf.
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XXI 
 
 THE PARKS OF LONDON. THE POLICF. 
 
 LONDON, June 24, 1845. 
 
 NOTHING can be more striking to one who is accustomed 
 to the little inclosures called public parks in our American 
 cities, than the spacious, open grounds of London. I doubt, 
 in fact, whether any person fully comprehends their extent, 
 from any of the ordinary descriptions of them, until he has 
 seen them or tried to walk over them. You begin at the 
 east end of St. James's Park, and proceed along its graveled 
 walks, and its colonnades of old trees, among its thickets of 
 ornamental shrubs carefully inclosed, its grass-plots main- 
 tained in perpetual freshness and verdure by the moist 
 climate and the ever-dropping skies, its artificial sheets of 
 water covered with aquatic birds of the most beautiful 
 species, until you begin almost to wonder whether tho park 
 has a western extremity. You reach it at last, and proceed 
 between the green fields of Constitution Hill, when you 
 find yourself at the corner of Hyde Park, a much more 
 spacious pleasure-ground. You proceed westward in Hyde 
 Park until you^ttrcr weary, when you find yourself on tho
 
 BEAUTY OF THE PARKS. 169 
 
 verge of Kensington Gardens, a vast extent of ancient woods 
 and intervening lawns, to which the eye sees no limit, and 
 in whose walks it seerns as if the whole population of 
 London might lose itself. North of Hyde Park, after pass- 
 ing a few streets, you reach the great square of Regent's 
 Park, where, as you stand at one boundary the other is 
 almost undistinguishable in the dull London atmosphere. 
 North of this park rises Primrose Hill, a bare, grassy eminence, 
 which I hear has been purchased for a public ground and will 
 be planted with trees. All round these immense inclosures, 
 presses the densest population of the civilized world. Within, 
 such is their extent, is a fresh and pure atmosphere, and the 
 odors of plants and flowers, and the twittering of innumer- 
 able birds more musical than those of our own woods, 
 which build and rear their young here, and the hum of 
 insects in the sunshine. Without are close and crowde 
 streets, swarming with foot-passengers, aad choked with 
 drays and carriages. 
 
 These parks have been called the lungs of London, and 
 so important are they regarded to the public health and the 
 happiness of the people, that I believe a proposal to dispense 
 with some part of their extent, and cover it with streets and 
 houses, would be regarded in much the same manner as a 
 proposal to hang every tenth man in London. They will 
 probably remain public grounds as long as London has an 
 existence. 
 
 The population of your city, increasing with such pro- 
 15
 
 170 LET TEES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 digious rapidity ; your sultry summers, and the corrupt 
 atmosphere generated in hot and crowded streets, make it a 
 cause of regret that in laying out New York, no preparation 
 was made, while it was yet practicable, for a range of parks 
 and public gardens along the central part of the island or 
 elsewhere, to remain perpetually for the refreshment and 
 recreation of the citizens during the torrid heats of the 
 warm season. There are yet unoccupied lands on the 
 island which might, I suppose, be procured for the purpose, 
 and which, on account of their rocky and uneven surface, 
 might be laid out into surpassingly beautiful pleasure- 
 grounds ; but while we are discussing the subject the 
 advancing population of the city is sweeping over them and 
 covering them from our reach. 
 
 If we go out of the parks into the streets we find the 
 causes of a corrupt atmosphere much more carefully re- 
 moved than with us. The streets of London are always 
 clean. Every day. early in the morning, they are swept ; 
 and some of them, I believe, at other hours also, by a ma- 
 chine drawn by one of the powerful dray-horses of this 
 country. Whenever an unusually large and fine horse of 
 this breed is produced in the country, he is sent to the 
 London market, and remarkable animals they are, of a 
 height and stature almost elephantine, large-limbed, slow- 
 paced, shaggy-footed, sweeping the ground with their 
 fetlocks, each huge foot armed with a shoe weighing from 
 five to six pounds. One of these strong creatures is
 
 SECURITY FROM BURGLARIES. 171 
 
 harnessed to a street-cleaning machine, which consists 
 of brushes turning over a cylinder and sweeping the dust 
 of the streets into a kind of box. Whether it be wet 
 or dry dust, or mud, the work is thoroughly performed ; 
 it is all drawn into the receptacle provided for it, 
 and the huge horse stalks backward and forward 
 along the street until it is almost as clean as a drawing- 
 room 
 
 I called the other day on a friend, an American, who 
 told me that he had that morning spoken with his landlady 
 about her carelessness in leaving the shutters of her lower 
 rooms unclosed during the night. She answered that she 
 never took the trouble to close them, that so secure was the 
 city from ordinary burglaries, under the arrangements of 
 the new police, that it was not worth the trouble. The 
 windows of the parlor next to my sleeping-room open upon 
 a rather low balcony over the street door, and they are un- 
 provided with any fastenings, which in New York we 
 should think a great piece of negligence. Indeed, I am 
 told that these night robberies are no longer practiced, 
 except when the thief is assisted by an accessary in the 
 house. All classes of the people appear to be satisfied with 
 the new police. The officers are men of respectable 
 appearance and respectable manners. If I lose my way, or 
 stand in need of any local information, I apply to a person 
 in the uniform of a police officer. They are sometimes 
 more stupid in regard lo these matters than there is any oc-
 
 172 LETTERS OF A T R A VE LL E it.. 
 
 casiori for, but it is one of the duties of their office to assist 
 strangers with local information. 
 
 Begging is repressed by the new police regulations, and 
 want skulks in holes and corners, and prefers its petitions 
 where it can not be overheard by men armed with the 
 authority of the law. " There is a great deal of famine in 
 London," said a friend to me the other day, " but the police 
 regulations drive it out of sight." I was going through Ox- 
 ford-street lately, when I saw an elderly man of small 
 stature, poorly dressed, with a mahogany complexion, walk- 
 ing slowly before me. As I passed him he said in my ear, 
 with a hollow voice, " I am starving to death with hunger," 
 and these words and that hollow voice sounded in my ear 
 all day. 
 
 Walking in Hampstead Heath a day or two since, with 
 an English friend, we were accosted by two laborers, who 
 were sitting on a bank, arid who said that they had came 
 to that neighborhood in search of employment in hay- 
 making, but had not been able to get either work or food. 
 My friend appeared to distrust their story. But in the 
 evening, as we were walking home, we passed a company 
 of some four or five laborers in frocks, with bludgeons in 
 their hands, who asked us for something to eat. " You see 
 how it is, gentlemen," said one of them, " we are hungry ; 
 we have corne for work, and nobody will hire us ; we have 
 had nothing to eat all day." Their tone was dissatisfied, 
 almost menacing ; and the Englishman who was with us,
 
 INCREASE OF POVERTY. 173 
 
 referred to it several times afterward, with an expression 
 of anxiety and alarm. 
 
 I hear it often remarked here, that the difference of con- 
 dition between the poorer and the richer classes becomes 
 greater every day, and what the end will be the wisest pre- 
 tend not to foresee.
 
 174 LETTERS <>K A Tl! A V K L L E It. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 EDIN BURGH. 
 
 EDINBURGH, July 17, 1845. 
 
 I HAD been often told, since I arrived in England, that in 
 Edinburgh, I should see the finest city I ever saw. I con 
 fess that I did not feel quite sure of this, but it required 
 scarcely more than a single look to show me that it was 
 perfectly true. It is hardly possible to imagine a nobler 
 site for a town than that of Edinburgh, and it is built as 
 nobly. You stand on the edge of the deep gulf which sepa- 
 rates the old and the new town, and before you on the 
 opposite bank rise the picturesque buildings of the ancient 
 city 
 
 " Piled deep and massy, close and high," 
 
 looking, in their venerable and enduring aspect, as if they 
 were parts of the steep bank on which they stand, an 
 original growth of the rocks ; as if, when the vast beds of 
 stone crystallized from the waters, or cooled from their fusion 
 by fire, they formed themselves by some freak of nature into 
 this fantastic resemblance of the habitations of men. To 
 the right your eyes rest upon a crag crowned with a grand 
 old castle of the middle ages, on which guards are marchin 
 
 :
 
 MASSIVE A RCH ITECTURE. 175 
 
 to and fro ; and near you to the left, rises the rocky summit 
 of Carlton Hill, with its monuments of the great men of 
 Scotland. Behind you stretch the broad streets of the new 
 town, overlooked by massive structures, built of the stone of 
 the Edinburgh quarries, which have the look of palaces. 
 
 " Streets of palaces and walks of slate," 
 
 form the new town. Not a house of brick or wood exists 
 in Edinburgh ; all are constructed of the excellent and 
 lasting stone which the earth supplies almost close to their 
 foundations. High and solid bridges of this material, with 
 broad arches, connect the old town with the new, and cross 
 the deep ravine of the Cowgate in the old town, at the bot- 
 tom of which you see a street between prodigiously high 
 buildings, swarming with the poorer population of Edinburgh. 
 From almost any of the eminences of the town you see 
 spread below you its magnificent bay, the Frith of Forth, 
 with its rocky islands ; and close to the old town rise the 
 lofty summits of Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crag, a soli- 
 tary, silent, mountainous district, without habitations or 
 inclosures, grazed by flocks of sheep. To the west flows 
 Leith-water in its deep valley, spanned by a noble bridge, 
 and the winds of this chilly climate that strike the stately 
 buildings of the new town, along the clifls that border this 
 glen, come from the very clouds. Beyond the Frith lie the 
 hills of Fifeshire ; a glimpse of the blue Grampian ridges is 
 seen where the Frith contracts in the northwest to a nar-
 
 176 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 row channel, and to the southwest lie the Pentland hills, 
 whose springs supply Edinburgh with water. All around 
 you are places the names of which are familiar names of 
 history, poetry, and romance. 
 
 From this magnificence of nature and art, the transition 
 was painful to what I saw of the poorer population. On 
 Saturday evening I found myself at the market, which is 
 then held in High-street and the Netherbow, just as you 
 enter the Canongate, and where the old wooden effigy of 
 John Knox, with staring tlack eyes, freshly painted every 
 year, stands in its pulpit, and still seems preaching to the 
 crowd. Hither a throng of sickly-looking, dirty people, 
 bringing with them their unhealthy children, had crawled 
 from the narrow wynds or alleys on each side of the street. 
 We entered several of these wynds, and passed down one 
 of them, between houses of vast height, story piled upon 
 story, till we came to the deep hollow of the Cowgate. Chil- 
 dren were swarming in the way, all of them, bred in that 
 close and impure atmosphere, of a sickly appearance, and 
 the aspect of premature age in some of them, which were 
 carried in arms, was absolutely frightful. " Here is misery," 
 said a Scotch gentleman, who was my conductor. I asked 
 him how large a proportion of the people of Ediubugh be- 
 longed to that wretched and squalid class which I saw 
 before me. " More than half," was his reply. I will not 
 vouch for the accuracy of his statistics. Of course his esti- 
 mate was but a conjecture.
 
 NIGHT ASYLUMS. 177 
 
 In the midst of this population is a House of Refuge for 
 the Destitute, established by charitable individuals for the 
 relief of those who may be found in a state of absolute 
 destitution of the necessaries of life. Here they are em- 
 ployed in menial services, lodged and fed until they can be 
 sent to their friends, or employment found for them. We 
 went over the building, a spacious structure, in the Canon- 
 gate, of the plainest Puritan architecture, with wide low 
 rooms, which, at the time of the union of Scotland with 
 England, served as the mansion of the Duke of Q,ueensbury. 
 The accommodations of course are of the humblest kind. 
 We were shown into the sewing-room, were we saw several 
 healthy-looking young women at work, some of them bare- 
 footed. Such of the inmates as can afford it, pay for their 
 board from three and sixpence to five shillings a week, 
 besides their labor. 
 
 In this part of the city also are the Night Asylums for 
 the Houseless. Here, those who find themselves without a 
 shelter for the night, are received into an antechamber, 
 provided with benches, where they first get a bowl of soup, 
 and are then introduced into a bathing-room, where they 
 are stripped and scoured. They are next furnished with 
 clean garments and accommodated with a lodging on an 
 inclined plane of planks, a little raised from the floor, and 
 divided into proper compartments by strips of board. Their 
 own clothes are, in the mean time, washed, and returned to 
 them when they leave the place.
 
 178 LETTERS, OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 It was a very different spectacle from the crowd in the 
 Saturday evening market, that met my eyes the next 
 morning in the clean and beautiful streets of the new town ; 
 the throng of well-dressed church-goers passing each other 
 in all directions. The women, it appeared to rne, were 
 rather gaily dressed, and a large number of them prettier 
 than I had seen in some of the more southern cities. 
 
 I attended worship in one of the Free Churches, as they 
 are called, in which Dr. Candlish officiates. In the course 
 of his sermon, he read long portions of an address from the 
 General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, appoint- 
 ing the following Thursday as a day of fasting and prayer, 
 on account of the peculiar circumstances of the time, and 
 more especially the dangers flowing from the influence of 
 popery, alluding to the grant of money lately made by par- 
 liament to the Roman Catholic College at Maynooth. The 
 address proposed no definite opposition, but protested against 
 the measure in general, and, as it seemed to me, rather 
 vague tenns. In the course of the address the title of Na- 
 tional Church was claimed for the Free Church, notwith- 
 standing its separation from the government, and the era 
 of that separation was referred to in phrases similar to those 
 in which we speak of our own declaration of national inde- 
 pendence. There were one or two allusions to the persecu- 
 tions which the Free Church had suffered, and something 
 was said about her children being hunted like partridges 
 upon the mountains ; but it is clear that if her ministers
 
 THE FREE CHURCH. 1/9 
 
 have been hunted, they have been hunted into fine churches ; 
 and if persecuted, they have been persecuted into comfort- 
 able livings. This Free Church, as far as I can learn, is 
 extremely prosperous. 
 
 Dr. Candlish is a fervid preacher, and his church was 
 crowded. In the afternoon I attended at one of the churches 
 of the established or endowed Presbyterian Church, where 
 a quiet kind of a preacher held forth, and the congregation 
 was thin. 
 
 This Maynooth grant has occasioned great dissatisfaction 
 in England and Scotland. If the question had been left to be 
 decided by the public opinion of these parts of the kingdom, 
 the grant would never have been made. An immense ma- 
 jority, of all classes and almost all denominations, disap- 
 prove of it. A dissenting clergyman of one of the evangelical 
 persuasions, as they are called, said to me " The dissenters 
 claim nothing from the government ; they hold that it is 
 not the business of the state to interfere in religious matters, 
 and they object to bestowing the public money upon the 
 seminaries of any religious denomination." In a conversa- 
 tion which I had with an eminent man of letters, and a 
 warm friend of the English Church, he said : " The govern- 
 ment is giving offense to many who have hitherto been its 
 firmest supporters. There was no necessity for the May- 
 nooth grant ; the Catholics would have been as well 
 satisfied without it as they are with it ; for you see they are 
 already clamoring for the right to appoint, through their
 
 180 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Bishops the professors in the new Irish colleges. The Cath- 
 olics were already establishing their schools, and building 
 their churches with their own means : and this act of 
 applying the money of the nation to the education of their 
 priests is a gratuitous offense offered by the government to 
 its best friends." In a sermon which I heard from the 
 Dean of York, in the magnificent old minster of that city, 
 he commended the liberality of the motives which had 
 induced the government to make the grant, bat spoke of 
 the measure as one which the friends of the English Church 
 viewed with apprehension and anxiety. 
 
 " They may dismiss their fears," said a shrewd friend of 
 mine, with whom I was discussing the subject. " Endow- 
 ments are a cause of lukewarmness and weakness. Our 
 Presbyterian friends here, instead of protesting so vehemently 
 against what Sir Robert Peel has done, should thank him 
 for endowing the Catholic Church, for in doing it he has de- 
 prived it of some part of its hold upon the minds of men." 
 
 There is much truth, doubtless, in this remark. The 
 support of religion to be effectual should depend upon 
 individual zeal. The history of the endowed chapels of 
 dissenting denominations in England is a curious example 
 of this. Congregations have fallen away and come to 
 nothing, and it is a general remark that nothing is so fatal 
 to a sect as a liberal endowment, which provides for the 
 celebration of public worship without individual contribu- 
 tions.
 
 NEW HAVEN FISHWIVES. 181 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 THE SCOTTISH LAKES. 
 
 GLASGOW, July 19, 1845. 
 
 I MUST not leave Scotland without writing you another 
 letter. 
 
 On the 17th of this month I embarked at Newhaven, in 
 the environs of Edinburgh, on board the little steamer 
 Prince Albert, for Stirling. On our way we saw several 
 samples of the Newhaven fishwives, a peculiar race, distin- 
 guished by a costume of their own ; fresh-colored women, 
 who walk the streets of Edinburgh with a large wicker- 
 basket on their shoulders, a short blue cloak of coarse cloth 
 under the basket, short blue petticoats, thick blue stockings, 
 and a white cap. I was told that they were the descendants 
 of a little Flemish colony, which long ago settled at New- 
 haven, and that they are celebrated for the readiness and 
 and point of their jokes, which, like those of their sisters of 
 Billingsgate, are not always of the most delicate kind. 
 Several of these have been related to me, but on running 
 them over in my mind, I find, to my dismay, that none of 
 them will look well on paper. The wit of the Newhaven 
 fishwives seems to me, however, like that of our western 
 16
 
 182 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 boatmen, to consist mainly in the ready application of 
 quaint sayings already current among themselves. 
 
 It was a wet day, with occasional showers, and some- 
 times a sprinkling of Scotch mist. I tried the cabin, but 
 the air was too close. The steamboats in this country have 
 but one deck, and that deck has no shelter, so I was content 
 to stand in the rain for the sake of the air and scenery. 
 After passing an island or two, the Frith, which forms the 
 bay of Edinburgh, contracts into the river Forth. We 
 swept by country seats, one of which was pointed out as the 
 residence of the late Dugald Stewart, and another that of 
 the Earl of Elgin, the plunderer of the Parthenon ; and 
 castles, towers, and churches, some of them in ruins ever 
 since the time of John Knox, and hills half seen in the fog, 
 until we came opposite to the Ochil mountains, whose 
 grand rocky buttresses advanced from the haze almost to 
 the river. Here, in the windings of the Forth, our steamei 
 went many times backward and forward, first towards the 
 mountains and then towards the level country to the south, 
 in almost parallel courses, like the track of a ploughman in 
 a field. At length we passed a ruined tower and some 
 fragments of massy wall which once formed a part of 
 C ambus Kenneth Abbey, seated on the rich lands of the 
 Forth, for the monks, in Great Britain at least, seem always 
 to have chosen for the site of their monasteries, the banks of 
 a stream which would supply them with trout and salmon 
 for Fridays. We were now in the presence of the rocky
 
 STIR LING CASTLE. 183 
 
 hills of Stirling, with the town on its declivity, and the 
 ancient castle, the residence of the former kings of Scotland, 
 on its summit. 
 
 We went up through the little town to the castle, which 
 is still kept in perfect order, and the ramparts of which 
 frown as grimly over the surrounding country as they did 
 centuries ago. No troops however are now stationed here ; 
 a few old gunners alone remain, and Major somebody, 1 
 forget his name, takes his dinners in the hanqueting-room 
 and sleeps in the bed-chamber of the Stuarts. I wish I 
 could communicate the impression which this castle and the 
 surrounding region made upon me, with its vestiges of 
 power and magnificence, and its present silence and deser- 
 tion. The passages to the dungeons where pined the 
 victims of state, in the very building where the court held 
 its revels, lie open, and the chapel in which princes 
 and princesses were christened, and worshiped, and were 
 crowned and wed, is turned into an armory. From its 
 windows we were shown, within the inclosure of the castle, 
 a green knoll, grazed by cattle, where the disloyal nobles 
 of Scotland were beheaded. Close to the castle is a green 
 field, intersected with paths, which we were told was 
 the tilting-ground, or place of tournaments, and beside it 
 rises a rock, where the ladies of the court sat to witness the 
 combats, and which is still called the Ladies' Rock. At 
 the foot of the hill, to the right of the castle, stretches 
 what was once the royal park ; it is shorn of its trees, part
 
 184 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 is converted into a race-course, part into a pasture for cows, 
 and the old wall which marked its limits is fallen down. 
 Near it you see a cluster of grassy embankments of a curious 
 form, circles and octagons and parallelograms, which hear 
 the name of King James's Knot, and once formed a part of 
 the royal-gardens, where the sovereign used to divert himself 
 with his courtiers. The cows now have the spot to them- 
 selves, and have made their own paths, and alleys all over 
 it. " Yonder, to the southwest of the castle," said a senti- 
 nel who stood at the gate, " you see where a large field has 
 been lately ploughed, and beyond it another, which looks 
 very green. That green field is the spot where the battle of 
 Bannockburn was fought, and the armies of England were 
 defeated by Bruce." I looked, and so fresh and bright was 
 the verdure, that it seemed to me as if the earth was still 
 fertilized with the blood of those who fell in that desperate 
 struggle for the crown of Scotland. Not far from this, the 
 spot was shown us where Wallace was defeated at the 
 battle of Falkirk. This region is now the scene of another 
 and an unbloody warfare ; the warfare between the Free 
 Church and the Government Church. Close to the church 
 of the establishment, at the foot of the rock of Stirling, the 
 soldiers of the Free Church have erected their place of 
 worship, and the sound of hammers from the unfinished in- 
 terior could be heard almost up to the castle. 
 
 We took places the same day in the coach for Callander, 
 in the Highlands. In a short time we came into a country
 
 CALLANDER. 185 
 
 of hillocks and pastures brown and barren, half covered 
 with ferns, the breckan of the Scotch, where the broom 
 flowered gaudily by the road-side, and harebells now in 
 bloom, in little companies, were swinging, heavy with the 
 rain, on their slender stems. 
 
 Crossing the Teith AVC found ourselves in iJoune, a High- 
 land village, just before entering which we passed a throng 
 of strapping lasses, who had just finished their daily task at 
 a manufactory on the Teith, and were returning to their 
 homes. Between Dourie and Callander we passed the 
 woods of Cambus-More, full of broad beeches, which delight 
 in the tenacious mountain soil of this district. This was 
 the seat of a friend of the Scott family, arid here Sir Walter 
 in his youth passed several summers, and became familiar 
 with the scenes which he has so well described in his Lady 
 of the Lake. At Callander we halted for the night among 
 a crowd of tourists, Scotch, English, American, and German, 
 more numerous than the inn at which we stopped could 
 hold. I went out into the street to get a look at the place, 
 but a genuine Scotch mist covering me with water soon 
 compelled me to return. I heard the people, a well-limbed 
 brawny race of men, with red hair and beards, talking to 
 each other in Gaelic, and saw through the fogs only a 
 glimpse of the sides of the mountains and crags which 
 surrounded the village. 
 
 The next morning was uncommonly bright and clear, and 
 we set out early for the Trosachs. "We now saw that the
 
 186 LETTERS OF A T R A V !: I, LK R . 
 
 village of Callander lay under a dark crag, on the banks of 
 the Teith, winding pleasantly amoiig its alders, and over- 
 looked by the grand summit of B^nledi, which rises to the 
 height of three thousand feet. A short time brought us to 
 the stream 
 
 " Which, daughter of three mighty lakes, 
 From Vemiachar in silver breaks," 
 
 and we skirted the lake for nearly its whole length. Loch 
 Vennachar lies between hills of comparatively gentle de- 
 clivity, pastured by flocks, and tufted with patches of the 
 prickly gorse and coarse ferns. On its north bank lies 
 Lanrick Mead, a little grassy level where Scott makes the 
 tribe of Clan Alpine assemble at the command of Roderick 
 Dhu. At a little distance from Vennachar lies Loch 
 Achray, which we reached by a road winding among 
 shrubs aud low trees, birches, and wild roses in blossom, 
 with which the air was fragrant. Crossing a little stone 
 bridge, which our driver told us was the Bridge of Turk, 
 we were on the edge of Loch Achray, a little sheet of 
 water surrounded by wild rocky hills, with here and there 
 an interval of level grassy margin, or a grove beside the 
 water. Turning from Loch Achray we reached an inn 
 with a (raelic name, which I have forgotten how to spell, 
 aud which if I were to spell it, you could not pronounce. 
 This was on the edge of the Trosachs, and here we break- 
 fasted.
 
 
 LOCH KATRINE. 187 
 
 It is the fashion, I believe, for all tourists to pass through 
 the Trosachs on foot. The mob of travellers, with whom I 
 found myself on the occasion there were some twenty of 
 them did so, to a man ; even the ladies, who made about 
 a third of the number, walked. The distance to Loch 
 Katrine is about a mile and a half, between lofty moun- 
 tains, along a glen filled with masses of rock, which seem 
 to have been shaken by some convulsion of nature from the 
 high steeps on either side, and in whose shelves and 
 crevices time had planted a thick wood of the birch and 
 ash. 
 
 But I will not describe the Trosachs after Walter Scott. 
 Read what he says of them in the first canto of his poem. 
 Loch Katrine, when we reached it, was crisped into little 
 waves, by a fresh wind from the northwest, and a boat, 
 with four brawny Highlanders, was waiting to convey us 
 to the head of the lake. We launched upon the dark deep 
 water, between craggy and shrubby steeps, the summits 
 of which rose on every side of us ; and one of the rowers, an 
 intelligent-looking man, took upon himself the task of point- 
 ing out to us the places mentioned by the poet. " There," 
 said he, as we receded from the shore, " is the spot in the 
 Trosachs where Fitz James lost his gallant gray." He 
 then repeated, in a sort of recitation, dwelling strongly on 
 the rhyme, the lines in the Lady of the Lake which relate 
 that incident. " Yonder is the island where Douglass 
 concealed his daughter. Under that broad oak, whose
 
 188 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 boughs almost dip into the water, was the place where 
 her skiff was moored. On that rock, covered with heath, 
 Fitz James stood and wound his bugle. Near it, but out 
 of sight, is the silver strand where the skiff received him on 
 board." 
 
 Further on, he pointed out, on the south side of the lake, 
 half way up among the rocks of the mountain, the place of 
 the Goblin Cave, and still beyond it 
 
 ; The wild pass, where birches wave, 
 Of Beal-a-nam-bo." 
 
 On the north shore, the hills had a gentler slope, and on 
 their skirts, which spread into something like a meadow, we 
 saw a solitary dwelling. " In that," said he, " Rob Roy was 
 born." In about two hours, our strong-armed rowers had 
 brought us to the head of the lake. Before we reached it, 
 we saw the dark crest of Ben Lomond, loftier than any of 
 the mountains around us, peering over the hills which 
 formed the southern rampart of Loch Katrine. We landed, 
 and proceeded the men on foot and the women on ponies 
 through a wild craggy valley, overgrown with low shrubs, 
 to Inversnaid, on Loch Lomond, where a stream freshly 
 swollen by rains tumbled down a pretty cascade into the 
 lake. As we descended the steep bank, we saw a man and 
 woman sitting on the grass weaving baskets ; the woman, 
 as we passed, stopped her work to beg ; and the children,
 
 LOCH LOMOND. 189 
 
 chubby and ruddy, came running after us with " Please give 
 me a penny to buy a scone." 
 
 At Iversnaid we embarked in a steamboat which took us 
 to the northern extremity of the lake, where it narrows into 
 a channel like a river. Here we stopped to wait the arrival 
 of a coach, and, in the mean time, the passengers had an 
 hour to wander in the grassy valley of Glenfalloch, closed 
 in by high mountains. I heard the roar of mountain-streams, 
 and passing northward, found myself in sight of two tor- 
 rents, one from the east, and the other from the west side 
 of the valley, throwing themselves, foaming and white, from 
 precipice to precipice, till their waters, which were gathered 
 in the summit of the mountains, reached the meadows, and 
 stole through the grass to mingle with those of the lake. 
 
 The coach at length arrived, and we were again taken 
 on board the steamer, and conveyed the whole length of 
 Loch Lomond to its southern extremity. We passed island 
 after island, one of which showed among its thick trees the 
 remains of a fortress, erected in the days of feudal warfare 
 and robbery, and another was filled with deer. Towards 
 the southern end of the lake, the towering mountains, peak 
 beyond peak, which overlook the lake, subside into hills, be- 
 tween which the stream called Leven-water flows out 
 through a rich and fertile valley. 
 
 Coaches were waiting at Balloch, where we landed, to 
 take us to Dumbarton. Near the lake we passed a mag- 
 nificent park, in the midst of which stood a castle, a verita-
 
 190 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ble castle, a spacious massive building of stone, with a tower 
 and battlements, on which a flag was flying. " It belongs 
 to a dry-goods merchant in Glasgow," said the captain of 
 the steamboat, who was in the coach with us ; " and the 
 flag is put up by his boys. The merchants are getting finer 
 seats than the nobility." I am sorry to say that I have for- 
 gotten both the name of the merchant and that of his castle. 
 He was, as I was told, a liberal, as well as an opulent man ; 
 had built a school-house in the neighborhood, and being of 
 the Free Church party, was then engaged in building a 
 church. 
 
 Near Renton, on the banks of the Leven, I saw a little 
 neighborhood, embosomed in old trees. " There," said our 
 captain, " Smollet was bom." A column has been erected 
 to his memory in the town of Renton, which we saw as we 
 passed. The forked rock, on which stands Dumbarton 
 Castle, was now in sight overlooking the Clyde ; we were 
 whirled into the town, and in a few minutes were on board 
 a steamer which, as evening set in, landed us at Glasgow. 
 
 I must reserve what I have to tell of Glasgow and 
 Ayrshire for yet another letter.
 
 GLASGOW FA HI. 191 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 G L A S G O W. A T R. A L L W A T. 
 
 DUBLIN, July 24, 1845. 
 
 I PROMISED another letter concerning Scotland, but I had 
 not time to write it until the Irish Channel lay between me 
 and the Scottish coast. 
 
 When we reached Glasgow on the 18th of July, the 
 streets were swarming with people. I inquired the occa- 
 sion, and was told that this was the annual fair. The 
 artizans were all out with their families, and great numbers 
 of country people were sauntei'ing about. This fair was 
 once, what its name imports, an annual market for the sale 
 of merchandise ; but it is now a mere holiday in which the 
 principal sales, as it appeared to me, were of gingerbread 
 and whisky. I strolled the next morning to the Green, a 
 spacious open ground that stretches along the Clyde. One 
 part of it was occupied with the booths and temporary 
 theatres and wagons of showmen, around and among 
 which a vast throng was assembled, who seemed to delight 
 in being deafened with the cries of the showmen and the 
 music of their instruments. In one place a band was 
 playing, in another a gong was thundering, and from one of
 
 102 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the balconies a fellow in regal robes and a pas:..-! 
 crown, surrounded by several persons of both sexes hi 
 tawdry stage-dresses, who seemed to have just got out of 
 bed and were yawning and rubbing their eyes, was vocifer- 
 ating to the crowd in praise of the entertainment which 
 was shortly to be ofiered them, while not far off the stentor 
 of a rival company, under a flag which announced a new 
 pantomime for a penny, was declaiming with equal vehe- 
 mence, I made my way with difficulty through the crowd 
 to the ancient street called the Salt Market, in which Scott 
 places the habitation of Baillie Jarvie. It was obstructed 
 with little stalls, where toys and other inconsiderable arti- 
 cles were sold. Here at the corner of one of the streets 
 stands the old tower of the Tolbooth where Rob Roy was 
 confined, a solid piece of ancient architecture. The main 
 building has been removed and a modem house supplies its 
 place ; the tower has been pierced below for a thoroughfare, 
 and its clock still reports the time of day to the people of 
 Glasgow. The crowd through which I passed had that 
 squalid appearance which marks extreme poverty and 
 uncertain means of subsistence, and I was able to form 
 some idea of the prodigious number of this class in a 
 populous city of Great Britain like Glasgow. For populous 
 she is, and prosperous as a city, increasing with a rapidity 
 almost equal to that of New York, and already she numbers, 
 it is estimated, three hundred thousand inhabitants. Of
 
 STATUES IN THE SQUARES. 193 
 
 these it is said that full one-third are Irish by hirth or born 
 of Irish parents. 
 
 The next day, which was Sunday, before going to church, 
 I walked towards the west part of the city ; where the 
 streets are broad and the houses extremely well-built, of the 
 same noble material as the new town of Edinburgh ; and 
 many of the dwellings have fine gardens. Their sites in 
 many places overlook the pleasant valley of the Clyde, and 
 I could not help acknowledging that Glasgow was not 
 without claim to the epithet of beautiful, which I should 
 have denied her if I had formed my judgment from the 
 commercial streets only. The people of Glasgow also have 
 shown their good sense in erecting the statues which adorn 
 their public squares, only to men who have some just claim 
 to distinction. Here are no statues, for example, of the 
 profligate Charles II., or the worthless Duke of York, or 
 the silly Duke of Cambridge, as you will see in other 
 cities ; but here the marble effigy of Walter Scott looks 
 from a lofty column in the principal square, and not far 
 from it is that of the inventor Watt ; while the statues 
 erected to military men are to those who, like Wellington, 
 have acquired a just renown in arms. The streets were 
 full of well-dressed persons going to church, the women for 
 the most part, I must say, far from beautiful. I turned 
 with the throng and followed it as far as St. Enoch's 
 church, in Buchanan-street, where I heard a long dis- 
 17
 
 194 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 course from a sensible preacher, Dr. Barr, a minister of the 
 established Kirk of Scotland. 
 
 In the afternoon I climbed one of the steep streets to the 
 north of my hotel, and found three places of worship, built 
 with considerable attention to architectural effect, and 
 fresh, as it seemed, from the hands of the mason. They all, 
 as I was told, belonged to the Free Kirk, which has lately 
 been rent from the establishment, and threatens to leave it 
 a mere shadow of a church, like the Episcopal church ia 
 Ireland. " Nothing," said an intelligent Glasgow friend of 
 mine, " can exceed the zeal of the friends of the Free 
 Church. One of our Glasgow merchants has just given 
 fifteen hundred pounds towards the fund for providing 
 ?nanses, or parsonages, for the ministers of that Church, and 
 I know of several who have subscribed a thousand. In all 
 the colleges of Scotland, the professors are obliged, by way 
 of test, to declare their attachment to the Presbyterian 
 Church as by law established. Parliament has just refused 
 to repeal this test, and the friends of the Free Church are 
 determined to found a college of their own. Twenty 
 thousand pounds had already been subscribed before the 
 government refused to dispense with this test, and the 
 project will now be supported with more zeal than ever." 
 
 I went into one of these Free churches, and listened to a 
 sermon from Dr. Lindsay, a comfortable-looking professor in 
 some new theological school. It was quite common-place, 
 though not so long as-the Scotch ministers are in the habit
 
 BRIDGES OF AYR. 195 
 
 of giving ; for excessive brevity is by no means their beset- 
 ting infirmity. At the close of the exercises, he announced 
 that a third service would be held in the evening. " The 
 subject," continued he, " will be the thoughts and exercises 
 of Jonah in the whale's belly." 
 
 In returning to my hotel, I passed by another new 
 church, with an uncommonly beautiful steeple and elaborate 
 carvings. I inquired its name ; it was the new St. John's, 
 and was another of the buildings of the Free Church. 
 
 Ou Monday we made an excursion to the birthplace of 
 Burns. The railway between Glasgow and Ayr took us 
 through Paisley, worthy of note as having produced our 
 eminent ornithologist, Alexander Wilson, and along the 
 banks of Castle Semple Loch, full of swans, a beautiful 
 sheet of water, sleeping among green fields which shelve 
 gently to its edge. We passed by Irvine, where Burns 
 learned the art of dressing flax, and traversing a sandy 
 tract, close to the sea, were set down at Ayr, near the new 
 bridge. You recollect Burns's dialogue between the " auld 
 brig" of Ayr and the new, in which the former predicted 
 that vain as her rival might be of her new and fresh 
 appearance, the time would shortly come when she would 
 be as much dilapidated as herself. The prediction is ful- 
 filled ; the bridge has begun to give way, and workmen are 
 busy in repairing its arches. 
 
 We followed a pleasant road, sometimes agreeably shaded 
 by trees, to Alloway. As we went out of Ayr we heard a
 
 iyO LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 great hammering and clicking of chisels, and looking to the 
 right we saw workmen busy in building another of the Free 
 Churches, with considerable elaborateness of architecture, in 
 the early Norman style. The day was very fine, the sun 
 bright, and the sky above us perfectly clear ; but, as is 
 generally the case in this country with an east wind, the 
 atmosphere was thick with a kind of dry haze which veils 
 distant objects from the sight. The sea was to our right, 
 but we could not discern where it ended and the horizon 
 began, and the mountains of the island of Arran and the 
 lone and lofty rock of Ailsa Craig looked at first like faint 
 shadows in the thick air, and were soon altogether undis- 
 tinguishable. We came at length to the little old painted 
 kirk of Alloway, in the midst of a burying ground, roofless, 
 but with gable-ends still standing, and its interior occupied 
 by tombs. A solid upright marble slab, before the church, 
 marks the place where William Burns, the father of the 
 poet, lies buried. A little distance beyond flows the Doon 
 under the old bridge crossed by Tarn O'Shanter on the 
 night of his adventure with the witches. 
 
 This little stream well deserves the epithet of " bonnie," 
 which Burns has given it. Its clear but dark current, flows 
 rapidly between banks often shaded with ashes, alders, and 
 other trees, and sometimes overhung by precipices of a 
 reddish-colored rock. A little below the bridge it falls into 
 the sea, but the tide comes not up to embitter its waters. 
 From the west bank of the stream the land rises to hills of
 
 THE DO ON. 107 
 
 considerable height, with a heathy summit and wooded 
 slopes, called Brown Carrick Hill. Two high cliffs near it 
 impend over the sea, which are commonly called the Heads 
 of Ayr, and not far from these stands a fragment of an 
 ancient castle. I have sometimes wondered that born as 
 Burns was in the neighborhood of the sea, which I was 
 told is often swelled into prodigious waves by the strong 
 west winds that beat on this coast, he should yet have 
 taken little if any of his poetic imagery from the ocean, 
 either in its wilder or its gentler moods. But his occupa- 
 tions were among the fields, and his thoughts were of those 
 who dwelt among them, and his imagination never wan- 
 dered where his feelings went not. 
 
 The monument erected to Burns, near the bridge, is an 
 ostentatious thing, with a gilt tripod on its summit. I was 
 only interested to see some of the relics of Burns which it 
 contains, among which is the Bible given by him to his 
 Highland Mary. A road from the monument leads along 
 the stream among the trees to a mill, at a little distance 
 above the bridge, where the water passes under steep rocks, 
 and I followed it. The wild rose and the woodbine were 
 in full bloom in the hedges, and these to me were a better 
 memorial of Burns than any thing which the chisel could 
 execute. A barefoot lassie came down the grassy bank 
 among the trees with a pail, and after washing her feet in 
 the swift current filled the pail and bore it again over the 
 bank. 
 
 17*
 
 198 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 We saw many visitors sauntering about the bridge or en- 
 tering the monument ; some of them seemed to be country 
 people, young men with their sisters and sweethearts, and 
 others in white cravats with a certain sleekness of appear- 
 ance I took to be of the profession of divinity. At the inn 
 beside the Boon, a young woman, with a face and head so 
 round as almost to form a perfect globe, gave us a dish of 
 excellent strawberries and cream, and we set off for the 
 house in which Burns was born. 
 
 It is a clay-built cottage of the humblest class, and now 
 serves, with the addition of two new rooms of a better 
 architecture, for an ale-house. Mrs. Hastings, the landlady, 
 showed us the register, in which we remarked that a very 
 great number of the visitors had taken the pains to write 
 themselves down as shoemakers. Major Burns, one of the 
 sons of the poet, had lately visited the place with his two 
 daughters and a younger brother, and they had inscribed 
 their names in the book. 
 
 We returned to Ayr by a different road from that by 
 which we went to Alloway. The haymakers were at 
 work in the fields, and the vegetation was everywhere in 
 its highest luxuriance. You may smile at the idea, but I 
 affirm that a potato field in Great Britain, at this season, 
 is a prettier sight than a vineyard in Italy. In this climate, 
 the plant throws out an abundance of blossoms, pink and 
 white, and just now the potato fields are as fine as so many 
 flower gardens.
 
 BANKS OF THE AYR. 199 
 
 We crossed the old bridge of Ayr, which is yet in good 
 preservation, though carriages are not allowed to pass over 
 it. Looking up the stream, we saw solitary slopes and 
 groves on its left hank, and I fancied that I had in my eye 
 the sequestered spot on the banks of the Ayr, where Burns 
 and his Highland Mary held the meeting described in his 
 letters, and parted to meet no more.
 
 200 LETTER.S OF A TRAVELLER- 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 IRELAND. DUBLIN. 
 
 DUBLIN, July 25, 1845. 
 
 WE left Glasgow on the morning of The 22d, and taking 
 the railway to Ardrossan were soon at the beach. One of 
 those iron steamers which navigate the British waters, far 
 inferior to our own in commodious and comfortable arrange- 
 ments, but strong and safe, received us on board, and at ten 
 o'clock we were on our way to Belfast. The coast of Ayr, 
 with the cliff near the birthplace of Burns, continued long 
 in sight ; we passed near the mountains of Arran, high and 
 bare steeps swelling out of the sea, which had a look of 
 almost complete solitude ; and at length Ailsa Craig began 
 faintly to show itself, high above the horizon, through the 
 thick atmosphere. We passed this lonely rock, about which 
 flocks of sea-birds, the solan goose, and the gannet, on long 
 white wings with jetty tips, were continually wheeling, and 
 with a glass we could discern them sitting by thousands on 
 the shelves of the rock, where they breed. The upper part 
 of Ailsa, above the cliffs, which reach more than half-way 
 to the summit, appears not to be destitute of soil, for it was 
 tinged with a faint verdure.
 
 BELFAST. 201 
 
 In about nine hours we were promised by a lying ad- 
 vertisement it should be six we had crossed the channel, 
 over smooth water, and were making our way, between 
 green shores almost without a tree, up the bay, at the bot- 
 tom of which stands, or rather lies, for its ( site is low, the 
 town of Belfast. We had yet enough of daylight left to 
 explore a part at least of the city. " It looks like Albany," 
 said my companion, and really the place bears some resem- 
 blance to the streets of Albany which are situated near the 
 river, nor is it without an appearance of commercial ac- 
 tivity. The people of Belfast, you know, are of Scotch 
 origin, with some infusion of the original race of Ireland. 
 I heard English spoken with a Scotch accent, but I was 
 obliged to own that the severity of the Scottish physiognomy 
 had been softened by the migration and the mingling of 
 breeds. I presented one of my letters of introduction, and 
 met with so cordial a reception, that I could not but regret 
 the necessity of leaving Belfast the next morning. 
 
 At an early hour the next day we were in our seats on 
 the outside of the mail-coach. We passed through a well- 
 cultivated country, interspersed with towns which had an 
 appearance of activity and thrift. The dwellings of the 
 cottagers looked more comfortable than those of the same 
 class in Scotland, and we were struck with the good looks of 
 the people, men and women, whom we passed in great 
 numbers going to their work. At length, having traversed 
 the county of Down, we entered Lowth, when an imme-
 
 202 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 diate change was visible. We were among wretched and 
 dirty hovels, squalid-looking men and women, and ragged 
 children the stature of the people seemed dwarfed by the 
 poverty in which they have so long lived, and the jet-black 
 hair and broad faces which I saw around me, instead of the 
 light hair and oval countenances so general a few miles 
 back, showed me that I was among the pure Celtic race. 
 
 Shortly after entering the county of Lowth, and close on 
 the confines of Armagh, perhaps partly within it, we trav- 
 ersed, near the village of Jonesborough, a valley full of 
 the habitations of peat-diggers. Its aspect was most re- 
 markable, the barren hills that inclose it were dark with 
 heath and gorse and with ledges of brown rock, and their 
 lower declivities, as well as the level of the valley, black 
 with peat, which had been cut from the ground and laid in 
 rows. The men were at work with spades cutting it from 
 the soil, and the women were pressing the water from the 
 portions thus separated, and exposing it to the air to dry. 
 Their dwellings were of the most wretched kind, low win- 
 dowless hovels, no higher than the heaps of peat, with 
 swarms of dirty children around them. It is the property 
 of peat earth to absorb a large quantity of water, and to 
 part with it slowly. The springs, therefore, in a region 
 abounding with peat make no brooks ; the water passes 
 into the spongy soil and remains there, forming morasses 
 even on the slopes of the hills. 
 
 As we passed out of this black valley we entered a kind
 
 FELLOW-PASSENGERS. 203 
 
 of glen, and the guard, a man in a laced hat and scarlet 
 coat, pointed to the left, and said, " There is a pretty place." 
 It was a beautiful park along a hill-side, groves and lawns, 
 a broad domain, jealously inclosed by a thick and high wall, 
 beyond which we had,' through the trees, a glimpse of a 
 stately mansion. Our guard was a genuine Irishman, 
 strongly resembling the late actor Power in physiognomy, 
 with the very brogue which Power sometimes gave to his 
 personages. He was a man of pithy speech, communica- 
 tive, and acquainted apparently with every body, of every 
 class, whom we passed on the road. Besides him we had 
 for fellow-passengers three very intelligent Irishmen, on 
 their way to Dublin. One of them was a tall, handsome 
 gentleman, with dark hair and hazel eyes, and a rich South- 
 Irish brogue. He was fond of his joke, but next to him sat 
 a graver personage, in spectacles, equally tall, with fair hair 
 and light-blue eyes, speaking with a decided Scotch accent. 
 By my side was a square-built, fresh-colored personage, who 
 had travelled in. America, and whose accent was almost 
 English. I thought I could not be mistaken in supposing 
 them to be samples of the three different races by which 
 Ireland is peopled. 
 
 We now entered a fertile district, meadows heavy with 
 grass, in which the haymakers were at work, and fields 
 of wheat and barley as fine as I had ever seen, but the 
 habitations of the peasantry had the same wretched look, 
 and their inmates the same appearance of poverty. Wher-
 
 204 i. K T T j: i: .s o i- 1 A T n \ \- E L L K R. 
 
 ever the coach stopped we were beset with swarms of beg- 
 gars, the wittiest beggars in the world, and the raggedest, 
 except those of Italy. One or two green mounds stood close 
 to the road, and we saw others at a distance. " They are 
 Danish forts," said the guard. " Every thing we do not 
 know the history of, we put upon the Danes," added the 
 South of Ireland man. These grassy mounds, which are 
 from ten to twenty feet in height, are now supposed to have 
 been the burial places of the ancient Celts. The peasantry 
 can with difficulty be persuaded to open any of them, on 
 account of a prevalent superstition that it will bring bad 
 luck. A little 'before we arrived at Drogheda, I saw a 
 tower to the right, apparently a hundred feet in height, with 
 a doorway at a great distance from the ground, and a 
 summit somewhat dilapidated. " That is one of the round 
 towers of Ireland, concerning which there is so much dis- 
 cussion," said my English-looking fellow-traveller. These 
 round towers, as the Dublin antiquarians tell me, were 
 probably built by the early Christian missionaries from 
 Italy, about the seventh century, and were used as places 
 of retreat and defense against the pagans. 
 
 Not far from Drogheda, I saw at a distance a quiet- 
 looking valley. " That," said the English-looking pas- 
 senger, " is the valley of the Boyne, and in that spot was 
 fought the famous battle of the Boyne." " Which the Irish 
 are fighting about yet, in America," added the South of 
 Ireland man. Thev pointed out near the spot, a cluster of
 
 DUBLIN. 205 
 
 trees on an eminence, where Jarnes beheld the defeat of his 
 followers. We crossed the Boyne, entered Drogheda, dis- 
 mounted among a crowd of beggars, took our places in the 
 most elegant railway wagon we had ever seen, and in an 
 hour were set down in Dublin. 
 
 I will not weary you with a description of Dublin. 
 Scores of travellers have said that its public buildings are 
 magnificent, and its rows of private houses, in many of the 
 streets, are so many ranges of palaces, Scores of travellers 
 have said that if you pass out of these fine streets, into 
 the ancient lanes of the city, you see mud-houses that 
 scarcely afford a shelter, and are yet inhabited. 
 
 " Some of these," said a Dublin acquaintance to me, 
 " which are now roofless and no longer keep out the 
 weather, yet show by their elaborate cornices and their 
 elegant chimney-pieces, that the time has been, and that 
 not very long since, when they were inhabited by the 
 opulent class." He led me back of Dublin castle to show 
 me the house in which Swift was born. It stands in a 
 narrow, dirty lane called Holy's court, close to the well- 
 built part of the town : its windows are broken out, and its 
 shutters falling to pieces, and the houses on each side are in 
 the same condition, yet they are swarming with dirty and 
 ragged inmates. 
 
 I have seen no loftier nor more spacious dwellings than 
 those which overlook St. Stephen's Green, a noble park, 
 planted with trees, under which the showery sky and mild
 
 206 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 temperature maintain a verdure all the year, even in mid- 
 winter. About Merrioii square, another park, the houses 
 have scarcely a less stately appearance, and one of these 
 with a strong broad balcony, from which to address the 
 people in the street, is inhabited by O'Connell. The park 
 of the University, in the midst of the city, is of great extent, 
 and the beautiful public grounds called Phenix Park, have 
 a circumference of eight miles. " Do not suppose," said a 
 friend to me, " that these spacious houses which you see 
 about you, are always furnished with a magnificence cor- 
 responding to that of their exterior. It is often the case 
 that a few rooms only of these great ranges of apartments 
 are provided with furniture, and the rest left empty and 
 unoccupied. The Irishman of the higher class, as well as 
 of the humbler, is naturally improvident, generous, fond of 
 enjoying the moment, and does not allow his income to 
 accumulate, either for the purpose of hoarding or the pur- 
 pose of display." 
 
 I went into Conciliation Hall, which resembles a New 
 York lecture-room, and was shown the chair where the 
 autocrat of Ireland, the Liberator, as they call him, sits near 
 the chairman at the repeal meetings. Conciliation Hall 
 was at that time silent, for O'Connell was making a journey 
 through several of the western counties, I think, of Ireland, 
 for the purpose of addressing and encouraging his followers. 
 I inquired of an intelligent dissenter what was the state of 
 the public feeling in Ireland, with regard to the repeal ques-
 
 THE REPEAL QUESTION. 207 
 
 tion, and whether the popularity of O'Connell was still as 
 great as ever. 
 
 " As to O'Connell," he answered, " I do not know whether 
 his influence is increasing, but I am certain that it is not de- 
 clining. With regard to the question of repealing the Union, 
 there is a very strong leaning among intelligent men in 
 Ireland to the scheme of a federal government, in other 
 words to the creation of an Irish parliament for local legis- 
 lation, leaving matters which concern Ireland in common 
 with the rest of the empire to be decided by the British 
 Parliament." 
 
 I mentioned an extraordinary declaration which I had 
 heard made by John O'Connell on the floor of Parliament, 
 in answer to a speech of Mr. Wyse, an Irish Catholic mem- 
 ber, who supported the new-colleges bill. This younger 
 O'Connell denounced Wyse as no Catholic, as an apostate 
 from his religion, for supporting the bill, and declared that 
 for himself, after the Catholic Bishops of Ireland had ex- 
 pressed their disapproval of the bill, he inquired no further, 
 but felt himself bound as a faithful member of the Catholic 
 Church to oppose it. 
 
 " It is that declaration," said the gentleman, " which has 
 caused a panic among those of the Irish Protestants who 
 were well-affected to the cause of repeal. If the Union 
 should be repealed, they fear that O'Connell, whose devo- 
 tion to the Catholic Church appears to grow stronger and 
 stronger, and whose influence over the Catholic population
 
 208 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 is almost without limit, will so direct the legislation of the 
 Irish Parliament as only to change the religious oppression 
 that exists from one party to the other. There is much 
 greater liberality at present among the Catholics than 
 among their adversaries in Ireland, but I can not say how 
 much of it is owing to the oppression they endure. The 
 fact that O'Connell has been backward to assist in any 
 church reforms in Ireland has given occasion to the suspicion 
 that he only desires to see the revenues and the legal au- 
 thority of the Episcopal Church transferred to the Catholic 
 Church. If that should happen, and if the principle avowed 
 by John O'Connell should be the rule of legislation, scarcely 
 any body but a Catholic will be able to live in Ireland." 
 
 Mr. Wall, to whom our country is indebted for the Hud- 
 son River Portfolio, and who resided in the United States 
 for twenty-two years, is here, and is, I should think, quite 
 successful in his profession. Some of his later landscapes 
 are superior to any of his productions that I remember. 
 Among them is a view on Lough Corrib, in which the 
 ruined castle on the island of that lake is a conspicuous 
 object. It is an oil painting, and is a work of great merit. 
 The Dublin Art Union made it their first purchase from the 
 exhibition in which it appeared. Mr. Wall remembers 
 America with much pleasure, and nothing can exceed his 
 kindness to such of the Americans as he meets in Ireland. 
 
 He took us to the exhibition of the Royal Hibernian So- 
 ciety. Among its pictures is a portrait of a lady by Burton,
 
 PORTRAIT IN WATER -COLORS. 209 
 
 in water-colors, most surprising for its perfection of execu- 
 tion arid expression, its strength of coloring and absolute 
 nature. Burton is a native of Dublin, and is but twenty- 
 five years old. The Irish connoisseurs claim for him the 
 praise of being the first artist in water-colors in the world. 
 He paints with the left hand. There are several other fine 
 things by him in the exhibition. Maclise, another Irish 
 artist, has a picture in the exhibition, representing a dra- 
 matic author offering his piece to an actor. The story is 
 told in Gil Bias. It is a miracle of execution, though it has 
 the fault of hardness and too equal a distribution of light. 
 I have no time to speak more at large of this exhibition, and 
 my letter is already too long. 
 
 This afternoon we sail for Liverpool. 
 18*
 
 210 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 TJIE LUNATIC ASYLUM AT HANWELL. 
 
 LONDON, July 28, 1845. 
 
 SINCE we came to England we have visited the Lunatic 
 Asylum at Hanwell, in the neighborhood of London. It is 
 a large building, divided into numerous apartments, with 
 
 the plainest accommodations, for the insane poor of the 
 fey 
 county of Middlesex. It is superintended by Dr. Conolly, 
 
 who is most admirably fitted for the place he fills, by his 
 great humanity, sagacity, and ingenuity. 
 
 I put these qualities together as necessary to each other. 
 Mere humanity, without tact and skill, would fail de- 
 plorably. The rude and coarse methods of government 
 which consist in severity, are the most obvious ones ; they 
 suggest themselves to the dullest minds, and cost nothing 
 but bodily strength to put them in execution ; the gentler 
 methods require reflection, knowledge, and dexterity. It is 
 these which Dr. Conolly applies with perfect success. He 
 has taken great pains to make himself acquainted, by per- 
 sonal observation, with the treatment of the insane in 
 different hospitals, not only in England, but on. the conti- 
 nent. He found that to be the most efficacious which
 
 THE SOOTHING SYSTEM. 211 
 
 
 
 interferes least with their personal liberty, and on this 
 principle, the truth of which an experience of several years 
 has now confirmed, he founded the system of treatment at 
 Hanwell. 
 
 We had letters to Dr. Conolly, with the kindness and 
 gentleness of whose manners we were much struck. He 
 conducted us over the several wards of the Asylum. We 
 found in it a thousand persons of both sexes, not one of 
 whom was in seclusion, that is to say confined because it 
 was dangerous to allow him to go at large ; nor were they 
 subjected to any apparent restraint whatever. Some were 
 engaged in reading, some in exercises and games of skill ; 
 of the females some were occupied in sewing, others at work' 
 in the kitchen or the laundry ; melancholic patients were 
 walking about in silence or sitting gloomily by themselves ; 
 idiots were rocking their bodies backward and forward as 
 they sat, but all were peaceable in their demeanor, and the 
 greatest quiet prevailed. No chastisement of any kind is 
 inflicted ; the lunatic is always treated as a patient, and 
 never as an offender. When he becomes so outrageous and 
 violent that his presence can be endured no longer, he is put 
 into a room with padded walls and floors whore he can do 
 himself no mischief, and where his rage is allowed to 
 exhale. Even the straight jacket is unknown here. 
 
 I said that the demeanor of all the patients with whom 
 the Asylum was swarming was peaceable. There was one 
 exception. On entering one of the wards, a girl of an
 
 212 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 earnest and determined Aspect, as soon as she saw Dr. 
 Conolly began to scream violently, and sprang towards him, 
 thrusting aside the bystanders by main force. Two of the 
 female attendants came immediately up and strove to 
 appease her, holding her back without severity, as a mother 
 would restrain her infant. I saw them struggling with her 
 for some time ; how they finally disposed of her I did not 
 observe, but her screams had ceased before we left the 
 ward. 
 
 Among the patients was one who, we were told, was re- 
 markable for his extravagant love of finery, and whose cell 
 was plastered over with glaring colored prints and patches 
 of colored paper ornamentally disposed. He wore on his 
 hat a broad strip of tarnished lace, and had decorated his 
 waistcoat with several perpendicular rows of pearl buttons. 
 
 " You have made your room very fine here," said the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Yes," said he, smiling and evidently delighted, " but, 
 my dear sir, all is vanity all is vanity, sir, and vexation of 
 spirit. There is but one thing that we ought to strive for, 
 and that is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 As there was no disputing this proposition, we passed on 
 to another cell, at the door of which stood a tall, erect 
 personage, who was busy with a pot of paint and a brush, 
 inscribing the pannels with mottoes and scraps of verse. 
 The walls of his room were covered with poetry and pithy 
 sentences. Some of the latter appeared to be of his own
 
 INMATES OF THE ASYLUM. 213 
 
 composition, and were not badly turned ; their purport 
 generally was this : that birth is but a trivial accident, 
 and that virtue and talent are the only true nobility. 
 This man was found wandering about in Chiswick, full of 
 a plan for educating the Prince of Wales in a manner to 
 enable him to fill the throne with credit and usefulness. 
 As his name could not be learned, the appellation of 
 " Chiswick" was given him, which he had himself adopted, 
 styling himself Mr. " Chiswick" in his mottoes, but always 
 taking care to put the name between inverted commas. 
 
 As we proceeded, a man rose from his seat, and laying 
 both hands on a table before him, so as to display his 
 fingers, ornamented with rings made of black ribbon, in 
 which glass buttons were set for jewels, addressed Dr. 
 Conolly with great respect, formally setting forth that he 
 was in great want of a new coat for Sundays, the one he 
 had on being positively unfit to appear in, and that a better 
 had been promised him. The doctor stopped, inquired into 
 the case, and the poor fellow was gratified by the assurance 
 that the promised coat should be speedily forthcoming. 
 
 In his progress through the wards Dr. Conolly listened 
 with great patience to the various complaints of the in- 
 mates. One of them came up and told us that he did not 
 think the methods of the institution judicious. " The 
 patients," said he, " are many of them growing worse. 
 One in particular, who has been here for several weeks, I 
 can see is growing worse every day." Dr. Conolly asked
 
 214 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the name of this patient " I can not tell," said the man, 
 " but I can bring him to you." " Bring him then," said 
 the doctor ; and after a moment's absence he returned, 
 leading up one of the healthiest and quietest looking men 
 in the ward. " He looks better to be sure," said the man, 
 " but he is really worse." A burst of laughter from the 
 patients who stood by followed this saying, and one of them 
 looking at me knowingly, touched his forehead to intimate 
 that the objector was not exactly in his senses. 
 
 In one of the female wards we were introduced, as gen- 
 tlemen from America, to a respectable-looking old lady in 
 black, who sat with a crutch by her side. " Are you not 
 lawyers ?" she asked, and when we assured her that we 
 were only Yankees, she rebuked us mildly for assuming 
 such a disguise, when she knew very well that we were a 
 couple of attorneys. " And you, doctor," she added, " I am 
 surprised that you should have any thing to do with such a 
 deception." The doctor answered that he was very sorry 
 she had so bad an opinion of him, as she must be sensible 
 that he had never said any thing to her which was not 
 true. " Ah, doctor," she rejoined, " but you are the dupe 
 Of these people." 
 
 It was in the same ward, I think, that a well-dressed 
 woman, in a bonnet and shawl, was promenading the room, 
 carrying a bible and t\vo smaller volumes, apparently prayer 
 01 hymn books. " Have you heard the very reverend 
 Mr. , in chapel ?" she asked of my fellow-trav-
 
 THE LAW OF KINDNESS. 215 
 
 eller. I have unfortunately forgotten the name of the 
 preacher and his chapel. On being answered in the nega- 
 tive, " Then go and hear him," she added, " when you 
 return to London." She went on to say that the second 
 coming of the Saviour was to take place, and the world to 
 he destroyed in a very few days, and that she had a com- 
 mission to proclaim the approach of that event. " These 
 poor people," said she, " think that I am here on the same 
 account as themselves, when I am only here to prepare the 
 way for the second coming." 
 
 " I'm thinking, please yer honor, that it is quite time I 
 was let out of this place," said a voice as we entered one of 
 the wards. Dr. Conolly told me that he had several Irish 
 patients in the asylum, and that they gave him the most 
 trouble on account of the hurry in which they were to be 
 discharged. "We heard the same request eagerly made in 
 the same brogue by various other patients of both sexes. 
 
 As I left this multitude of lunatics, promiscuously gath- 
 ered from the poor and the reduced class, comprising all 
 varieties of mental disease, from idiocy to madness, yet all 
 of them held in such admirable order by the law of kind- 
 ness, that to the casual observer most of them betrayed no 
 symptoms of insanity, and of the rest, many appeared to be 
 only very odd people, quietly pursuing their own harmless 
 whims, I could not but feel the highest veneration for the 
 enlightened humanity by which the establishment was 
 directed. I considered, also, if the feeling of personal lib-
 
 216 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 erty, the absence of physical restraint, and the power of 
 moral motives, had such power to hold together in perfect 
 peace and order, even a promiscuous band of lunatics, how 
 much greater must be their influence over the minds of men 
 in a state of sanity, and on how false a foundation rest all 
 the governments of force ! The true basis of human polity, 
 appointed by God in our nature, is the power of moral mo- 
 tives, which is but another term for public opinion. 
 
 Of the political controversies which at present agitate the 
 country, the corn-law question is that which calls forth the 
 most feeling ; I mean on the part of those who oppose the 
 restrictions on the introduction of foreign grain for, on the 
 other side, it appears to me that the battle is languidly 
 fought. Nothing can exceed the enthusiasm of the adver- 
 saries of the corn-laws. With some of them the repeal of 
 the tax on bread is the remedy for all political evils. 
 " Free trade, free trade," is the burden of their conversa- 
 tion, and although a friend of free trade myself, to the last 
 and uttermost limit, I have been in circles in England, in 
 which I had a little too much of it. Yet this is an example 
 to prove what a strong hold the question has taken of the 
 minds of men, and how completely the thoughts of many 
 are absorbed by it. Against such a feeling as that which 
 has been kindled in Great Britain, on the corn-law question, 
 no law in our country could stand. So far as I can judge, 
 it is spreading, as well as growing stronger. I am told that 
 many of the farmers have become proselytes of the League.
 
 
 THE CORN-LAW LEAGUE. 217 
 
 The League is a powerful and prodigiously numerous asso- 
 ciation, with ample and increasing funds, publishing able 
 tracts, supporting well-conducted journals, and holding 
 crowded public meetings, which are addressed by some of 
 tho ablest speakers in the United Kingdom. I attended one 
 of these at Covent Garden. Stage, pit, boxes, and gallery 
 of that large building were filled with one of the most 
 respectable-looking audiences, men and women, I have ever 
 seen. Among the speakers of the evening were Cobden 
 and Fox. Cobden iR physiognomy and appearance might 
 almost pass for an American, and has a certain New En- 
 gland sharpness and shrewdness in his way of dealing with 
 a subject. His address was argumentative, yet there was a 
 certain popular clearness about it, a fertility of familiar 
 illustration, and an earnest feeling, which made it uncom- 
 monly impressive. Fox is one of the most fluent and 
 ingenious speakers I ever heard in a popular assembly. 
 Both were listened to by an audience which seemed to hang 
 on every word that fell from their lips. 
 
 The musical world here are talking about Colman's im- 
 provement in the piano. I have seen the instrument which 
 the inventor brought out from America. It is furnished 
 with a row of brass reeds, like those of the instrument called 
 the Seraphine. These take up the sound made by the 
 string of the piano, and prolong it to any degree which is 
 desired. It is a splicing of the sounds of one instrument 
 upon another. Yet if the invention were to be left where 
 19
 
 218 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 it is, iu Colman's instrument, it could not succeed with the 
 public. The notes of the reeds are too harsh and nasal, and 
 want the sweetness and mellowness of tone which belong 
 to the string of the piano. 
 
 At present the invention is in the hands of Mr. Rand, the 
 portrait painter, a countryman of ours, who is one of the 
 most ingenious mechanicians in the world. He has im- 
 proved the tones of the reeds till they rival, in softness and 
 fullness, those of the strings, and, in fact, can hardly be dis- 
 tinguished from them, so that the sounds of the two instru- 
 ments run into one another without any apparent difference. 
 Mr. Rand has contrived three or four different machines for 
 making the reeds with dispatch and precision ; and if the 
 difficulty of keeping the strings, which are undergoing a con- 
 stant relaxation, in perfect unison with the reeds can be 
 overcome, I see nothing to prevent the most complete and 
 brilliant success.
 
 NEW STREETS OF PAKIS. 219 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 CHANGES IN PARIS. 
 
 PARIS, August 9, 1845. 
 
 MY last letter was dated at London, in my passage 
 across England. I have been nearly a fortnight in Paris. 
 In ten years I find a considerable change in the external 
 aspect of this great capital. The streets are cleaner, in 
 many of them sidewalks have been made, not always the 
 widest to be sure, but smoothly floored with the asphaltum 
 of Seyssel, which answers the purpose admirably ; the gut- 
 ters have been removed from the middle of the street to the 
 edge of the curbstone, and lately the curbstone has been 
 made to project over them, so that the foot-passengers may 
 escape the bespattering from carriage-wheels which he 
 would otherwise be sure to get in a rainy day, and there 
 are many such days in this climate it has rained every- 
 day but one since I entered France. 
 
 New passages have been cut from street to street, old 
 streets have been made wider, new streets have been made, 
 with broad sidewalks, and stately rows of houses hewn from 
 the easily wrought cream-colored stone of the quarries of 
 the Seine. The sidewalks of the Boulevards, and all the
 
 220 L E T T E R S OF A T II A \' K L L 1C K . 
 
 public squares, wherever carriages do not pass, have been 
 covered with this smooth asphaltic pavement, and in the 
 Boulevards have been erected some magnificent buildings, 
 with richly carved pilasters and other ornaments in relief, 
 and statues in niches, and balconies supported by stone 
 brackets wrought into bunches of foliage. New columns 
 and statues have been set up, and new fountains pour out 
 their waters. Among these is the fountain of Moliere, in 
 the Rue Richelieu, where the effigy of the comic author, 
 chiseled from black marble, with flowing periwig and broad- 
 skirted coat, presides over a group of naked allegorical 
 figures in white marble, at whose feet the water is gushing 
 out. 
 
 In external morality also, there is some improvement ; 
 public gaming-houses no longer exist, and there are 
 fewer of those uncleanly nuisances which offend against the 
 code of what Addison calls the lesser morals. The police 
 have had orders to suppress them on the Boulevards and 
 the public squares. The Parisians are, however, the same 
 gay people as ever, and as easily amused as when I saw 
 them last. They crowd in as great numbers to the opera 
 and the theatres ; the Boulevards, though better paved, 
 are the same lively places ; the guingettes are as thronged ; 
 the public gardens are as full of dancers. In these, as at 
 the New Tivoli, lately opened at Chateau Rouge in the 
 suburbs, a broad space made smooth for the purpose is left 
 between tents, where the young grisettes of Paris, married
 
 PHYSICAL DEGENERACY. 221 
 
 and unmarried, or in that equivocal state which lies some- 
 where between, dance on Sunday evening till midnight. 
 
 At an earlier hour on the same day, as well as on other 
 days, at old Franconi's Hippodrome, among the trees, just 
 beyond the triumphal arch of Neuilly, imitations of the 
 steeple chase, with female riders who leap over hedges, 
 and of the ancient chariot-races with charioteers helmeted 
 and mailed, and standing in gilt tubs on wheels, are 
 performed in a vast amphiteatre, to a crowd that could 
 scarcely have been contained in the Colosseum of Rome. 
 
 I have heard since I came here, two or three people 
 lamenting the physical degeneracy of the Parisians. One 
 of them quoted a saying from a report of Marshal Soult, 
 that the Parisian recruits for the army of late years were 
 neither men nor soldiers. This seems to imply a moral as 
 well as a physical deterioration. " They are growing 
 smaller and smaller in stature," said the gentleman who 
 made this quotation, " and it is difficult to find among them 
 men who are of the proper height to serve as soldiers. 
 The principal cause no doubt is in the prevailing licen- 
 tiousness. Among that class who make the greater part 
 of the population of Paris, the women of the finest persons 
 rarely become mothers." Whatever may be the cause, I 
 witnessed a remarkable example of the smallness of the 
 Parisian stature on the day of my arrival, which was the 
 last of the three days kept in memory of the revolution of 
 July. I went immediately to the Champs Elysees, to see 
 19*
 
 222 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the people engaged in their amusements. Some twenty 
 boys, not fully grown, as it seemed to me at first, were 
 dancing and capering with great agility, to the music of an 
 instrument. Looking at them nearer, I saw that those 
 who had seemed to me hoys of fourteen or fifteen, were 
 mature young men, some of them with very fierce musta- 
 ches. 
 
 Since my arrival I have seen the picture which Vander- 
 lyn is painting for the Rotunda at Washington. It 
 represents the Landing of Columbus on the shores of the 
 New World. The great discoverer, accompanied by his 
 lieutenant and others, is represented as taking possession of 
 the newly found country. Some of the crew are seen 
 scrambling for what they imagine to be gold dust in the 
 sands of the shore, and at a little distance among the trees 
 are the naked natives, in attitudes of wonder and worship. 
 The grouping is happy, the expression and action skillfully 
 varied the coloring, so far as I could judge in the present 
 state of the picture, agreeable. " Eight or ten weeks hard 
 work," said the artist, " will complete it." It is Vanderlyn's 
 intention to finish it, and take it to the United States in 
 the course of the autumn.
 
 BRUSSELS. 223 
 
 LETTER. XXVIII. 
 
 A JOURNEY THROUGH THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 ARNHEIM, Guelderland, August 19, 1848. 
 
 AFTER, writing rny last I was early asleep, that I might 
 set out early the next morning in the diligence for Brussels. 
 This I did, and passing through Compeigne, where Joan 
 of Arc was made prisoner a town lying in the midst of ex- 
 tensive forests, with here and there a noble group of trees ; 
 and through Noyon, where Calvin was born, and in the 
 old Gothic church of which he doubtless worshiped ; and 
 through Cambray. where Fenelon lived ; and through fields 
 of grain and poppy and clover, where women were at work, 
 reaping the wheat, or mowing and stacking the ripe pop- 
 pies, or digging with spades in their wet clothes, for it had 
 rained every day but one during the thirteen we were in 
 France, we arrived in the afternoon of the second day at the 
 French frontier. From this a railway took us in a few 
 hours to Brussels. Imagine a rather clean-looking city, of 
 large light-colored buildings mostly covered with stucco, 
 situated on an irregular declivity, with a shady park in the 
 highest part surrounded by palaces, and a little lower down 
 a fine old Gothic cathedral, and still lower down, the old
 
 224 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 
 
 Town Hall, also of Gothic architecture, and scarcely less 
 venerable, standing in a noble paved square, around which 
 are white and stately edifices, built in the era of the 
 Spanish dominion : imagine handsome shops and a good- 
 looking people, with a liberal sprinkling of priests, in their 
 long-skirted garments, and throw in the usual proportion of 
 dirt and misery, and mendicancy, in the corners and by- 
 places, and you have Brussels before you. 
 
 It still rained, but we got a tilbury and drove out to see 
 the battle-ground of Waterloo. It was a dreary drive be- 
 side the wood of Soignes and through a part of it, that 
 melancholy-looking forest of tall-stemmed beeches beech, 
 beech, nothing but beech and through the Walloon vil- 
 lages Waterloo is one of them and through fields where 
 wet women were at work, and over roads where dirty chil- 
 dren by dozens were dabbling like ducks in the puddles. 
 At last we stopped at the village of Mont St. Jean, whence 
 we walked through the slippery mud to the mound erected in 
 the midst of the battle-field, and climbed to its lop, over- 
 looking a country of gentle declivities and hollows. Here 
 the various positions of the French and allied armies during 
 the battle which decided the fate of an empire, were pointed 
 out to us by a young Walloon who sold wine and drams 
 in a shed beside the monument. The two races which 
 make up the population of Belgium are still remarkably 
 distinct, notwithstanding the centuries which have elapsed 
 since they occupied the same country together. The Flem-
 
 ANTWERP. 225 
 
 ings of Teutonic origin, keep their blue eyes and fair 
 hair, and their ancient language the same nearly as the 
 Dutch of the sixteenth century. The Walloons, a Celtic 
 race, or Celtic mixed with Roman, are still known by their 
 dark hair and black eyes, and speak a dialect derived from 
 the Latin, resembling that of some of the French provinces. 
 Both languages are uncultivated, and the French has been 
 adopted as the language of commerce and literature in 
 Belgium. 
 
 If you would see a city wholly Flemish in its character, 
 you should visit Antwerp, to which the railway takes you 
 in an hour and a half. The population here is almost with- 
 out Walloon intermixture, and there is little to remind 
 you of what you have seen in France, except the French 
 books in the booksellers' windows. The arts themselves 
 have a character of their own which never came across 
 the Alps. The churches, the interior of which is always 
 carefully kept fresh with paint and gilding, are crowded 
 with statues in wood, carved with wonderful skill and 
 spirit by Flemish artists, in centuries gone by oaken 
 saints looking down from pedestals, and Adam and Eve in 
 the remorse of their first transgression supporting, by the 
 help of the tree of knowledge and the serpent, a curiously 
 wrought pulpit. The walls are hung with pictures by the 
 Flemish masters, wherever space can be found for them. 
 In the Cathedral, is the Descent from the Cross, by Rubens, 
 which proves, what one might almost doubt who had only
 
 226 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 seen his pictures in the Louvre, that he was a true artist 
 and a man of genius in the noblest sense of the term. 
 
 We passed two nights in Antwerp, and then went down 
 the Scheldt in a steamer, which, in ten hours, brought us 
 to Rotterdam, sometimes crossing an arm of the sea, and 
 sometimes threading a broad canal. The houses on each 
 side of these channels, after we entered Holland, were for the 
 most part freshly painted ; the flat plains on each side pro- 
 tected by embankments, and streaked by long wide ditches 
 full of water, and rows of pollard willows. Windmills by 
 scores, some grinding corn, but most of them pumping water 
 out of the meadows and pouring it into the channel, stood on 
 the bank and were swinging their long arms madly in a 
 high wind. 
 
 On arriving at Rotterdam, you perceive at once that 
 you are in Holland. The city has as many canals as 
 streets, the canals are generally overhung with rows of elms, 
 and the streets kept scrupulously clean with the water of 
 the canals, which is salt. Every morning there is a vigorous 
 splashing and mopping performed before every door by 
 plump servant girls, in white caps and thick wooden shoes. 
 Our hotel stood fronting a broad sheet of water like the 
 lagoons a-t Venice, where a solid and straight stone wharf 
 was shaded with a row of elms, and before our door lay 
 several huge vessels fastened to the wharf, which looked as 
 if they were sent thither to enjoy a vacation, for they were 
 neither loading nor unloading, nor did any person appear to
 
 ROTTERDAM. 227 
 
 be busy abt,at them. Rotterdam was at that time in the 
 midst of a fair which filled the open squares and the wider 
 streets of the city with booths, and attracted crowds of 
 people from the country. There were damsels from North 
 Holland, fair as snow, and some of them pretty, in long- 
 cared lace caps, with their plump arms bare ; and there 
 were maidens from another province, the name of which 
 I did not learn, equally good-looking, with arms as bare, 
 and faces in white muslin caps drawn to a point on each 
 cheek. Olycoeks were frying, and waffles baking in tem- 
 porary kitchens on each side of the streets. 
 
 The country about Rotterdam is little better than a 
 marsh. The soil serves only for pasture, and the fields are 
 still covered with " yellow blossoms," as in the time of Gold- 
 smith, and still tufted with willows. I saw houses in the 
 city standing in pools of dull blue water, reached by a 
 bridge from the street : I suppose, however, there might be 
 gardens behind them. Many of the houses decline very 
 much from the perpendicular ; they are, however, apparently 
 well-built and are spacious. We made no long stay in 
 Rotterdam, but after looking at its bronze statue of Eras- 
 mus, and its cathedral, which is not remarkable in any 
 other respect than that it is a Gothic building of brick, stone 
 being scarce in Holland, we took the stage-coach for the 
 Hague the next day. 
 
 Green meadows spotted with buttercups and dandelions, 
 flat and low, lower than the canals with which the country
 
 22S LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 is intersected, and which bring in between them, at high 
 tide, the' waters of the distant sea, stretched on every side. 
 They were striped with long lines of water which is con- 
 stantly pumped out by the windmills, and sent with the 
 ebb tide through the canals to the ocean. Herds of cattle 
 were feeding among the bright verdure. From time to 
 time, we passed some pleasant country-seat, the walls 
 bright with paint, and the grounds surrounded by a ditch, 
 call it a moat if you please, the surface of which was green 
 with duck-weed. But within this watery inclosure, were 
 little artificial elevations covered with a closely-shaven 
 turf, and plantations of shrubbery, and in the more extensive 
 and ostentatious of them, were what might be called groves 
 and forests. Before one of these houses was a fountain with 
 figures, mouths of lions and other animals, gushing profusely 
 with water, which must have been pumped up for the pur- 
 pose, into a reservoir, by one of the windmills. 
 
 Passing through Schiedam, still famous for its gin, and 
 Delft, once famous for its crockery, we reached in a couple 
 of hours the Hague, the cleanest of cities, paved with yel- 
 low brick, and as full of canals as Rotterdam. I called on 
 an old acquaintance, who received me with a warm embrace 
 and a kiss on each cheek. He was in his morning-gown, 
 which he immediately exchanged for an elegant frock coat 
 of the latest Parisian cut, and took us to see Baron Vor- 
 stolk's collection of pictures, which contains some beautiful 
 things by the Flemish artists, and next, to the public collec-
 
 SCHEVELING. - 229 
 
 tion called the Museum. From this we drove to the 
 Chateau du Bois, a residence of the Dutch Stadtholders two 
 hundred years ago, when Holland was a republic, and a 
 powerful and formidable one. It is pleasantly situated in 
 the edge of a wood, which is said to be part of an original 
 forest of the country. I could believe this, for here the soil 
 rises above the marshy level of Holland, and trees of va- 
 rious kinds grow irregularly intermingled, as in the natural 
 woods of our own country. The Chateau du Bois is princi- 
 pally remarkable for a large room with a dome, the interior 
 of which is covered with large paintings by Rubens, Jor- 
 daens, and other artists. 
 
 Our friend took leave of us, and we drove out to Scheve- 
 ling, where Charles II. embarked for England, when he 
 returned to take possession of his throne. Here dwell a 
 people who supply the fish-market of the Hague, speak 
 among themselves a dialect which is not understood else- 
 where in Holland, and wear the same costume which they 
 wore centuries ago. We passed several of the women go- 
 ing to market or returning, with large baskets on their 
 heads, placed on the crown of a broad-brimmed straw bon- 
 net, tied at the sides under the chin, and strapping creatures 
 they were, striding along in their striped black and white 
 petticoats. In the streets of Scheveling, I saw the tallest 
 woman I think I ever met with, -a very giantess, considera- 
 bly more than six feet high, straddling about the street of 
 the little village, and scouring and scrubbing the pave- 
 20
 
 
 
 230 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ment with great energy. Close at hand was the shore ; a 
 strong west wind was driving the surges of the North Sea 
 against it. A hundred fishing vessels rocking in the surf, 
 moored and lashed together with ropes, formed a line along 
 the beach ; the men of Scheveling, in knit woollen caps, 
 short blue jackets, and short trowsers of prodigious width, 
 were walking about on the shore, but the wind was too 
 high and the sea too wild for them to venture out. Along 
 this coast, the North Sea has heaped a high range of sand- 
 hills, which protect the low lands within from its own 
 inundations ; but to the north and south the shore is guarded 
 by embankments, raised by the hand of man with great 
 cost, and watched and kept in constant repair. 
 
 We left the Hague, and taking the railway, in a little 
 more than two hours were at Amsterdam, a great commer- 
 cial city in decay, where nearly half of the inhabitants live 
 on the charity of the rest. The next morning was Sunday, 
 and taking advantage of an interval of fair weather, for it 
 still continued to rain every day, I went to the Oudekerk, 
 or Old Church, as the ancient Cathedral is called, w r hich 
 might have been an impressive building in its original con- 
 struction, but is now spoiled by cross-beams, paint, galleries, 
 partitions, pews, and every sort of architectural enormity. 
 But there is a noble organ, with a massive and lofty front 
 of white marble richly sculptured, occupying the west end 
 of the chancel. I listened to a sermon in Dutch, the de- 
 livery of which, owing partly to the disagreeable voice of
 
 BROEK. 231 
 
 the speaker and partly no doubt to my ignorance of the 
 language, seemed to me a kind of barking. The men 
 all wore their hats during the service, but half the women 
 were without bonnets. When the sermon and prayer were 
 over, the rich tones of the organ broke forth and flooded the 
 place with melody. 
 
 Every body visits Broek, near Amsterdam, the pride of 
 Dutch villages, and to Broek I went accordingly. It stands 
 like the rest, among dykes and canals, but consists alto- 
 gether of the habitations of persons in comfortable circum- 
 stances, and is remarkable, as you know, for its scrupulous 
 cleanliness. The common streets and footways, are kept in 
 the same order as the private garden- walks. They are 
 paved with yellow bricks, and as a fair was to open in the 
 place that afternoon, the most public parts of them were 
 sanded for the occasion, but elsewhere, they appeared as if 
 just washed and mopped. I have never seen any collection 
 of human habitations so free from any thing offensive to the 
 senses. Saardam, where Peter the Great began his appren- 
 ticeship as a shipwright, is among the sights of Holland, and 
 we went the next day to look at it. This also is situated 
 on a dyke, and is an extremely neat little village, but has not 
 the same appearance of opulence in the dwellings. We were 
 shown the chamber in which the Emperor of Russia lodged, 
 and the hole in the wall where he slept, for in the old Dutch 
 houses, as in the modern ones of the farmers, the bed is a 
 sort of high closet, or, more properly speaking, a shelf within
 
 232 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the wall, from which a door opens into the room. I should 
 have mentioned that, in going to Broek, I stopped to look 
 at one of the farm-houses of the country, and at Saardam I 
 visited another. They were dairy houses, in which the 
 milk of large herds is made into butter. The lower story 
 of the dwelling, paved with bricks, is used in winter as a 
 stable for the cattle ; in the summer, it is carefully cleansed 
 and painted, so that not a trace of its former use remains, 
 and it then becomes both the dairy and the abode of the 
 family. The story above is as neat as the hands of Dutch 
 housewives can make it ; the parlor, the dining-room, the 
 little boxes in the wall which hold the beds, are resplendent 
 with cleanliness. 
 
 In going from Amsterdam by railway to Utrecht, we per- 
 ceived the canals by which the plains were intersected be- 
 came fewer and fewer, and finally we began to see crops of 
 grain and potatoes, a sign that we had emerged from the 
 marshes. We stopped to take a brief survey of Utrecht. 
 A part of its old cathedral has been converted into a beau- 
 tiful Gothic church, the rest having been levelled many 
 years ago by a whirlwind. But what I found most remark- 
 able in the city was its public walks. The old walls by 
 which Utrecht was once inclosed having been thrown down, 
 the rubbish has formed hillocks and slopes which almost 
 surround the entire city and border one of its principal canals. 
 On these hillocks and slopes, trees and shrubs have been 
 planted, and walks laid out through the green turf, until it
 
 PUBLIC WALKS OF UTRECHT. 233 
 
 has become one of the most varied and charming pleasure- 
 grounds I ever saw swelling into little eminences, sinking 
 into little valleys, descending in some places smoothly to the 
 water, and in others impending over it. We fell in with- a 
 music-master, of whom we asked a question or two. He 
 happened to know a little German, hy the help of which 
 he pieced out his Dutch so as to make it tolerably intelli- 
 gible to me. He insisted upon showing us every thing re- 
 markable in Utrecht, and finally walked us tired. 
 
 The same evening the diligence brought us to Arn- 
 heim, a neat-looking town with about eighteen hundred 
 inhabitants, in the province of Guelderland, wnere the 
 region retains not a trace of the peculiarities of Holland. 
 The country west of the town rises into commanding emi- 
 nences, overlooking the noble Rhine, and I feel already that 
 I am in Germany, though 1 have yet to cross the frontier. 
 20*
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 AMERICAN ARTISTS ABROAD. 
 
 ROME, October, 1845. 
 
 You would perhaps like to hear what the American ai- 
 tists on the continent are doing. I met with Leutze at 
 Diisseldorf. After a sojourn of some days in Holland, in. 
 which I was obliged to talk to the Dutchmen in German 
 and get my answers in Dutch, with but a dim apprehen- 
 sion of each other's meaning, as you may suppose, on both 
 sides ; after being smoked through and through like a her- 
 ring, with the fumes of bad tobacco in. the railway wagons, 
 and in the diligence which took us over the long and 
 monotonous road on the plains of the Rhine betAveen 
 Arnheim and Diisseldorf after dodging as well as we were 
 able, the English travellers, generally the most disagreeable 
 of the travelling tribe, who swarm along the Rhine in the 
 summer season, it was a refreshment to stop a day at 
 Diisseldorf and take breath, and meet an American face or 
 two. "\Ve found Leutze engaged upon a picture, the sub- 
 ject of Avhich is John Knox reproving Queen Mary. It 
 promises to be a capital work. The stern gravity of Knox. 
 the embarrassment of the dueen, and the scorn with which
 
 
 DUSSELDORF. 23?) 
 
 the French damsels of her court regard the saucy Reformer, 
 are extremely well expressed, and tell the story impressively. 
 
 At Diisseldorf, which is the residence of so many eminent 
 painters, we expected to find some collection, or at least 
 some of the best specimens, of the works of the modern 
 German school. It was not so, however fine pictures are 
 painted at Diisseldorf, but they are immediately carried 
 elsewhere. We visited the studio of Schroter a man 
 with humor in every line of his face, who had nothing to 
 show us but a sketch, just prepared for the easel, of the 
 scene in Goethe's Faust, where Mephistophiles, in Auer- 
 bach's cellar, bores the edge of the table with a gimlet, and 
 a stream of champagne gushes out. Kb'hler, an eminent 
 artist, allowed us to see a clever painting on his easel, in a 
 state of considerable forwardness, representing the rejoicings 
 of the Hebrew maidens at the victory of David over Goliath. 
 At Lessing's a painter whose name stands in the first 
 rank, and whom we did not find at home we saw a sketch 
 on which he was engaged, representing the burning of John 
 Huss ; yet it was but a sketch, a painting in embryo. 
 
 But I am wandering from the American artists. At 
 Cologne, whither we were accompanied by Leutze, he pro- 
 cured us the sight of his picture of Columbus before the 
 Council of Salamanca, one of his best. Leutze ranks high 
 in Germany, as a young man of promise, devoting himself 
 with great energy and earnestness to his art. 
 
 At Florence we found Greenough just returned from a
 
 236 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 year's residence at Graefenberg, whence he had brought 
 back his wife, a patient of Priessnitz and the water cure, in 
 florid health. He is now applying himself to the comple- 
 tion of the group which he has engaged to execute for the 
 capitol at Washington. It represents an American settler, 
 an athletic man, in a hunting shirt and cap, a graceful 
 garb, by the way, rescuing a female and her infant from a 
 savage who has just raised his tomahawk to murder them. 
 Part of the group, the hunter and the Indian, is already in 
 marble, and certainly the effect is wonderfully fine and 
 noble. The hunter has approached his enemy unexpectedly 
 irom behind, and grasped both his arms, holding them back, 
 in such a manner that he has no command of their muscles, 
 even for the purpose of freeing himself. Besides the par- 
 ticular incident represented by the group, it may pass for 
 an image of the aboriginal race of America overpowered 
 and rendered helpless by the civilized race. Greemnigh's 
 statue of Washington is not as popular as it deserves to be ; 
 but the work on which he is now engaged I am very sure 
 will meet with a different reception. 
 
 In a letter from London, I spoke of the beautiful figure 
 of the Greek slave, by Powers. At Florence I saw in his 
 studio, the original model, from which his workmen were 
 cutting two copies in marble. At the same place I saw his 
 Proserpine, an ideal bust of great sweetness and beauty, the 
 fair chest swelling out from a circle of leaves of the acan- 
 thus. About this also the workmen were busy, and I
 
 POWERS. 237 
 
 learned that seven copies of it had been recently ordered from 
 the hand of the artist. By its side stood the unfinished 
 statue of Eve, with the fatal apple in her hand, an earlier 
 work, which the world has just begun to admire. I find 
 that connoisseurs are divided in opinion concerning the merit 
 of Powers as a sculptor. 
 
 All allow him the highest degree of skill in execution, 
 but some deny that he has shown equal ability in his con- 
 ceptions. "He is confessedly," said one of them to me, 
 who, however, had not seen his Greek slave, " the greatest 
 sculptor of busts in the world equal, in fact, to any that 
 the world ever saw ; the finest heads of antiquity are not 
 of a higher order than his." He then went on to express 
 his regret that Powers had not confined his labors to a 
 department in which he was so pre-eminent. I have heard 
 that Powers, who possesses great mechanical skill, has 
 devised several methods of his own for giving precision and 
 perfection to the execution of his works. It may be that 
 my unlearned eyes are dazzled by this perfection, but really 
 I can not imagine any thing more beautiful of its kind than 
 his statue of the Greek slave. 
 
 Gray is at this moment in Florence, though he is soon 
 coming to Rome. He has made some copies from Titian, 
 one of which I saw. It was a Madonna and child, in 
 which the original painting was rendered with all the 
 fidelity of a mirror. So indisputably was it a Titian, and 
 so free from the stiffness of a copy, that, as I looked at it, I
 
 238 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 fully sympathized with the satisfaction expressed by the 
 artist at having attained the method of giving with ease the 
 peculiarity of coloring which belongs to Titian's pictures. 
 
 An American landscape painter of high merit is G. L. 
 Brown, now residing at Florence. He possesses great 
 knowledge of detail, which he knows how to keep in its 
 place, subduing it, and rendering it subservient to the 
 general effect. I saw in his studio two or three pictures, 
 in which I admired his skill in copying the various forms 
 of foliage and other objects, nor was I less pleased to see 
 that he was not content with this sort of merit, but, in 
 going back from the foreground, had the art of passing into 
 that appearance of an infinity of forms and outlines which 
 the eye meets with in nature. I could not help regretting 
 that one who copied nature so well, should not prefer to rep- 
 resent her as she appears in our own fresh and glorious land, 
 instead of living in Italy and painting Italian landscapes. 
 
 To refer again to foreign artists before I left Florence I 
 visited the annual exhibition which had been opened in the 
 Academy of the Fine Arts. There were one or two land- 
 scapes reminding me somewhat of Cole's manner, but greatly 
 inferior, and one or two good portraits, and two or three 
 indifferent historical pictures. The rest appeared to me 
 decidedly bad ; wretched landscapes ; portraits, some of 
 which were absolutely hideous, stiff*, ill-colored, and full 
 vf grimace. 
 
 Here at Rome, we have an American sculptor of great
 
 BROWN'S STATUE OF RUTH. 239 
 
 ability, Henry K. Brown, who is just beginning to be talked 
 about. He is executing a statue of Ruth gleaning in the 
 field of Boaz, of which the model has been ready for some 
 months, and is also modelling a figure of Rebecca at the 
 Well. When I first saw his Ruth I was greatly struck with 
 it. but after visiting the studios of Wyatt and Gibson, and 
 observing their sleek imitations of Grecian art. their learned 
 and faultless statues, nymphs or goddesses or gods of the 
 Greek mythology, it was with infinite pleasure that my 
 eyes rested again on the figure and face of Ruth, perhaps 
 not inferior in perfection of form, but certainly informed 
 with a deep human feeling which I found not in their 
 elaborate works. The artist has chosen the moment in 
 which Ruth is addressed by Boaz as she stands among the 
 gleaners. He quoted to me the lines of Keats, on the song 
 of the nightingale 
 
 " Perchance the self-same song that found a path 
 To the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, 
 She stood in tears amid the alien's corn." 
 
 She is not in tears, but her aspect is that of one who listens 
 in sadness ; her eyes are cast down, and her thoughts are 
 of the home of her youth, in the land of Moab, Over her 
 left arm hangs a handful of ears of wheat, which she has 
 gathered from the ground, and her right rests on the 
 drapery about her bosom. Nothing can be more graceful 
 than her attitude or more expressive of melancholy sweet- 
 ness and modesty than her physiognomy. One of the
 
 240 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 copies which the artist was executing there were two of 
 them is designed for a gentleman in Albany. Brown will 
 shortly, or I am greatly mistaken, achieve a high reputation 
 among the sculptors of the time. 
 
 Rosseter, an American painter, who has passed six years 
 in Italy, is engaged on a large picture, the subject of which 
 is taken from the same portion of Scripture history, and 
 which is intended for the gallery of an American gentleman. 
 It represents Naomi with her two daughters-in-law, when 
 " Orpah kissed her, but Ruth clave unto her." The princi- 
 pal figures are those of the Hebrew matron and Ruth, who 
 have made their simple preparations for their journey to 
 the land of Israel, while Orpah is turning sorrowfully away 
 to join a caravan of her country people. This group is well 
 composed, and there is a fine effect of the rays of the rising 
 sun on the mountains and rocks of Moab. 
 
 At the studio of Lang, a Philadelphia artist, I saw 
 two agreeable pictures, one of which represents a young 
 woman whom her attendants and companions are arraying 
 for her bridal. As a companion piece to this, but not yet 
 finished, he had upon the easel a picture of a beautiful girl, 
 decked for espousals of a different kind, about to take the 
 veil, and kneeling in the midst of a crowd of friends and 
 priests, while one of them is cutting off" her glossy and flow- 
 ing hair. Both pictures are designed for a Boston gentle- 
 man, but a duplicate of the first has already been painted 
 for the King of Wirtemberg.
 
 BUFFALO. 241 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 B U F F A L 0. C L E V E L A N D. D E T R O I T. 
 
 STEAMER OREGON, LAKE HURON, > 
 Off Thunder Bay, July 24, 1846. \ 
 
 As I approached the city of Buffalo the other morning, 
 from the east, I found myself obliged to confess that much 
 of the beauty of a country is owing to the season. For 
 twenty or thirty miles before we reached Lake Erje, the 
 fields of this fertile region looked more and more arid and 
 sun-scorched, and I could not but contrast their appearance 
 with that of the neighborhood of New York, where in a 
 district comparatively sterile, an uncommonly showery season 
 has kept the herbage fresh and deep, and made the trees 
 heavy with leaves. Here, on the contrary, I saw meadows 
 tinged by the drought with a reddish hue, pastures grazed 
 to the roots of the grass, and trees spreading what seemed 
 to me a meagre shade. Yet the harvests of wheat, and 
 even of hay, in western New York, are said to be by no 
 means scanty. 
 
 Buffalo continues to extend on every side, but the late 
 
 additions to the city do not much improve its beauty. Its 
 
 nucleus of well-built streets does not seem to have grown 
 
 much broader within the last five years, but the suburbs 
 
 21 

 
 242 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 are rapidly spreading small wooden houses, scattered or in 
 clusters, built hastily for emigrants along unpaved and 
 powdery streets. I saw, however, on a little excursion 
 which I made into the surrounding country, that pleasant 
 little neighborhoods are rising up at no great distance, with 
 their neat houses, their young trees, and their new shrub- 
 bery. They have a fine building material at Buffalo a 
 sort of brown stone, easily wrought but I was sorry to see 
 that most of the houses built of it, both in the town and 
 country, seemed to have stood for several years. 
 
 We visited the new fort which the government is erecting 
 on the lake, a little to the north of the town, commanding 
 the entrance of Niagara river. It is small, but of wonderful 
 apparent strength, with walls of prodigious thickness, and so 
 sturdy in its defences that it seemed to me one might as 
 well think of cannonading the cliffs of Weehawken. It is 
 curious to see how, as we grow more ingenious in the means 
 of attack, we devise more effectual means of defence. A 
 castle of the middle ages, in which a grim warrior of that 
 time would hold his enemies at bay for years, would now be 
 battered down before breakfast. The finest old forts of the 
 last century are now found to be unsafe against attack. 
 That which we have at St. Augustine was an uncommonly 
 good sample of its kind, but when I was in Florida, three or 
 four years since, an engineer of the United States was engaged 
 in reconstructing it. Do mankind gain any thing by these 
 improvements, as they are called, in the art of war ? Do
 
 LEOPOLD DE MEYER. 243 
 
 not these more dreadful engines of attack on the one side, 
 and these more perfect means of protection on the other, 
 leave the balance just where it was before ? 
 
 On Tuesday evening, at seven o'clock, we took passage in 
 the steamer Oregon, for Chicago, and soon lost sight of the 
 roofs and spires of Buffalo. A lady of Buffalo on her way 
 to Cleveland placed herself at the piano, and sang several 
 songs with such uncommon sweetness and expression that I 
 saw no occasion to be surprised at what I heard of the con- 
 cert of Leopold de Meyer, at Buffalo, the night before. The 
 concert room was crowded with people clinging to each 
 other like bees when they swarm, and the whole affair 
 seemed an outbreak of popular enthusiasm. A veteran 
 teacher of music in Buffalo, famous for being hard to be 
 pleased by any public musical entertainment, found himself 
 unable to sit still during the first piece played by De Meyer, 
 but rose, in the fullness of his delight, and continued stand- 
 ing. When the music ceased, he ran to him and shook 
 both of his hands, again and again, with most uncomfortable 
 energy. At the end of the next performance he sprang 
 again on the platform and hugged the artist so rapturously 
 that the room rang with laughter. De Meyer was to give 
 another concert on Tuesday evening at Niagara Falls, and 
 the people of Buffalo were praparing to follow him. 
 
 The tastes of our people are certainly much changed 
 within the last twenty years. A friend of ours used to 
 relate, as a good joke, the conversation of two men, who
 
 244 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 came to the conclusion that Paganini was the greatest man 
 in the world. They were only a little in advance of their 
 age. If such are the honors reaped by De Meyer, we shall 
 not be astonished if Sivori, when he comes over, passes for 
 the greatest man of his time. 
 
 The next morning found us with the southern shore of 
 Lake Erie in sight a long line of woods, with here and 
 there a cluster of habitations on the shore. " That village 
 where you see the light-house," said one of the passengers, 
 who came from the hills of Maine, "is Grand River, and 
 from that place to Cleveland, which is thirty miles distant, 
 you have the most beautiful country under the sun perfectly 
 beautiful, sir ; not a hill the whole way, and the finest 
 farms that were ever seen ; you can buy a good farm there 
 for two thousand dollars." In two or three hours after- 
 ward we were at Cleveland, and I hastened on shore. 
 
 It is situated beyond a steep bank of the lake, nearly as 
 elevated as the shore at Brooklyn, which we call Brooklyn 
 Heights. As I stood on the edge of this bank and looked 
 over the broad lake below me, stretching beyond the sight 
 and quivering in the summer wind, I was reminded of the 
 lines of Southey : 
 
 " Along the bending line of shore 
 
 Such hue is thrown as when the peacock's neck 
 Assumes its proudest tint of amethyst, 
 Embathed in emerald glory." 
 
 But it was not only along the line of the shore that these
 
 CLEVELAND. 245 
 
 hues prevailed ; the whole lake glowed with soft amethystine 
 and emerald tinges, in irregular masses, like the shades of 
 watered silk. Cleveland stands in that beautiful country 
 without a hill, of which rny fellow-passenger spoke a 
 thriving village yet to grow into a proud city of the lake 
 country. It is built upon broad dusty ways, in which not 
 a pebble is seen in the fat dark earth of the lake shore, and 
 which are shaded with locust-trees, the variety called seed- 
 locust, with crowded twigs and clustered foliage a tree 
 chosen, doubtless, for its rapid growth, as the best means of 
 getting up a shade at the shortest notice. Here and there 
 were gardens filled with young fruit-trees ; among the 
 largest and hardiest in appearance was the peach-tree, 
 which here spreads broad arid sturdy branches, escapes the 
 diseases that make it a short-lived tree in the Atlantic 
 states, and produces fruit of great size and richness. One 
 of my fellow-passengers could hardly find adequate expres- 
 sions to signify his high sense of the deliciousness of the 
 Cleveland peaches. 
 
 I made my way to a street of shops : it had a busy ap- 
 pearance, more so than usual, I was told, for a company of 
 circus-riders, whose tents I had seen from a distance on the 
 lake, was in town, and this had attracted a throng of people 
 from the country. I saw a fruit-stall tended by a man who 
 had the coarsest red hair I think I ever saw, and of whom 
 I bought two or three enormous "bough apples," as he 
 called them. He apologized for the price he demanded. 
 21*
 
 Z4O I.KTTEUS UF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 " The farmers," said he, " know that just now there is a 
 call for their early fruit, while the circus people are in town, 
 and they make me pay a 'igh price for it." I told him I 
 perceived he was no Yankee. " I am a Londoner," he 
 replied ; " and I left London twelve years ago to slave and 
 be a poor man in Ohio." He acknowledged, however, that 
 he had two or three times got together some property, " but 
 the Lord," he said, " laid his hand on it." 
 
 On returning to the steamer, I found a party of country 
 people, mostly young persons of both sexes, thin and lank 
 figures, by no means equal, as productions of the country, to 
 their bough apples. They passed through the fine spacious 
 cabin on the upper deck, extending between the state-rooms 
 the whole length of the steamer. At length they came to 
 a large mirror, which stood at the stern, and seemed by its 
 reflection to double the length of the cabin. They walked 
 on, as if they would extend their promenade into the mirror, 
 when suddenly observing the reflection of their own persons 
 advancing, and thinking it another party, they politely made 
 way to let it pass. The party in the mirror at the same 
 moment turned to the same side, which first showed them 
 the mistake they had made. The passengers had some 
 mirth at their expense, but I must do our visitors the justice 
 to say that they joined in the laugh with a very good 
 grace. 
 
 The same evening, at twelve o'clock, we were at Detroit. 
 " You must lock your state-rooms in the night," said one of
 
 LAKE ST. C LAIR. 217 
 
 the persons employed about the vessel, " for Detroit is full 
 of thieves." We followed the advice, slept soundly, and 
 saw nothing of the thieves, nor of Detroit either, for the 
 steamboat was again on her passage through Lake St. Glair 
 nl three this morning, and when I awoke we were moving 
 c-ver the flats, as they are called, at the upper end of the 
 lake. The steamer was threading her way in a fog be- 
 1 ween large patches of sedge of a pea-green color. We had 
 waited several hours at Detroit, because this passage is not 
 safe at night, and steamers of a larger size are sometimes 
 grounded here in the day-time. 
 
 I had hoped, when I began, to bring down the narrative 
 of ray voyage to this moment, but my sheet is full, and I 
 shall give you the remainder in another letter.
 
 248 LETTEB.S OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 A TRIP FROM DETROIT TO MACKINAW. 
 
 STEAMER OREGON, Lake Michigan, j 
 July 25, 1846. j" 
 
 SOON after passing the flats described in my last letter, 
 and entering the river St. Clair, the steamer stopped to take 
 in wood on the Canadian side. Here I went on shore. 
 All that we could see of the country was a road along the 
 bank, a row of cottages at a considerable distance from each 
 other along the road, a narrow belt of cleared fields behind 
 them, and beyond the fields the original forest standing like 
 a long lofty wall, with its crowded stems of enormous size 
 and immense height, rooted in the strong soil ashes and 
 maples and elms, the largest of their species. Scattered in 
 the foreground were numbers of leafless elms, so huge that 
 the settlers, as if in despair of bringing them to the ground 
 by the ax, had girdled them and left them to decay and 
 fall at their leisure. 
 
 We went up to one of the houses, before which stood 
 several of the family attracted to the door by the sight of 
 our steamer. Among them was an intelligent-looking man,
 
 CHIPPEWA INDIANS. 249 
 
 originally from the state of New York, who gave quick and 
 shrewd answers to our inquiries. He told us of an Indian 
 settlement about twenty miles further up the St. Glair. 
 Here dwell a remnant of the Chippewa tribe, collected by 
 the Canadian government, which has built for them com- 
 fortable log-houses with chimneys, furnished them with 
 horses and neat cattle, and utensils of agriculture, erected a 
 house of worship, and given them a missionary. " The 
 design of planting them here," said th esettler, " was to en- 
 courage them to cultivate the soil." 
 
 " And what has been the success of the plan ?" I asked. 
 
 " It has met with no success at all," he answered. " The 
 worst thing that the government could do for these people 
 is to give them every thing as it has done, and leave them 
 under no necessity to provide for themselves. They chop 
 over a little land, an acre or two to a family ; their squaws 
 plant a little corn and a few beans, and this is the extent 
 of their agriculture. They pass their time in hunting and 
 fishing, or in idleness. They find deer and bears in the 
 woods behind them, and fish in the St. Glair before their 
 doors, and they squander their yearly pensions. In one 
 respect they are just like white men, they will not work if 
 they can live without." 
 
 " What fish do they find in the St. Glair ?" 
 
 " Various sorts. Trout and white-fish are the finest, but 
 they are not so abundant at this season. Sturgeon and 
 pike are just now in season, and the pike are excellent."
 
 250 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 One of us happening to observe that the river might 
 easily be crossed by swimming, the settler answered : 
 
 " Not so easily as you might think. The river is as cold 
 as a well, and the swimmer would soon be chilled through, 
 and perhaps taken with the cramp. It is this coldness of 
 the water which makes the fish so fine at this season." 
 
 This mention of sturgeons tempts me to relate an anec- 
 dote which I heard as I was coming up the Hudson. A 
 gentleman who lived east of the river, a little back of Tivoli, 
 caught last spring one of these fish, which weighed about a 
 hundred and sixty pounds. He carried it to a large pond 
 near his house, the longest diameter of which is about a 
 mile, and without taking it out of the net in which he had 
 caught it, he knotted part of the meshes closely around it, 
 and attaching them to a pair of lines like reins, put the 
 creature into the water. To the end of the lines he had 
 taken care to attach a buoy, to mark the place of the fish 
 in the pond. He keeps a small boat, and when he has a 
 mind to make a water-excursion, he rows to the place where 
 the buoy is floating, ties the lines to the boat and, pul- 
 ling them so as to disturb the fish, is drawn backward 
 and forward with great rapidity over the surface. The 
 pond, in its deepest part, has only seven feet water, so that 
 there is no danger of being dragged under. 
 
 We now proceeded up the river, and in about two hours 
 came to a neat little village on the British side, with a 
 windmill, a little church, and two or three little cottages,
 
 A CHIPPEWA VILLAGE. 251 
 
 prettily screened by young trees. Immediately beyond this 
 was the beginning of the Chippewa settlement of which we 
 had been told. Log-houses, at the distance of nearly a 
 quarter of a mile from each other, stood in a long row 
 beside the river, with scattered trees about them, the largest 
 of the forest, some girdled and leafless, some untouched and 
 green, the smallest trees between having been cut away. 
 Here and there an Indian woman, in a blue dress and bare- 
 headed, was walking along the road ; cows and horses 
 were grazing near the houses ; patches of maize were seen, 
 tended in a slovenly manner and by no means clear of 
 bushes, but nobody was at work in the fields. Two females 
 came down to the bank, with paddles, and put off into the 
 river in a birch-bark canoe, the ends of which were carved 
 in the peculiar Indian fashion. A little beyond stood a 
 group of boys and girls on the water's edge, the boys in shirts 
 and leggins, silently watching the steamer as it shot by 
 them. Still further on a group of children of both sexes, 
 seven in number, came running with shrill cries down th< 
 bank. It was then about twelve o'clock, and the weathei 
 was extremely sultry. The boys in an instant threw off 
 their shirts and leggins, and plunged into the water with 
 shouts, but the girls were in before them, for they wore only 
 a kind of petticoat which they did not take off, but cast 
 themselves into the river at once and slid through the clear 
 water like seals. 
 
 This little Indian colony on the edge of the forest ex-
 
 252 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 tends for several miles along the river, where its banks 
 are highest and best adapted to the purpose of settlement. 
 It ends at last just below the village which bears the 
 name of Fort Saranac, in the neighborhood of which I was 
 shown an odd-looking wooden building, and was told that 
 this was the house of worship provided for the Indians by 
 the government. 
 
 At Fort Huron, a village on the American side, opposite 
 to Fort Saranac, we stopped to land passengers. Three 
 Indians made their appearance on the shore, one of whom, 
 a very large man, wore a kind of turban, and a white 
 blanket made into a sort of frock, with bars of black in several 
 places, altogether a striking costume. One of this party, a 
 well-dressed young man, stopped to speak with somebody in 
 the crowd on the wharf, but the giant in the turban, with 
 his companion, strode rapidly by, apparently not deigning 
 to look at us, and disappeared in the village. He was 
 scarcely out of sight when I perceived a boat approaching 
 the shore with a curiously mottled sail. As it came nearer 
 I saw that it was a quilt of patchwork taken from a bed. 
 [n the bottom of the boat lay a barrel, apparently of flour, 
 a stout young fellow pulled a pair of oars, and a slender- 
 waisted damsel, neatly dressed, sat in the stern, plying a 
 paddle with a de^erity which she might have learned from 
 the Chippewa ladies, and guiding the course of the boat 
 which passed with great speed over the water. 
 
 We were soon upon the broad waters of Lake Huron, and
 
 MACKINAW. 253 
 
 when the evening closed upon us we were already out of 
 sight of land. The next morning I was awakened by the 
 sound of rain on the hurricane deck. A cool east wind was 
 blowing. I opened the outer door of my state-room, and 
 snufFed the air which was strongly impregnated with the 
 odor of burnt "leaves or grass, proceeding, doubtless, from 
 the burning of woods or prairies somewhere on the shores of 
 the lake. For mile after mile, for hour after hour, as we 
 flew through the mist, the same odor was perceptible : the 
 atmosphere of the lake was full of it. 
 
 " Will it rain all day ?" I asked of a fellow-passenger, a 
 Salem man, in a white cravat. 
 
 " The clouds are thin," he answered ; " the sun will soon 
 burn them off." 
 
 In fact, the sun soon melted away the clouds, and before 
 ten o'clock I was shown, to the north of us, the dim shore of 
 the Great Manitoulin Island, with the faintly descried 
 opening called the West Strait, through which a throng of 
 speculators in copper mines are this summer constantly 
 passing to the Sault de Ste. Marie. On the other side was 
 the sandy isle of Bois Blanc, the name of which is com- 
 monly corrupted into Bob Low Island, thickly covered with 
 pines, and showing a tall light-house on the point nearest 
 us. Beyond another point lay like a cloud the island of 
 Mackinaw. I had seen it once before, but now the hazy 
 atmosphere magnified it into a lofty mountain ; its limestone 
 cliffs impending over the water seemed larger ; the white fort 
 22
 
 254 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 white as snow built from the quarries of the island, looked 
 more commanding, and the rocky crest above it seemed almost 
 to rise to the clouds. There was a good deal of illusion in all 
 this, as we were convinced as we came nearer, but Macki- 
 naw with its rocks rising from the most transparent waters 
 that the earth pours out from her springs, is a stately object 
 in any condition of the atmosphere. The captain of our 
 steamer allowed us but a moment at Mackinaw ; a moment 
 to gaze into the clear waters, and count the fish as they 
 played about without fear twenty or thirty feet below our 
 steamer, as plainly seen as if they lay in the air ; a moment 
 to look at the fort on the heights, dazzling the eyes with its 
 new whiteness ; a moment to observe the habitations of 
 this ancient village, some of which show you roofs and walls 
 of red-cedar bark confined by horizontal strips of wood, a 
 kind of architecture between the wigwam and the settler's 
 cabin. A few baskets of fish were lifted on board, in which 
 I saw trout of enormous size, trout a yard in length, and 
 white-fish smaller, but held perhaps in higher esteem, and 
 we turned our course to the straits which lead into Lake 
 Michigan. 
 
 I remember hearing a lady say that she was tired of im- 
 provements, and only wanted to find a place that was 
 finished, where she might live in peace. I think I shall 
 recommend Mackinaw to her. I saw no change in the 
 place since my visit to it five years ago. It is so lucky as 
 to have no back-country, it offers no advantages to specula-
 
 MACKINAW 255 
 
 tion of any sort ; it produces, it is true, the finest potatoes 
 in the world, but none for exportation. It may, however, 
 on account of its very cool summer climate, become a 
 fashionable watering-place, in which case it must yield to 
 the common fate of American villages and improve, as the 
 phrase is 
 

 
 256 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 JOURNEY FROM DETROIT TO PRINCETON. 
 
 PEINCETON, Illinois, July 31, 1846. 
 
 SOON after leaving the island of Mackinaw we entered 
 the straits and passed into Lake Michigan. The odor of 
 burnt leaves continued to accompany us, and from the 
 western shore of the lake, thickly covered with wood, we 
 saw large columns of smoke, several miles apart, rising into 
 the hazy sky. The steamer turned towards the eastern 
 shore, and about an hour before sunset stopped to take in 
 wood at the upper Maneto island, where we landed and 
 strolled into the forest. Part of the island is high, but this, 
 where we went on shore, consists of hillocks and hollows of 
 sand, like the waves of the lake in one of its storms, and 
 looking as if successive storms had swept them up from the 
 bottom. They were covered with an enormous growth of 
 trees which must have stood for centuries. We admired 
 the astonishing transparency of the water on this shore, the 
 clean sands without any intermixture of mud, the pebbles 
 of almost chalky whiteness, and the stones in the edge of 
 the lake, to which adhered no slime, nor green moss, nor 
 aquatic weed. In the light-green depths, far down, but
 
 SHEBOYGAN. 257 
 
 distinctly seen, shoals of fish, some of them of large size, 
 came quietly playing about the huge hull of our steamer. 
 
 On the shore were two log-houses inhabited by woodmen, 
 one of whom drew a pail of water for the refreshment of 
 some of the passengers, from a well dug in the sand by his 
 door. " It is not so good as the lake water," said I, for I 
 saw it was not so clear. "It is colder, though," answered 
 the man ; " but I must say that there is no purer or sweeter 
 water in the world than that of our lake." 
 
 Next morning we were coasting the western shore of 
 Lake Michigan, a high bank presenting a long line of forest. 
 This was broken by the little town of Sheboygati, with its 
 light-house among the shrubs of the bank, its cluster of 
 houses just built, among which were two hotels, and its 
 single schooner lying at the mouth of a river. You 
 probably never heard of Sheboygan before ; it has just 
 sprung up in the forests 01 Wisconsin ; the leaves have 
 hardly withered on the trees that were felled to make room 
 for its houses ; but it will make a noise in the world yet. 
 " It is the prettiest place on the lake," said a passenger, 
 whom we left there, with three chubby and healthy 
 children, a lady who had already lived long enough at 
 Sheboygan to be proud of it. 
 
 Further on we came to Milwaukie, which is rapidly 
 
 becoming one of the great cities of the West. It lies within 
 
 a semicircle of green pastoral declivities sprinkled with 
 
 scattered trees, where the future streets are to be built. 
 
 22*
 
 258 L, E T T E R S O F A T R A V E L L E R . 
 
 We landed at a kind of wharf, formed by a long platform 
 of plauks laid on piles, under which the water flows, and 
 extending to some distance into the lake, ami along which 
 a car, running on a railway, took the passengers and their 
 baggage, and a part of the freight of the steamer to the 
 shore. 
 
 "Will you go up to town, sir?" was the question with 
 which I was saluted by the drivers of a throng of vehicles 
 of all sorts, as soon as I reached the land. They were 
 ranged along a firm sandy beach between the lake and the 
 river of Milwaukee. On one side the light-green waters of 
 the lake, Of crystalline clearness, came rolling in before the 
 wind, and on the other the dark thick waters of the river 
 lay still and stagnant in the sun. We did not go up to the 
 town, but we could see that it was compactly built, and in 
 one quarter nobly. A year or two since that quarter had 
 been destroyed by fire, and on the spot several large and 
 lofty warehouses had been erected, with an hotel of the 
 largest class. They were of a fine light-brown color, and 
 when I learned that they were of brick, I inquired of a by- 
 stander if that was the natural color of the material. 
 "They are Milwaukie brick/' he answered, "and neither 
 painted nor stained ; and are better brick besides than are 
 made at the eastward." Milwaukie is said to contain, at 
 present, about ten thousand inhabitants. Here the belt of 
 forest that borders the lake stretches back for several miles 
 to the prairies of Wisconsin. " The Germans," said a
 
 CHICAGO. 259 
 
 passenger, " are already in the woods hacking at the trees, 
 and will soon open the country to the prairies." 
 
 We made a short stop at Racine, prettily situated on the 
 bank among the scattered trees of an oak opening, and 
 another at Southport, a rival town eleven miles further 
 south. It is surprising how many persons travel, as way- 
 passengers, from place to place on the shores of these lakes. 
 Five years ago the number was very few, now they com- 
 prise, at least, half the number on board a steamboat plying 
 between Buffalo and Chicago. When all who travel from 
 Chicago to Buffalo shall cross the peninsula of Michigan by 
 the more expeditious route of the railway, the Chicago and 
 Buffalo line of steamers, which its owners claim to be the 
 finest line in the world, will still be crowded with people 
 taken up or to be set down at some of the intermediate 
 towns. 
 
 When we awoke the next morning our steamer was at 
 Chicago. Any one who had seen this place, as I had done 
 five years ago, when it contained less than five thousand 
 people, would find some difficulty in recognizing it now 
 when its population is more than fifteen thousand. It has 
 its long rows of warehouses and shops, its bustling streets ; 
 its huge steamers, and crowds of lake-craft, lying at the 
 wharves ; its villas embowered with trees ; and its suburbs, 
 consisting of the cottages of German and Irish laborers, 
 stretching northward along the lake, and westward into 
 the prairies, and widening every day. The slovenly and raw
 
 260 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER 
 
 appearance of a new settlement begins in many parts to dis- 
 appear. The Germans have already a garden in a little 
 grove for their holidays, as in their towns in the old country, 
 and the Roman Catholics have just finished a college for 
 the education of those who are to proselyte the West. 
 
 The day was extremely hot, and at sunset we took a 
 little drive along the belt of firm sand which forms the bor- 
 der of the lake. Light-green waves came to the shore in 
 long lines, with a crest of foam, like a miniature surf, rolling 
 in from that inland ocean, and as. they dashed against the 
 legs of the horses, and the wheels of our carriage, the air 
 that played over them was exceedingly refreshing. 
 
 When we set out the following day in the stage-coach for 
 Peru, I was surprised to see how the settlement of Chicago 
 had extended westward into the open country. " Three 
 years ago," said a traveller in the coach, " it was thought 
 that this prairie could neither be inhabited nor cultivated. 
 It is so level and so little elevated, that for weeks its surface 
 would remain covered with water ; but we have found that 
 as it is intersected with roads, the water either runs off in 
 the ditches of the highways, or is absorbed into the sand 
 which lies below this surface of dark vegetable mould, and 
 it is now, as you perceive, beginning to be covered with 
 habitations." 
 
 If you ever go by the stage-coach from Chicago to Peru, 
 on the Illinois river, do not believe the glozing tongue of 
 the agent who tells you that you will make the journey in
 
 A PLUNGE IN THE CANAL. '2(31 
 
 sixteen hours. Double the number, and you will be nearer 
 the truth. A violent rain fell in the course of the morning ; 
 the coach was heavily loaded, nine passengers within, and 
 three without, besides the driver ; the day was hot, and the 
 horses dragged us slowly through the black mud, which 
 seemed to possess the consistency and tenacity of sticking- 
 plaster. We had a dinner of grouse, which here in certain 
 seasons, are sold for three cents apiece, at a little tavern on 
 the road ; we had passed the long green mound which bears 
 the name of Mount Joliet, and now, a little before sunset, 
 having travelled somewhat less than fifty miles, we were 
 about to cross the channel of the Illinois canal for the 
 second or third time. 
 
 There had once been a bridge at the crossing-place, but 
 the water had risen in the canal, and the timbers and 
 planks had floated away, leaving only the stones which 
 formed its foundation. In attempting to ford the channel 
 the blundering driver came too near the bridge ; the coach- 
 wheels on one side rose upon the stones, and on the other 
 sank deep into the mud, and we were overturned in an 
 instant. The outside passengers were pitched head-fore- 
 most into the canal, and four of those within were lying 
 under water. We extricated ourselves as well as we could, 
 the men waded out, the women were carried, and when 
 we got on shore it was found that, although drenched with 
 water and plastered with mud, nobody was either drowned 
 or hint.
 
 262 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 A farm wagon passing at the moment, forded the canal 
 without- the least difficulty, and taking the female passen- 
 gers, conveyed them to the next farm-house, about a mile 
 distant. We got out the baggage, which was completely 
 soaked with water, set up the carriage on its wheels, in 
 doing which we had to stand waist high in the mud and 
 water, and reached the hospitable farm-house about half- 
 past nine o'clock. Its owner was an emigrant from Kinder- 
 hook, on the Hudson, who claimed to be a Dutchman and a 
 Christian, and I have no reason to doubt that he was either. 
 His kind family made us free of their house, and we passed 
 the night in drying ourselves, and getting our baggage ready 
 to proceed the next day. 
 
 We travelled in a vehicle built after the fashion of the 
 English post-coach, set high upon springs, which is the most 
 absurd kind of carriage for the roads of this country that 
 could be devised. Those stage-wagons which ply on Long 
 Island, in one of which you sometimes see about a score of 
 Quakers and Quakeresses, present a much better model. 
 Besides being tumbled into the canal, we narrowly escaped 
 being overturned in a dozen other places, where the mud 
 was deep or the roads uneven. 
 
 In my journey the next day, I was struck with the dif- 
 ference which five years had made in the aspect of the 
 country. Frame or brick houses in many places had 
 taken the places of log-cabins ; the road for long distances 
 now passed between fences, the broad prairie, inclosed, was
 
 ECT OF THE COUNTRY. 263 
 
 turned into immense fields of maize, oats, and wheat, and 
 was spotted here and there with young orchards, or little 
 groves, and clumps of bright-green locust-trees, and where 
 the prairie remained open, it was now depastured by large 
 herds of cattle, its herbage shortened, and its flowers less 
 numerous. The wheat harvest this year is said to have 
 failed in northern Illinois. The rust has attacked the fields 
 which promised the fairest, and they are left unreaped, to 
 feed the quails and the prairie-hens. 
 
 Another tedious day's journey, over a specially bad road, 
 brought us to Peru a little before midnight, and we-passed 
 the rest of the night at an inn just below the bank, on the 
 margin of the river, in listening to the mosquitoes. A Mas- 
 sachusetts acquaintance the next morning furnished us with 
 a comfortable conveyance to this pleasant neighborhood.
 
 264 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 RETURN TO CHICAGO. 
 
 CHICAGO, August 8, 1846. 
 
 You may be certain that in returning to this place from 
 Princeton I did not take the stage coach. I had no fancy 
 for another plunge into the Illinois canal, nor for being 
 overturned upon the prairies in one of those vehicles which 
 seem to be set high in the air in order they may more easily 
 lose their balance. We procured a private conveyance and 
 made the journey in three days three days of extreme 
 heat, which compelled us to travel slowly. The quails, 
 which had repaired for shade to the fences by the side of the 
 road, ran from them into the open fields, as we passed, with 
 their beaks open, as if panting with the excessive heat. 
 
 The number of these birds at the present time is very 
 great. They swarm in the stubble fields and in the prairies, 
 and manifest little alarm at the approach of man. Still 
 more numerous, it appears to me, are the grouse, or prairie- 
 hens, as they call them here, which we frequently saw walk- 
 ing leisurely, at our approach, into the grass from the road, 
 whither they resorted for the sake of scattered grains of oats 
 or wheat that had fallen from the loaded wagons going to
 
 PRAIRIE-HENS. 265 
 
 Chicago. At this season they are full fed and fearless, and 
 fly heavily when they are started. We frequently saw 
 them feeding at a very short distance from people at work 
 in the fields. In some neighborhoods they seem almost as 
 numerous as fowls in a poultry-yard. A settler goes out 
 with his gun, and in a quarter of an hour brings in half a 
 dozen birds which in the New York market would cost 
 two dollars a pair. At one place where we stopped to dine, 
 they gave us a kind of pie which seemed to me an appro- 
 priate dessert for a dinner of prairie-hens. It was made of 
 the fruit of the western crab-apple, and was not unpalatable. 
 The wild apple of this country is a small tree growing in 
 thickets, natural orchards. In spring it is profusely covered 
 with light-pink blossoms, which have the odor of violets, 
 and at this season it is thickly hung with fruit of the color 
 of its leaves. 
 
 Another wild fruit of the country is the plum, which grows 
 in thickets, plum-patches, as they are called, where they 
 are produced in great abundance, and sometimes, I am told, 
 of excellent quality. In a drive which I took the other day 
 from Princeton to the alluvial lands of the Bureau River, I 
 passed by a declivity where the shrubs were red with the 
 fruit, just beginning to ripen. The slope was sprinkled by 
 them with crimson spots, and the odor of the fruit was 
 quite agreeable. I have eaten worse plums than these 
 from our markets, but I hear that there is a later variety, 
 larger and of a yellow color, which is finer. 
 23
 
 266 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 I spoke iii my last of the change caused iii the atpict of 
 the country by cultivation. Now and then, however, you 
 meet with views which seem to have lost nothing of their 
 original beauty. One such we stopped to look at from an 
 eminence in a broad prairie in Lee county, between Knox 
 Grove and Pawpaw Grove. The road passes directly over 
 the eminence, which is round and regular in form, with a 
 small level on the summit, and bears the name of the 
 Mound. On each side the view extends to a prodigious dis- 
 tance ; the prairies sink into basins of immense breadth and 
 rise into swells of vast extent ; dark groves stand in the 
 light-green waste of grass, and a dim blue border, ap- 
 parently of distant woods, encircles the horizon. To give 
 a pastoral air to the scene, large herds of cattle were gra- 
 zing at no great distance from us. 
 
 I mentioned in my last letter that the wheat crop of 
 northern Illinois has partially failed this year. But this 
 is not the greatest calamity which has befallen this part 
 of the country. The season is uncommonly sickly. We 
 passed the first night of our journey at Pawpaw Grove so 
 named from the number of pawpaw-trees which grow in it, 
 but which here scarcely find the summer long enough to 
 perfect their fruit. The place has not had the reputation of 
 being unhealthy, but now there was scarce a family in the 
 neighborhood in which one or more was not ill with an in- 
 termittent or a bilious fever. At the inn where we stopped, 
 the landlady, a stout Pennsylvania woman, was just so
 
 A SICKLY SEASON. 267 
 
 far recovered as to be able, as she informed us, " to poke 
 about ;" and her daughter, a strapping lass, went out to pass 
 the night at the bedside of one of the numerous sick neigh- 
 bors. The sickness was ascribed by the settlers to the 
 extremely dry and hot weather following a rainy June. At 
 almost every place where we stopped we heard similar 
 accounts. Pale and hollow-eyed people were lounging 
 about. " Is the place unhealthy," I asked one of them. 
 " /reckon so," he answered ; and his looks showed that he 
 had sufficient reason. At Aurora, where we passed the 
 second night, a busy little village, with mills and manufac- 
 tories, on the Fox River, which here rushes swiftly over a 
 stony bed, they confessed to the fever and ague. At Na- 
 perville, pleasantly situated among numerous groves and 
 little prairies swelling into hills, we heard that the season 
 was the most sickly the inhabitants had known. Here, at 
 Chicago, which boasts, and with good reason, I believe, of 
 its healthy site, dysenteries and bilious attacks are just 
 now very common, with occasional cases of fever. 
 
 It is a common remark in this country, that the first culti- 
 vation of the earth renders any neighborhood more or less 
 unhealthy. " Nature," said a western man to me, some 
 years since, " resents the violence done her, and punishes 
 those who first break the surface of the earth with the 
 plough." The beautiful Rock River district, with its rapid 
 stream, its noble groves, its banks disposed in natural ter- 
 races, with fresh springs gushing at their foot, and airy
 
 268 LETTERS OF A TUAVEL.hi.il. 
 
 prairies stretching away from their summits, was esteemed 
 one of the most healthy countries iu the world as long as it 
 had but few inhabitants. With the breaking up of the soil 
 came in bilious fever and intermittents. A few years of 
 cultivation will render the country more healthy, and these 
 diseases will probably disappear, as they have done in some 
 parts of western New York. I can remember the time 
 when the " Genesee Country," as it was called, was thought 
 quite a sickly region a land just in the skirts of the shadow 
 of death. It is now as healthy, I believe, as any part of the 
 state.
 
 IMSA I'POrXTMENT. 2G9 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 
 VOYAGE TO SAULT STE. MARIF 
 
 SAULT STE. MARIE, August 13, 1846. 
 
 WHEN we left Chicago in the steamer, the other morning, 
 all the vessels in the port had their flags displayed at half- 
 mast in token of dissatisfaction with the fate of the harbor 
 bill. You may not recollect that the bill set apart half a 
 million of dollars for the construction or improvement of 
 various harbors of the lakes, and authorized the deepening 
 of the passages through the St. Clair Flats, now intricate 
 and not quite safe, by which these bulky steamers make 
 their way from the lower lakes to the upper. The people 
 of the lake region had watched the progress of the bill 
 through Congress with much, interest and anxiety, and 
 congratulated each other when at length it received a 
 majority of votes in both houses. The President's veto has 
 turned these congratulations into expressions of disappoint- 
 ment which are heard on all sides, sometimes expressed 
 with a good deal of energy. But, although the news of the 
 veto reached Chicago two or three days before we left the 
 place, nobody had seen the message in which it was con- 
 tained. Perhaps the force of the President's reasonings will 
 23*
 
 27C LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 reconcile the minds of people here to the disappointment of 
 their hopes. 
 
 It was a hot August morning as the steamer Wisconsin, 
 an unwieldy bulk, dipping and bobbing upon the small 
 waves, and trembling at every stroke of the engine, swept 
 out into the lake. The southwest wind during the warmer 
 portion of the summer months is a sort of Sirocco in Illi- 
 nois. It blows with considerable strength, but passing 
 over an immense extent of heated plains it brings no cool- 
 ness. It was such an air that accompanied us on our way 
 north from Chicago ; and as the passengers huddled into 
 the shady places outside of the state-rooms on the upper 
 deck, I thought of the flocks of quails I had seen gasping in 
 the shadow of the rail-fences on the prairies. 
 
 People here expose themselves to a draught of air with 
 much less scruple than they do in the Atlantic states. 
 " We do not take cold by it," they said to me, when I saw 
 them sitting in a current of wind, after perspiring freely. 
 If they do not take cold, it is odds but they take something 
 else, a fever perhaps, or what is called a bilious attack. 
 The vicissitudes of climate at Chicago and its neighborhood 
 are more sudden and extreme than with us, but the in- 
 habitants say that they are not often the cause of catarrhs, 
 as in the Atlantic states. Whatever may be the cause, I 
 have met with no person since I came to the West, who 
 appeared to have a catarrh. From this region perhaps 
 will hereafter proceed singers with the clearest pipes.
 
 LITTLE FORT. 271 
 
 Some forty miles beyond Chicago we stopped for half an 
 hour at Little Fort, one of those flourishing little towns 
 which are springing up on the lake shore, to besiege future 
 Congresses for money to build their harbors. This settle 
 ment has started up in the woods within the last three or 
 four years, and its cluster of roofs, two of the broadest of 
 which cover respectable-looking hotels, already makes a 
 considerable figure when viewed from the lake. We passed 
 to the shore over a long platform of planks framed upon 
 two rows of posts or piles planted in the sandy shallows. 
 " We make a port in this manner on any part of the 
 western shore of the lake," said a passenger, " and con- 
 venient ports they are, except in very high winds. On the 
 eastern shore, the coast of Michigan, they have not this 
 advantage ; the ice and the northwest winds would rend 
 such a wharf as this in pieces. On this side too, the water 
 of the lake, except when an east wind blows, is smoother 
 than on the Michigan coast, and the steamers therefore keep 
 under the shelter of this bank." 
 
 At South/port, still further north, in the new state of 
 Wisconsin, we procured a kind of omnibus and were driven 
 over the town, which, for a new settlement, is uncommonly 
 pretty. We crossed a narrow inlet of the lake, a creek in 
 the proper sense of the term, a winding channel, with water 
 in the midst, and a rough growth of water-flags and sedges 
 en the sides. Among them grew the wild rice, its bending 
 spikes, heavy with grain, almost ready for the harvest.
 
 272 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 " In the northern marshes of Wisconsin," said one of our 
 party, " I have seen the Indian women gathering this grain. 
 Two of them take their places in a canoe ; one of them 
 seated in the stern pushes it with her paddle through the 
 shallows of standing water, while the other, sitting forward, 
 bends the heads of the rice-plant over the sides of the canoe, 
 strikes them with a little stick and causes the grain to fall 
 within it. In this way are collected large quantities, 
 which serve as the winter food of the Menomonies, and 
 ome other tribes." The grain of the wild rice, I was told, 
 is of a dark color, but palatable as food. The gentleman 
 who gave me this account had made several attempts to 
 procure it in a fit state to be sown, for Judge Buel, of 
 Albany, who was desirous of trying its cultivation on the 
 grassy shallows of our eastern rivers. He was not success- 
 iul at first, because, as soon as the grain is collected, it is 
 kiln-dried by the Indians, which destroys the vegetative 
 principle. At length, however, he obtained and sent on a 
 small quantity of the fresh rice, but it reached Judge Buel 
 only a short time before his death, and the experiment 
 probably has not been made. 
 
 On one side of the creek was a sloping bank of soms 
 height, where tall old forest trees were growing. Among 
 these stood three houses, just built, and the space between 
 them and the water was formed into gardens with regular 
 terraces faced with turf. Another turn of our vehicle 
 brought us into a public square, where the oaks of the origi-
 
 SOUTHPORT. 273 
 
 nal forest were left standing, a miniature of the Champs 
 Elysees, surrounding which, among the trees, stand many 
 neat houses, some of them built of a drab-colored brick. Back 
 of the town, we had a glimpse of a prairie approaching within 
 half a mile of the river. We were next driven through a 
 street of shops, and thence to our steamer. The streets of 
 Southport are beds of sand, and one of the passengers who 
 professed to speak from some experience, described the place 
 as haunted by myriads of fleas. 
 
 It was not till about one o'clock of the second night after 
 leaving Chicago, that we landed at Mackinaw, and after an 
 infinite deal of trouble in getting our baggage together, and 
 keeping it together, we were driven to the Mission House, a 
 plain, comfortable old wooden house, built thirty or forty 
 years since, by a missionary society, and now turned into an 
 hotel. Beside the road, close to the water's edge, stood 
 several wigwams of the Potawottamies, pyramids of poles 
 wrapped around with rush matting, each containing a 
 family asleep. The place was crowded with people on 
 their way to the mining region of Lake Superior, or return- 
 ing from it, and we were obliged to content ourselves with 
 narrow accommodations for the night. 
 
 At half-past seven the next morning we were on our way 
 to the Sault Ste. Marie, in the little steamer General Scott. 
 The wind was blowing fresh, and a gpore of persons who 
 had intended to visit the Sault were withheld by the fear of 
 seasickness, so that half a dozen of us had the steamer to
 
 274 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ourselves. In three or four hours we found ourselves gli 
 ding out of the lake, through smooth water, between two 
 low points of land covered with firs and pines into the west 
 strait. We passed Drummond's Island, and then coasted 
 St. Joseph's Island, on the woody shore of which I was 
 shown a solitary house. There I was told lives a long- 
 nosed Englishman, a half-pay officer, with two wives, 
 sisters, each the mother of a numerous offspring. This 
 English polygamist has been more successful in seeking 
 solitude than in avoiding notoriety. The very loneliness of 
 his habitation on the shore causes it to be remarked, and 
 there is not a passenger who makes the voyage to the Sault, 
 to whom his house is not pointed out, and his story related. 
 It was hinted to me that he had a third wife in Toronto, 
 but I have my private doubts of this part of the story, and 
 suspect that it was thrown in to increase my wonder. 
 
 Beyond the island of St. Joseph we passed several islets 
 of rock with fir-trees growing from the clefts. Here, in 
 summer, I was told, the Indians often set up their wigwams, 
 and subsist by fishing. There were none in sight as we 
 passed, but we frequently saw on either shore the skeletons 
 of the Chippewa habitations. These consist, not like those 
 of the Potawottamies, of a circle of sticks placed in the form 
 of a cone, but of slender poles bent into circles, so as to 
 make an almost regular hemisphere, over which, while it 
 serves as a dwelling, birch-bark and mats of bulrushes are 
 thrown.
 
 MUDDY LAKE. 275 
 
 On the western side of the passage, opposite to St. Jo- 
 seph's Island, stretches the long coast of Sugar Island, 
 luxuriant with an extensive forest of the sugar-maple. 
 Here the Indians manufacture maple-sugar in the spring. 
 I inquired concerning their agriculture. 
 
 " They plant no corn nor squashes," said a passenger, 
 who had resided for some time at the Sault ; " they will not 
 ripen in this climate ; but they plant potatoes in the sugar- 
 bash, and dig them when the spring opens. They have no 
 other agriculture ; they plant no beans as I believe the In- 
 dians do elsewhere." 
 
 A violent squall of wind and rain fell upon the water 
 just as we entered that broad part of the passage which 
 bears the name of Muddy Lake. In ordinary weather the 
 waters are here perfectly pure and translucent, but now 
 their agitation brought up the loose earth from the shallow 
 bottom, and made them as turbid as the Missouri, with the 
 exception of a narrow channel in the midst where the cur- 
 rent runs deep. Rocky hills now began to show themselves 
 to the east of us ; we passed the sheet of water known by 
 the name of Lake George, and came to a little river which 
 appeared to have its source at the foot of a precipitous ridge 
 on the British side. It is called Garden River, and a little 
 beyond it, on the same side, lies Garden Village, inhabited 
 by the Indians. It was now deserted, the Indians havmg 
 gone to attend a great assemblage of their race, held on one 
 of the Manitoulin Islands, where they are to receive their
 
 276 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 annual payments from the British government. Here were 
 log-houses, and skeletons of wigwams, from which the 
 coverings had been taken. An Indian, when he travels, 
 takes with him his family and his furniture, the matting for 
 his wigwam, his implements for hunting and fishing, his 
 dogs and cats, and finds a home wherever he finds poles for 
 a dwelling. A tornado had recently passed over the Garden 
 "Village. The numerous girdled-trees which stood on its 
 little clearing, had been twisted off midway or near the 
 ground by the wind, and the roofs had, in some instances, 
 been lifted from the cabins. 
 
 At length, after a winding voyage of sixty miles, between 
 wild banks of forest, in some places smoking with fires, in 
 some looking as if never violated either by fire or steel, with 
 huge carcasses of trees mouldering on the ground, and vene- 
 rable trees standing over them, bearded with streaming 
 moss, we came in sight of the white rapids of the Sault 
 Sainte Marie. We passed the humble cabins of the half- 
 breeds on either shore, with here and there a round wigwam 
 near the water ; we glided by a white chimney standing 
 behind a screen of fir-trees, which, we were told, had be- 
 longed to the dwelling of Tanner, who himself set fire to his 
 house the other day, before murdering Mr. Schoolcraft, and 
 in a few minutes were at the wharf of this remotest settle- 
 ment of the northwest.
 
 THE COPPER MINES. 277 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 
 FALLS OF THE ST. MARY. 
 
 SAULT STK MARIE, August 15, 1846. 
 
 A CROWD had assembled on the wharf of the American 
 village at the Sault Sainte Marie, popularly called the Soo, 
 to witness our landing ; men of all ages and complexions, 
 in hats and caps of every form and fashion, with beards of 
 every length and color, among which I discovered two or 
 three pairs of mustaches. It was a party of copper-mine 
 speculators, just flitting from Copper Harbor and Eagle 
 River, mixed with a few Indian and half-breed inhabitants 
 of the place. Among them I saw a face or two quite 
 familiar in Wall-street. 
 
 I had a conversation with an intelligent geologist, who 
 had just returned from an examination of the copper mines 
 of Lake "Superior. He had pitched his tent in the fields 
 near the village, choosing to pass the night in this manner, 
 as he had done for several weeks past, rather than in a 
 crowded inn. In regard to the mines, he told me that the 
 external tokens, the surface indications, as he called them, 
 were more favorable than those of any copper mines in the 
 world. They are still, however, mere surface indications ; 
 24
 
 278 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER.. 
 
 the veins had not been worked to that depth which was 
 necessary to determine their value with any certainty. The 
 mixture of silver with the copper he regarded as not giving 
 any additional value to the mines, inasmuch as it is only 
 occasional and rare. Sometimes, he told me, a mass of 
 metal would be discovered of the size of a man's fist, or 
 smaller, composed of copper and silver, both metals closely 
 united, yet both perfectly pure and unalloyed with each 
 other. The masses of virgin copper found in beds of gravel 
 are, however, the most remarkable feature of these mines. 
 One of them which has been discovered this summer, but 
 which has not been raised, is estimated to weigh twenty 
 tons. I saw in the propeller Independence, by which this 
 party from the copper mines was brought down to the 
 Sault, one of these masses, weighing seventeen hundred and 
 fifty pounds, with the appearance of having once been fluid 
 with heat. It was so pure that it might have been cut in 
 pieces by cold steel and stamped at once into coin. 
 
 Two or three years ago this settlement of the Sault de Ste. 
 Marie, was but a military post of the United States, in the 
 midst of a village of Indians and half-breeds. There were, 
 perhaps, a dozen white residents in the place, including the 
 family of the Baptist Missionary and the agent of the Amer- 
 ican Fur Company, which had removed its station hither 
 from Mackinaw, and built its warehouse on this river. But 
 since the world has begun to talk of the copper mines of 
 Lake Superior, settlers flock into the place ; carpenters are
 
 DRUNKEN INDIANS. 279 
 
 busy in knocking up houses with all haste on the govern- 
 ment lands, and large warehouses have been built ipon 
 piles driven into the shallows of the St. Mary. Five 
 years hence, the primitive character of the place will be- 
 altogether lost, and it will have become a bustling Yanket 
 town, resembling the other new settlements of the West 
 
 Here the navigation from lake to lake is interrupted by 
 the falls or rapids of the river St. Mary, from which the 
 place receives its name. The crystalline waters of Lake 
 Superior on their way through the channel of this river to 
 Lake Huron, here rush, and foam, and roar, for about three 
 quarters of a mile, over rocks and large stones. 
 
 Close to the rapids, with birchen-canoes moored in little 
 inlets, is a village of the Indians, consisting of log-cabins 
 and round wigwams, on a shrubby level, reserved to them 
 by the government. The morning after our arrival, we 
 went through this village in search of a canoe and a couple 
 of Indians, to make the descent of the rapids, which is one 
 of the first things that a visitor to the Sault must think of. 
 In the first wigwam that we entered were three men and two 
 women as drunk as men and women could well be. The 
 squaws were speechless and motionless, too far -gone, as it 
 seemed, to raise either hand or foot ; the men though appa- 
 rently unable to rise were noisy, and one of them, who 
 called himself a half-breed and spoke a few words of En- 
 glish, seemed disposed to quarrel. Before the next door was 
 a woman busy in washing, who spoke a little English. 

 
 280 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 " The old man out there," she said, in. answer to our ques- 
 tions, " can paddle canoe, but he is very drunk, he can not 
 do it to-day." 
 
 " Is there nobody else," we asked, " who will take us 
 down the falls ?" 
 
 " I don't know ; the Indians all drunk to-day." 
 
 " Why is that ? why are they all drunk to-day ?" 
 
 " Oh, the whisky," answered the woman, giving us to 
 understand, that when an Indian could get whisky, he got 
 drunk as a matter of course. 
 
 By this time the man had come up, and after addressing 
 us with the customary " bon jour" manifested a curiosity 
 to know the nature of our errand. The woman explained 
 it to him in English. 
 
 " Oh, messieurs, je vous servirai," said he, for he spoke 
 Canadian French ; " I go, I go." 
 
 We told him that we doubted whether he was quite sober 
 enough. 
 
 " Oh, messieurs, je suis parfaitement capable first rate, 
 first rate." 
 
 We shook him ofF as soon as we could, but not till after 
 he had time to propose that we should wait till the next 
 day, and to utter the maxim, " Whisky, good too much 
 whisky, no good." 
 
 In a log-cabin, which some half-breeds were engaged in 
 building, we found two men who were easily persuaded to 
 leave their work and pilot us over the rapids. They took
 
 DESCENT OF THE RAPIDS. 281 
 
 one of the canoes which lay in a little inlet ck e at hand, 
 and entering it, pushed it with their long poles up the stream 
 in the edge of the rapids. Arriving at the head of the 
 rapids, they took in our party, which consisted of five, and 
 we began the descent. At each end of the canoe sat a half- 
 breed, with a paddle, to guide it while the current drew us 
 rapidly down among the agitated waters. It was surprising 
 with what dexterity they kept us in the smoothest part of 
 the water, seeming to know the way down as well as if it 
 had been a beaten path in the fields. 
 
 At one time we would seem to be directly approaching a 
 rock against which the waves were dashing, at another to 
 be descending into a hollow of the waters in which our 
 canoe would be inevitably filled, but a single stroke of the 
 paddle given by the man at the prow put us safely by the 
 seeming danger. So rapid was the descent, that almost as 
 soon as we descried the apparent peril, it was passed. In 
 less than ten minutes, as it seemed to me, we had left the 
 roar of the rapids behind us, and were gliding over the 
 smooth water at their foot. 
 
 In the afternoon we engaged a half-breed and his brother 
 to take us over to the Canadian shore. His wife, a slender 
 young woman with a lively physiognomy, not easily to be 
 distinguished from a French woman of her class, accompa- 
 nied us in the canoe with her little boy. The birch-bark 
 canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful 
 and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.
 
 282 LETTERS OF A TK \VELLER. 
 
 We were in one of the finest that float on St. Mary's river, 
 and when I looked at its delicate ribs, mere shavings of 
 white cedar, yet firm enough for the purpose the thin 
 broud laths of the same wood with which these are inclosed, 
 and the broad sheets of birch-bark, impervious to water, 
 which shv-athed the outsiJe, all firmly sewed together by 
 the tough dender roots of the fir-tree, and when I consid- 
 ered its extreme lightness and the grace of its form, I could 
 not but wonder at the ingenuity of those who had invented 
 so beautiful a combination of ship-building and basket-work. 
 " It cost me twenty dollars," said the half-breed, " and I 
 would not lake thirty for it." 
 
 We were ferried over the waves where they dance at the 
 foot of the rapids. At this place large quantities of white- 
 fish, one of the most delicate kinds known on our continent, 
 are caught by the Indians, in their season, with scoop-nets. 
 The whites are about to interfere with this occupation of the 
 Indians, and I saw the other day a seine of prodigious 
 length constructing, with which it is intended to sweep 
 nearly half the river at once. " They will take a hun- 
 dred barrels a day," said an inhabitant of the place. 
 
 On the British side, the rapids divide themselves into half 
 a dozen noisy brooks, which roar round little islands, and in 
 the boiling pools of which the speckled trout is caught with 
 the rod and line. We landed at the warehouses of the 
 Hudson Bay Company, where the goods intended for the 
 Indian trade are deposited, and the furs brought from the
 
 CANADIAN HALF-i REEDS. 283 
 
 northwest are collected. They are surrounded by a massive 
 stockade, within which lives the agent of the Company, the 
 walks are graveled and well-kept, and the whole bears the 
 marks of British solidity and precision. A quantity of 
 furs had been brought in the day before, but they were 
 locked up in the warehouse, and all was now quiet and 
 silent. The agent was absent ; a half-breed nurse stood 
 at the door with his child, and a Scotch servant, apparently 
 with nothing to do, was lounging in the court inclosed by 
 the stockade ; in short, there was less bustle about this 
 centre of one of the most powerful trading-companies 
 in the world, than about one of our farm-houses. 
 
 Crossing the bay, at the bottom of which these buildings 
 stand, we landed at a Canadian village of half-breeds. 
 Here were one or two wigwams and a score of log-cabins, 
 some of which we entered. In one of them we were re- 
 ceived with great appearance of deference by a woman of 
 decidedly Indian features, but light-complexioned, barefoot, 
 with blue embroidered leggings falling over her ankles and 
 sweeping the floor, the only peculiarity of Indian costume 
 about her. The house was as clean as scouring could make 
 it, and her two little children, with little French physiogno- 
 mies, were fairer than many children of the European race. 
 These people are descended from the French voyageurs and 
 settlers on one side ; they speak Canadian French more or 
 less, but generally employ the Chippewa language in their 
 intercourse with each other.
 
 284 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Near at hand was a burial ground, \K 'th graves of the 
 Indians and half-breeds, which we entered. Some of the 
 graves were covered with a low roof of cedar-bark, others 
 with a wooden box ; over others was placed a little house 
 like a dog-kennel, except that it had no door, others were 
 covered with little log-cabins. One of these was of such a 
 size that a small Indian family would have found it amply 
 large for their accommodation. It is a practice among the 
 savages to protect the graves of the dead from the wolves, 
 by stakes driven into the ground and meeting at the top like 
 the rafters of a roof ; and perhaps when the Indian or half- 
 breed exchanged his wigwam for a log-cabin, his respect for 
 the dead led him to make the same improvement in the ar- 
 chitecture of their narrow houses. At the head of most of 
 these monuments stood wooden crosses, for the population 
 here is principally Roman Catholic, some of them inscribed 
 with the names of the dead, not always accurately spelled. 
 
 Not far from the church stands a building, regarded by 
 the half-breeds as a wonder of architecture, the stone house, 
 la maison de pierre, as they call it, a large mansion built 
 of stone by a former agent of the Northwest or Hudson 
 Bay Company, who lived here in a kind of grand manorial 
 style, with his servants and horses and hounds, and gave 
 hospitable dinners in those days when it was the fashion for 
 the host to do his best to drink his guests under the table. 
 The old splendor of the place has departed, its gardens are 
 overgrown with grass, the barn has been blown down, the
 
 TANNER THE MURDERER. 285 
 
 kitchen in which so many grand dinners were cooked con- 
 sumed by fire, and the mansion, with its broken and patch- 
 ed windows, is now occupied by a Scotch farmer of the 
 name of Wilson. 
 
 We climbed a ridge of hills back of the house to the 
 church of the Episcopal Mission, built a few years ago as 
 a place of worship for the Chippewas, who have since been 
 removed by the government. It stands remote from any 
 habitation, with three or four Indian graves near it, and we 
 found it filled with hay. The view from its door is uncom- 
 monly beautiful ; the broad St. Mary lying below, with its 
 bordering villages and woody valley, its white rapids and 
 its rocky islands, picturesque with the pointed summits of 
 the fir-tree. To the northwest the sight followed the river 
 to the horizon, where it issued from Lake Superior, and I 
 was told that in clear weather one might discover, from the 
 spot on which I stood, the promontory of Gros Cap, which 
 guards the outlet of that mighty lake. 
 
 The country around was smoking in a dozen places with 
 fires in the woods. When I returned I asked who kindled 
 them. " It is old Tanner," said one, " the man who 
 murdered Schoolcraft." There is great fear here of Tan- 
 ner, who is thought to be lurking yet in the neighborhood. 
 I was going the other day to look at a view of the place 
 from an eminence, reached by a road passing through a 
 swamp, full of larches and firs. " Are you not afraid of 
 Tanner?" I was asked. Mrs. Schoolcraft, since the
 
 286 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 assassination of her husband, has come to live in the fort, 
 which consists of harracks protected hy a high stockade. It 
 is rumored that Tanner has. been seen skulking about within 
 a day or two, and yesterday a place was discovered which 
 is supposed to have served for his retreat. It was a hollow, 
 thickly surrounded by shrubs, which some person had 
 evidently made his habitation for a considerable time. 
 There is a dispute whether this man is insane or not, but 
 there is no dispute as to his malignity. He has threatened 
 to take the life of Mr. Bingham, the venerable Baptist 
 missionary at this place, and as long as it is not certain that 
 he has left the neighborhood a feeling of insecurity prevails. 
 Nevertheless, as I know no reason why this man should 
 take it into his head to shoot me, I go whither I list, without 
 the fear of Tanner before my eyes.
 
 STEAMEU DRAGGED OVER THE TOUT AGE. 287 
 
 LETTER XXXVI. 
 
 INDIANS AT THE SAULT. 
 
 MACKINAW, Auyust 19, 1846. 
 
 WE were detained two days longer than we expected at 
 the Sault de Ste. Marie, by the failure of the steamer Gen- 
 eral Scott to depart at the proper time. If we could have 
 found a steamer going up Lake Superior, we should most 
 certainly have quieted our impatience at this delay, by em- 
 barking on board of her. But the only steamer in the 
 river St. Mary, above the falls, which is a sort of arm 
 or harbor of Lake -Superior, was the Julia Palmer, and she 
 was lying aground in the pebbles and sand of the shore. 
 She had just been dragged ever the portage which passes 
 round the falls, where a broad path, with hillocks flattened, 
 and trunks hewn off close to the surface, gave tokens of the 
 vast bulk that had been moved over it. The moment she 
 touched the water, she stuck fast, and the engineer was 
 obliged to go to Cleveland for additional machinery to move 
 her forward. He had just arrived with the proper appa- 
 ratus, and the steamer had begun to work its way slowly 
 into the deep water ; but some days must yet elapse before 
 she can float, and after that the engine must be put together.
 
 288 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Had the Julia Palmer been ready to proceed up the lake, 
 I should certainly have seized the occasion to be present at 
 an immense assemblage of Indians on Madeleine Island. 
 This island lies far in the lake, near its remoter extremity. 
 On one of its capes, called La Pointe, is a missionary station 
 and an Indian village, and here the savages are gathering 
 in vast numbers to receive their annual payments from the 
 United States. 
 
 " There were already two thousand of them at La Pointe 
 when I left the place," said an intelligent gentleman who 
 had just returned from the lake, " and they were starving 
 If an Indian family has a stock of provisions on hand 
 sufficient for a month, it is sure to eat it up in a week, and 
 the Indians at La Pointe had already consumed all they had 
 provided, and were living on what they could shoot in the 
 woods, or get by fishing in the lake." 
 
 I inquired of him the probable number of Indians the oc- 
 casion would bring together. 
 
 " Seven thousand," he answered. " Among them are 
 some of the wildest tribes on the continent, whose habits 
 have been least changed by the neighborhood of the white 
 man. A new tribe will come in who never before would 
 have any transactions with the government. They are 
 called the Pillagers, a fierce and warlike race, proud of 
 their independence, and, next to the Blackfeet and the 
 Camanches, the most ferocious and formidable tribe withip 
 the territory of the United States. They inhabit the
 
 INDIANS AT MADELEINE ISLAND. 289 
 
 country about Red River and the head-waters of the 
 Mississippi." 
 
 I was further told that some of the Indian traders had 
 expressed their determination to disregard the law, set up 
 their tents at La Pointe, and sell spirits to the savages. 
 " If they do, knives will be drawn," was the common saying 
 at the Sault ; and at the Fort, I learned that a requisition 
 had arrived from La Pointe for twenty men to enforce the 
 laAv and prevent disorder. " We can not send half the num- 
 ber," said the officer who commanded at the Fort, " we 
 have but twelve men in all ; the rest of the garrison have 
 been ordered to the Mexican frontier, and it is necessary 
 that somebody should remain to guard the public property." 
 The call for troops has since been transferred to the garrison 
 at Mackinaw, from which they will be sent. 
 
 I learned afterward from an intelligent lady of the half- 
 caste at the Sault, that letters had arrived, from which it 
 appeared that more than four thousand Indians were already 
 assembled at La Pointe, and that their stock of provisions 
 was exhausted. 
 
 " They expected," said the lady, "to be paid off on the 
 15th of August, but the government has changed the time 
 to nearly a month later. This is unfortunate for the In- 
 dians, for now is the time of their harvest, the season for 
 gathering wild rice iu the marshes, and they must, in con- 
 sequence, not only suffer with hunger now, but in the winter 
 also."
 
 290 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 In a stroll which we made through the Indian village, 
 situated close to the rapids, we fell in with a half-hreed, a 
 sensible-looking man, living in a log cahin, whose boys, the 
 offspring of a squaw of the pure Indian race, were practicing 
 with their bows and arrows. " You do not go to La 
 Pointe ?" we asked. " It is too far to go for a blanket," 
 was his answer he spoke tolerable English. This man 
 seemed to have inherited from the white side of his ancestry 
 somewhat of the love of a constant habitation, for a genuine 
 Indian has no particular dislike to a distant journey. He 
 takes his habitation with him, and is at home wherever 
 there is game and fish, and poles with which to construct 
 his lodge. In a further conversation with the half-breed, 
 he spoke of the Sault as a delightful abode, and expatiated 
 on the pleasures of the place. 
 
 " It is the greatest place in the world for fun," said he ; 
 " we dance all winter ; our women are all good dancers ; 
 our little girls can dance single and double jigs as good as 
 any body in the States. That little girl there," pointing to 
 a long-haired girl at the door, " will dance as good as any 
 body." 
 
 The fusion of the two races in this neighborhood is re- 
 markable ; the mixed breed running by gradual shades into 
 the aboriginal on the one hand, and into the white on the 
 other ; children with a tinge of the copper hue in the fami- 
 lies of white men, and children scarcely less fair sometimes 
 seen in the wigwams. Some of the half-caste ladies at the
 
 METHODIST INDIANS. 291 
 
 Falls of St. Mary, who have been educated in the At- 
 lantic states, are persons of graceful and dignified manners 
 and agreeable conversation. 
 
 I attended worship at the Fort, at the Sault, on Sunday. 
 The services were conducted by the chaplain, who is of the 
 Methodist persuasion and a missionary at the place, assisted 
 by the Baptist missionary. I looked about me for some 
 evidence of the success of their labors, but among the wor- 
 shipers I saw not one male of Indian descent. Of the 
 females, half a dozen, perhaps, were of the half-caste ; and 
 as two of these walked away from the church, I perceived 
 that they wore a fringed clothing for the ankles, as if they 
 took a certain pride in this badge of their Indian extraction. 
 
 In the afternoon we drove down the west bank of the 
 river to attend religious service at an Indian village, called 
 the Little Rapids, about two miles and a half from the 
 Sault. Here the Methodists have built a mission-house, 
 maintain a missionary, and instruct a fragment of the 
 Chippewa tribe. We found the missionary, Mr. Speight, a 
 Kentuckian, who has wandered to this northern region, 
 quite ill, and there was consequently no service. 
 
 We walked through the village, which is prettily situated 
 on a swift and deep channel of the St. Mary, where the 
 green waters rush between the main-land and a wooded 
 island. It stands on rich meadows of the river, with a path 
 running before it, parallel with the bank, along the velvet 
 sward, and backed at no great distance by the thick original
 
 292 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 forest, which not far below closes upon the river on both 
 sides. The inhabitants at the doors and windows of their 
 log-cabins had a demure and subdued aspect ; they were 
 dressed in their clean Sunday clothes, and the peace and 
 quiet of the place formed a strong contrast to the de- 
 baucheries we had witnessed at the village by the Falls. 
 We fell in with an Indian, a quiet little man, of very decent 
 appearance, who answered our questions with great civility. 
 We asked to whom belonged the meadows lying back of the 
 cabins, on which we saw patches of rye, oats, and potatoes. 
 " Oh, they belong to the mission ; the Indians work 
 them." 
 
 " Are they good people, these Indians ?" 
 " Oh. yes, good people." 
 " Do they never drink too much whisky ?" 
 " Well, I guess they drink too much whisky sometimes." 
 There was a single wigwam in the village, apparently a 
 supplement to one of the log-cabins. We looked in and 
 saw two Indian looms, from which two unfinished mats 
 were depending. Mrs. Speight, the wife of the missionary, 
 told us that, a few days before, the village had been full of 
 these lodges ; that the Indians delighted in them greatly, 
 and always put them up during the mosquito season ; " for 
 a mosquito," said the good lady, " will never enter a wig- 
 wam;" and that lately, the mosquitoes having disappeared, 
 and the nights having grown cooler, they had taken down 
 all but the one we saw.
 
 SMALLNESS OF INDIAN FAMILIES. 293 
 
 "We passed a few minutes in the house of the missionary, 
 to which Mrs. Speight kindly invited us. She gave a 
 rather favorable account of the Indians under her husband's 
 charge, but manifestly an honest one, and without any wish 
 to extenuate the defects of their character. 
 
 " There are many excellent persons among them," she 
 said ; " they are a kind, simple, honest people, and some of 
 them are eminently pious." 
 
 " Do they follow any regular industry ?" 
 
 " Many of them are as regularly industrious as the 
 whites, rising early and continuing at their work in the 
 fields all day. They are not so attentive as we could wish 
 to the education of their children. It is difficult to make 
 them send their children regularly to school ; they think 
 they confer a favor in allowing us to instruct them, and if 
 they happen to take a little offense their children are kept 
 at home. The great evil against which we have to guard 
 is the love of strong drink. When this is offered to an 
 Indian, it seems as if it was not in his nature to resist the 
 temptation. I have known whole congregations of Indians, 
 good Indians, ruined and brought to nothing by the oppor- 
 tunity of obtaining whisky as often as they pleased." 
 
 We inquired whether the numbers of the people at the 
 mission were diminishing. She could not speak with much 
 certainty as to this point, having been only a year and a 
 half at the mission, but she thought there was a gradual 
 decrease. 
 
 15*
 
 294 LETTEHS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 " The families of the Indians," she said, in answer to one 
 of my questions, " are small. In one family at the village 
 are six children, and it is the talk of all the Indians, far 
 and near, as something extraordinary. Generally the 
 number is much smaller, and more than half the children 
 die in infancy. Their means would not allow them to 
 rear many children, even if the number of births was 
 greater." 
 
 Such appears to be the destiny of the red race while in 
 the presence of the white decay and gradual extinction, 
 even under circumstances apparently the most favorable to 
 its preservation. 
 
 On Monday we left the Falls of St. Mary, in the steamer 
 General Scott, on our return to Mackinaw. There were 
 about forty passengers on board, men in search of copper- 
 mines, and men in search of health, and travellers from 
 curiosity, Virginians, New Yorkers, wanderers from Illinois, 
 Indiana, Massachusetts, and I believe several other states. 
 On reaching Mackinaw in the evening, our party took 
 quarters in the Mansion House, the obliging host of which 
 stretched his means to the utmost for our accommodation. 
 Mackinaw is at the present moment crowded with 
 strangers ; attracted by the cool healthful climate and the 
 extreme beauty of the place. We were packed for the 
 night almost as closely as the Potawottamies, whose lodges 
 were on the beach before us. Parlors and garrets were 
 turned into sleeping-rooms ; beds were made on the floors 
 
 1
 
 CLOSE QUARTERS. 295 
 
 and in the passages, and double-bedded rooms were made to 
 receive four beds. It is no difficult feat to sleep at Macki- 
 naw, even in an August night, and we soon forgot, in a 
 refreshing slumber, the narrowness of our quarters.
 
 296 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE ISLAND OF MACKINAW. 
 
 STEAMER ST. Louis, Lake Huron, ^ 
 August 20, 1846. f 
 
 YESTERDAY evening we left the beautiful island of Macki- 
 naw, after a visit of two days delightfully passed. We had 
 climbed its cliffs, rambled on its shores, threaded the walks 
 among its thickets, driven out in the roads that wind through 
 its woods roads paved by nature with limestone pebbles, a 
 sort of natural macadamization, and the time of our de- 
 parture seemed to arrive several days too soon. 
 
 The fort which crowns the heights near the shore com- 
 mands an extensive prospect, but a still wider one is to be 
 seen from the old fort, Fort Holmes, as it is called, among 
 whose ruined intrenchments the half-breed boys and girls 
 now gather gooseberries. It stands on the very crest of the 
 of the island, overlooking all the rest. The air, when we 
 ascended it, was loaded with the smoke of burning forests, 
 but from this spot, in clear weather, I was told a magnifi- 
 cent view might be had of the Straits of Mackinaw, the 
 wooded islands, and the shores and capes of the great main- 
 land, places known to history for the past two centuries.
 
 SIXTY YEARS SINCE. 297 
 
 For when you are at Mackinaw you are at no new settle- 
 ment. 
 
 In looking for samples of Indian embroidery with porcu- 
 pine quills, we found ourselves one day in the warehouse of 
 the American Fur Company, at Mackinaw. Here, on the 
 shelves, were piles of blankets, white and blue, red scarfs, 
 and white boots ; snow-shoes were hanging on the walls, 
 and wolf-traps, rifles, and hatchets, were slung to the ceiling 
 an assortment of goods destined for the Indians and half- 
 breeds of the northwest. The person who attended at the 
 counter spoke English with a foreign accent. I asked him 
 how long he had been in the northwestern country. 
 
 " To say the truth," he answered, " I have been here 
 sixty years and some days." 
 
 " You were born here, then." 
 
 " I am a native of Mackinaw, French by the mother's 
 side ; my father was an Englishman." 
 
 " Was the place as considerable sixty years ago as it 
 now is ?" 
 
 " More so. There was more trade here, and quite as 
 many inhabitants. All the houses, or nearly all, were then 
 built ; two or three only have been put up since." 
 
 I could easily imagine that Mackinaw must have been a 
 place of consequence when here was the centre of the fur 
 trade, now removed further up the country. I was shown 
 the large house in which the heads of the companies of voy- 
 ageurs engaged in the trade were lodged, and the barracks,
 
 298 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 a long low building, in which the voyageurs themselves, 
 seven hundred in number, made their quarters from the end of 
 June till the beginning of October, when they went out again 
 on their journeys. This interval of three months was a merry 
 time with those light-hearted Frenchmen. When a boat 
 made its appearance approaching Mackinaw, they fell to 
 conjecturing to what company of voyageurs it belonged ; as 
 the dispute grew warm the conjectures became bets, till 
 finally, unable to restrain their impatience, the boldest of 
 them dashed into the waters, swam out to the boat, and 
 climbing on board, shook hands with their brethren, amidst 
 the shouts of those who stood on the beach. 
 
 They talk, on the New England coast, of Chebacco boats, 
 built after a peculiar pattern, and called after Chebacco, an 
 ancient settlement of sea-faring men, who have foolishly 
 changed the old Indian name of their place to Ipswich. 
 The Mackinaw navigators have also given their name to a 
 boat of peculiar form, sharp at both ends, swelled at the 
 sides, and flat-bottomed, an excellent sea-boat, it is said, as 
 it must be to live in the wild storms that surprise the mar- 
 iner on Lake Superior. 
 
 We took yesterday a drive to the western shore. The 
 road twined through a wood of over-arching beeches and 
 maples, interspersed with the white-cedar and fir. The 
 driver stopped before a cliff sprouting with beeches and 
 cedars, with a small cavity at the foot. This he told us 
 was the Skull Cave. It is only remarkable on account of
 
 THE BRITISH LANDING. 299 
 
 human bones having been found in it. Further on a whito 
 paling gleamed through the trees ; it inclosed the solitary 
 burial ground of the garrison, with half a dozen graves. 
 "There are few buried here," said a gentleman of our 
 party ; "the soldiers who come to Mackinaw sick get well 
 soon." 
 
 The road we travelled was cut through the woods by 
 Captain Scott, who commanded at the fort a few years since. 
 He is the marksman whose aim was so sure that the 
 western people say of him, that a raccoon ou a tree once 
 offered to come down and surrender without giving him the 
 trouble to fire. 
 
 We passed a farm surrounded with beautiful groves. In 
 one of its meadows was fought the battle between Colonel 
 Croghan and the British officer Holmes in the war of 1813 
 Three luxuriant beeches stand in the edge of the wood, 
 north of the meadow ; one of them is the monument of 
 Holmes ; he lies buried at its root. Another quarter of a 
 mile led us to a little bay on the solitary shore of the lake 
 looking to the northwest. It is called the British Landing, 
 because the British troops landed here in the late war to 
 take possession of the island. 
 
 We wandered about awhile, and then sat down upon the 
 embankment of pebbles which the waves of the lake, 
 heaving for centuries, have heaped around the shore of the 
 island pebbles so clean that they would no more soil a 
 lady's white muslin gown than if they had been of newly
 
 300 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 polished alabaster. The water at our feet was as trans- 
 parent as the air around us. On the main-land opposite 
 stood a church with its spire, and several roofs were visible, 
 with a background of woods behind them. 
 
 " There," said one of our party, " is the old Mission 
 Church. It was built by the Catholics in 1680, and has 
 been a place of worship ever since. The name of the spot 
 is Point St. Ignace, and there lives an Indian of the full 
 caste, who was sent to Rome and educated to be a priest, but 
 he preferred the life of a layman, and there he lives on that 
 wild shore, with a library in his lodge, a learned savage, 
 occupied with reading and study." 
 
 You may well suppose that I felt a strong desire to see 
 Point St. Ignace, its venerable Mission Church, its Indian 
 village, so long under the care of Catholic pastors, and its 
 learned savage who talks Italian, but the time of my 
 departure was already fixed. My companions were pointing 
 out on that shore, the mouth of Carp River, which cornes 
 down through the forest roaring over rocks, and in any of the 
 pools of which you have only to throw a line, with any sort 
 of bait, to be sure of a trout, when the driver of our vehicle 
 called out, " Your boat is coming." We looked and saw 
 the St. Louis steamer, not one of the largest, but one of the 
 finest boats in the line between Buffalo and Chicago, 
 making rapidly for the island, with a train of black smoke 
 hanging in the air behind her. We hastened to return 
 through the woods, and in an hour and a half we were in
 
 THE ARC II ED ROCK. 301 
 
 our clean and comfortable quarters in this well-ordered little 
 steamer. 
 
 But I should mention that before leaving Mackinaw, we 
 did not fail to visit the principal curiosities of the place, the 
 Sugar Loaf Rock, a remarkable rock in the middle of the 
 island, of a sharp conical form, rising above the trees by 
 which it is surrounded, and lifting the stunted birches on its 
 shoulders higher than they, like a tall fellow holding up a 
 little boy to overlook a crowd of men and the Arched 
 Rock on the shore. The atmosphere was thick with smoke, 
 and through the opening spanned by the arch of the rock I 
 saw the long waves, rolled up by a fresh wind, come one 
 after another out of the obscurity, and break with roaring 
 on the beach. 
 
 The path along the brow of the precipice and among the 
 evergreens, by which this rock is reached, is singularly wild, 
 but another which leads to it along the shore is no less 
 picturesque passing under impending cliffs and overshad- 
 owing cedars, and between huge blocks and pinnacles of 
 rock. 
 
 I spoke in one of my former letters of the manifest fate 
 of Mackinaw, which is to be a watering-place. I can not 
 see how it is to escape this destiny. People already begin 
 to repair to it for health and refreshment from the soiithern 
 borders of Lake Michigan. Its climate during the summer 
 months is delightful ; there is no air more pure and elastic, 
 and the winds of the routh and southwest, which are so hot 
 26
 
 302 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 on the prairies, arrive here tempered to a grateful coolness 
 by the waters over which they have swept. The nights 
 are always, in the hottest season, agreeably cool, and the 
 health of the place is proverbial. The world has not many 
 islands so beautiful as Mackinaw, as you may judge 
 from the description I have already given of parts of it. 
 The surface is singularly irregular, with summits of rock 
 and pleasant hollows, open glades of pasturage and shady 
 nooks. To some, the savage visitors, who occasionally set 
 up their lodges on its beach, as well as on that of the sur- 
 rounding islands, and paddle their canoes in its waters, will 
 be an additional attraction. I can not but think with a kind 
 of regret on the time which, I suppose is near at hand, when 
 its wild and lonely woods will be intersected with high- 
 ways, and filled with cottages a.ud boarding-houses.
 
 SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY. 303 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 
 AN EXCURSION TO THE WATER GAP. 
 
 STEOUDSBCRG, Monroe Co., Perm. ) 
 October 23, 1846. ) 
 
 I REACHED this place last evening, having taken Easton 
 in my way. Did it ever occur to you, in passing through 
 New Jersey, how much the northern part of the state is, in 
 some respects, like New York, and how much the southern 
 part resembles Pennsylvania ? For twenty miles before 
 reaching Easton, you see spacious dwelling-houses, often of 
 stone, substantially built, and barns of the size of churches, 
 and large farms with extensive woods of tall trees, as in 
 Pennsylvania, where the right of soil has not undergone so 
 many subdivisions as with us. I was shown in Warren 
 county, in a region apparently of great fertility, a farm 
 which was said to be two miles square. It belonged to a 
 farmer of German origin, whose comfortable mansion stood 
 by the way, and who came into the state many years ago, 
 a young man. 
 
 " I have heard him say," said a passenger, " that when 
 his father brought him out with his young wife into Warren 
 county, and set him down upon what then appeared a bar- 
 ren little farm, now a part of his large and productive
 
 304 LETTERS OP A TRAVELLER. 
 
 estate, his heart failed him. However he went to work in- 
 dustriously, practicing the strictest economy, and by apply- 
 ing lime copiously to the soil made it highly fertile. It is 
 lime which makes this region the richest land in New Jer- 
 sey ; the farmers find limestone close at hand, hum it in 
 their kilns, and scatter it on the surface. The person of 
 whom I speak took off large crops from his little farm, and 
 as soon as he had any money beforehand, he added a few 
 acres more, so that it gradually grew to its present size. 
 Rich as he is, he is a worthy man ; his sons, who are nu- 
 merous, are all fine fellows, not a scape-grace among them, 
 and he has settled them all on farms around him." 
 
 Easton, which we entered soon after dark, is a pretty 
 little town of seven thousand inhabitants, much more sub- 
 stantially built than towns of the same size in this country. 
 Many of the houses are of stone, and to the sides of some of 
 them you see the ivy clinging and hiding the masonry with 
 a veil of evergreen foliage. The middle of the streets is 
 unpaved and very dusty, but the broad flagging on the 
 sides, under the windows of the houses, is sedulously swept. 
 The situation of the place is uncommonly picturesque. If 
 ever the little borough of Easton shall grow into a great 
 town, it will stand on one of the most commanding sites in 
 the world, unless its inhabitants shall have spoiled it by im- 
 provements. The Delaware, which forms the eastern bound 
 of the borough, approaches it from the north through high 
 wooded banks, and flows away to join the Susquehanna
 
 BEAUTIFUL SITE OF EASTON. 305 
 
 between craggy precipices. On the south side, the Lehigh 
 comes down through a deep, verdant hollow, arid on the 
 north the Bushkill winds through a glen shaded with trees, 
 on the rocky banks of which is one of the finest drives in 
 the world. In the midst of the borough rises a crag as lofty 
 as that on which Stirling Castle is built in Europe, it 
 would most certainly have been crowned with its castle ; 
 steep and grassy on one side, and precipitous and rocky on 
 the other, where it overhangs the Bushkill. The college 
 stands on a lofty eminence, overlooking the dwellings and 
 streets, but it is an ugly building, and has not a tree to con- 
 ceal even in part its ugliness. Besides these, are various 
 other eminences in the immediate vicinity of this compact 
 little town, which add greatly to its beauty. 
 
 We set out the next morning for the Delaware Water 
 Gap, following the road along the Delaware, which is here 
 uncommonly beautiful. The steep bank is mostly covered 
 with trees sprouting from the rocky shelves, and below is a 
 fringe of trees between the road and the river. A little way 
 from the town, the driver pointed out, in the midst of the 
 stream, a long island of loose stones and pebbles, without a 
 leaf or stem of herbage. 
 
 " It was there," said he, " that Gaetter, six years ago, 
 was hanged for the murder of his wife." 
 
 The high and steep bank of the river, the rocks and the 
 trees, he proceeded to tell us, were covered on that day with 
 eager spectators from all the surrounding country, every o:ie 
 26*
 
 306 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of whom, looking immediately down on the island, could 
 enjoy a perfect view of the process by which the poor wretch 
 in the hands of the hangman was turned off. 
 
 About five miles from Easton we stopped to water our 
 horses at an inn, a large handsome stone house, with a 
 chatty landlord, who spoke with a strong German accent, 
 complaining pathetically of the potato disease, which had 
 got into the fields of the neighborhood, but glorying in the 
 abundant crops of maize and wheat which had been gath- 
 ered. Two miles further on, we turned away from the river 
 and ascended to the table-land above, which we found green 
 with extensive fields of wheat, just springing under the 
 autumnal sun. In one of the little villages nestling in the 
 hollows of that region, we stopped for a few moments, 
 and fell into conversation with a tolerably intelligent man, 
 though speaking English with some peculiarities that 
 indicated the race to which he belonged. A sample of 
 his dialect may amuse you. We asked him what the 
 
 " Oh," said he, " there are different obinions, some likes 
 people in that part of the country thought of the new 
 tariff, 
 it and some not." 
 
 " How do the democrats take it ?" 
 
 " The democratic in brinciple likes it." 
 
 " Did it have any effect on the election ?" 
 
 " It bre vented a goot many democrats from voting for 
 their candidate for Congress, Mr. Brodhead, because he is
 
 THE WATER GAP. 307 
 
 for the old tariff. This is a very strong democratic district, 
 and Mr. Brodhead's majority is only about a sousand." 
 
 A little beyond this village we came in sight of the 
 Water Gap, where the Blue Ridge has been cloven down 
 to its base to form a passage for the Delaware. Two lofty 
 summits, black with precipices of rock, form the gates through 
 which the river issues into the open country. Here it runs 
 noisily over the shallows, as if boasting aloud of the victory 
 it had achieved in breaking its way through such mighty bar- 
 riers ; but within the Gap it sleeps in quiet pools, or flows 
 in deep glassy currents. By the side of these you see large 
 rafts composed of enormous trunks of trees that have floated 
 down with the spring floods from the New York forests, and 
 here wait for their turn in the saw-mills along the shore. 
 It was a bright morning, with a keen autumnal air, and 
 we dismounted from our vehicle and walked through the 
 Gap. 
 
 It will give your readers an idea of the Water Gap, to say 
 that it consists of a succession of lofty peaks, like the High- 
 lands of the Hudson, with a winding and irregular space 
 between them a few rods wide, to give passage to the river. 
 They are unlike the Highlands, however, in one respect, 
 that their sides are covered with large loose blocks detached 
 from the main precipices. Among these grows the original 
 forest, which descends to their foot, fringes the river, and 
 embowers the road. 
 
 The present autumn is, I must say, in regard to the
 
 308 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 coloring of the forests, one of the shabbiest and least 
 brilliant I remember to have seen in this country, almost as 
 sallow and dingy in its hues as an autumn in Europe. 
 But here in the Water Gap it was not without some of its 
 accustomed brightness of tints the sugar-maple with its 
 golden leaves, and the water-maple with its foliage of 
 scarlet, contrasted with the intense green of the hemlock-fir, 
 the pine, the rosebay-laurel, and the mountain-laurel, which 
 here grow in the same thicket, while the ground below 
 was carpeted with humbler evergreens, the aromatic 
 wintergreen, and the trailing arbutus. The Water Gap is 
 about a mile in length, and near its northern entrance an 
 excellent hotel, the resort of summer visitors, stands on a 
 cliff* which rises more than a hundred feet almost perpen- 
 dicularly from the river. From this place the eye follows 
 the Water Gap to where mountains shut in one behind 
 another, like the teeth of a saw, and between them the 
 Delaware twines out of sight. 
 
 Before the hotel a fine little boy of about two years of 
 age was at play. The landlord showed us on the calf of 
 the child's leg two small lurid spots, about a quarter of an 
 inch apart. " That," said he, " is the bite of a copper- 
 head snake." 
 
 We asked when this happened. 
 
 " It was last summer," answered he ; " the child was 
 playing on the side of the road, when he was heard to cry, 
 and seen to make for the house. As soon as he came, my
 
 BITE OF A COPPER-HEAD SNAKE. 309 
 
 wife called my attention to what she called a scratch on hi. 
 leg. I examined it, the spot was already purple and hard, 
 and the child was crying violently. I knew it to be the 
 bite of a copper-head, and immediately cut it open with a 
 sharp knife, making the blood to flow freely and. washing 
 the part with water. At the same time we got a yerb" 
 (such was his pronunciation) " on the hills, which some call 
 lion-heart, and others snake-head. We steeped this yerb in 
 milk which we made him drink. The doctor had been sent 
 for, and when he came applied hartshorn ; but I believe 
 that opening the wound and letting the blood flow was the 
 most effectual remedy. The leg was terribly swollen, and 
 for ten days we thought the little fellow in great danger, 
 but after that he became better and finally recovered." 
 
 " How do you know that it was a copper-head that bit 
 him ?' ! 
 
 " We sent to the place where he was at play, found the 
 snake, and killed it. A violent rain had fallen just 
 before, and it had probably washed him down from the 
 mountain-side." 
 
 " The boy appears very healthy now." 
 
 " Much better than before ; he was formerly delicate, 
 and troubled with an eruption, but that has disappeared, 
 and he has become hardy and fond of the open air." 
 
 We dined at the hotel and left the Water Gap. As we 
 passed out of its jaws we met a man in a little wagon, carry- 
 ing behind him the carcass of a deer he had just killed.
 
 310 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 They are hunted, at this time of the year, and killed in con- 
 siderable numbers in the extensive forests to the north of this 
 place. A drive of four miles over hill and valley brought 
 us to Stroudsburg, on the banks of the Pocano a place of 
 which I shall speak in my next letter.
 
 DEER. IN THE LATJHEL SWAMPS. 311 
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 
 AN EXCURSION TO THE WATER GAP. 
 
 E ASTON', Penn., October 24, 1846. 
 
 MY yesterday's letter left me at Stroudsburg, about four 
 miles west of the Delaware. It is a pleasant village, situated 
 on the banks of the Pocano. From this stream the inhab- 
 itants have diverted a considerable portion of the water, 
 bringing the current through this village in a canal, making 
 it to dive under the road and rise again on the opposite side, 
 after which it hastens to turn a cluster of mills. To the 
 north is seen the summit of the Pocano mountain, where this 
 stream has its springs, with woods stretching down its sides 
 and covering the adjacent country. Here, about nine miles 
 to the north of the village, deer 'haunt and are hunted. I 
 heard of one man who had already killed nine of these ani- 
 mals within two or three weeks. A traveller from Wyoming 
 county, whom I met at our inn, gave me some account of 
 the winter life of the deer. 
 
 " They inhabit," he said, " the swamps of mountain-laurel 
 thickets, through which a man would find it almost impossi- 
 ble to make his way. The laurel-bushes, and the hemlocks
 
 
 312 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 scattered among them, intercept the snow as it falls, and form 
 a thick roof, under the shelter of which, near some pool or 
 rivulet, the animals remain until spring opens, as snugly pro- 
 tected from the severity of the weather as sheep under the 
 sheds of a farm-yard. Here they feed upon the leaves of the 
 laurel and other evergreens. It is contrary to the law to kill 
 them after the Christmas holidays, but sometimes their re- 
 treat is invaded, and a deer or two killed ; their flesh, how- 
 ever, is not wholesome, on account of the laurel leaves on 
 which they feed, and their skin is nearly worthless." 
 
 I expressed my surprise that the leaves of the mountain 
 laurel, the kalmia latifolia, which are so deadly to sheep, 
 should be the winter food of the deer. 
 
 " It is because the deer has no gall," answered the man, 
 " that the pison don't take effect. But their meat will not 
 do to eat, except in a small quantity, and cooked with pork, 
 which I think helps take the pison out of it." 
 
 " The deer," he went on to say, " are now passing out of 
 the blue into the gray. After the holidays, when their hair 
 becomes long, and their winter coat is quite grown, their hide 
 is soft and tender, and tears easily when dressed, and it would 
 be folly to kill them, even if there were no law against it." 
 He went on to find a parallel to the case of the deer-skins in 
 the hides of neat-cattle, which, when brought from a hot 
 country, like South America, are firmer and tougher than 
 when obtained in a colder climate like ours. 
 
 The Wyoming traveller gave a bad account of the health,
 
 CHERRY HOLLOW 313 
 
 just at present, of the beautiful valley in which he lived, 
 " We have never before," said he, " known what it was to 
 have the fever and ague among us, but now it is very com- 
 mon, as well as other fevers. The season has neither been 
 uncommonly wet nor uncommonly dry, but it has been un- 
 commonly hot." I heard the same account of various other 
 districts in Pennsylvania. Mifflin county, for example, was 
 sickly this season, as well as other parts of the state which 
 hitherto have been almost uniformly healthy. Here, how- 
 ever, in Stroudsburg and its neighborhood, they boasted 
 that the fever and ague had never yet made its appear- 
 ance. 
 
 I was glad to hear a good account of the pecuniary cir- 
 cumstances of the Pennsylvania farmers. They got in debt 
 like every body else during the prosperous years of 1835 and 
 1836, and have been ever since working themselves grad- 
 ually out of it. " I have never," said an intelligent gentle- 
 man of Stroudsburg, " known the owners of the farms so free 
 from debt, and so generally easy and prosperous in their con- 
 dition, as at this moment." It is to be hoped that having 
 been so successful in paying their private debts, they will now 
 try what can be done with the debt of the state. 
 
 We left Stroudsburg this morning one of the finest 
 mornings of this autumnal season and soon climbed an 
 eminence which looked down upon Cherry Hollow. This 
 place reminded me, with the exception of its forests, of the 
 valleys in the Peak of Derbyshire, the same rounded 
 27
 
 314 L K T T E -R S O F A TRAVELLER. 
 
 summits, the same green, basin-like hollows. But here, on 
 the hill-sides, were tall groves of oak and chestnut, instead of 
 the hrown heath ; and the large stone houses of the German 
 householders were very unlike the Derbyshire cottages. 
 The valley is four miles in length, and its eastern extremity 
 is washed by the Delaware. Climbing out of this valley 
 and passing for some miles through yellow woods and fields 
 of springing corn, not Indian corn, we found ourselves at 
 length travelling on the side of another long valley, which 
 terminates at its southern extremity in the Wind (rap. 
 
 The Wind Gap is an opening in the same mountain ridge 
 which is cloven by the Water Gap, but, unlike that, it ex- 
 tends only about half-way down to the base. Through this 
 opening, bordered on each side by large loose blocks of 
 stone, the road passes. After you have reached the open 
 country beyond, you look back and see the ridge stretching 
 away eastward towards the Water Gap, and in the other 
 direction towards the southwest till it sinl.s out of sight, a 
 rocky wall of uniform height, with this opening in the midst, 
 which looks as if part of the mountain had here fallen into 
 an abyss below. Beyond the Wind Gap we came to the 
 village of Windham, lying in the shelter of this mountain 
 barrier, and here, about twelve o'clock, our driver stopped a 
 moment at an inn to give water to his horses. The bar- 
 room was full of fresh-colored young men in military 
 uniforms, talking Pennsylvania German rather rapidly and 
 vociferously. They surrounded a thick-set man, in a cap
 
 NAZARETH. 315 
 
 and shirt-sleeves, whom they called Tscho, or Joe, and 
 insisted that he should give them a tune on his fiddle. 
 
 'Spiel, Tscho, spiel, spiel," was shouted on every side, 
 and at last Tscho took the floor with a fiddle and began to 
 play. About a dozen of the young men stood up on the 
 floor, in couples, facing each other, and hammered out the 
 tune with their- feet, giving a tread or tap on the floor to 
 correspond with every note of the instrument, and occasion- 
 ally crossing from side to side. I have never seen dancing 
 more diligently performed. 
 
 When the player had drawn the final squeak from his 
 violin, we got into our vehicle, and in somewhat more than 
 an hour were entering the little village of Nazareth, 
 pleasantly situated among fields the autumnal verdure of 
 which indicated their fertility. Nazareth is a Moravian 
 village, of four or five hundred inhabitants, looking pro- 
 digiously like a little town of the old world, except that it is 
 more neatly kept. The houses are square arid solid, of 
 stone or brick, built immediately on the street ; a pavement 
 of broad flags runs under their windows, and between the 
 flags and the carriage-way is a row of trees. In the centre 
 of the village is a square with an arcade for a market, and 
 a little aside from the main street, in a hollow covered with 
 bright green grass, is another square, in the midst of which 
 stands a large white church. Near it is an avenue, with 
 two immense lime-trees growing at the gate, leading to the 
 field in which they bury their dead. Looking upon this
 
 316 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 square is a large building, three or four stories high, where 
 a school for boys is kept, to which pupils are sent from 
 various parts of the country, and which enjoys a very good 
 reputation. We entered the garden of this school, an 
 inclosure thickly overshadowed with tall forest and exotic 
 trees of various kinds, with shrubs below, and winding 
 walks and summer-houses and benches. The boys of 
 the school were amusing themselves under the trees, 
 and the arched walks were ringing with their shrill 
 voices. 
 
 We visited also the burying place, which is situated on a 
 little eminence, backed with a wood, and commands a view 
 of the village. The Moravian grave is simple in its 
 decorations ; a small flat stone, of a square shape, lying in 
 the midst, between the head and foot, is inscribed with the 
 name of the dead, the time and place of his birth, and the 
 time when, to use their own language, he " departed," and 
 this is the sole epitaph. But innovations have been recently 
 made on this simplicity ; a rhyming couplet or quatrain is 
 now sometimes added, or a word in praise of the dead 
 One recent grave was loaded with a thick tablet of white 
 marble, which covered it entirely, and bore an inscription 
 as voluminous as those in the burial places of other denom- 
 inations. The graves, as in all Moravian burying grounds, 
 are arranged in regular rows, with paths at right angles 
 between them, and sometimes a rose-tree is planted at the 
 head of the sleeper.
 
 A PENNSYLVANIA OERMAN. 317 
 
 As we were leaving Nazareth, the innkeeper came to 
 us, and asked if we would allow a man who was travelling 
 to Easton to take a seat in our carriage with the driver 
 We consented, and a respectable-looking, well-clad, middle- 
 aged person, made his appearance. When we had pro- 
 ceeded a little way, we asked him some questions, to which 
 he made no other reply than to shake his head, and we soon 
 found that he understood no English. I tried him with 
 German, which brought a ready reply in the same language. 
 He was a native of Pennsylvania, he told me, born at Snow 
 Hill, in Lehigh county, not very many miles from Nazareth. 
 In turn, he asked me where I came from, and when I bid 
 him guess, he assigned my birthplace to Germany, which 
 showed at least that he was not very accurately instructed 
 in the diversities with which his mother tongue is spoken. 
 
 As we entered Easton, the yellow woods on the hills and 
 peaks that surround the place, were lit up with a glowing 
 autumnal sunset. Soon afterward we crossed the Lehigh, 
 and took a walk along its bank in South Easton, where a 
 little town has recently grown up ; the sidewalks along its 
 dusty streets were freshly swept for Saturday night. As it 
 began to grow dark, we found ourselves strolling in front of 
 a row of iron mills, with the canal on one side and the 
 Lehigh on the other. One of these was a rolling mill, into 
 which we could look from the bank where we stood, and 
 observe the whole process of the manufacture, which is very 
 striking. 
 
 27*
 
 318 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER.. 
 
 The whole interior of the building is lighted at night only 
 by the mouths of several furnaces, which are kindled to a 
 white heat. Out of one of these a thick bar of iron, about 
 six feet in length and heated to a perfect whiteness, is 
 drawn, and one end of it presented to the cylinders of the 
 mill, which seize it and draw it through between them, 
 rolled out to three or four times its original size. A sooty 
 workman grasps the opposite end of the bar with pincers as 
 soon as it is fairly through, and returns it again to the 
 cylinders, which deliver it again on the opposite side. In 
 this way it passes backward and forward till it is rolled into 
 an enormous length, and shoots across the black floor with a 
 twining motion like a serpent of fire. At last, when pressed 
 to the proper thinness and length, it is coiled up into a circle 
 by the help of a machine contrived for the purpose, which 
 rolls it up as a shopkeeper rolls up a ribbon. 
 
 We found a man near where we stood, begrimed by the 
 soot of the furnaces, handling the clumsy masses of iron 
 which bear the name of bloom. The rolling mill, he said, 
 belonged to Rodenbough, Stewart & Co., who had very 
 extensive contracts for furnishing iron to the nailrnakers 
 and wire manufacturers. 
 
 " Will they stop the mill for the new tariff?" said I. 
 
 " They will stop for nothing," replied the man. " The 
 new tariff is a good tariff, if people would but think so. It 
 costs the iron-masters fifteen dollars a ton to make their 
 iron, and they sell it for forty dollars a ton. If the new
 
 REVOLUTIONS OF OPINION. 319 
 
 tariff' obliges them to sell it for considerable less they will 
 still make money." 
 
 So revolves the cycle of opinion. Twenty years ago a 
 Pennsylvanian who questioned the policy of the protective 
 system would have been looked upon as a sort of curiosity. 
 Now the bloomers and stable-boys begin to talk free trade. 
 What will they talk twenty years hence ?
 
 320 LETTERS OP A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 
 BOS TON. LAW R E N C E. P O R T L A H D. 
 
 PORTLAND, July 31, 1847. * 
 
 I LEFT Boston for this place, a few days since, by one of 
 the railways. I never come to Boston or go out of it 
 without being agreeably struck with the civility and respec- 
 table appearance of the hackney-coachmen, the porters, and 
 others for whose services the traveller has occasion. You 
 feel, generally, in your intercourse with these persons that 
 you are dealing with men who have a character to main- 
 tain. 
 
 There is a sober substantial look about the dwellings of 
 Boston, which pleases me more than the gayer aspect of our 
 own city. In New York we are careful to keep the outside 
 of our houses fresh with paint, a practice which does not 
 exist here, and which I suppose we inherited from the 
 Hollanders, who learned it I know not where could it 
 have been from the Chinese ? The country houses of 
 Holland, along the canals, are bright with paint, often 
 of several different colors, and are as gay as pagodas. In 
 their moist climate, where mould and moss so speedily
 
 THE NEW CITY OF LAWRENCE. 321 
 
 gather, the practice may be founded in better reasons than 
 it is with us. 
 
 " Boston," said a friend to whom I spoke of the appear- 
 ance of comfort and thrift in that city, " is a much more 
 crowded place than you imagine, and where people are 
 crowded there can not be comfort. In many of the neigh- 
 borhoods, back of those houses which present so respectable 
 an aspect, are buildings rising close to each other, inhabited 
 by the poorer class, whose families are huddled together 
 without sufficient space and air, and here it is that Boston 
 poverty hides itself. You are more fortunate on your island, 
 that your population can extend itself horizontally, instead 
 of heaping itself up, as we have begun to do here." 
 
 The first place which we could call pleasant after leaving 
 Boston was Andover, where Stuart and Woods, now vener- 
 able with years, instruct the young orthodox ministers and 
 missionaries of New England. It is prettily situated among 
 green declivities. A little beyond, at North Andover, we 
 came in sight of the roofs and spires of the new city of Law- 
 rence, which already begin to show proudly on the sandy 
 and sterile banks of the Merrimac, a rapid and shallow 
 river. A year ago last February, the building of the city 
 was begun ; it has now five or six thousand inhabitants, 
 and new colonists are daily thronging in. Brick kilns are 
 smoking all over the country to supply materials for the 
 walls of the dwellings. The place, I was told, astonishes 
 visitors with its bustle and confusion. The streets are en-
 
 322 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 cumbered with heaps of fresh earth, and piles of stone, brick, 
 beams, and boards, and people can with difficulty hear each 
 other speak, for the constant thundering of hammers, and 
 the shouts of cartmen and wagoners urging their oxen and 
 horses with their loads through the deep sand of the ways. 
 " Before the last shower," said a passenger, " you could 
 hardly see the city from this spot, on account of the cloud 
 of dust that hung perpetually over it." 
 
 " Rome," says the old adage, " was not built in a day," 
 but here is a city which, in respect of its growth, puts 
 Rome to shame. The Romulus of this new city, who like 
 the Latian of old, gives his name to the community of which 
 he is the founder, is Mr. Abbot Lawrence, of Boston, a rich 
 manufacturer, money-making and munificent, and more 
 fortunate in building cities and endowing schools, than in 
 foretelling political events. He is the modern Amphion, to 
 the sound of whose music, the pleasant chink of dollars 
 gathered in many a goodly dividend, all the stones which 
 form the foundation of this Thebes dance into their places, 
 
 " And half the mountain rolls into a walL" 
 
 Beyond Lawrence, in the state of New Hampshire, the 
 train stopped a moment at Exeter, which those who delight 
 in such comparisons might call the Eton of New England. 
 It is celebrated for its academy, where Bancroft, Everett, 
 and I know not how many more of the New England 
 scholars and men of letters, received the first rudiments of
 
 OAK GILOVE. 323 
 
 their education. It lies in a gentle depression of the surface 
 of the country, not deep enough to be called a valley, on the 
 banks of a little stream, and has a pleasant retired aspect. 
 At Durham, some ten miles further on, we found a long 
 train of freight-care crowded with the children of a Sunday- 
 school, just ready to set out on a pic-nic party, the boys 
 shouting, and the girls, of whom the number was prodi- 
 gious, showing us their smiling faces. A few middle-aged 
 men, and a still greater number of matrons, were dispersed 
 among them to keep them in order. At Dover, where are 
 several cotton mills, we saw a similar train, with a still 
 larger crowd, and when we crossed the boundary of New 
 Hampshire and entered South Berwick in Maine, we passed 
 through a solitary forest of oaks, where long tables and 
 benches had been erected for their reception, and the birds 
 were twittering in the branches over them. 
 
 At length the sight of numerous groups gathering blue- 
 berries, in an extensive tract of shrubby pasture, indicated 
 that we were approaching a town, and in a few minutes we 
 had arrived at Portland. The conductor, whom we found 
 intelligent and communicative, recommended that we 
 should take quarters, during our stay, at a place called the 
 Veranda, or Oak Grove, on the water, about two miles 
 from the town, and we followed his advice. We drove 
 through Portland, which is nobly situated on an eminence 
 overlooking Casco Bay, its maze of channels, and almost 
 innumerable islands, with their green slopes, cultivated
 
 324 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 folds, and rocky shores. We passed one arm of the sea 
 after another on bridges, and at length found ourselves on a 
 fine bold promontory, between Presumpscot river and the 
 waters of Casco Bay. Here a house of entertainment has 
 just been opened the beginning of a new watering-place, 
 which I am sure will become a favorite one in the hot 
 months of our summers. The surrounding country is so in- 
 tersected with straits, that, let the wind come from what 
 quarter it may, it breathes cool over the waters ; and the 
 tide, rising twelve feet, can not ebb and flow without push- 
 ing forward the air and drawing it back again, and thus 
 causing a motion of the atmosphere in the stillest weather. 
 
 We passed twenty-four hours in this pleasant retreat, 
 among the oaks of its grove, and along its rocky shores, 
 enjoying the agreeable coolness of the fresh and bracing 
 itmosphere. To tell the truth we have found it quite cool 
 enough ever since we reached Boston, five days ago ; some- 
 times, in fact, a little too cool for the thin garments we are 
 accustomed to wear at this season. Returning to Portland, 
 we took passage in the steamer Huntress, for Augusta, up 
 the Kennebeck. I thought to give you, in this letter, an 
 account of this part of my journey, but I find I must reserve 
 it for my next. 

 
 ISLANDS OF CASCO BAY. 325 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 THE KENNEBECK. 
 
 KEENE, New Hampshire, August 11, 1847. 
 
 WE left Portland early in the afternoon, on board the 
 steamer Huntress, and swept out of the harbor, among the 
 numerous green islands which here break the swell of 
 the Atlantic, and keep the water almost as smooth as that 
 of the Hudson. " It is said," remarked a passenger, " that 
 there are as many of these islands as there are days in the 
 jvar, but I do not know that any body has ever counted 
 them " Two of the loftiest, rock-bound, with verdant sum- 
 mits, and standing out beyond the rest, overlooking the main 
 ocean, bore light-houses, and near these we entered the 
 mouth of the Kennebeck, which here comes into the sea 
 between banks of massive rock. 
 
 At the mouth of the river were forests of stakes, for the 
 support of the nets in which salmon, shad, and alewives are 
 taken. The shad fishery, they told me, was not yet over, 
 though the month of August was already come. We passed 
 some small villages where we saw the keels of large un- 
 finished vessels lying high upon the stocks ; at Bath, one of 
 the most considerable of these places, but a small village 
 28
 
 326 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 still, were five or six, on which the ship-builders were busy 
 These, I was told, when once launched would never be seen 
 again in the place where they were built, but would convey 
 merchandise between the great ports of the world. 
 
 " The activity of ship-building in the state of Maine," 
 said a gentleman whom I afterward met, "is at this mo- 
 ment far greater than you can form any idea of, without 
 travelling along our coast. In solitary places where a 
 stream or creek large enough to float a ship is found, our 
 builders lay the keels of their vessels. It is not necessary 
 that the channel should be wide enough for the ship to turn 
 round ; it is enough if it will contain her lengthwise. They 
 choose a bend in the river from which they can launch her 
 with her head down stream, and, aided by the tide, float 
 her out to sea, after which she proceeds to Boston or New 
 York, or some other of our large seaports to do her part in 
 carrying on the commerce of the world." 
 
 I learned that the ship-builders of Maine purchase large 
 tracts of forest in Virginia and other states of the south, for 
 their supply of timber. They obtain their oaks from the 
 Virginia shore, their hard pine from North Carolina ; the 
 coverings of the deck and the smaller timbers of the large 
 vessels are furnished by Maine. They take to the south 
 cargoes of lime and other products of Maine, and bring back 
 the huge trunks produced in that region. The larger trees 
 on the banks of the navigable rivers of Maine were long ago 
 wrought into the keels of vessels.
 
 A SEAL IN THE KENNEBECK. 327 
 
 It was not far from Bath, and a considerable distance 
 from the open sea, that we saw a large seal on a rock in 
 the river. He turned his head slowly from side to side as 
 we passed, without allowing himself to be disturbed by the 
 noise we made, and kept his place as long as the eye could 
 distinguish him. The presence of an animal always associa- 
 ted in the imagination with uninhabited coasts of the ocean, 
 made us feel that we were advancing into a thinly or at 
 least a newly peopled country. 
 
 Above Bath, the channel of the Kennebeck widens into 
 what is called Merrymeeting Bay. Here the great Andro- 
 scoggin brings in its waters from the southwest, and various 
 other small streams from different quarters enter the bay, 
 making it a kind of Congress of Rivers. It is full of wooded 
 islands and rocky promontories projecting into the water and 
 overshading it with their trees. As we passed up we saw, 
 from time to time, farms pleasantly situated on the islands 
 or the borders of the river, where a soil more genial or 
 more easily tilled had tempted the settler to fix himself. 
 At length we approached Gardiner, a flourishing village, 
 beautifully situated among the hills on the right bank of 
 the Kennebeck. All traces of sterility had already disap- 
 peared from the country ; the shores of the river were no 
 longer rock-bound, but disposed in green terraces, with 
 woody eminences behind them. Leaving Gardiner behind 
 us, we went on to Hallowell, a village bearing similar 
 marks of prosperity, where we landed, and were taken iu
 
 328 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 carriages to Augusta, the seat of government, three or four 
 miles heyond. 
 
 Augusta is a pretty village, seated on green and appa- 
 rently fertile eminences that overlook the Kennebeck, and 
 itself overlooked by still higher summits, covered with woods, 
 The houses are neat, and shaded with trees, as is the case 
 with all New England villages in the agricultural districts. 
 I found the Legislature in session ; the Senate, a small quiet 
 body, deliberating for aught I could see, with as much grave 
 and tranquil dignity as the Senate of the United States. 
 The House of Representatives was just at the moment occu- 
 pied by some railway question, which I was told excited 
 more feeling than any subject that had been debated in the 
 whole session, but even this occasioned no unseemly agita- 
 tion ; the surface was gently rippled, nothing more. 
 
 While at Augusta, we crossed the river and visited the 
 Insane Asylum, a state institution, lying on the pleasant de- 
 clivities of the opposite shore. It is a handsome stone build- 
 ing. One of the medical attendants accompanied us over 
 a part of the building, and showed us some of the wards in 
 which there were then scarcely any patients, and which ap- 
 peared to be in excellent order, with the best arrangements 
 for the comfort of the inmates, and a scrupulous attention 
 to cleanliness. Whan we expressed a desire to see the pa- 
 tients, and to learn something of the manner in which they 
 were treated, he replied, " We do not make a show of our 
 patients ; we only show the building." Our visit was, of
 
 MULTITUDE OF LAKES. 329 
 
 course, soon dispatched. We learned afterward that this 
 was either insolence or laziness on the part of the officer in 
 question, whose business it properly was to satisfy any rea- 
 sonable curiosity expressed by visitors. 
 
 It had been our intention to cross the country from Au- 
 gusta directly to the White Hills in New Hampshire, and 
 we took seats in the stage-coach with that view. Back of 
 Augusta the country swells into hills of considerable height 
 with deep hollows between, in which lie a multitude of 
 lakes. We passed several of these, beautifully embosomed 
 among woods, meadows, and pastures, and were told that if 
 we continued on the course we had taken we should scarcely 
 ever find ourselves without some sheet of water in sight till 
 we arrived at Fryeburg on the boundary between Maine 
 and New Hampshire. One of them, in the township of 
 Winthrop, struck us as particularly beautiful. Its shores are 
 clean and bold, with little promontories running far into the 
 water, and several small islands. 
 
 At Winthrop we found that the coach in which we set 
 out would proceed to Portland, and that if we intended to 
 go on to Fryeburg, we must take seats in a shabby wagon, 
 without the least protection for our baggage. It was already 
 beginning to rain, and this circumstance decided us ; we re- 
 mained in the coach and proceeded on our return to Port- 
 land. I have scarcely ever travelled in a country which 
 presented a finer appearance of agricultural thrift and pros- 
 perity than the* portions of the counties of Kennebeck and
 
 330 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Cumberland, through which our road carried us. The dwell- 
 ings are large, neatly painted, surrounded with fruit-trees 
 and shrubs, and the farms in excellent order, and apparently 
 productive. We descended at length into the low country, 
 crossed the Androscoggin to the county of York, where, as we 
 proceeded, the country became more sandy and sterile, and 
 the houses had a neglected aspect. At length, after a jour- 
 ney of fifty or sixty miles in the rain, we were again set 
 down in the pleasant town of Portland.
 
 THE \YJLLKY HOUSE. 331 
 
 LETTER XLIL 
 
 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, Mass., August 13, 1847. 
 
 I HAD not space in my last letter, which was written 
 from Keene, in New Hampshire, to speak of a visit I had 
 just made to the White Mountains. Do not think I am 
 going to bore you with a set description of my journey and 
 ascent of Mount Washington ; a few notes of the excursion 
 may possibly amuse you. 
 
 From Conway, where the stage-coach sets you down for 
 the night, in sight of the summits of the mountains, the 
 road to the Old Notch is a very picturesque one. You follow 
 the path of the Saco along a wide valley, sometimes in the 
 woods that overhang its bank, and sometimes on the edge 
 of rich grassy meadows, till at length, as you leave behind 
 you one summit after another, you find yourself in a little 
 plain, apparently inclosed on every side by mountains. 
 
 Further on you enter the deep gorge which leads grad- 
 ually upward to the Notch. In the midst of it is situated 
 the Willey House, near which the Willey family were 
 overtaken by an avalanche and perished as they were 
 making their escape. It is now enlarged into a house of
 
 332 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 accommodation for visitors to the mountains. Nothing can 
 exceed the aspect of desolation presented hy the lofty 
 mountain-ridges which rise on each side. They are 
 streaked with the paths of landslides, occurring at different 
 periods, which have left the rocky ribs of the mountains 
 bare from their bald tops to the forests at their feet, and 
 have filled the sides of the valley with heaps of earth, 
 gravel, stones, and trunks of trees. 
 
 From the Willey house you ascend, for about two miles, 
 a declivity, by no means steep, with these dark ridges 
 frowning over you, your path here and there crossed by 
 streams which have made for themselves passages in the 
 granite sides of the mountains like narrow staircases, down 
 which they come tumbling from one vast block to another. 
 I afterward made acquaintance with two of these, and 
 followed them upward from one clear pool and one white 
 cascade to another till I was tired. The road at length 
 passes through what may be compared to a natural gate- 
 way, a narrow chasm between tall cliffs, and through which 
 the Saco, now a mere brook, finds its way. You find your- 
 self in a green opening, looking like the bottom of a drained 
 lake with mountain summits around you. Here is one of 
 the houses of accommodation from which you ascend Mount 
 Washington. 
 
 If you should ever think of ascending Mount Washington, 
 do not allow any of the hotel-keepers to cheat you in regard 
 to the distance. It is about ten miles from either the
 
 S C E X E II V O F T II E \V II I T E M O C N T A I N S. 333 
 
 hotels to the summit, and very little less from any of 
 them. They keep a set of worn-out horses, which they 
 hire for the season, and which are trained to climb the 
 mountain, in a walk, by the worst bridle-paths in the world. 
 The poor hacks are generally tolerably sure-footed, but 
 there are exceptions to this. Guides are sent with the 
 visitors, who generally go on foot, strong-legged men, carry- 
 ing long staves, and watching the ladies lest any accident 
 should occur ; some of these, especially those from the house 
 in the Notch, commonly called Tom Crawford's, are un- 
 mannerly fellows enough. 
 
 The scenery of these mountains has not been sufficiently 
 praised. But for the glaciers, but for the peaks white with 
 perpetual snow, it would be scarcely worth while to see 
 Switzerland after seeing the White Mountains. The depth 
 of the valleys, the steepness of the mountain-sides, the 
 variety of aspect shown by their summits, the deep gulfs of 
 forest below, seamed with the open courses of rivers, the 
 vast extent of the mountain region seen north and south of 
 us, gleaming with many lakes, took me with surprise and 
 astonishment. Imagine the forests to be shorn from half 
 the broad declivities imagine scattered habitations on the 
 thick green turf and footpaths leading from one to the other, 
 and herds and flocks browzing, and you have Switzerland 
 before you. I admit, however, that these accessories add to 
 the variety and interest of the landscape, and perhaps 
 heighten the idea of its vastness.
 
 334 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 I have been told, however, that the White Mountains in 
 autumn present an aspect more glorious than even the 
 splendors of the perpetual ice of the Alps. All this mighty 
 multitude of mountains, rising from valleys filled with dense 
 forests, have then put on their hues of gold and scarlet, and, 
 seen more distinctly on account of their brightness of color, 
 seem to tower higher in the clear blue of the sky. At that 
 season of the year they are little visited, and only awaken 
 the wonder of the occasional traveller. 
 
 It is not necessary to ascend Mount Washington, to enjoy 
 the finest views. Some of the lower peaks offer grander 
 though not so extensive ones ; the height of the main sum- 
 mit seems to diminish the size of the objects beheld from it. 
 The sense of solitude and immensity is however most 
 strongly felt on that great cone, overlooking all the rest, 
 and formed of loose rocks, which seem as if broken into frag- 
 ments by the power which upheaved these ridges from the 
 depths of the earth below. At some distance on the north- 
 ern side of one of the summits, I saw a large snow-drift lying 
 in the August sunshine. 
 
 The Franconia Notch, which we afterwards visited, is 
 almost as remarkable for the two beautiful little lakes within 
 it, as for the savage grandeur of the mountain- walls between 
 which it passes. At this place I was shown a hen clucking 
 over a brood of young puppies. They were littered near 
 the nest where she was sitting, when she immediately 
 abandoned her eggs and adopted them as her offspring.
 
 A HEN MOTHER OF PUPPIES. 335 
 
 She had a battle with the mother, and proved victorious; 
 after which, however, a compromise took place, the slut 
 nursing the puppies and the hen covering them as well as 
 she could with her wings. She was strutting among them 
 when I saw her, with an appearance of pride at having 
 produced so gigantic a brood. 
 
 From Franconia we proceeded to Bath, on or near the 
 Connecticut, and entered the lovely valley of that river, 
 which is as beautiful in New Hampshire, as in any part of 
 its course. Hanover, the seat of Dartmouth College, is a 
 pleasant spot, but the traveller will find there the worst 
 hotels on the river. Windsor, on the Vermont side, is a still 
 finer village, with trim gardens and streets shaded by old 
 trees ; Bellows Falls is one of the most striking places for 
 its scenery in all New England. The coach brought us to 
 the railway station in the pleasant village of Greenfield. 
 We took seats in the train, and leaving on our left the quiet 
 old streets of Deerfield under their ancient trees, and passing 
 a dozen or more of the villages on the meadows of the Con- 
 necticut, found ourselves in less than two hours in this 
 nourishing place, which is rapidly rising to be one of the 
 most important towns in New England. 

 
 336 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 
 LETTER XLIII. 
 
 A PASSAGE TO SAVANNAH. 
 
 AUGUSTA, Georgia, March 29, 1849. 
 
 A QUIET passage by sea from New York to Savannah 
 would seem to aflbrd little matter for a letter, yet those who 
 take the trouble to read what I am about to write, will, I 
 hope, admit that there are some things to be observed, even 
 on such a voyage. It was indeed a remarkably quiet one, 
 and worthy of note on that account, if on no other. We had 
 a quiet vessel, quiet weather, a quiet, good-natured captain, 
 a quiet crew, and remarkably quiet passengers. 
 
 When we left the wharf at New York last week, in the 
 good steamship Tennessee, we were not conscious, at first, 
 as we sat in the cabin, that she was in motion and proceed- 
 ing down the harbor. There was no beating or churning of 
 the sea, no struggling to get forward ; her paddles played in 
 the water as smoothly as those of a terrapin, without jar or 
 noise. The Tennessee is one of the tightest and strongest 
 boats that navigate our coast ; the very flooring of her deck 
 is composed of timbers instead of planks, and helps to keep 
 her massive frame more compactly and solidly together. It 
 was her first voyage ; her fifty-one passengers lolled on sofas 

 
 PASSENGERS IN THE STEAMER. 337 
 
 fresh from the upholsterer's, and slept on mattresses which 
 had never been pressed by the human form before, in state- 
 rooms where foul air had never collected. Nor is it possible 
 that the air should become impure in them to any great de- 
 gree, for the Tennessee is the best-ventilated ship I ever was 
 in ; the main cabin and the state-rooms are connected with 
 each other and with the deck, by numerous openings and pipes 
 which keep up a constant circulation of air in every part. 
 
 I have spoken of the passengers as remarkably quiet per- 
 sons. Several of them, I believe, never spoke during the 
 passage, at least so it seemed to me. The silence would 
 have been almost irksome, but for two lively little girls who 
 amused us by their prattle, and two young women, appa- 
 rently just married, too happy to do any thing but laugh, even 
 when suffering from seasickness, and whom we now and 
 then heard shouting and squealing from their state-rooms. 
 There were two dark-haired, long-limbed gentlemen, who 
 lay the greater part of the first and second day at full length 
 on the sofas in the after-cabin, each with a spittoon before 
 him, chewing tobacco with great rapidity and industry, and 
 apparently absorbed in the endeavor to fill it within a given 
 time. There was another, with that atrabilious complexion 
 peculiar to marshy countries, and circles of a still deeper hue 
 about his eyes, who sat on deck, speechless and motionless, 
 wholly indifferent to the sound of the dinner-bell, his coun- 
 tenance fixed in an expression which seemed to indicate an 
 utter disgust of life. 
 
 29
 
 33b .LETTERS OF A T R A V 7 1: L L E II. 
 
 Yet Ave had some snatches of good talk on the voyage. A 
 robust old gentleman, a native of Norwalk, in Connecticut, 
 told us that he had been reading a history of that place by 
 the Rev. Mr. Hall. 
 
 " I find," said he, " that in his account of the remarkable 
 people of Norwalk, he has omitted to speak of two of the 
 most remarkable, two spinsters, Sarah and Phebe Comstock, 
 relatives of mine and friends of rny youth, of whom I retain 
 a vivid recollection. They were in opulent circumstances 
 for the neighborhood in which they lived, possessing a farm 
 of about two hundred acres ; they were industrious, frugal, 
 and extremely charitable ; but they never relieved a poor 
 family without visiting it, and inquiring carefully into its 
 circumstances. Sarah was the housekeeper, and Phebe the 
 farmer. Phebe knew nothing of kitchen matters, but she 
 knew at what time of the year greensward should be broken 
 up, and corn planted, and potatoes dug. She dropped Indian 
 corn and sowed English grain with her own hands. In the 
 time of planting or of harvest, it was Sarah who visited and 
 relieved the poor. 
 
 " I remember that they had various ways of employing 
 the young people who called upon them. If it was late in 
 the autumn, there was a choppirig-board and chopping-knife 
 ready, with the feet of neat-cattle, from which the oily parts 
 had been extracted by boiling. ' You do not want to be 
 idle,' they would say, ' chop this meat, and you shall have 
 your share of the mince-pies that we are going to make.'
 
 OLD TIMES IN CONNECTICUT. 339 
 
 At other times a supply of old woollen stockings were ready 
 for unraveling. ' We know you do not care to be idle,' 
 they would say, ' here are some stockings which you would 
 oblige us by unraveling.' If you asked what use they 
 made of the spools of woollen thread obtained by this pro- 
 cess, they would answer : ' "We use it as the weft of the 
 linsey-woolsey with which we clothe our negroes.' They 
 had negro slaves in those times, and old Tone, a faithful 
 black servant of theirs, who has seen more than a hundred 
 years, is alive yet. 
 
 " They practiced one very peculiar piece of economy. 
 The white hickory you know, yields the purest and sweetest 
 of saccharine juices. They had their hickory fuel cut into 
 short billets, which before placing on the fire they laid on 
 the andirons, a little in front of the blaze, so as to subject it 
 to a pretty strong heat. This caused the syrup in the wood 
 to drop from each end of the billet, where it was caught in 
 a cup, and in this way a gallon or two was collected in the 
 course of a fortnight. With this they flavored their finest 
 cakes. 
 
 " They died about thirty years since, one at the age of 
 eighty-nine, and the other at the age of ninety. On the 
 tomb-stone of one of them, it was recorded that she had 
 been a member of the church for seventy years. Their 
 father was a remarkable man in his way. He was a rich 
 man in his time, and kept a park of deer, one of the last 
 known in Connecticut, for the purpose of supplying his table
 
 340 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 with venison. He prided himself on the strict and literal 
 fulfillment of his word. On one occasion he had a law-suit 
 with one of his neighbors, before a justice of the peace, in 
 which he was cast and ordered to pay ten shillings damages, 
 and a shilling as the fees of court. He paid the ten shil- 
 lings, and asked the justice whether he would allow him to 
 pay the remaining shilling when he next passed his door. 
 The magistrate readily consented, but from that time old 
 Comstock never went by his house. Whenever he had oc- 
 casion to go to church, or to any other place, the direct road 
 to which led by the justice's door, he was careful to take a 
 lane which passed behind the dwelling, and at some dis- 
 tance from it. The shilling remained unpaid up to the day 
 of his death, and it was found that in his last will he had 
 directed that his corpse should be carried by that lane to 
 the place of interment." 
 
 When we left the quarantine ground on Thursday morn- 
 ing, after lying moored all night with a heavy rain beating 
 on the deck, the sky was beginning to clear with a strong 
 northwest wind and the decks were slippery with ice. 
 When the sun rose it threw a cold white light upon the 
 waters, and the passengers who appeared on deck were 
 muffled to the eyes. As we proceeded southwardly, the 
 temperature grew milder, and the day closed with a calm 
 and pleasant sunset. The next day the weather was still 
 milder, until about noon, when we arrived off Cape Hat- 
 teras a strong wind set in from the northeast, clouds gath-
 
 A SOFTER CLIMATE. 341 
 
 ered with a showery aspect, and every thing seemed to 
 betoken an impending storm. At this moment the captain 
 shifted the direction of the voyage, from south to southwest ; 
 we ran before the wind leaving the storm, if there was any, 
 behind us, and the day closed with another quiet and bril- 
 liant sunset. 
 
 The next day, the third of our voyage, broke upon us like 
 a day in summer, with amber-colored sunshine and the 
 blandest breezes that ever blew. An awning was stretched 
 over the deck to protect us from the beams of the sun, and 
 all the passengers gathered under it ; the two dark-com- 
 plexioned gentlemen left the task of filling the spittoons be- 
 low, and came up to chew their tobacco on deck ; the atra- 
 bilious passenger was seen to interest himself in the direction 
 of the compass, and once was thought to smile, and the hale 
 old gentleman repeated the history of his Norwalk relatives. 
 On the fourth morning we landed at Savannah. It was 
 delightful to eyes which had seen only russet fields and leaf- 
 less trees for months, to gaze on the new and delicate green 
 of the trees and the herbage. The weeping willows drooped 
 in full leaf, the later oaks were putting forth their new 
 foliage, the locust-trees had hung out their tender sprays and 
 their clusters of blossoms not yet unfolded, the Chinese 
 wistaria covered the sides of houses with its festoons of blue 
 blossoms, and roses were nodding at us in the wind, from the 
 tops of the* brick walls which surround the gardens. 
 
 Yet winter had been here, I saw. The orange-trees which, 
 29*
 
 312 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 
 since the great frost seven or eight years ago, had sprung 
 from the ground and grown to the height of fifteen or twenty 
 feet, had a few days before my arrival felt another severe 
 frost, and stood covered with sere dry leaves in the gardens, 
 some of them yet covered with fruit. The trees were not 
 killed, however, as formerly, though they will produce no 
 fruit this season, and new leaf-buds were beginning to sprout 
 on their boughs. The dwarf-orange, a hardier tree, had 
 escaped entirely, and its blossoms were beginning to open. 
 
 I visited Bonaventure, which I formerly described in 
 one of my letters. It has lost the interest of utter soli- 
 tude and desertion which it then had. A Gothic cottage 
 has been built on the place, and the avenues of live-oaks 
 have been surrounded with an inclosure, for the purpose of 
 making a cemetery on the spot. Yet there they stand, as 
 solemn as ever, lifting and stretching their long irregular 
 branches overhead, hung with masses and festoons of gray 
 moss. It almost seemed, when I looked up to them, as if 
 the clouds had come nearer to the earth than is their wont, 
 and formed themselves into the shadowy ribs of the vault 
 above me. The drive to Bonaventure at this season of the 
 year is very beautiful, though the roads are sandy ; it is 
 partly along an avenue of tall trees, and partly through 
 the woods, where the dog-wood and azalea and thorn-trees 
 are in blossom, and the ground is sprinkled with flowers. 
 Here and there are dwellings beside the road. *' They are 
 unsafe the greater part of the year," said the gentleman who
 
 VAST QUANTITIES OF COTTON. 313 
 
 drove me out, and who spoke from professional knowledge, 
 " a summer residence in. them is sure to bring dangerous 
 fevers." Savannah is a healthy city, but it is like Rome, 
 imprisoned by malaria. 
 
 The city of Savannah, since I saw it six years ago, has 
 enlarged considerably, and the additions made to it increase 
 its beauty. The streets have been extended on the south 
 side, on the same plan as those of the rest of the city, with 
 small parks at short distances from each other, planted with 
 trees ; and the new houses are handsome and well-built. 
 The communications opened with the interior by long lines 
 of railway have, no doubt, been the principal occasion of 
 this prosperity. These and the Savannah river send enor- 
 mous quantities of cotton to the Savannah market. One 
 should see, with the bodily eye, the multitude of bales of 
 this commodity accumulating in the warehouses and else- 
 where, in order to form an idea of the extent to which it is 
 produced in the southern, states long trains of cars heaped 
 with bales, steamer after steamer loaded high with bales 
 coming down the rivers, acres of bales on the wharves, acres 
 of bales at the railway stations one should see all this, and 
 then carry his thoughts to the millions of the civilized world 
 who are clothed by this great staple of our country. 
 
 I came to this place by steamer to Charleston and then by 
 railway. The line of the railway, one hundred and thirty- 
 seven miles in length, passes through the most unproductive 
 district of South Carolina. It is in fact nothing but a waste
 
 344 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of forest, with here and there an open field, half a' dozen 
 glimpses of plantations, and about as many villages, none 
 of which are considerable, and some of which consist of not 
 more than half a dozen houses. Aiken, however, sixteen 
 miles before you reach the Savannah river, has a pleasant 
 aspect. It is situated on a comparatively high tract of 
 country, sandy and barren, but healthy, and hither the 
 planters resort in the hot months from their homes in the 
 less salubrious districts. Pretty cottages stand dispersed 
 among the oaks and pines, and immediately west of the 
 place the country descends in pleasant undulations towards 
 the valley of the Savannah. 
 
 The appearance of Augusta struck me very agreeably as 
 I reached it, on a most delightful afternoon, which seemed 
 to me more like June than March. I was delighted to see 
 turf again, regular greensward of sweet grasses and clover, 
 such as you see in May in the northern states, and do not 
 meet on the coast in the southern states. The city lies on 
 a broad rich plain on the Savannah river, with woody 
 declivities to the north and west. I have seen several 
 things her 3 since my arrival which interested me much, 
 and if I can command time I will speak of them in another 
 letter.
 
 AUGUSTA IN GEORGIA. 345 
 
 LETTER XLIV. 
 
 SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS. 
 
 BAKNWELL DISTRICT, South Carolina, \ 
 March 31, 1849. f 
 
 I PROMISED to say something more of Augusta if I had 
 time before departing from Cuba, and I find that I have a 
 few moments to spare for a hasty letter. 
 
 The people of Augusta boast of the beauty of their place, 
 and not without some reason. The streets are broad, and 
 in some parts overshadowed with rows of fine trees. The 
 banks of the river on which it stands are high and firm, 
 and slopes half covered with forest, of a pleasant aspect, over- 
 look it from the west and from the Carolina side. To the 
 south stretches a broad champaign country, on which are 
 some of the finest plantations of Georgia. I visited one of 
 these, consisting of ten thousand acres, kept throughout in 
 as perfect order as a small farm at the north, though large 
 enough for a German principality. 
 
 But what interested me most, was a visit to a cotton 
 mill in the neighborhood, a sample of a class of manufac- 
 turing establishments, where the poor white people of this 
 state and of South Carolina find occupation. It is a large
 
 346 LETTERS) OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 manufactory, and the machinery is in as perfect order as in 
 any of the mills at the north. " Here," said a gentleman 
 who accompanied us, as we entered the long apartment in 
 the second story, " you will see a sample of the brunettes of 
 the piny woods." 
 
 The girls of various ages, who are employed at the 
 spindles, had, for the most part, a sallow, sickly com- 
 plexion, and in many of their faces, I remarked that look of 
 mingled distrust and dejection which often accompanies the 
 condition of extreme, hopeless poverty. " These poor girls,' 
 said one of our party, " think themselves extremely for 
 tunate to be employed here, and accept work gladly. Thej 
 come from the most barren parts of Carolina and Georgia, 
 where their families live wretchedly, often upon unwholesome 
 food, and as idly as wretchedly, for hitherto there has been 
 no manual occupation provided for them from which they 
 do not shrink as disgraceful, on account of its being the 
 occupation of slaves. In these factories negroes are not 
 employed as operatives, and this gives the calling of the 
 factory girl a certain dignity. You would be surprised to 
 see the change which a short time effects in these poor 
 people. They come barefooted, dirty, and in rags ; they 
 are scoured, put into shoes and stockings, set at work and 
 sent regularly to the Sunday-schools, where they are taught 
 what none of them have been taught before to read and 
 write. In a short time they became expert at their work ; 
 they lose their sullen shyness, and their physiognomy becomes
 
 comparatively open and cheerful. Their families are re- 
 lieved from the temptations to theft and other shameful 
 courses which accompany the condition of poverty without 
 occupation. 1 ' 
 
 " They have a good deal of the poke-easy manner of the 
 piny woods about them yet," said one of our party, a 
 Georgian. It was true, I perceived that they had not yet 
 acquired all that alacrity and quickness in their work 
 which you see in the work-people of the New England 
 mills. In one of the- upper stories I saw a girl of a clearer 
 complexion than the rest, with two long curls swinging 
 behind each ear, as she stepped about with the air of 9 
 duchess. " That girl is from the north," said our con- 
 ductor ; "at first we placed an expert operative from the 
 north in each story of the building as an instructor and 
 pattern to the rest." 
 
 I have since learned that some attempts were made at 
 first to induce the poor white people to work side by side 
 with the blacks in these mills. These utterly failed, and 
 the question then became with the proprietors whether 
 they should employ blacks only or whites only ; whether 
 they should give these poor people an occupation which, 
 while it tended to elevate their condition, secured a more 
 expert class of work-people than the negroes could be ex- 
 pected to become, or whether they should rely upon the less 
 intelligent and more negligent services of slaves. They de- 
 cided at length upon banishing the labor of blacks from their
 
 J48 LKTTKRS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 mills. At Graniteville, in South Carolina, about ten miles 
 from the Savannah river, a neat little manufacturing village 
 has lately been built up, where the families of the crackers, 
 as they are called, reclaimed from their idle lives in the 
 woods, are settled, and white labor only is employed. The 
 enterprise is said to be in a most prosperous condition. 
 
 Only coarse cloths are made in these mills strong, thick 
 fabrics, suitable for negro shirting and the demand for this 
 kind of goods, I am told, is greater than the supply. Every 
 yard made in this manufactory at Augusta, is taken off as 
 soon as it leaves the loom. I fell in with a northern man 
 m the course of the day, who told me that these mills had 
 driven the northern manufacturer of coarse cottons out of 
 the southern market. 
 
 " The buildings are erected here more cheaply," he con- 
 tinued, " there is far less expense in fuel, and the wages of 
 the workpeople are less. At first the boys and girls of the 
 cracker families were engaged for little more than their 
 board ; their wages are now better, but they are still low. 
 1 am about to go to the north, and I shall do my best to 
 persuade some of my friends, who have been almost ruined 
 by this southern competition, to come to Augusta and set 
 up cotton mills." 
 
 There is water-power at Augusta sufficient to turn the 
 machinery of many large establishments. A canal from the 
 Savannah river brings in a large volume of water, which 
 passes from level to level, and might be made to turn the
 
 SOMERVILLE. 349 
 
 spindles and drive the looms of a populous manufacturing 
 town. Such it will become, if any faith is to be placed in 
 present indications, and a considerable manufacturing popu- 
 lation will be settled at this place, drawn from the half- 
 wild inhabitants of the most barren parts of the southern 
 states. I look upon the introduction of manufactures at the 
 south as an event of the most favorable promise for that part 
 of the country, since it both condenses a class of population 
 too thinly scattered to have the benefit of the institutions of 
 eivilized life, of education and religion and restores one 
 branch of labor, at least, to its proper dignity, in a region 
 where manual labor has been the badge of servitude and 
 dependence. 
 
 One of the pleasantest spots in the neighborhood of 
 Augusta is Somerville, a sandy eminence, "covered with 
 woods, the shade of which is carefully cherished, and in the 
 midst of which are numerous cottages and country seats, 
 closely embowered in trees, with pleasant paths leading 
 them from the highway. Here the evenings in summer are 
 not so oppressively hot as in the town below, and dense as 
 the shade is, the air is dry and elastic. Hither many 
 families retire during the hot season, and many reside here 
 the year round. We drove through it as the sun was 
 setting, and called at the dwellings of several of the hos- 
 pitable inhabitants. The next morning the railway train 
 brought us to Barnwell District, in South Carolina, where I 
 write this. 
 
 30 ^
 
 350 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 I intended to send you some notes of the agricultural 
 changes which I have observed in this part of South Caro- 
 lina since I was last here, but I have hardly time to do it. 
 The culture of wheat has been introduced, many planters 
 now raising enough for their own consumption. The sugar 
 cane is also planted, and quantities of sugar and molasses 
 are often made sufficient to supply the plantations on which 
 it is cultivated. Spinning-wheels and looms have come 
 into use, and a strong and durable cotton cloth is woven by 
 the negro women for the wear of the slaves. All this 
 shows a desire to make the most of the recources of the 
 country, and to protect the planter against the embar- 
 rassments which often arise from the fluctuating prices of 
 the great staple of the south cotton. But I have no time 
 to dwell upon this subject. To-morrow I sail for Cuba. 

 
 THE FLORIDA REEFS. 351 
 
 LETTER XLV. 
 
 THE FLORIDA COAST. KEY WEST. 
 
 HAVANA, April 7, 1849. 
 
 It was a most agreeable voyage which I made in the 
 steamer Isabel, to this port, the wind in our favor the whole 
 distance, fine bright weather, the temperature passing 
 gradually from what we have it in New York at the end 
 of May, to what it is in the middle of June. The Isabel is 
 a noble sea-boat, of great strength, not so well ventilated as 
 the Tennessee, in which we came to Savannah, with spa- 
 cious and comfortable cabins, and, I am sorry to say, rather 
 dirty state-rooms. 
 
 We stopped off Savannah near the close of the first day 
 of our voyage, to leave some of our passengers and take in 
 others ; and on the second, which was also the second of 
 the month, we were running rapidly down the Florida 
 coast, with the trade-wind fresh on our beam, sweeping be- 
 fore it a long swell from the east, in which our vessel rocked 
 too much for the stomachs of most of the passengers. The 
 next day the sea was smoother ; we had changed our direc- 
 tion somewhat and were going before the wind, the Florida
 
 352 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 reefs full in sight, with their long streak of white surf, be- 
 yond which, along the line of the shore, lay a belt of water, 
 of bright translucent green, and in front the waves wore an 
 amethystine tint. We sat the greater part of the day under 
 an awning. A long line, with a baited hook at the end, 
 was let down into the water from the stern of our vessel, 
 and after being dragged there an hour or two, it was seized 
 by a king-fish, which was immediately hauled on board. 
 Tt was an elegantly shaped fish, weighing nearly twenty 
 pounds, with a long head, and scales shining with blue and 
 purple. It was served up for dinner, and its flavor much 
 commended by the amateurs. 
 
 The waters around us were full of sails, gleaming in the 
 sunshine. "They belong," said our Charleston pilot, "to 
 the wreckers who live at Key West. Every morning they 
 come out and cruise among the reefs, to discover if there are 
 any vessels wrecked or in distress the night brings them 
 back to the harbor on their island." 
 
 Your readers know, I presume, that at Key West is a 
 town containing nearly three thousand inhabitants, who 
 subsist solely by the occupation of relieving vessels in dis- 
 tress navigating this dangerous coast, and bringing in such 
 as are wrecked. The population, of course, increases with 
 the commerce of the country, and every vessel that sails 
 from our ports to the Gulf of Mexico, or comes from the 
 Gulf to the North, every addition to the intercourse of the 
 Atlantic ports with Mobile, New Orleans, the West Indies,
 
 DANGEROUS NAVIGATION. 353 
 
 or Central America, adds to their chances of gain. These 
 people neither plant nor sow; their isle is a low barren 
 spot, surrounded by a beach of white sand, formed of dis- 
 integrated porous limestone, and a covering of the same 
 sand, spread thinly over the rock, forms its soil. 
 
 " It is a scandal," said the pilot, "that this coast is not 
 better lighted. A few light-houses would make its naviga- 
 tion much safer, and they would be built, if Florida had any 
 man in Congress to represent the matter properly to the 
 government. I have long been familiar with this coast 
 sixty times, at least, I have made the voyage from Charles- 
 ton to Havana, and I am sure that there is no such danger- 
 ous navigation on the coast of the United States. In going 
 to Havana, or to New Orleans, or to other ports on the gulf, 
 commanders of vessels try to avoid the current of the gulf- 
 strearn which would carry them to the north, and they, 
 therefore, shave the Florida coast, and keep near the reefs 
 which you see yonder. They often strike the reefs inad- 
 vertently, or are driven against them by storms. In return- 
 ing northward the navigation is safer ; we give a good 
 offing to the reefs and strike out into the gurf-stream, 
 the current of which carries us in the direction of our 
 voyage." 
 
 A little before nine o'clock we had entered the little harbor 
 
 of Key West, and were moored in its still waters. It was a 
 
 bright moonlight evening, and we rambled two or three 
 
 hours about the town and the island. The hull of a dis- 
 
 30*
 
 354 LTSTTK'KS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 masted vessel lay close by our landing-place ; it had no 
 name on bow or stern, and had just been found abandoned 
 at sea, and brought in by the wreckers ; its cargo, consist- 
 ing of logwood, had been taken out and lay in piles on the 
 wharf. This town has principally grown up since the 
 Florida war. The habitations have a comfortable appear- 
 ance ; some of them are quite neat, but the sterility of the 
 place is attested by the want of gardens. In some of the 
 inclosures before the houses, however, there were tropical 
 shrubs in flower, and here the cocoanut-tree was growing, 
 and other trees of the palm kind, which rustled with a sharp 
 dry sound in the fresh wind from the sea. They were the 
 first palms I had seen growing in the open air, and they 
 gave a tropical aspect to the place. 
 
 We fell in with a man who had lived thirteen years at 
 Key West. He told us that its three thousand inhabitants 
 had four places of worship an Episcopal, a Catholic, a 
 Methodist, and a Baptist church ; arid the drinking-houses 
 which we saw open, with such an elaborate display of 
 bottles and decanters, were not resorted to by the people of 
 the place, but were the haunt of English and American 
 sailors, whom the disasters, or the regular voyages of their 
 vessels had brought hither. He gave us an account of the 
 hurricane of September, 1846, which overflowed and laid 
 waste the island. 
 
 " Here where we stand," said he, "the water was four 
 feet deep at least. I saved my family in a boat, and
 
 A HURTIICANE AND FLOOD. 356 
 
 carried them to a higher part of the island. Two houses 
 which I owned were swept away by the flood, and I was 
 ruined. Most of the houses were unroofed by the wind ; 
 every vessel belonging to the place was lost ; dismasted 
 hulks were floating about, and nobody knew to whom they 
 belonged, and dead bodies of men and women lay scattered 
 along the beach. It was the worst hurricane ever known 
 at Key West ; before it came, we used to have a hurri- 
 cane regularly once in two years, but we have had none 
 since." 
 
 A bell was rung about this time, and we asked the 
 reason. " It is to signify that the negroes must be at their 
 homes," answered the man. We inquired if there were 
 many blacks in the place. " Till lately," he replied, " there 
 were about eighty, but since the United States government 
 has begun to build the fort yonder, their number has 
 increased. Several broken-down planters, who have no 
 employment for their slaves, have sent them to Key West 
 to be employed by the government. We do not want them 
 here, and wish that the government would leave them on 
 the hands of their masters." 
 
 On the fourth morning when we went on deck, the coast 
 of Cuba, a ridge of dim hills, was in sight, and our vessel 
 was rolling in the unsteady waves of the gulf stream, which 
 here beat against the northern shore of the island. It was 
 a hot morning, as the mornings in this climate always are 
 till the periodical breeze springs up, about ten o'clock, and
 
 356 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 refreshes all the islands that lie in the embrace of the gulf. 
 In a short time, the cream-colored walls of the Moro, the 
 strong castle which guards the entrance to the harbor of 
 Havana, appeared rising from the waters. We passed close 
 to the cliffs on which it is built, were hailed in English, 
 a gun was fired, our steamer darted through a narrow 
 entrance into the harbor, and anchored in the midst of what 
 appeared a still inland lake. 
 
 The city of Havana has a cheerful appearance seen from 
 the harbor. Its massive houses, built for the most part of 
 the porous rock of the island, are covered with stucco, 
 generally of a white or cream color, but often stained sky- 
 blue or bright yellow. Above these rise the dark towers 
 and domes of the churches, apparently built of a more 
 durable material, and looking more venerable for the gay 
 color of the dwellings amidst which they stand. The 
 extensive fortifications of Cabanas crown the heights on that 
 side of the harbor which lies opposite to the town ; and 
 south of the city a green, fertile valley, in which stand 
 scattered palm-trees, stretches towards the pleasant village 
 of Cerro. 
 
 We lay idly in the stream for two hours, till the authori- 
 ties of the port could find time to visit us. They arrived 
 at last, and without coming on board, subjected the captain 
 to a long questioning, and searched the newspapers he 
 brought for intelligence relating to the health of the port 
 from which he sailed. At last they gave us leave to land,
 
 LANDING AT HAVANA. 3o7 
 
 without undergoing a quarantine, and withdrew, taking 
 with them our passports. We went on shore, and after 
 three hours further delay got our baggage through the 
 custom-house. 
 
 

 
 358 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 
 LETTER XLVI. 
 
 HAVANA, April 10, 1849. 
 
 I FIND that it requires a greater effort of resolution to sit 
 down to the writing of a long letter in this soft climate, than 
 in the country I have left. I feel a temptation to sit idly, 
 and let the grateful wind from the sea, coming in at the 
 broad windows, flow around me, or read, or talk, as I 
 happen to have a book or a companion. That there is 
 something in a tropical climate which indisposes one to 
 vigorous exertion I can well believe, from what I experience 
 in myself, and what I see around me. The ladies do not 
 seem to take the least exercise, except an occasional drive 
 on the Paseo, or public park ; they never walk out, and 
 when they are shopping, which is no less the vocation of 
 their sex here than in other civilized countries, they never 
 descend from their volantes, but the goods are brought out by 
 the obsequious shopkeeper, and the lady makes her choice 
 and discusses the price as she sits in her carriage. 
 
 Yet the M'omen of Cuba show no tokens of delicate 
 health. Freshness of color does not belong to a latitude so 
 near the equator, but they have plump figures, placid, un-
 
 AIRY ROOMS. 359 
 
 wrinkled countenances, a well-developed bust, and eyes, 
 the brilliant languor of which is riot the languor of illness. 
 The girls as well as the young men, have rather narrow 
 shoulders, but as they advance in life, the chest, in the 
 women particularly, seems to expand from year to year, till 
 it attains an amplitude by no means common in our country. 
 I fully believe that this effect, and their general health, in 
 spite of the inaction in which they pass their lives, is owing 
 to the free circulation of air through their apartments. 
 
 For in Cuba, the women as well as the men may be said 
 to live in the open air. They know nothing of close rooms, 
 in all the island, and nothing of foul air, and to this, I have 
 110 doubt, quite as much as to the mildness of the temper- 
 ature, the friendly effect of its climate upon invalids from 
 the north is to be ascribed. Their ceilings are extremely 
 lofty, and the wide windows, extending from the top of the 
 room to the floor and guarded by long perpendicular bars 
 of iron, are without glass, and when closed are generally 
 only closed with blinds which, while they break the force 
 of the wind when it is too strong, do not exclude the air. 
 Since I have been on the island, I may be said to have 
 breakfasted and dined and supped and slept in the open air, 
 in an atmosphere which is never in repose except for a 
 short time in the morning after sunrise. At other times a 
 breeze is always stirring, in the day-time bringing in the 
 air from the ocean, and at night drawing it out again to the
 
 360 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Iii walking through the streets of the towns in Cuba, I 
 have been entertained by the glimpses I had through the 
 ample windows, of what was going on in the parlors. 
 Sometimes a curtain hanging before them allowed me only 
 a sight of the small hands which clasped the bars of the 
 grate, and the dusky faces and dark eyes peeping into the 
 street and scanning the passers by. At other times, the 
 whole room was seen, with its furniture, and its female 
 forms sitting in languid postures, courting the breeze as it 
 entered from without. In the evening, as I passed along the 
 narrow sidewalk of the narrow streets, I have been startled 
 at finding myself almost in the midst of a merry party 
 gathered about the window of a brilliantly lighted room, 
 and chattering the soft Spanish of the island in voices that 
 sounded strangely near to me. I have spoken of their 
 languid postures : they love to recline on sofas ; their houses 
 are filled with rocking-chairs imported from the United 
 States ; they are fond of sitting in chairs tilted against the 
 wall, as we sometimes do at home. Indeed they go beyond 
 us in this respct ; for in Cuba they have invented a kind 
 of chair which, by lowering the back and raising the knees, 
 places the sitter precisely in the posture he would take if he 
 sat in a chair leaning backward against a wall. It is a 
 luxurious attitude, I must own, and I do not wonder that it 
 is a favorite with lazy people, for it relieves one of all the 
 trouble of keeping the body upright. 
 
 It is the women who form the large majority of the wor-
 
 DEVOTION OF THE WOMEN. 361 
 
 shipers in the churches. I landed here in Passion Week, 
 and the next day was Holy Thursday, when not a vehicle on 
 wheels of any sort is allowed to be seen in the streets ; ant 
 the ladies, contrary to their custom during the rest of the 
 year, are obliged to resort to the churches on foot. Negr 
 servants of both sexes were seen passing to and fro, carrying 
 mats on which their mistresses were to kneel in the morning 
 service. All the white female population, young and old, 
 were dressed in black, with black lace veils. In the after- 
 noon, three wooden or waxen images of the size of life, rep- 
 resenting Christ iu the different stages of his passion, were 
 placed in the spacious Church of St. Catharine, which was 
 so thronged that I found it difficult to enter. Near the door 
 was a figure of the Saviour sinking under the weight of his 
 cross, and the worshipers were kneeling to kiss his feet. 
 Aged negro men and women, half-naked negro children, 
 ladies richly attired, little girls in Parisian dresses, with 
 lustrous black eyes and a profusion of ringlets, cast them- 
 selves down before the image, and pressed their lips to its 
 feet in a passion of devotion. Mothers led up their little 
 ones, and showed them how to perform this act of adoration. 
 I saw matrons and young women rise from it with their eye 
 red with tears. 
 
 The next day, which was Good Friday, about twilight, a 
 
 long procession came trailing slowly through the streets 
 
 under my window, bearing an image of the dead Christ, 
 
 lying upon a cloth of gold. It was accompanied by a body 
 
 31
 
 362 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of soldiery, holding their muskets reversed, and a band play- 
 ing plaintive tunes ; the crowd uncovered their heads as it 
 passed. On Saturday morning, at ten o'clock, the solemnities 
 of holy week were over ; the hells rang a merry peal ; hun- 
 dreds of volantes and drays, which had stood ready har- 
 nessed, rushed into the streets ; the city became suddenly 
 noisy with the rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses : 
 the shops which had been shut for the last two days, were 
 opened ; and the ladies, in white or light-colored muslins, 
 were proceeding in their volantes to purchase at the shops 
 their costumes for the Easter festivities. 
 
 I passed the evening on the Plaza de Annas, a public 
 square in front of the Governor's house, planted with palms 
 and other trees, paved with broad flags, and bordered with 
 a row of benches. It was crowded with people in their best 
 dresses, the ladies mostly in white, and without bonnets, for 
 the bonnet in this country is only worn while travelling. 
 Chairs had been placed for them in a double row around the 
 edge of the square, and a row of volantes surrounded the 
 square, in each of which sat two or more ladies, the ample 
 folds of their muslin dresses flowing out on each side over the 
 steps of the carriage. The Governor's band played various 
 airs, martial and civic, with great beauty of execution. The 
 music continued for two hours, and the throng, with only 
 occasional intervals of conversation, seemed to give them- 
 selves up wholly to the enjoyment of listening to it. 
 
 It was a bright moonlight night, so bright that one might
 
 CASCAK.ILLA. 363 
 
 almost see to read, and the temperature the finest I can con- 
 ceive, a gentle hreeze rustling among the palms overhead. 
 I was surprised at seeing around me so many fair brows and 
 snowy necks. It is the moonlight, said I to myself, or per- 
 haps it is the effect of the white dresses, for the complexions 
 of these ladies seem to differ several shades from those which 
 I saw yesterday at the churches. A female acquaintance 
 has since given me another solution of the matter. 
 
 " The reason," she said, " of the difference you perceived 
 is this, that during the ceremonies of holy week they take 
 off the cascarilla from their faces, and appear in their natural 
 complexions." 
 
 I asked the meaning of the word cascarilla, which I did 
 not remember to have heard before. 
 
 " It is the favorite cosmetic of the island, and is made of 
 egg-shells finely pulverized. They often fairly plaster their 
 faces with it. I have seen a dark-skinned lady as white 
 almost as marble at a ball. They will sometimes, at a 
 morning call or an evening party, withdraw to repair the 
 cascarilla on their faces." 
 
 I do not vouch for this tale, but tell it " as it was told to 
 me." Perhaps, after all, it was the moonlight which had 
 produced this transformation, though I had noticed some- 
 thing of the same improvement of complexion just before 
 sunset, on the Paseo Isabel, a public park without the city 
 walls, planted with rows of trees, where, every afternoon, 
 the gentry of Havana drive backward and forward in their
 
 364 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 volantes, with each a glittering harness, and a liveried negro 
 bestriding, in large jack-boots, the single horse which draws 
 the vehicle. 
 
 I had also the same afternoon visited the receptacle into 
 which the population of the city are swept when the game 
 of life is played out the Campo Santo, as it is called, or 
 public cemetery of Havana. Going out of the city at the 
 gate nearest the sea, I passed through a street of the 
 wretchedest houses I had seen ; the ocean was roaring at 
 my right on the coral rocks which form the coast. The 
 dingy habitations were soon left behind, and I saw the 
 waves, pushed forward by a fresh wind, flinging their spray 
 almost into the road ; I next entered a short avenue of 
 trees, and in a few minutes the volante stopped at the gate 
 of the cemetery. In a little inclosure before the entrance, 
 a few starvling flowers of Europe were cultivated, but the 
 wild plants of the country flourished luxuriantly on the rich 
 soil within. A thick wall surrounded the cemetery, in 
 which were rows of openings for coffins, one above the 
 other, where the more opulent of the dead were entombed. 
 The coffin is thrust in endwise, and the opening closed with 
 a marble slab bearing an inscription. 
 
 Most of these niches were already occupied, but in the 
 earth below, by far the greater part of those who die at Ha- 
 vana, are buried without a monument or a grave which 
 they are allowed to hold a longer time than is necessary for 
 their bodies to be consumed in the quicklime which is
 
 IJ 17 II 1 A L PLACES. 365 
 
 thrown upon them. Every day fresh trenches are dug in 
 which their bodies are thrown, generally without coffins. 
 Two of these, one near each wall of the cemetery, were 
 \vaiting for the funerals. I saw where the spade had 
 divided the bones of those who were buried there last, and 
 thrown up the broken fragments, mingled with masses of 
 lime, locks of hair, and bits of clothing. Without the walls 
 was a receptacle in which the skulls and other larger bones, 
 dark with the mould of the grave, were heaped. 
 
 Two or three persons were walking about the cemetery 
 Avhen we first entered, but it was now at length the cool of 
 the day, and the funerals began to arrive. They brought 
 in first a rude black coffin, broadest at the extremity which 
 contained the head, and placing it at the end of one of the 
 trenches, hurriedly produced a hammer and nails to fasten 
 the lid before letting it down, when it was found that the 
 box was too shallow at the narrower extremity. The lid 
 was removed for a moment and showed the figure of an old 
 man in a threadbare black coat, white pantaloons, and boots. 
 The negroes who bore it beat out the bottom with the ham- 
 mer, so as to allow the lid to be fastened over the feet. It 
 was then nailed down firmly with coarse nails, the coffin 
 was swung into the trench, and the earth shoveled upon it. 
 A middle-aged man, who seemed to be some relative of the 
 dead, led up a little boy close to the grave and watched 
 the process of filling it. They spoke to each other and 
 smiled, stood till the pit was filled to the surface, and the 
 31*
 
 366 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 bearers had departed, and then retired in their turn. This 
 was one of the more respectable class of funerals. Com- 
 monly the dead are piled without coffins, one above the 
 other, in the trenches. 
 
 The funerals now multiplied. The corpse of a little child 
 was brought in, uncoffined ; and another, a young man 
 who, I was told, had cut his throat for love, was borne to- 
 wards one of the niches in the wall. I heard loud voices, 
 which seemed to proceed from the eastern side of the ceme- 
 tery, and which, I thought at first, might be the recitation 
 of a funeral service ; but no funeral service is said at these 
 graves ; and, after a time, I perceived that they came from 
 the windows of a long building which overlooked one side 
 of the burial ground. It was a mad-house. The inmates, 
 exasperated at the spectacle before them, were gesticulating 
 from the windows the women screaming and the men 
 shouting, but no attention was paid to their uproar. A 
 lady, however, a stranger to the island, who visited the 
 Campo Santo that afternoon, was so affected by the sights 
 and sounds of the place, that she was borne out weeping 
 and almost in convulsions. As we left the place, we found 
 a crowd of volantes about the gate ; a pompous bier, with 
 rich black hangings, drew up ; a little beyond, we met one 
 of another kind a long box, with glass sides and ends, in 
 which lay the corpse of a woman, dressed in white, with a 
 black veil thrown over the face. 
 
 The next day the festivities, which were to indemnify the
 
 367 
 
 people for the austerities of Lent and of Passion Week, began. 
 The cock-pits were opened during the day, and masked 
 balls were given in the evening at the theatres. You know, 
 probably, that cock-fighting is the principal diversion of the 
 island, having entirely supplanted the national spectacle of 
 bull-baiting. Cuba, in fact, seemed to me a great poultry- 
 yard. I heard the crowing of cocks in all quarters, for 
 the game-cock is the noisiest and most boastful of birds, and 
 is perpetually uttering his notes of defiance. In the villages 
 I saw the veterans of the pit, a strong-legged race, with 
 their combs cropped smooth to the head, the feathers plucked 
 i'rom every part of the body except their wings, and the tail 
 docked like that of a coach horse, picking up their food in 
 the lanes among the chickens. One old cripple I remem- 
 ber to have seen in the little town of Guines, stiff with 
 wounds received in combat, who had probably got a fur- 
 lough for life, and who, while limping among his female com- 
 panions, maintained a sort of strut in his gait, and now and 
 then stopped to crow defiance to the world. The peasants 
 breed game-cocks and bring them to market ; amateurs in 
 the town train them for their private amusement. Dealers in 
 garne-cocks are as common as horse-jockies with us, and 
 every village has its cock-pit. 
 
 I went on Monday to the Valla de Gallos, situated in 
 that part of Havana which lies without the walls. Here, 
 in a spacious inclosure, were two amphitheatres of benches, 
 roofed, but without walls, with a circular area in the midst.
 
 3G LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Each was crowded with people, who were looking at a cock- 
 fight, and half of whom seemed vociferating with all their 
 might. I mounted one of the outer benches, and saw one 
 of the birds laid dead by the other in a few minutes. Then 
 was heard the chink of gold and silver pieces, as the betters 
 stepped into the area and paid their wagers ; the slain bird 
 was carried out and thrown on the ground, and the victor, 
 taken into the hands of the owner, crowed loudly in cele- 
 bration of his victory. Two other birds were brougbt in, 
 and the cries of those who offered wagers were heard on all 
 sides. They ceased at last, and the cocks were put down 
 'o begin the combat. T-hey fought warily at first, but at 
 length began to strike in earnest, the blood flowed, and the 
 bystanders were heard to vociferate, " ahi estdn pele- 
 zando"* " mata ! mata! mata!"^ gesticulating at the 
 same time with great violence, and new wagers were laid 
 as the interest of the combat increased. In ten minutes one 
 of the birds was dispatched, for the combat never ends till 
 one of them has his death-wound. 
 
 In the mean tune several other combats had begun in 
 smaller pits, which lay within the same inclosure, but were 
 not surrounded with circles of benches. I looked upon the 
 throng engaged in this brutal sport, with eager gestures and 
 loud cries, and could not help thinking how soon tbis noisy 
 crowd would lie in heaps in the pits of the Campo Santo. 
 
 * " Now they are fighting !" f Kill ! kill ! kill !"
 
 A MASKED BALL. 369 
 
 In the evening was a masked ball in the Tacon Theatre, 
 a spacious building, one of the largest of its kind in the 
 world. The pit, floored over, with the whole depth of the 
 stage open to the back wall of the edifice, furnished a ball- 
 room of immense size. People in grotesque masks, in hoods 
 or fancy dresses, were mingled with a throng clad in the 
 ordinary costume, and Spanish dances were performed to 
 the music of a numerous band. A well-dressed crowd 
 filled the first and second tier of boxes. The Creole smokes 
 everywhere, and seemed astonished when the soldier who 
 stood at the door ordered him to throw away his lighted 
 segar before entering. Once upon the floor, however, he 
 lighted another segar in defiance of the prohibition. 
 
 The Spanish dances, with their graceful movements, 
 resembling the undulations of the sea in its gentlest moods, 
 are nowhere more gracefully performed than in Cuba, by 
 the young women born on the island. I could not help 
 thinking, however, as I looked on that gay crowd, on the 
 quaint maskers, and the dancers whose flexible limbs 
 seemed swayed to and fro by the breath of the music, that 
 all this was soon to end at the Campo Santo, and I asked 
 myself how many of all this crowd would be huddled un- 
 coffined, when their sports were over, into the foul trenches 
 of the public cemetery.
 
 370 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER XLVII. 
 
 SCENERY OF CUB A. C OFFEE PLANTATIONS. 
 
 MATANZAS, April 16, 1849. 
 
 MY expectations of the scenery of the island of Cuba and 
 of the magnificence of its vegetation, have not been quite 
 fulfilled. This place is but sixty miles to the east of 
 Havana, but the railway which brings you hither, takes 
 you over a sweep of a hundred and thirty miles, through 
 one of the most fertile districts in the interior of the island. 
 I made an excursion from Havana to San Antonio de 
 los Banos, a pleasant little town at nine leagues distance, in 
 a southeast direction from the capital, in what is called the 
 Vuelta Abajo. I have also just returned from a visit to some 
 fine sugar estates to the southeast of Matanzas, so that I 
 may claim to have seen something of the face of the 
 country of which I speak. 
 
 At this season the hills about Havana, and the pastures 
 everywhere, have an arid look, a russet hue, like sandy 
 fields with us, when scorched by a long drought, on 
 like our meadows in whiter. This, however, is the dry 
 season ; and when I was told that but two showers of rain 
 have fallen since October, I could only wonder that so much
 
 TREES OF CUBA. 371 
 
 vegetation was left, and that the verbenas and other 
 herbage which clothed the ground, should yet retain, as 1 
 perceived they did, when I saw them nearer, an unextin- 
 guished life. I have, therefore, the disadvantage of seeing 
 Cuba not only in the dry season, but near the close of an 
 cucommonly dry season. Next month the rainy season 
 uommences, when the whole island, I am told, even the 
 barrenest parts, flushes into a deep verdure, creeping plants 
 climb over all the rocks and ascend the trees, and the 
 mighty palms put out their new foliage. 
 
 Shade, however, is the great luxury of a warm climate, 
 and why the people of Cuba do not surround their habita- 
 tions in the country, in the villages, and in the environs of 
 the large towns, with a dense umbrage of trees, I confess I 
 do not exactly understand. In their rich soil, and in their 
 perpetually genial climate, trees grow with great rapidity, 
 and they have many noble ones both for size and foliage. 
 The royal palm, with its tall straight columnar trunk of a 
 whitish hue, only uplifts a Corinthian capital of leaves, and 
 casts but a narrow shadow ; but it mingles finely with 
 other trees, and planted in avenues, forms a colonnade nobler 
 than any of the porticoes to the ancient Egyptian temples. 
 There is no thicker foliage or fresher green than that of the 
 mango, which daily drops its abundant fruit for several 
 months in th eyear, and the mamey and the sapote, fruit- 
 trees also, are in leaf during the whole of the dry season ; 
 even the Indian fig, which clasps and kills the largest trees
 
 372 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of the forest, and at last takes their place, a stately tree 
 with a stout trunk of its own, has its unfading leaf of vivid 
 green. 
 
 It is impossible to avoid an expression of impatience that 
 these trees have not been formed into groups, embowering 
 the dwellings, and into groves, through which the beams of 
 the sun, here so fierce at noonday, could not reach the 
 ground beneath. There is in fact nothing of ornamental 
 cultivation in Cuba, except of the most formal kind. Some 
 private gardens there are, carefully kept, but all of the 
 stifFest pattern ; there is nothing which brings out the larger 
 vegetation of the region in that grandeur and magnificence 
 which might belong to it. In the Q,uinta del Obispo, or 
 Bishop's Garden, which is open to the public, you lind shade 
 which you find nowhere else, but the trees are planted in 
 straight alleys, and the water-roses, a species of water-lily 
 of immense size, fragrant and pink-colored, grow in a square 
 tank, fed by a straight canal, with sides of hewn stone. 
 
 Let me say, however, that when I asked for trees, I was 
 referred to the hurricanes which have recently ravaged the 
 island. One of these swept over Cuba in 1844, uprooting 
 the palms and the orange groves, and laying prostrate the 
 avenues of trees on the coffee plantations. The Paseo Isabel, 
 a public promenade, between the walls of Havana and the 
 streets of the new town, was formerly over-canopied with 
 lofty and spreading trees, which this tempest leveled to the 
 ground ; it has now been planted with rows of young trees,
 
 ORANGE- TREES. 373 
 
 which yield a meagre shade. la 1846 came another hur- 
 ricane, still more terrific, destroying much of the beauty 
 which the first had spared. 
 
 Of late years, also, such of the orange-trees as were not 
 uprooted, or have recently been planted, have been attacked 
 by the insect which a few years since was so destructive to 
 the same tree in Florida. The effect upon the tree resem- 
 bles that of a blight, the leaves grow sere, and the branches 
 die. You may imagine, thereibre, that I was somewhat 
 disappointed not to find the air, as it is at this season in the 
 south of Italy, fragrant with the odor of orange and lemon 
 blossoms. Oranges are scarce, and not so fine, at this mo- 
 ment, in Havana and Matanzas, as in the fruit-shops of 
 New York. I hear, however, that there are portions of the 
 island which were spared by these hurricanes, and that 
 there are others where the ravages of the insect in the 
 orange groves have nearly ceased, as I have been told is 
 also the case in Florida. 
 
 1 have mentioned my excursion to San Antonio. I went 
 thither by railway, in a car built at Newark, drawn by an 
 engine made in New York, and worked by an American 
 engineer. For some distance we passed through fields of the 
 sweet-potato, which here never requires a second planting, 
 arid propagates itself perpetually in the soil, patches of maize, 
 low groves of bananas with their dark stems, and of plantains 
 with their green ones, and large tracts prodiicing the pine- 
 apple growing in rows like carrots. Then came plantations 
 32
 
 374 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of the sugar-cane, with its sedge-like blades of pale-green, 
 then extensive tracts of pasturage with scattered shrubs and 
 tall dead weeds, the growth of the last summer, and a thin 
 herbage bitten close to the soil. Here and there was an 
 abandoned coilee-plantation, where cattle were browzing 
 among the half-perished shrubs and broken rows of trees ; 
 and the neglected hedges of the wild pine, piiia raton, as 
 the Cubans call it, were interrupted with broad gaps. 
 
 Sometimes we passed the cottages of the monteros, or 
 peasants, built often of palm-leaves, the walls formed of the 
 broad sheath of the leaf, fastened to posts of bamboo, and 
 the roof thatched with the long plume-like leaf itself. The 
 door was sometimes hung with a kind of curtain to exclude 
 the sun, which the dusky complexioned women and children 
 put aside to gaze at us as we passed. These dwellings were 
 often picturesque in their appearance, with a grove of plan- 
 tains behind, a thicket of bamboo by its side, waving its 
 willow-like sprays in the wind ; a pair of mango-trees near, 
 hung with fruit just ripening and reddish blossoms just 
 opening, and a cocoa-tree or two lifting high above the rest 
 its immense feathery leaves and its clusters of green nuts. 
 
 We now and then met the monteros, themselves scudding 
 along on their little horses, in that pace which we call a 
 rack. Their dress was a Panama hat, a shirt worn over a 
 pair of pantaloons, a pair of rough cowskin shoes, one of 
 which was armed with a spur, and a sword lashed to the 
 left side by a belt of cotton cloth. They are men of manly
 
 SAN ANTONIO DE LOS BANGS. 375 
 
 bearing, of thin make, but often of a good figure, with well- 
 spread shoulders, which, however, have a stoop in them, 
 contracted, I suppose, by riding always with a short stirrup. 
 
 Forests, too, we passed. You, doubtless, suppose that a 
 forest in a soil and climate like this, must be a dense growth 
 of trees with colossal stems and leafy summits. A forest in 
 Cuba all that I have seen are such is a thicket of shrubs 
 and creeping plants, through which, one would suppose that 
 even the wild cats of the country would find it impossible to 
 make their way. Above this impassable jungle rises here 
 and there the palm, or the gigantic ceyba or cotton-tree, but 
 more often trees of far less beauty, thinly scattered and with 
 few branches, disposed without symmetry, and at this season 
 often leafless. 
 
 We reached San Antonio at nine o'clock in the morning, 
 and went to the inn of La Punta, where we breakfasted on 
 rice and fresh eggs, and a dish of meat so highly flavored 
 with garlic, that it was impossible to distinguish to what 
 animal it belonged. Adjoining the inn was a cockpit, with 
 cells for the birds surrounding the inclosure, in which they 
 were crowing lustily. Two or three persons seemed to have 
 nothing to do but to tend them ; and one, in particular, with 
 a gray beard, a grave aspect, and a solid gait, went about 
 the work with a deliberation and solemnity which to me, 
 who had lately seen the hurried burials at the Campo Santo, 
 in Havana, was highly edifying. A man was training a 
 game-cock in the pit ; he was giving it lessons in the virtue
 
 376 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of perseverance. He held another cock before it, which he 
 was teaching it to pursue, and striking it occasionally over 
 the head to provoke it, with the wing of the bird in his 
 hand, he made it run after him about the area for half an 
 hour together. 
 
 I had heard much of the beauty of the coffee estates of 
 Cuba, and in the neighborhood of San Antonio are some 
 which have been reputed very fine ones. A young man, in 
 a checked blue and white shirt, worn like a frock over 
 checked pantaloons, with a spur on one heel, offered to pro- 
 cure us a volant.e, and we engaged him. He brought us 
 one with two horses, a negro postillion sitting on one, and the 
 shafts of the vehicle borne by the other. We set off, passing 
 through fields guarded by stiff-leaved hedges of the ratoon- 
 pine, over ways so bad that if the motion of the volante 
 were not the easiest in the world, we should have taken an 
 unpleasant jolting. The lands of Cuba fit for cultivation, 
 are divided into red and black ; we were in the midst of 
 the red lands, consisting of a fine earth of a deep brick color, 
 resting on a bed of soft, porous, chalky limestone. In the 
 dry season the surface is easily dispersed into dust, and stains 
 your clothes of a dull red. 
 
 A drive of four miles, through a country full of palm and 
 cocoanut trees, brought us to the gate of a coffee plantation, 
 which our friend in the checked shirt, by whom we were 
 accompanied, opened for us. We passed up to the house 
 through what had been an avenue of palrns, but was now
 
 A COFFEE ESTATE. 377 
 
 two rows of trees at very unequal distances, with here and 
 there a sickly orange-tree. On each side grew the coiibe 
 shrubs, hung with flowers of snowy white, but unpruned 
 and full of dry and leafless twigs. In every direction were 
 ranks of trees, prized for ornament or for their fruit, and 
 shrubs, among which were magnificent oleanders loaded 
 with flowers, planted in such a manner as to break the 
 force of the wind, and partially to shelter the plants from 
 the too fierce rays of the sum The coffee estate is, in fact, 
 a kind of forest, with the trees and shrubs arranged in 
 straight lines. The mayoral, or steward of the estate, a 
 handsome Cuban, with white teeth, a pleasant smile, and 
 a distinct utterance of his native language, received us with 
 great courtesy, and offered us cigarillos, though he never 
 used tobacco ; and spirit of cane, though he never drank. 
 He wore a sword, and carried a large flexible whip, doubled 
 for convenience in the hand. He showed us the coffee 
 plants, the broad platforms with smooth surfaces of cement 
 and raised borders, where the berries were dried in the sun, 
 and the mills where the negroes were at work separating 
 the kernel from the pulp in which it is inclosed. 
 
 " These coffee estates," said he, " are already ruined, and 
 the planters are abandoning them as fast as they can ; in 
 four years more there will not be a single coffee plantation 
 on the island. They can not afford to raise coffee for the 
 price they get in the market." 
 
 I inquired the reason. " It is," replied he, " the extreme 
 22*
 
 378 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 dryness of the season when the plant is in flower. If we 
 have rain at this time of the year, we are sure of a good 
 crop ; if it does not rain, the harvest is small ; and the fail- 
 ure of rain is so common a circumstance that we must leave 
 the cultivation of coffee to the people of St. Domingo and 
 Brazil." 
 
 I asked if the plantation could not be converted into a 
 sugar estate. 
 
 "Not this," he answered ;" it has been cultivated too 
 long. The land was originally rich, but it is exhausted" 
 tired out, was the expression he used " we may cultivate 
 maize or rice, for the dry culture of rice succeeds well here, 
 or we may abandon it to grazing. At present we keep a 
 few negroes here, just to gather the berries which ripen, 
 without taking any trouble to preserve the plants, or replace 
 those which die." 
 
 I could easily believe from what I saw on this estate, that 
 there must be a great deal of beauty of vegetation in a well- 
 kept coffee plantation, but the formal pattern in which it is 
 disposed, the straight alleys and rows of trees, the squares 
 and parallelograms, showed me that there was no beauty 
 of arrangement. We fell in, before we returned to our inn, 
 with the proprietor, a delicate-looking person, with thin 
 white hands, who had been educated at Boston, and spoke 
 English as if he had never lived anywhere else. His 
 manners, compared with those of his steward, were exceed- 
 ingly frosty and forbidding, and when we told him of the
 
 NEAT ATTIRE OF THE CUBANS. 379 
 
 civility which had heen shown us, his looks seemed to say 
 he wished it had been otherwise. 
 
 Returning to our inn, we dined, and as the sun grew low, 
 we strolled out to look at the town. It is situated on a clear 
 little stream, over which several bathing-houses are built, 
 their posts standing in the midst of the current. Above the 
 town, it flows between rocky banks, bordered with shrubs, 
 many of them in flower. Below the town, after winding a 
 little way, it enters a cavern yawning in the limestone rock, 
 immediately over which a huge ceyba rises, and stretches 
 its leafy arms in mid-heaven. Down this opening the river 
 throws itself, and is never seen again. This is not a singu- 
 lar instance in Cuba. The island is full of caverns and open- 
 ings in the rocks, and I am told that many of the streams find 
 subterranean passages to the sea. There is a well at the 
 inn of La Punta, in which a roaring of water is constantly 
 heard. It is the sound of a subterranean stream rushing 
 along a passage in the rocks, and the well is an opening into 
 its roof. 
 
 In passing through the town, I was struck with the neat 
 attire of those who inhabited the humblest dwellings. At 
 the door of one of the cottages, I saw a group of children, of 
 different ages, all quite pretty, with oval faces and glittering 
 black eyes, in clean fresh dresses, which, one would think, 
 could scarcely have been kept a moment without being 
 soiled, in that dwelling, with its mud floor. The people of 
 Cuba are sparing in their ablutions ; the men do not wash
 
 380 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 their faces and hands till nearly mid-day, for fear of 
 spasms ; and of the women, I am told that many do not 
 wash at all, contenting themselves with rubbing their 
 cheeks and necks with a little aguardiente ; but the 
 passion for clean linen, and, among the men, for clean 
 white pantaloons, is universal. The montero himself, 
 on a holiday or any public occasion, will sport a shirt of the 
 finest linen, smoothly ironed, and stiffly starched throughout, 
 from the collar downward. 
 
 The next day, at half-past eleven, we left our inn, which 
 was also what we call in the United States a country store, 
 where the clerks who had just performed their ablutions and 
 combed their hair, were making segars behind the counter 
 from the tobacco of the Vuelta Abajo, and returned by the" 
 railway to Havana. We procured travelling licenses at the 
 cost of four dollars and a half each, for it is the pleasure of 
 the government to levy this tax on strangers who travel, 
 and early the following morning took the train for Ma- 
 tanzas.
 
 ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. 381 
 
 LETTER XLVIII. 
 
 MATANZAS. VALLEY OF Y U M U R I. 
 
 Los GUIXES, April 18, H49. 
 
 IN the long circuit of railway which leads from Havana to 
 Matanzas, I saw nothing remarkably different from what I 
 observed on my excursion to San Antonio. There was the 
 same smooth country, of great apparent fertility, sometimes 
 varied with gentle undulations, and sometimes rising, in the 
 distance, into hills covered with thickets. We swept by 
 dark-green fields planted with the yuca, an esculent root, 
 of which the cassava bread is made, pale-green fields of the 
 cane, brown tracts of pasturage, partly formed of abandoned 
 coffee estates where the palms and scattered fruit-treer 
 were yet standing, and forests of shrubs and twining plants 
 growing for the most part among rocks. Some of these 
 rocky tracts have a peculiar appearance ; they consist of 
 rough projections of rock a foot or two in height, of irregular 
 shape and full of holes ; they are called diente de perro, or 
 dog's teeth. Here the trees and creepers find openings 
 filled with soil, by which they are nourished. We passed 
 two or three country cemeteries, where that foulest of birds, 
 the turkey-vulture, was seen sitting on the white stuccoed
 
 382 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 walls, or hovering on his ragged wings in circles over 
 them. 
 
 In passing over the neighborhood of the town in which I 
 am now writing, I found myself on the black lands of the 
 island. Here the rich dark earth of the plain lies on a bed 
 of chalk as white as snow, as \vas apparent where the 
 earth had been excavated to a little depth, on each side of 
 the railway, to form the causey on which it ran. Streams 
 of clear water, diverted from a river to the left, traversed 
 the plain with a swift current, almost even with the surface 
 of the soil, which they keep in perpetual freshness. As we 
 approached Matanzas, we saw more extensive tracts of 
 cane clothing the broad slopes with their dense blades, as 
 if the coarse sedge of a river had been transplanted to the 
 uplands. 
 
 At length the bay of Matanzas opened before us ; a long 
 tract of water stretching to the northeast, into which several 
 rivers empty themselves. The town lay at the southwestern 
 extremity, sheltered by hills, where the San Juan and the 
 Yumuri pour themselves into the brine. It is a small but 
 prosperous town, with a considerable trade, as was indicated 
 by the vessels at anchor in the harbor. 
 
 As we passed along the harbor I remarked an extensive, 
 healthy-looking orchard of plantains growing on one of those 
 tracts which they call diente de perro. I could see nothing 
 but the jagged teeth of whitish rock, and the green swelling 
 stems of the plantain, from ten to fifteen feet in height,
 
 THE CUMBRE. 383 
 
 and as large as a man's leg, or larger. The stalks of the 
 plantain are juicy and herbaceous, and of so yielding a 
 texture, that v/ith a sickle you might entirely sever the 
 largest of them at a single stroke. How such a multitude 
 of succulent plants could find nourishment on what seemed 
 to the eye little else than barren rock, I could not imagine. 
 
 The day after arriving at Matanzas we made an excursion 
 on horseback to the summit of the hill, immediately overlook- 
 ing the town, called the Cumbre. Light hardy horses of 
 the country were brought us, with high pommels to the 
 saddles, which are also raised behind in a manner making 
 it difficult to throw the rider from his seat. A negro fitted 
 a spur to my right heel, and mounting by the short stirrups, 
 I crossed the river Yumuri with my companions, and began 
 to climb the Cumbre. They boast at Matanzas of the 
 perpetual coolness of temperature enjoyed upon the broad 
 summit of this hill, where many of the opulent merchants 
 of the town have their country houses, to which the mos- 
 quitoes and the intermittents that infest the town below, 
 never come, and where, as one of them told me, you may 
 play at billiards in August without any inconvenient per- 
 spiration. 
 
 From the Cumbre you behold the entire extent of the 
 harbor ; the town lies below you with its thicket of masts, 
 and its dusty paseo, where rows of the Cuba pine stand 
 rooted in the red soil. On the opposite shore your eye is 
 attracted to a chasm between high rocks, where the river
 
 3b4 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Canimar comes forth through banks of romantic beauty 
 so they are described to me and mingles with the sea. 
 But the view to the west was much finer ; there lay the 
 valley of the Yurnuri, and a sight of it is worth a voyage to 
 the island. In regard to this my expectations suffered no 
 disappointment. 
 
 Before me lay a deep valley, surrounded on all sides by 
 hills and mountains, with the little river Yumuri twining at 
 the bottom. Smooth round hillocks rose from the side next 
 to me, covered with clusters of palms, and the steeps of the 
 southeastern corner of the valley were clothed with a wood 
 of intense green, where I could almost see the leaves glisten 
 in the sunshine. The broad fields below were waving with 
 cane and maize, and cottages of the monteros were scat- 
 tered among them, each with its tuft of bamboos arid its 
 little grove of plantains. In some parts the cliffs almost 
 seemed to impend over the valley ; but to the west, in a 
 soft golden haze, rose summit behind summit, and over 
 them all, loftiest and most remote, towered the mountain 
 called the Pan de Matanzas. 
 
 We stopped for a few moments at a country seat on the 
 top of the Cumbre, where this beautiful view lay ever be- 
 fore the eye. Round it, in a garden, were cultivated the 
 most showy plants of the tropics, but my attention was 
 attracted to a little plantation of damask roses blooming 
 profusely. They were scentless ; the climate which sup- 
 plies the orange blossom with intense odors exhausts the
 
 G II 1 N Li 1 A G U / T Ll iJ si U G A 11 - C A N E . 385 
 
 fragrance of the rose. At nightfall the night falls sud- 
 denly in this latitude we were again at our hotel. 
 
 We passed our Sunday on a sugar estate at the hospitable 
 mansion of a planter from the United States about fifteen 
 miles from Matanzas. The house stands on an eminence, 
 once embowered in trees which the hurricanes have lev- 
 eled, overlooking a broad valley, where palms were scat- 
 tered in every direction ; for the estate had formerly been 
 a coffee plantation. In the huge buildings containing the 
 machinery and other apparatus for making sugar, which 
 stood at the foot of the eminence, the power of steam, 
 which had been toiling all the week, was now at rest. As 
 the hour of sunset approached, a smoke was seen rising 
 from its chimney, presently puffs of vapor issued from the 
 engine, its motion began to be heard, and the negroes, men 
 and women, were summoned to begin the work of the 
 week. Some feed the fire under the boiler with coal ; 
 others were seen rushing to the mill with their arms full 
 of the stalks of the cane, freshly cut, which they took from 
 a huge pile near the building ; others lighted fires under a 
 row of huge cauldrons, with the dry stalks of cane from 
 which the juice had been crushed by the mill. It was a 
 spectacle of activity such as I had riot seen in Cuba. 
 
 The sound of the engine was heard all night, for the 
 work of grinding the cane, once begun, proceeds day and 
 night, with the exception of Sundays and some other holi- 
 days. I was early next morning at the mill. A current 
 33
 
 386 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of cane juice was flowing from the mill in a long trunk to a 
 vat in which it was clarified with lime ; it was then made 
 to pass successively from one seething cauldron to another, 
 as it obtained a thicker consistence by boiling. The negroes, 
 with huge ladles turning on pivots, swept it from cauldron 
 to cauldron, and finally passed it into a trunk, which conveyed 
 it to shallow tanks in another apartment, where it cooled 
 into sugar. Prom these another set of workmen scooped it 
 up in moist masses, carried it in buckets up a low flight of 
 stairs, and poured it into rows of hogsheads pierced with 
 holes at the bottom. These are placed over a large tank, 
 into which the moisture dripping from the hogsheads is col- 
 lected and forms molasses. 
 
 This is the method of making the sugar called Muscovado. 
 It is drained a few days, and then the railways take it to 
 Matanzas or to Havana. We visited afterward a planta- 
 tion in the neighborhood, in which clayed sugar is made. 
 Our host furnished us with horses to make the excursion, and 
 we took a winding road, over hill and valley, by plantations 
 and forests, till we stopped at the gate of an extensive 
 pasture-ground. An old negro, whose hut was at hand, 
 opened it for us, and bowed low as we passed. A ride of 
 half a mile further brought us in sight of the cane-fields of 
 the plantation ealled Saratoga, belonging to the house of 
 Drake & Company, of Havana, and reputed one of the finest 
 of the island. It had a different aspect from any plantation 
 we had seen. Trees and shrubs there were none, but the
 
 MAKING OF CLAYED SUGAR. 387 
 
 canes, except where they had been newly cropped for the 
 mill, clothed the slopes and hollows with their light-green 
 blades, like the herbage of a prairie. 
 
 We were kindly received by the administrator of the 
 estate, an intelligent Biscayan, who showed us the whole 
 process of making clayed sugar. It does not differ from 
 that of making the Muscovado, so far as concerns the grind- 
 ing and boiling. When, however, the sugar is nearly cool, 
 it is poured into iron vessels of conical shape, with the point 
 downward, at which is an opening. The top of the sugar 
 is then covered with a sort of black thick mud, which they 
 call clay, and which is several times renewed as it becomes 
 dry. The moisture from the clay passes through the sugar, 
 carrying with it the cruder portions, which form molasses. 
 In a few days the draining is complete. 
 
 We saw the work-people of the Saratoga estate preparing 
 for the market the sugar thus cleansed, if we may apply the 
 word to such a process. With a rude iron blade they cleft 
 the large loaf of sugar just taken from the mould into three 
 parts, called first, second, and third quality, according to 
 their whiteness. These are dried in the sun on separate 
 platforms of wood with a raised edge ; the women standing 
 and walking over the fragments with their bare dirty feet, and 
 beating them smaller with wooden mallets and clubs. The 
 sugar of the first quality is then scraped up and put into 
 boxes ; that of the second and third, being moister, is 
 handled a third time and carried into the drying-room,
 
 388 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 where it is exposed to the heat of a stove, and when suffi- 
 ciently dry, is boxed up for market like the other. 
 
 The sight of these processes was not of a nature to make 
 one think with much satisfaction of clayed sugar as an in- 
 gredient of food, but the inhabitants of the island are supe- 
 rior to such prejudices, and use it with as little scruple as 
 they who do not know in what manner it is made. 
 
 In the afternoon we returned to the dwelling of our 
 American host, and taking the train at Caobas, or Ma- 
 hogany Trees so called from the former growth of that 
 tree on the spot we were at Matanzas an hour afterward. 
 The next morning the train brought us to this little town, 
 situated half-way between Matanzas and Havana, but a 
 considerable distance to the south of either.
 
 THE GAUROTE 389 
 
 LETTER XLIX. 
 
 NEGROES IN CUB A. I NDIAN SLAVES. 
 
 HAVANA, April 22, 1849. 
 
 THE other day when we were at Guines, we heard that 
 a negro was to suffer death early the next morning by the 
 garrote, an instrument by which the neck of the criminal is 
 broken and life extinguished in an instant. I asked our 
 landlady for what crime the man had been condemned. 
 
 " He has killed his master," she replied, " an old man, in 
 his bed." 
 
 " Had he received any provocation ?" 
 
 " Not that I have heard ; but another slave is to be put 
 to death by the garrote in about a fortnight, whose offense 
 had some palliation. His master was a man of harsh tem- 
 per, and treated his slaves with extreme severity ; the negro 
 watched his opportunity, and shot him as he sat at table." 
 
 We went to the place of execution a little before eight 
 o'clock, and found the preparations already made. A plat- 
 form had been erected, on which stood a seat for the pris- 
 oner, and back of the seat a post was fixed, with a sort of 
 iron collar for his neck. A screw, with a long transverse 
 handle on the side of the post opposite to the collar, was so 
 33*
 
 390 LETTERS OF A THAVELLER. 
 
 contrived that, when it was turned, it would push forward 
 an iron bolt against the back of the neck and crush the 
 spine at once. 
 
 Sentinels in uniform were walking to and fro, keeping 
 the spectators at a distance from the platform. The heat 
 of the sun was intense, for the sea-breeze had not yet sprung 
 up, but the crowd had begun to assemble. As near to the 
 platform as they could come, stood a group of young girls, 
 two of whom were dressed in white and one was pretty, 
 with no other shade for their dusky faces than their black 
 veils, chatting and laughing and stealing occasional glances 
 at the new-comers. In another quarter were six or eight 
 monteros on horseback, in their invariable costume of 
 Panama hats, shirts and pantaloons, with holsters to their 
 saddles, and most of them with swords lashed to their 
 sides. 
 
 About half-past eight a numerous crowd made its appear- 
 ance coming from the town. Among them walked with a 
 firm step, a large black man, dressed in a long white frock, 
 white pantaloons, and a white cap with a long peak which 
 fell backward on his shoulders. He was the murderer ; 
 his hands were tied together by the wrists ; in one of them 
 he held a crucifix ; the rope by which they were fastened 
 was knotted around his waist, and the end of it was held by 
 another athletic negro, dressed in blue cotton with white 
 facings, who walked behind him. On the left of the 
 criminal walked an officer of justice; on his right an eccle-
 
 EXECUTION OF A NEGRO CRIMINAL. 391 
 
 siastic, slender and stooping, in a black gown and a black 
 cap, the top of which was formed into a sort of coronet, 
 exhorting the criminal, in a loud voice and with many ges- 
 ticulations, to repent and trust in the mercy of God. 
 
 When they reached the platform, the negro was made to 
 place himself on his knees before it, the priest continuing his 
 exhortations, and now and then clapping him, in an encour- 
 aging manner, on the shoulder. I saw the man shake his 
 head once or twice, and then kiss the crucifix. In the 
 mean time a multitude, of all ages and both sexes, took 
 possession of the places from which the spectacle could be 
 best seen. A stone-fence, such as is common in our coun- 
 try, formed of loose stones taken from the surface of the 
 ground, upheld a long row of spectators. A well-dressed 
 couple, a gentleman in white pantaloons, and a lady ele- 
 gantly attired, with a black lace veil and a parasol, bring- 
 ing their two children, and two colored servants, took their 
 station by my side the elder child found a place on the 
 top of the fence, and the younger, about four years of age, 
 was lifted in the arms of one of the servants, that it might 
 have the full benefit of the spectacle. 
 
 The criminal was then raised from the ground, and 
 roing up the platform took the seat ready for him. The 
 Driest here renewed his exhortations, and, at length, 
 'nrning to the audience, said, in a loud voice, "I believe 
 in God Almighty and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and 
 it grieves me to the heart to have offended them." These.
 
 W2 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 words, I suppose, were meant, as the confession of the 
 criminal, to be repeated after the priest, but I heard no 
 response from his lips. Again and again the priest re- 
 peated them, the third time with a louder voie than ever ; 
 the signal was then given to the executioner. The iron 
 collar was adjusted to the neck of the victim, and fastened 
 under the chin. The athletic negro in blue, standing 
 behind the post, took the handle of the screw and turned 
 it deliberately. After a few turns, the criminal gave a 
 sudden shrug of the shoulders ; another turn of the screw, 
 ;iud a shudder ran over his whole frame, his eyes rolled 
 wildly, his hands, still tied with the rope, were convul- 
 -ively jerked upward, and then dropped back to their 
 place motionless forever. The priest advanced and turned 
 ilie peak of J,he white cap over the face to hide it from the 
 ;ight of the multitude. 
 
 I had nev.r seen, and never intended to see an execution, 
 but the strangeness of this manner of inflicting death, and 
 the desire to witness the behavior of an assembly of the 
 people of Cuba on such an occasion, had overcome my 
 previous determination. The horror of the spectacle now 
 caused me to regret that I made one of a crowd drawn to 
 look at it by an idle curiosity. 
 
 Tbv negro in blue then stepped forward and felt the 
 limbs -jf the dead man one by one, to ascertain whether life 
 were wholly extinct, and then returning to the screw, gave 
 it two or three turns more, as if to make his work sure. In
 
 BEHAVIOR OF A COLORED BOY. 393 
 
 the mean time my attention was attracted by a sound like 
 that of a light buffet and a whimpering voice near me. I 
 looked, and two men were standing by me, with a little 
 white boy at their side, and a black boy of nearly the same 
 age before them, holding his hat in his hand, and crying 
 They were endeavoring to direct his attention to what they 
 considered the wholesome spectacle before him. " Mira, 
 mira, no te liar a, dano,"* said the men, but the boy steadily 
 refused to look in that direction, though he was 3vidently 
 terrified by some threat of punishment and his eyes filled 
 with tears. Finding him obstinate, they desisted from their 
 purpose, and I was quite edified to see the little fellow 
 continue to look away from the spectacle which attracted 
 all other eyes but his. The white boy now came forward, 
 touched the hat of the little black, and goodnaturedly saying 
 " pontelo, pontelo,"^ made him put it on his head. 
 
 The crowd now began to disperse, and in twenty 
 minutes the place was nearly solitary, except the sentinels 
 pacing backward and forward. Two hours afterward 
 the sentinels were pacing there yet, and the dead man, 
 in his white dress and iron collar, was still in his scat on 
 the platform. 
 
 It is generally the natives of Africa by whom these 
 
 * " Look, look, it will do you no harm." 
 f " Put it on, put it on."
 
 394 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 murders are committed ; the negroes born in the country 
 are of a more yielding temper. They have better learned 
 the art of avoiding punishment, and submit to. it more 
 patiently when inflicted, having understood from their 
 birth that it is one of the conditions of their existence. 
 The whip is always in sight. " Nothing can be done with- 
 out it," said an Englishman to me, who had lived eleven 
 years on the island, " you can not make the negroes work 
 by the mild methods which are used by slaveholders in the 
 United States ; the blacks there are far more intelligent 
 and more easily governed by moral means." Africans, the 
 living witnesses of the present existence of the slave-trade, 
 are seen everywhere ; at every step you meet blacks whose 
 cheeks are scarred with parallel slashes, with which they 
 were marked in the African slave-market, and who can not 
 even speak the mutilated Spanish current in the mouths of 
 the Cuba negroes. 
 
 One day I stood upon the quay at Matanzas and saw the 
 slaves unloading the large lighters which brought goods 
 from the Spanish ships lying in the harbor casks of wine, 
 jars of oil, bags of nuts, barrels of flour. The men were 
 naked to the hips ; their only garment being a pair of trowsers. 
 I admired their ample chests, their massive shoulders, the 
 full and muscular proportions of their arms, and the ease 
 with which they shifted the heavy articles from place to 
 place, or carried them on their heads. " Some of these are 
 Africans ?" I said to a gentleman who resided on the island.
 
 T n K .- :,. A v ;: - T n A D E . 395 
 
 " They are all Africans," he answered, "Africans to a man ; 
 the negro born in Cuba is of a lighter make." 
 
 When I was at Guines, I went out to iook at a sugar 
 estate in the neighborhood, where the mill was turned by 
 water, which a long aqueduct, from one of the streams that 
 traverse the plain, conveyed over arches of stone so broad 
 and massive that I could not help thinking of the aqueducts 
 of Rome. A gang of black women were standing in the 
 scoadero or drying-place, among the lumps of clayed sugar, 
 beating them small with mallets ; before them walked to 
 and fro the major-domo, with a cutlass by his side and a 
 whip in his hand. I asked him how a planter could 
 increase his stock of slaves. " There is no difficulty," he 
 replied, " slaves are still brought to the island from Africa. 
 The other day five hundred were landed on the sea-shore to 
 the south of this ; for you must know, Senior, that we are but 
 three or four leagues from the coast." 
 
 " Was it done openly ?" I inquired. 
 
 " Putticamcnte, Senor, iniblicamente ;* they were landed 
 on the sugar estate of El Pastor, and one hundred and 
 seven more died on the passage from Africa." 
 
 "Did the government know of it ?" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Of course the government 
 knows it," said he ; " every body else knows it." 
 
 The truth is, that the slave-trade is now fully revived ; 
 
 * " Publicly, sir, publicly."
 
 39G LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 he government conniving at it, making a profit on the 
 slaves imported from Africa, and screening from the pursuit 
 of the English the pirates who bring them. There 
 scarcely be any arrangement of coast more favorable lor 
 smuggling slaves into a country, than the islands and long 
 peninsulas, and many channels of the southern shore of 
 <!uba. Here the mangrove thickets, sending down roots 
 into the brine from their long branches that stretch over the 
 water, form dense screens on each side of the passages from 
 the main ocean to the inland, and render it easy for the 
 -laver and his boats to lurk undiscovered by the English 
 n;en-of-war. 
 
 During the comparative cessation of the slave-trade a few 
 years since, the negroes, I have been told, were much better 
 ' reated than before. They rose in value, and when they 
 died, it was found not easy to supply their places ; they 
 were therefore made much of, and every thing was done 
 which it was thought would tend to preserve their health, 
 and maintain them in bodily vigor. If the slave-trade 
 should make them cheap again, their lives of course will be 
 (if less consequence to their owners, and they will be sub- 
 ject again to be overtasked, as it has been said they were 
 before. There is certainly great temptation to wear them 
 >ut in the sugar mills, which are kept in motion day and 
 light, during half the year, namely, through the dry season. 
 " If this was not the healthiest employment in the world," 
 said an overseer to me on one of the sugar estates, " it
 
 INDIAN AND AS'ATIC SLAVES. 397 
 
 would kill us all who are engaged in it, both black and 
 white. ' 
 
 Perhaps you may not know that more than half of the 
 i-iuud of Cuba has never been reduced to tillage. Immense 
 tracts of the rich black or red mould of the island, accumu- 
 lated on the coral rock, are yet waiting the hand of the 
 planter to be converted into profitable sugar estates. There 
 is a demand, therefore, for laborers on the part of those who 
 wish to become planters, and this demand is supplied not 
 only from the coast of Africa, but from the American conti- 
 nent and southwestern Asia. 
 
 In one of the afternoons of Holy Week, I saw amid the 
 crowd on the Plaza de Armas, in Havana, several men of 
 low stature, of a deep-olive complexion, beardless, with high 
 cheek-bones and straight black hair, dressed in white panta- 
 loons of cotton, and shirts of the same material worn over 
 them. They were Indians, natives of Yucatan, who had 
 been taken prisoners of war by the whites of the country 
 and sold to white men in Cuba, under a pretended contract 
 to serve for a certain number of years. I afterward learned, 
 that the dealers in this sort of merchandise were also bring- 
 ing in the natives of Asia, Chinese they call them here, 
 though I doubt whether they belong to that nation, and dis- 
 posing of their services to the planters. There are six hun- 
 dred of these people, I have been told, in this city. 
 
 Yesterday appeared in the Havana papers an ordinance 
 concerning the "Indians and Asiatics imported into the 
 34
 
 398 LETTERS OP A TRAVELLER. 
 
 country under a contract to labor." It directs how much 
 Indian corn, how many plantains, how much jerked-pork 
 and rice they shall receive daily, and how many lashes the 
 master may inflict for misbehavior. Twelve stripes with 
 the cowskin he may administer for the smaller offenses, and 
 twenty-four for transgressions of more importance ; but if 
 any more become necessary, he must apply to a magistrate 
 for permission to lay them on. Such is the manner in 
 which the government of Cuba sanctions the barbarity of 
 making slaves of the freeborn men of Yucatan. The ordi 
 nance, however, betrays great concern for the salvation of 
 the souls of those whom it thus delivers over to the lash 
 of the slave-driver. It speaks of the Indians from America, 
 as Christians already, but while it allows the slaves im- 
 ported from Asia to be flogged, it directs that they shall be 
 carefully instructed in the doctrines of our holy religion. 
 
 Yet the policy of the government favors emancipation. 
 The laws of Cuba permit any slave to purchase his freedom 
 on paying a price fixed by three persons, one appointed by 
 his master and two by a magistrate. He may, also, if he 
 pleases, compel his master to sell him a certain portion of 
 his time, which he may employ to earn the means of pur- 
 chasing his entire freedom. 
 
 It is owing to this, I suppose, that the number of free 
 blacks is so large in the island, and it is manifest that if the 
 slave-trade could be checked, and these laws remain un- 
 altered, the negroes would gradually emancipate themselves
 
 FREE BLACKS IN CUBA. 399 
 
 all at least who would be worth keeping as servants. 
 The^ population of Cuha is now about a million and a 
 quarter, rather more than half of whom are colored per- 
 sons, and one out of every four of the colored population is 
 free. The mulattoes emancipate themselves as a matter of 
 course, arid some of them become rich by the occupations 
 they follow. The prejudice of color is by no means so 
 strong here as in the United States. Five or six years 
 since the negroes were shouting and betting in the cockpits 
 with the whites ; but since the mulatto insurrection, as it 
 is called, in 1843, the law forbids their presence at such 
 amusements. I am told there is little difficulty in smug- 
 gling people of mixed blood, by the help of legal forms, into 
 the white race, and if they are rich, into good society, pro- 
 vided their hair is not frizzled. 
 
 You hear something said now and then in the United 
 States concerning the annexation of Cuba to our con- 
 federacy ; you may be curious, perhaps, to know what they 
 say of it here. A European who had long resided in the 
 island, gave me this account : 
 
 " The Creoles, no doubt, would be very glad to see Cuba 
 annexed to the United States, and many of them ardently 
 desire it. It would relieve them from many great burdens 
 they now bear, open their commerce to the world, rid them 
 of a tyrannical government, and allow them to manage theii 
 own affairs in their own way. But Spain derives from the 
 possession of Cuba advantages too great to be relinquished.
 
 400 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 She extracts from Cuba a revenue of twelve millions of 
 dollars ; her government sends its needy nobility, and^ all 
 for whom it would provide, to fill lucrative offices in Cuba 
 the priests, the military officers, the civil authorities, 
 every man who fills a judicial post or holds a clerkship is 
 from old Spain. The Spanish government dares not give 
 up Cuba if it were inclined. 
 
 " Nor will the people of Cuba make any effort to eman- 
 cipate themselves by taking up arms. The struggle with 
 the power of Spain would be bloody and uncertain, even if 
 the white population were united, but the mutual distrust 
 with which the planters and the peasantry regard each 
 other, would make the issue of such an enterprise still 
 more doubtful. At present it would not be safe for a 
 Cuba planter to speak publicly of annexation to the United 
 States. He would run the risk of being imprisoned or 
 exiled." 
 
 Of course, if Cuba were to be annexed to the United 
 States, the slave trade with Africa would cease to be carried 
 on as now, though its perfect suppression might be found 
 difficult. Negroes would be imported in large numbers 
 from the United States, and planters would emigrate with 
 them. Institutions of education would be introduced, com- 
 merce and religion would both be made free, and the 
 character of the islanders would be elevated by the respon- 
 sibilities which a free government would throw upon them. 
 The planters, however, would doubtless adopt regulations
 
 ANNEXATION OF CUBA. 401 
 
 insuring the perpetuity of slavery ; they would unquestion- 
 ably, as soon as they were allowed to frame ordinances for 
 the island, take away the facilities which the present laws 
 give the slave for effecting his own emancipation. 
 34*
 
 402 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER L. 
 
 ENGLISH EXHIBITIONS OF WORKS OF ART. 
 
 LONDON, July 7, 1849. 
 
 I HAVE just been to visit a gallery of drawings in water 
 colors, now open for exhibition. The English may be 
 almost said to have created this branch of art. Till within 
 a few years, delineations in water-colors, on drawing paper, 
 have been so feeble and meagre as to be held in little es- 
 teem, but the English artists havo shown that as much, 
 though in a somewhat different way, may be done on draw- 
 ing-paper as on canvas ; that as high a degree of expression 
 may bo reached, as much strength given to the coloring, and 
 as much boldness to the lights and shadows. In the col- 
 lection of which I speak, are about four hundred drawings 
 not before exhibited. Those which appeared to me the 
 most remarkable, though not in the highest department "of 
 art, were still-life pieces by Hunt. It seems to me impossi- 
 ble to carry pictorial illusion to a higher pitch than he has 
 attained. A sprig of hawthorn flowers, freshly plucked, lies 
 before you, and you are half-ternpfed to take it up and inhale 
 its fragrance ; those speckled eggs in the bird's nest, you 
 are sure you might, if you pleased, take into your hand ;
 
 DRAWINGS IN W A T E R - C O L O R S. 403 
 
 that tuft of ivy leaves and buds is so complete an optical 
 deception, that you can hardly believe that it has not been 
 attached by some process to the paper on which you see it. 
 A servant girl, in a calico gown, with a broom, by the same 
 artist, and a young woman standing at a window, at which 
 the light is streaming in, are as fine in their way, and as 
 perfect imitations of every-day nature, as you see in the 
 works of the best Flemish painters. 
 
 It is to landscape, however, that the artists in water- 
 colors have principally devoted their attention. There are 
 several very fine ones in the collection by Copley Fielding, 
 the foregrounds drawn with much strength, the distant ob- 
 jects softly blending with the atmosphere as in nature, and 
 a surprising depth and transparency given to the sky. 
 Alfred Fripp and George Fripp have also produced some 
 very fine landscapes mills, waters in foam or sleeping in 
 pellucid pools, and the darkness of the tempest in contrast 
 with gleams of sunshine. Oakley has some spirited groups 
 of gipsies and country people, and there are several of a 
 similar kind by Taylor, who designs and executes with 
 great force. One of the earliest of the new school of artists 
 in water-colors is Prout, whose drawings are principally 
 architectural, and who has shown how admirably suited 
 this new style of art is to the delineation of the rich carv- 
 ings of Gothic churches. Most of the finer pieces, I ob- 
 served, were marked ' sold ;' they brought prices varying 
 from thirty to fifty guineas.
 
 404 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 There is an exhibition now open of the paintings of Etty, 
 who stands high in the world of art as an historical painter. 
 The " Society of the Arts" I believe that is its name 
 every year gets up an exhibition of the works of some emi- 
 nent painter, with the proceeds of which it buys one of his 
 pictures, and places it in the National Gallery. This is a 
 very effectual plan of forming in time a various and valuable 
 collection of the works of British artists. 
 
 The greatest work of Etty is the series representing the 
 Death of Holofernes by the hand of Judith. It consists of 
 three paintings, the first of which shows Judith in prayer 
 before the execution of her attempt ; in the next, and the 
 finest, she is seen standing by the couch of the heathen 
 warrior, with the sword raised to heaven, to which she 
 turns her eyes, as if imploring supernatural assistance ; and 
 in the third, she appears issuing from the tent, bearing the 
 head of the ravager of her country, which she conceals from 
 the armed attendants Avho ^tand on guard at the entrance, 
 and exhibits to her astonished handmaid, who has been 
 waiting the result. The subject is an old one, but Etty has 
 treated it in a new way, and given it a moral interest, 
 which the old painters seem not to have thought of. In 
 the delineation of the naked human figure, Etty is allowed 
 to surpass all the English living artists, and his manner of 
 painting flesh is thought to be next to that of Rubens. His 
 reputation for these qualities has influenced his choice of 
 subjects in a remarkable manner. The walls of the exhibi-
 
 EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 405 
 
 tiori were covered with Venuses and Eves, Cupids and 
 Psyches, and nymphs innocent of drapery, reclining on 
 couches, or admiring their own beauty reflected in clear 
 fountains. I almost thought myself in the midst of a collec- 
 tion made for the Grand Seignior. 
 
 The annual exhibition of the Royal Academy is now 
 open. Its general character is mediocrity, unrelieved by 
 any works of extraordinary or striking merit. There are 
 some clever landscapes by the younger Danbys, and one by 
 the father, which is by no means among his happiest a 
 dark picture, which in half a dozen years will be one mass 
 of black paint. Cooper, almost equal to Paul Potter as a 
 cattle painter, contributes some good pieces of that kind, 
 and one of them, in which the cattle are from his pencil, 
 and the landscape from that of Lee, appeared to me the 
 finest thing in the collection. There is, however, a picture 
 by Leslie, which his friends insist is the best in the exhibition. 
 It represents the chaplain of the Duke leaving the table in a 
 rage, after an harangue by Don Q,uixote in praise of knight- 
 errantry. The suppressed mirth of the Duke and Duchess, 
 the sly looks of the servants, the stormy anger of the 
 ecclesiastic, and the serene gravity of the knight, are well 
 expressed ; but there is a stiffness in some of the figures 
 which makes them look as if copied from the wooden 
 models in the artist's study, and a raw and crude appearance 
 in the handling, so that you are reminded of the brush 
 every time you look at the painting. To do Leslie justice,
 
 406 LETTERS OF J. TRAVELLER. 
 
 however, his paintings ripen wonderfully, and seem to 
 acquire a finish with years. 
 
 If one wishes to form an idea of the vast numbers of in- 
 different paintings which are annually produced in En- 
 gland, he should visit, as I did, another exhibition, a large 
 gallery lighted from above, in which each artist, most 
 of them of the younger or obscurer class, takes a 
 certain number of feet on the wall and exhibits just what 
 he pleases. Every man is his own hanging committee, and 
 if his pictures are not placed in the most advantageous 
 position, it is his own fault. Here acres of canvas are ex- 
 hibited, most of which is spoiled of course, though here arid 
 there a good picture is to be seen, and others which give 
 promise of future merit. 
 
 Enough of pictures. The principal subject of political 
 discussion since I have been in England, has been the 
 expediency oi allowing Jews to sit in Parliament. You 
 have seen by what a large majority Baron Rothschild has 
 been again returned from the city of London, after his 
 resignation, in spite of the zealous opposition of the con- 
 servatives. It is allowed, I think, on all hands, that the 
 majority of the nation are in favor of allowing Jews to hold 
 seats in Parliament, but the other side urge the inconsist- 
 ency of maintaining a Christian Church as a state institu- 
 tion, and admitting the enemies of Christianity to a share 
 in its administration. Public opinion, however, is so 
 strongly against political disabilities on account of religious
 
 .TKWS IN PARLIAMENT. 407 
 
 faith, that with the aid of the ministry, it will, no doubt, 
 triumph, and we shall see another class of adversaries of 
 the Establishment making war upon it in the House of 
 Commons. Nor will it bs at all surprising if, after a little 
 while, we hear of Jewish barons, earls, and marquises in 
 the House of Peers. Rothschild himself may become the 
 founder of a noble line, opulent beyond the proudest of them 
 all. 
 
 The protectionist party here are laboring to persuade the 
 people that the government have committed a great error, 
 in granting such liberal conditions to the trade of other 
 nations, to the prejudice of British industry. They do not, 
 however, seem to make much impression on the public 
 mind. The necessaries of life are obtained at a cheaper 
 rate than formerly, and that satisfies the people. Peel has 
 been making a speech in Parliament on the free-trade 
 question, which I often hear referred to as a very able 
 argument for the free-trade policy. Neither on this ques- 
 tion nor on that of the Jewish disabilities, do the oppo- 
 sition seem to have the country with them.
 
 408 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER LI. 
 
 A VISIT TO THE SHETLAND ISLES. 
 
 ABERDEEN, July 19, 1849. 
 
 Two days ago I was in the Orkneys ; the day before I 
 was in the Shetland Isles, the " farthest Thule" of the Ro- 
 mans, where I climbed the Noup of the Noss, as the fa- 
 mous headland of the island of Noss is called, from which 
 you look out upon the sea that lies between Shetland and 
 Norway. 
 
 From Wick, a considerable fishing town in Caithness, on 
 the northern coast of Scotland, a steamer, named the 
 dueen, departs once a week, in the summer months, for 
 Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, and Lerwick, in Shetland. We 
 went on board of her about ten o'clock on the 14th of July. 
 The herring fishery had just begun, and the artificial port 
 of Wick, constructed with massive walls of stone, was 
 crowded with fishing vessels which had returned that morn- 
 ing from the labors of the night ; for in the herring fishery 
 it is only in the night that the nets are spread and drawn. 
 Many of the vessels had landed their cargo ; in others the 
 fishermen were busily disengaging the herrings from the 
 black nets and throwing them in heaps ; and now and then
 
 HIGHLAND FISHERMEN. 409 
 
 a boat later than the rest, was entering from the sea. The 
 green heights all around the bay were covered with groups 
 of women, sitting or walking, dressed for the most part in 
 caps and white short gowns, waiting for the arrival of the 
 boats manned by their husbands and brothers, or belonging 
 to the families of those who had come to seek occupation as 
 fishermen. I had seen two or three of the principal streets 
 of Wick that morning, swarming with strapping fellows, in 
 blue highland bonnets, with blue jackets and pantaloons, 
 and coarse blue flannel shirts. A shopkeeper, standing at 
 his door, instructed me who they were. 
 
 " They are men of the Celtic race," he said the term 
 Celtic has grown to be quite fashionable, I find, when ap- 
 plied to the Highlanders. " They came from the Hebrides 
 and other parts of western Scotland, to get employment in 
 the herring fishery. These people have travelled perhaps 
 three hundred miles, most of them on foot, to be employed 
 six or seven weeks, for which they will receive about six 
 pounds wages. Those whom you see are not the best of 
 their class ; the more enterprising and industrious have 
 boats of their own, and carry on the fishery on their own 
 account." 
 
 We found the Q,ueen a strong steamboat, with a good 
 cabin and convenient state-rooms, but dirty, and smelling of 
 fish from stem to stern. It has seemed to me that the fur- 
 ther north I went, the more dirt I found. Our qaptain was 
 an old Aberdeen seaman, with a stoop in his shoulders, and 
 35
 
 410 LETTERS OF A TR.AVELLER. 
 
 looked as if he was continually watching for land, an occu- 
 pation for which the foggy climate of these latitudes gives 
 him full scope. We left Wick bstween eleven and twelve 
 o'clock in the forenoon, and glided over a calm sea, with a 
 cloudless sky above us, and a thin haze on the surface of 
 the waters. The haze thickened to a fog, which grew 
 more and more dense, and finally closed overhead. After 
 about three hours sail, the captain began to grow uneasy, 
 and was seen walking about on the bridge between the 
 wheel-houses, anxiously peering into the mist, on the look- 
 out for the coast of the Orkneys. At length he gave up the 
 search, and stopped the engine. The passengers amused 
 themselves with fishing. Several coal-fish, a large fish of 
 slender shape, were caught, and one fine cod was hauled 
 up by a gentleman who united in his person, as he gave 
 me to understand, the two capacities of portrait-painter and 
 preacher of the gospel, and who held that the universal 
 church of Christendom had gone sadly astray from the true 
 primitive doctrine, in regard to the time when the millen- 
 nium is to take place. 
 
 The fog cleared away in the evening ; our steamer was 
 again in motion ; we landed at Kirkwall in the middle of 
 the night, and when I went on deck the next morning, we 
 were smoothly passing the shores of Fair Isle high and 
 steep rocks, impending over the waters with a covering of 
 green turf. Before they were out of sight we saw the 
 Shetland coast, the dark rock of Sumburgh Head, and be-
 
 L E R VV I C K. 411 
 
 hind it, half shrouded in mist, the promontory of Fitfiel 
 Head, Fitful Head, as it is called by Scott, in his novel of 
 the Pirate. Beyond, to the east, black rocky promontories 
 came in sight, one after the other, beetling over the sea. 
 At ten o'clock, we were passing through a channel be- 
 tween the islands leading to Lerwick, the capital of Shet- 
 land, on the principal island bearing the name of Main- 
 land. Fields, yellow with flowers, among which stood 
 here and there a cottage, sloped softly down to the water, 
 and beyond them rose the bare declivities and summits of 
 the hills, dark with heath, with here and there still darker 
 spots, of an almost inky hue, where peat had been cut for 
 fuel. Not a tree, not a shrub was to be seen, and the 
 greater part of the soil appeared never to have been reduced 
 to cultivation. 
 
 About one o'clock we cast anchor before Lerwick, a 
 fishing village, built on the shore of Bressay Sound, which 
 here forms one of the finest harbors in the world. It has 
 two passages to the sea, so that when the wind blows a 
 storm on one side of the islands, the Shetlander in his boat 
 passes out in the other direction, and finds himself in com- 
 paratively smooth water. It was Sunday, and the man 
 who landed us at the quay and took our baggage to our 
 lodging, said as he left us 
 
 "It's the Sabbath, and I'll no tak' my pay now, but I'll 
 call the morrow. My name is Jim Sinclair, pilot, and if 
 ye'll be wanting to go anywhere, I'll be glad to tak' ye in
 
 412 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 my boat." In a few minutes we were snugly established at 
 our lodgings. There is no inn throughout all the Shetland 
 Islands, which contain about thirty thousand inhabitants, 
 but if any of my friends should have occasion to visit Ler- 
 wick, I can cheerfully recommend to them the comfortable 
 lodging-house of Mrs. Walker, who keeps a little shop in the 
 principal street, not far from dueen's lane. We made haste 
 to get ready for church, and sallied out to find the place of 
 worship frequented by our landlady, which was not a dif- 
 ficult matter. 
 
 The little town of Lerwick consists of two-story houses, 
 built mostly of unhewn stone, rough-cast, with steep roofs 
 and a chimney at each end. They are arranged along a 
 winding street parallel with the shore, and along narrow 
 lanes running upward to the top of the hill. The main 
 street is flagged with smooth stones, like the streets in 
 Venice, for no vehicle runs on wheels in the Shetland islands. 
 We went up Q,ueen's lane and soon found the building occu- 
 pied by the Free Church of Scotland, until a temple of fairer 
 proportions, on which the masons are now at work, on the 
 top of the hill, shall be completed for their reception. It 
 was crowded with attentive worshipers, one of whom 
 obligingly came forward and found a seat for us. The 
 minister, Mr. Frazer, had begun the evening service, and 
 was at prayer. When I entered, he was speaking of 
 " our father the devil ;" but the prayer was followed by an 
 earnest, practical discourse, though somewhat crude in the
 
 CHURCH-GOERS IN SHETLAND. 413 
 
 composition, and reminding me of an expression I once heard 
 used by a distinguished Scotchman, who complained that 
 the clergy of his country, in composing their sermons, too 
 often " mak' rough wark of it." 
 
 I looked about among these descendants of the Norwegians, 
 but could not see any thing singular in their physiognomy ; 
 and but for the harsh accent of the preacher, I might 
 almost have thought myself in the midst of a country 
 congregation in the United States. They are mostly of a 
 light complexion, with an appearance of health and strength, 
 though of a sparer make than the people of the more 
 southern British isles. After the service was over, we 
 returned to our lodgings, by a way which led to the top of 
 the hill, and made the circuit of the little town. The paths 
 leading into the interior of the island", were full of people 
 returning homeward ; the women in their best attire, a few 
 in silks, with wind-tanned faces. We saw them disappearing, 
 one after another, in the hollows, or over the dark bare hill- 
 tops. With a population of less than three thousand souls, 
 Lerwick has four places of worship a church of the Estab- 
 lishment, a Free church, a church for the Seceders, and one 
 for the Methodists. The road we took commanded a fine 
 view of the harbor, surrounded and sheltered by hills. 
 Within it lay a numerous group of idle fishing- vessels, with 
 one great steamer in the midst ; and more formidable in 
 appearance, a Dutch man-of-war, sent to protect the Dutch 
 fisheries, with the flag of Holland flying at the mast-head. 
 35*
 
 414 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Above the town, on tall poles, were floating the flags of four 
 or five different nations, to mark the habitation of their 
 consuls. 
 
 On the side opposite to the harbor, lay the small fresh- 
 water lake of Cleikimin, with the remains of a Pictish castle 
 in the midst ; one of those circular buildings of unhewn, 
 uncemented stone, skillfully laid, forming apartments and 
 galleries of such small dimensions as to lead Sir Walter 
 Scott to infer that the Picts were a people of a stature con- 
 siderably below the ordinary standard of the human race. 
 A deep Sabbath silence reigned over the scene, except the 
 sound of the wind, which here never ceases to blow from 
 one quarter or another, as it swept the herbage and beat 
 against the stone walls surrounding the fields. The ground 
 under our feet was thick with daisies and the blossoms of 
 the crow-foot and other flowers ; for in the brief summer of 
 these islands, nature, which has no groves to embellish, 
 makes amends by pranking the ground, particularly in the 
 uncultivated parts, with a great profusion and variety of 
 flowers. 
 
 The next morning we were rowed, by two of Jim 
 Sinclair's boys, to the island of Bressay, and one of them 
 acted as our guide to the remarkable precipice called the 
 Noup of the Noss. We ascended its smooth slopes and 
 pastures, and passed through one or two hamlets, where we 
 observed the construction of the dwellings of the Zetland 
 peasantry. They are built of unhewn stone, with roofs of
 
 HABITATIONS OF THE ISLANDERS. 415 
 
 turf held down by ropes of straw neatly twisted ; the floors 
 are of earth ; the cow, pony, and pig live under the same 
 roof with the family, and the manure pond, a receptacle for 
 refuse and filth, is close to the door. A little higher up we 
 came upon the uncultivated grounds, abandoned to heath, 
 and only used to supply fuel by the cutting of peat. Here and 
 there women were busy piling the square pieces of peat in 
 stacks, that they might dry in the wind. " We carry home 
 these pits in a basket on our showlders, when they are dry," 
 said one of them to me ; but those who can afibrd to keep a 
 pony, make him do this work for them. In the hollows 
 of this part of the island we saw several fresh-water ponds, 
 which were enlarged with dykes and made to turn grist 
 mills. We peeped into one or two of these mills, little 
 stone buildings, in which we could hardly stand upright, 
 inclosing two small stones turned by a perpendicular shaft, 
 in which are half a dozen cogs; the paddles are fixed 
 below, and there struck by the water, turn the upper stone. 
 A steep descent brought us to the little strait, bordered 
 with rocks, which divides Brassey from the island called the 
 Noss. A strong south wind was driving in the billows 
 from the sea with noise and foam, but they were broken 
 and checked by a bar of rocks in the middle of the strait, 
 and we crossed to the north of it in smooth water. The 
 ferryman told us that when the wind was northerly he 
 crossed to the south of the bar. As we climbed the hill of 
 the Noss the mist began to drift thinly around us from the
 
 116 LETTKRrf OF A TUAVliLLEU. 
 
 sea, and flocks of sea-birds rose screaming from the ground 
 at our approach. At length we stood upon the brink of a 
 precipice of fearful height, from which we had a full view 
 of the still higher precipices of the neighboring summit. 
 A wall of rock was before us six hundred feet in height, 
 descending almost perpendicularly to the sea, which roared 
 and foamed at its base among huge masses of rock, and 
 plunged into great caverns, hollowed out by the beating of 
 the surges for centuries. Midway on the rock, and above 
 the reach of the spray, were thousands of sea-birds, sitting 
 in ranks on the numerous shelves, or alighting, or taking 
 wing, and screaming as they flew. A cloud of them were 
 constantly in the air in front of the rock and over our heads. 
 Here they make their nests and rear their young, but not 
 entirely safe from the pursuit of the Zetlander, who causes 
 himself to be let down by a rope from the summit and 
 plunders their nests. The face of the rock, above the por 
 lion which is the haunt of the birds, was fairly tapestried 
 with herbage and flowers which the perpetual moisture of 
 the atmosphere keeps always fresh daisies nodding in the 
 wind, and the crimson phlox, seeming to set the cliffs on 
 flarne ; yellow buttercups, and a variety of other plants in 
 bloom, of which I do not know the name. 
 
 Magnificent as this spectacle was, we were not satisfied 
 without climbing to the summit. As we passed upward, 
 we saw where the rabbits had made their burrows in the 
 iv/jstic peat-like soil close to the very edge of the precipice.
 
 THE CRADLE OF THE NOSS. 417 
 
 We now found ourselves involved in the cold streams of 
 mist which the strong sea-wind was drifting over us ; they 
 were in fact the lower skirts of the clouds. At times they 
 would clear away and give us a prospect of the green island 
 summits around us, with their bold headlands, the winding 
 straits between, and the black rocks standing out in the sea. 
 When we arrived at the summit we could hardly stand 
 against the wind, but it was almost more difficult to muster 
 courage to look down that dizzy depth over which the Zet- 
 landers suspend themselves with ropes, in quest of the eggs 
 of the sea-fowl. My friend captured a young gull on the 
 summit of the Noup. The bird had risen at his approach, 
 and essayed to fly towards the sea, but the strength of the 
 wind drove him back to the land. He rose again, but could 
 not sustain a long flight, and coming to the ground again, 
 was caught, after a spirited chase, amidst a wild clamor of 
 of the sea-fowl over our heads. 
 
 Not far from the Noup is the Holm, or, as it is sometimes 
 called, the Cradle or Basket, of the Noss. It is a perpen- 
 dicular mass of rock, two or three hundred feet high, with a 
 broad flat summit, richly covered with grass, and is sep- 
 arated from the island by a narrow chasm, through which 
 the sea flows. Two strong ropes are stretched from the 
 main island to the top of the Holm, and on these is slung 
 the cradle or basket, a sort of open box made of deal boards, 
 in which the shepherds pass with their sheep to the top of 
 the Holm. We found the cradle strongly secured by lock
 
 418 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and key to the stakes on the side of the Noss, in order, no 
 doubt, to prevent any person from crossing for his own 
 amusement. 
 
 As we descended the smooth pastures of the Noss, we 
 fell in with a herd of ponies, of a size somewhat larger than 
 is common on the islands. I asked our guide, a lad of four- 
 teen years of age, what was the average price of a sheltie. 
 *Iis answer deserves to he written in letters of gold 
 
 " It's jist as they're bug an' smal'." 
 
 From the ferryman, at the strait below, I got mor* 
 specific information. They vary in price from three to te*. 
 pounds, but the latter sum is only paid for the finest of 
 these animals, in the respects of shape and color. It is not 
 a little remarkable, that the same causes which, in Shet- 
 land, have made the horse the smallest of ponies, have 
 almost equally reduced the size of the cow. The sheep, 
 also a pretty creature, I might call it from the fine wool 
 of which the Shetland women knot the thin webs known 
 by the name of Shetland shawls, is much smaller than any 
 breed I have ever seen. Whether the cause be the per- 
 petual chilliness of the atmosphere, or the insufficiency of 
 nourishment for, though the long Zetland winters are 
 temperate, and snow never lies long on the ground, there 
 is scarce any growth of herbage in that season I will not 
 undertake to say, but the people of the islands ascribe it to 
 the insufficiency of nourishment. It is, at all events, re-
 
 PICTISH CASTLE. 419 
 
 markable, that the traditions of the country should ascribe 
 to the Picts, the early inhabitants of Shetland, the same 
 dwarfish stature, and that the numerous remains of their 
 habitations which still exist, should seem to confirm the 
 tradition. The race which at present possesses the Shet- 
 lands is, however, of what the French call " an advan- 
 tageous stature," and well limbed. If it be the want of a 
 proper and genial warmth, which prevents the due growth 
 of the domestic animals, it is a want to which the Zet- 
 landers are not subject. Their hills afford the man appa- 
 rantly inexhaustible supply of peat, which costs the poorest 
 man nothing but the trouble of cutting it and bringing it 
 home ; and their cottages, I was told, are always well 
 warmed in winter. 
 
 In crossing the narrow strait which separates the Noss 
 from Bressay, I observed on the Bressay side, overlooking the 
 water, a round hillock, of very regular shape, in which the 
 green turf was intermixed with stones. " That," said the 
 ferryman, " is what we call a Pictish castle. I mind when 
 it was opened ; it was full of rooms, so that ye could go over 
 every part of it." I climbed the hillock, and found, by 
 inspecting several openings, which had been made by the 
 peasantry to take away the stones, that below the turf it 
 was a regular work of Pictish masonry, but the spiral 
 galleries, which these openings revealed, had been com- 
 pletely choked up, in taking away the materials of which 
 they were built. Although plenty of stone may be found
 
 420 LETTERS' OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 everywhere in the islands, there seems to be a disposition to 
 plunder these remarkable remains, for the sake of building 
 cottages, or making those inclosures for their cabbages, 
 which the islanders call crubs. They have been pulling 
 down the Pictish castle, on the little island in the fresh- 
 water loch called (Jleikimin, near Lerwick, described with 
 such minuteness by Scott in his journal, till very few traces 
 of its original construction are left. If the inclosing of lands 
 for pasturage and cultivation proceeds as it has begun, these 
 curious monuments of a race which has long perished, will 
 disappear. 
 
 Now that we were out of hearing of the cries of the sea- 
 birds, we were regaled with more agreeable sounds. We had 
 set out, as we climbed the island of Bressay, amid a perfect 
 chorus of larks, answering each other in the sky, and some- 
 times, apparently, from the clouds ; and now we heard them 
 again overhead, pouring out their sweet notes so fast and so 
 ceaselessly, that it seemed as if the little creatures imagined 
 they had more to utter, than they had time to utter it in. 
 In no part of the British Islands have I seen the larks so 
 numerous or so merry, as in the Shetlands. 
 
 We waited awhile at the wharf by the minister's house 
 in Bressay, for Jim Sinclair, who at length appeared in his 
 boat to convey us to Lerwick. " He is a noisy fallow," said 
 our good landlady, and truly we found him voluble enough, 
 but quite amusing. As he rowed us to town he gave us a 
 sample of his historical knowledge, talking of Sir Walter
 
 THE ZETLANDERS. 421 
 
 Raleigh and the settlement of North America, and told us 
 that his greatest pleasure was to read historical hooks in 
 the long winter nights. His children, he said, could all 
 read and write. We dined on a leg of Shetland mutton, 
 with a tart made " of the only fruit of the Island" as a 
 Scotchman called it, the stalks of the rhubarb plant, and 
 went on board of our steamer about six o'clock in the after- 
 noon. It was matter of some regret to us that we were 
 obliged to leave Shetland so soon. Two or three days more 
 might have been pleasantly passed among its grand preci- 
 pices, its winding straits, its remains of a remote and rude 
 antiquity, its little horses, little cows, and little sheep, its 
 sea-fowl, its larks, its flowers, and its hardy and active 
 people. There was an amusing novelty also in going to 
 bed, as we did, by daylight, for at this season of the year, 
 the daylight is never out of the sky, and the flush of early 
 sunset only passes along the horizon from the northwest to 
 the northeast, where it brightens into sunrise. 
 
 The Zetlanders, I was told by a Scotch clergyman, who 
 had lived among them forty years, are naturally shrewd and 
 quick of apprehension ; " as to their morals," he added, " if 
 ye stay among them any time ye'll be able to judge for 
 yourself." So, on the point of morals, I am in the dark. 
 More attention, I hear, is paid to the education of their 
 children than formerly, and all have the opportunity of learn- 
 ing to read and write in the parochial schools. Their agri- 
 culture is still very rude, they are very unwilling to adopt 
 36
 
 422 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the instruments of husbandry used in England, but on the 
 whole they are making some progress. A Shetland gentle- 
 man, who, as he remarked to me, had " had the advantage 
 of seeing some other countries" besides his own, complained 
 that the peasantry were spending too much of their earnings 
 for tea, tobacco, and spirits. Last winter a terrible famine 
 came upon the islands ; their fisheries had been unproduc 
 tive, and the potato crop had been cut off by the blight. 
 The communication with Scotland by steamboat had ceased, 
 as it always does in winter, and it was long before the 
 sufferings of the Shetlanders were known in Great Britain, 
 but as soon as the intelligence was received, contributions 
 were made and the poor creatures were relieved. 
 
 Their climate, inhospitable as it seems, is healthy, and 
 they live to a good old age. A native of the island, a 
 baronet, who has a great white house on a bare field in 
 sight of Lerwick, and was a passenger on board the steamer 
 in which we made our passage to the island, remarked that 
 if it was not the healthiest climate in the world, the ex- 
 tremely dirty habits of the peasantry would engender 
 disease, which, however, was not the case. " It is, probably, 
 the effect of the saline particles in the air," he added. His 
 opinion seemed to be that the dirt was salted by the sea- 
 winds, and preserved from further decomposition. I was 
 somewhat amused, in hearing him boast of the climate of 
 Shetland in winter. " Have you never observed" said he, 
 turning to the old Scotch clergyman of whom I have
 
 A GALE IN THE NORTH SEA. 423 
 
 already spoken, " how much larger the proportion of sunny 
 days is in our islands than at the south ?" "I have never 
 observed it," was the dry answer of the minister." 
 
 The people of Shetland speak a kind of Scottish, but not 
 with the Scottish accent. Four hundred years ago, when 
 the islands were transferred from Norway to the British 
 crown, their language was Norse, but that tongue, al- 
 though some of its words have been preserved in the pres- 
 ent dialect, has become extinct. " I have heard," said an 
 intelligent Shetlander to me, "that there are yet, perhaps, 
 half a dozen persons in one of our remotest neighborhoods, 
 who are able to speak it, but I never met with one who 
 could." 
 
 In returning from Lerwick to the Orkneys, we had a 
 sample of the weather which is often encountered in these 
 latitudes. The wind blew a gale in the night, and our 
 steamer was tossed about on the waves like an egg-shell, 
 much to the discomfort of the passengers. We had on 
 board a cargo of ponies, the smallest of which were from 
 the Shetlands, some of them not much larger than sheep, 
 and nearly as shaggy ; the others, of larger size, had been 
 brought from the Faro Isles. In the morning, when the 
 gale had blown itself to rest, I went on deck and saw one 
 of the Faro Island ponies, which had given out during the 
 night, stretched dead upon the deck. I inquired if the body 
 was to be committed to the deep. " It is to be skinned 
 first," was the answer.
 
 424 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 We stopped at Kirkwall in the Orkneys, long enough to 
 allow us to look at the old cathedral of St. Magnus, built 
 early in the twelfth century a venerable pile, in perfect 
 preservation, and the finest specimen of the architecture 
 once called Saxon, then Norman, and lately Romanesque, 
 that I have ever seen. The round arch is everywhere used, 
 except in two or three windows of later addition. The 
 nave is narrow, and the central groined arches are lofty ; so 
 that an idea of vast extent is given, though the cathedral 
 is small, compared with the great minsters in England. 
 The work of completing certain parts of the building 
 which were left unfinished, is now going on at the expense 
 of the government. All the old flooring, and the pews, 
 which made it a parish church, have been taken away, 
 and the original proportions and symmetry of the building 
 are seen as they ought to be. The general effect of the 
 building is wonderfully grand and solemn. 
 
 On our return to Scotland, we stopped for a few hours at 
 Wick. It was late in the afternoon, and the fishermen, in 
 their vessels, were going out of the harbor to their nightly 
 toil. Vessel after vessel, each manned with four stout 
 rowers, came out of the port and after rowing a short 
 distance, raised their sails and steered for the open sea, till 
 all the waters, from the land to the horizon, were full of 
 them. I counted them, hundreds after hundreds, till J 
 grew tired of the task. A sail of ten or twelve hours 
 brought us to Aberdeen, with its old cathedral, encumbered
 
 ABERDEEN. 425 
 
 by pews and wooden partitions, and its old college, the 
 tower of which is surmounted by a cluster of flying but- 
 tresses, formed into the resemblance of a crown. 
 
 This letter, you perceive, is dated at Aberdeen. It was 
 begun there, but I have written portions of it at different 
 times since I left that city, and I beg that you will imagine 
 it to be of the latest date. It is now long enough, I fear, 
 to tire your readers, and I therefore lay down my pen. 
 36*
 
 426 LETTERS OF A TRA. 'ELLER. 
 
 LETTER LI I. 
 
 EUROPE UNDER THE BAYONET. 
 
 PARIS, September 13, 1849. 
 
 WHOEVER should visit the principal countries of Europe 
 at the present moment, might take them for conquered 
 provinces, held in subjection by their victorious masters, at 
 the point of the sword. Such was the aspect which 
 France presented when I came to Paris a few weeks since. 
 The city was then in what is called, by a convenient fiction, 
 a state of siege ; soldiers filled the streets, were posted in 
 every public square and at every corner, were seen march- 
 ing before the churches, the cornices of which bore the 
 inscription of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, keeping 
 their brethren quiet by the bayonet. I have since made a 
 journey to Bavaria and Switzerland, and on returning I find 
 the siege raised, and these demonstrations of fraternity less 
 formal, but the show and the menace of military force are 
 scarcely less apparent. Those who maintain that France 
 is not fit for liberty, need not afflict themseves with the idea 
 that there is at present more liberty in France than her 
 people know how to enjoy.
 
 USES OF THE STATE OF SIEGE. 427 
 
 On my journey, I found the cities along the Rhine 
 crowded with soldiers ; the sound of the drum was heard 
 among the hills covered with vines ; women were trundling 
 loaded wheel-barrows, and carrying panniers like asses, to 
 earn the taxes which are extorted to support the men who 
 stalk about in uniform. I entered Heidelberg with antici- 
 pations of pleasure ; they were dashed in a moment ; the 
 city was in a state of siege, occupied by Prussian troops 
 which had been sent to take the part of the Grand Duke of 
 Baden against his people. I could hardly believe that this 
 was the same peaceful and friendly city which I had known 
 in better times. Every other man in the streets was a 
 soldier ; the beautiful walks about the old castle were full 
 of soldiers ; in the evening they were reeling through the 
 streets. " This invention," said a German who had been a 
 member of the Diet of the Confederation lately broken up, 
 " this invention of declaring a city, which has uncondition- 
 ally submitted, to be still in a state of siege, is but a device 
 to practice the most unbounded oppression. Any man who 
 is suspected, or feared, or disliked, or supposed not to ap- 
 prove of the proceedings of the victorious party, is arrested 
 and imprisoned at pleasure. He may be guiltless of any 
 offense which could be made a pretext for condemning him, 
 but his trial is arbitrarily postponed, and when at last he is 
 seleased, he has suffered the penalty of a long confinement, 
 and is taught how dangerous it is to become obnoxious to 
 the government." 
 '
 
 428 
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 From Heidelberg, thus transformed, I was glad to take my 
 departure as soon as possible. Our way from that city to 
 Heilbronn, was through a most charming country along the 
 valley of the Neckar. Here were low hills and valleys rich 
 with harvests, a road embowered in fruit-trees, the branches 
 of which were propped with stakes to prevent them from 
 breaking with their load, and groves lying pleasantly in the 
 morning sunshine, where ravens were croaking. Birds of 
 worse omen than these were abroad, straggling groups, and 
 sometimes entire companies of soldiers, on their way from 
 one part of the duchy to another ; while in the fields, 
 women, prematurely old with labor, were wielding the hoe 
 and the mattock, and the younger and stronger of their sex 
 were swinging the scythe. In all the villages through which 
 we passed, in the very smallest, troops were posted, and men 
 in military uniform were standing at the doors, or looking 
 from the windows of every inn and beer-house. 
 
 At Heilbronn we took the railway for Stuttgart, the 
 capital of Wurtemberg. There was a considerable propor- 
 tion of men in military trappings among the passengers, 
 but at one of the stations they came upon us like a cloud, 
 and we entered Stuttgart with a little army. That city, 
 too, looked as if in a state of siege, so numerous were the 
 soldiery, though the vine-covered hills, among which it is 
 situated, could have given them a better occupation. The 
 railway, beyond Stuttgart, wound through a deep valley 
 and ended at G-eisslingen, an ancient Swabian town, in a
 
 SYMPATHY WITH THE HUNGARIANS. 429 
 
 gorge of the mountains, with tall old houses, not one of 
 which, I might safely affirm, has been built within the last 
 two hundred years. From this place to Ulm, on the 
 Danube, the road was fairly lined with soldiers, walking or 
 resting by the wayside, or closely packed in the peasants' 
 wagons, which they had hired to carry them short distances. 
 At Ulm we were obliged to content ourselves with 
 straitened accommodations, the hotels being occupied by the 
 gentry in epaulettes. 
 
 I hoped to see fewer of this class at the capital of 
 Bavaria, but it was not so ; they were everywhere placed 
 in sight as if to keep the people in awe. " These fellows," 
 said a German to me, " are always too numerous, but in 
 ordinary times they are kept in the capitals and barracks, 
 and the nuisance is out of sight. Now, however, the 
 occasion is supposed to make their presence necessary in 
 the midst of the people, and they swarm everywhere." 
 Another, it was our host of the Goldener Hirsch, said to m) 
 friend, " I think I shall emigrate to America, I am tired of 
 living under the bayonet." 
 
 I was in Munich when the n.^'s arrived of the surrendei 
 of the Hungarian troops under Gorgey, and the fall of the 
 Hungarian republic. All along my journey I had observed 
 tokens of the intense interest which the German people took 
 in the result of the struggle between Austria and the 
 Magyars, and of the warmth of their hopes in favor of the 
 latter. The intelligence was received with the deepest 
 
 "
 
 430 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER 
 
 sorrow. " So perishes," said a Bavarian, " the last hope of 
 European liberty." 
 
 Our journey to Switzerland led us through the southern 
 part of Bavaria, among the old towns which formed a part 
 of ancient Swabia. The country here, in some respects, re- 
 sembles New England ; here are broad woods, large 
 orchards of the apple and pear, and scattered farm-houses 
 of a different architecture, it is true, from that of the 
 Yankees, arid somewhat resembling, with their far-project- 
 ing eaves, those of Switzerland. Yet there was a further 
 difference everywhere, men were seen under arms, and 
 women at the plough. 
 
 So weary had I grown of the perpetual sight of the 
 military uniform, that I longed to escape into Switzerland, 
 where I hoped to see less of it, and it was with great 
 delight that I found myself at Lindau, a border town of 
 Bavaria, on the Bodensee, or Lake of Constance, on the 
 shores of which the boundaries of four sovereignties meet. 
 A steamer took us across the lake, from a wharf covered 
 with soldiers, to Roorschach, in Switzerland, where not a 
 soldier was to be seen. Nobody asked for our passports, 
 nobody required us to submit our baggage to search. I 
 could almost have kneeled and kissed the shore of the 
 hospitable republic ; and really it was beautiful enough for 
 such a demonstration of affection, for nothing could be 
 lovelier than the declivities of that shore with its woods and 
 orchards, and grassy meadows, and green hollows running
 
 ST. GALL. 431 
 
 upward to the mountain-tops, all fresh with a shower 
 which had just passed and now glittering in the sunshine, 
 and interspersed with large Swiss houses, bearing quaintly- 
 carved galleries, and broad overhanging roofs, while to the 
 east rose the glorious summits of the Alps, mingling with 
 the clouds. 
 
 In three or four hours we had climbed up to St. Gall 
 St. Gallen, the Germans call it situated in a high valley, 
 among steep green hills, which send down spurs of wood- 
 land to the meadows below. In walking out to look at the 
 town, we heard a brisk and continued discharge of mus- 
 ketry, and, proceeding in the direction of the sound, came to 
 a large field, evidently set apart as a parade-ground, on 
 which several hundred youths were practicing the art of 
 war in a sham fight, and keeping up a spirited fire at each 
 other with blank cartridges. On inquiry, we were told 
 that these were the boys of the schools of St. Gall, from 
 twelve to sixteen years of age, with whom military exercises 
 were a part of their education. I was still, therefore, 
 among soldiers, but of a different class from those of whom 
 I had seen so much. Here, it was the people who were 
 armed for self-protection ; there, it was a body of mer- 
 cenaries armed to keep the people in subjection. 
 
 Another day's journey brought us to the picturesque town 
 of Zurich, and the next morning about four o'clock I was 
 awakened by the roll of drums under my window. Looking 
 out, I saw a regiment of bo-s of a tender age, in r a uniform
 
 432 
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of brown linen, with little light muskets on their shoulders, 
 and miniature knapsacks on their backs, completely equipped 
 and furnished for war, led on by their little officers in regu- 
 lar military order, marching and wheeling to the sound of 
 martial music with all the precision of veterans. In Swit- 
 zerland arms are in every man's hands ; he is educated to 
 be a soldier, and taught that the liberties of his country 
 depend on his skill and valor. The worst effect, perhaps of 
 this military education is, that the Swiss, when other 
 means of subsistence are not easily found, become military 
 adventurers and sell their services to the first purchaser. 
 Meantime, nobody is regarded as properly fitted for his 
 duties as a member of the state, who is not skilled in the use 
 of arms. Target-shooting, Freischiessen, is the national 
 amusement of Switzerland, and has been so ever since the 
 days of Tell ; occasions of target-shooting are prescribed 
 and superintended by the public authorities. They were 
 practicing it at the stately city of Berne when we visited it ; 
 they were practicing it at various other places as we passed. 
 Every town is provided with a public shooting-ground near 
 .ts gates. 
 
 It was at one of the most remarkable of these towns : it 
 was at Freiburg, Catholic Freiburg, full of Catholic semina- 
 ries and convents, in the churches of which you may hear the 
 shrill voices of the nuns chanting matins, themselves unseen ; 
 it was at Freiburg, grandly seated on the craggy banks of 
 her rivers, flowing in deep gulfs, spanned by the loftiest and
 
 F u E 1 1> i: i: o . 433 
 
 longest chain-bridges in the world, that I saw another evi- 
 dence of the fact that Switzerland is the only place on the 
 continent where freedom is understood, or allowed to have 
 an existence. A proclamation of the authorities of the 
 canton was pasted on the walls and gates, ordaining the 
 16th of September as a day of religious thanksgiving. 
 After recounting the motives of gratitude to Providence ; 
 after speaking of the abundance of the harvests, the health 
 enjoyed throughout Switzerland, at the threshold of which 
 the cholera had a second time been stayed ; the subsidence 
 of political animosities, and the quiet enjoyment of the ben- 
 efits of the new constitution upon which the country had 
 entered, the proclamation mentioned, as a special reason of 
 gratitude to Almighty God, that Switzerland, in this day 
 of revolutions, had been enabled to ofFer, among her moun- 
 tains, a safe and unmolested asylum to the thousands of 
 fugitives who had suffered defeat in the battles of freedom. 
 
 1 could not help contrasting this with the cruel treatment 
 shown by France to the political refugees from Baden and 
 other parts of Germany. A few days before, it had been 
 announced that the French government required of these 
 poor fellows that they should either enlist at once in the re- 
 giments destined for service in Algiers, or immediately leave 
 the country offering them the alternative of military 
 slavery, or banishment from the country in which they had 
 hoped to find a shelter. 
 
 I have spoken of the practice of Switzerland in regard to 
 37
 
 434 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 passports, an example which it does not suit the purpose of 
 the French politicians to follow. Here, and all over the 
 continent, the passport system is as strictly and vexatiously 
 enforced as ever It is remarkable that none of the re- 
 formers occupied in the late remodelling of European insti- 
 tutions, seerns to have thought of abolishing 'this invention 
 of despotism this restraint upon the liberty of passing from 
 place to place, which makes Europe one great prison. If 
 the people had been accustomed to perfect freedom in this 
 respect, though but a short time, it might have been found 
 difficult, at least in France, to reimpose the old restraints. 
 The truth is, however, that France is not quite so free at 
 present as she was under Louis Philippe. The only advan- 
 tage of her present condition is, that the constitution places 
 in the hands of the people the means of peaceably perfecting 
 their liberties, whenever they are enlightened enough to 
 claim them. 
 
 On my way from Geneva to Lyons I sat in the banquette 
 of the diligence among the plebeians. The conversation 
 happened to turn on politics, and the expressions of hatred 
 against the present government of France, which broke from 
 the conductor, the coachman, and the two passengers by my 
 side, were probably significant of the feeling which prevails 
 among the people. " The only law now," said one, " is the 
 law of the sabre." "The soldiers and the gens, cTarmes 
 have every thing their own way now," said another, " but 
 by and by they will be glad to hide in the sewers." The
 
 DISCONTENT OF T II E FRENCH PEOPLE. 435 
 
 others were no less emphatic in their expressions of anger 
 and detestation. 
 
 The expedition to Rome is unpopular throughout France, 
 more especially so in the southern part of the republic, 
 where the intercourse with Rome has beeu more frequent, 
 and the sympathy with her people is stronger. " I have 
 never," said an American friend, who has resided sometime 
 in Paris, " heard a single Frenchman defend it." It is un- 
 popular, even among the troops sent on the expedition, as is 
 acknowledged by the government journals themselves. To 
 propitiate public opinion, the government has changed its 
 course, and after making war upon the Romans to establish 
 the pontifical throne, now tells the Pope that he must submit 
 to place the government in the hands of the laity. This 
 change of policy has occasioned a good deal of surprise and 
 an infinite deal of discussion. Whatever may be its con- 
 sequences, there is one consequence which it can not have, 
 that of recovering to the President and his ministry the 
 popularity they have lost.
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 LETTER LIII. 
 
 
 VOLTERRA. 
 
 [This letter was casually omitted from its proper place near the beginning of the 
 volume.] 
 
 ROME, April 15, 1835. 
 
 TOWARDS the end of March I went from Pisa to Volterra. 
 This you know is a very ancient city, one of the strong- 
 holds of Etruria when Rome was in its cradle ; and, in 
 more modem times, in the age of Italian republics, large 
 enough to form an independent community of considerable 
 importance. It is now a decayed town, containing about 
 four thousand inhabitants, some of whom are families of 
 the poor and proud nobility common enough over all Italy, 
 who are said to quarrel with each other more fiercely in 
 Volterra than almost anywhere else. It is the old feud of 
 the Montagues and the Capulets on a humbler scale, and 
 the disputes of the Volterra nobility are the more violent 
 and implacable for being hereditary. Poor creatures ! too 
 proud to engage in business, too indolent for literature, ex- 
 cluded from political employments by the nature of the 
 government, there is nothing left for theqp but to starve, 
 intrigue, and quarrel. You may judge how miserably poor
 
 A DESOLATK K KG ION. 437 
 
 they are, when you are told they can not afford even to cul- 
 tivate the favorite art of modern Italy ; the art best suited 
 to the genius of a soft and effeminate people. There is, I 
 was told, but one pianoforte in the whole town, and that is 
 owned by a Florentine lady who has recently come to re- 
 side here. 
 
 For several miles before reaching Volterra, our attention 
 was fixed by the extraordinary aspect of the country 
 through which we were passing. The road gradually as- 
 cended, and we found ourselves among deep ravines and 
 steep, high, broken banks, principally of clay, barren, and 
 in most places wholly bare of herbage, a scene of complete 
 desolation, were it not for a cottage here and there perched 
 upon the heights, a few sheep attended by a boy and a dog 
 grazing on the brink of one of the precipices, or a solitary 
 patch of bright green wheat in some spot where the rains 
 had not yet carried away the vegetable mould. 
 
 Imagine to yourself an elevated country like the high- 
 lands of Pennsylvania or the western part of Massachu- 
 setts ; imagine vast beds of loam and clay in place of the 
 ledges of rock, and then fancy the whole region to be torn 
 by water-spouts and torrents into gulleys too profound to be 
 passed, with sharp ridges between stripped of its trees and 
 its grass and you will have some idea of the country near 
 Volterra. I could not help fancying, while I looked at it, 
 that as the earth grew old, the ribs of rock which once up- 
 held the mountains, had become changed into the bare heaps 
 37*
 
 438 
 
 LETTERS OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of earth which I saw about me, that time and the elements 
 had destroyed the cohesion of the particles of which they were 
 formed, and that now the rains were sweeping them down 
 to the Mediterranean, to fill its bed and cause its waters to 
 encroach upon the land. It was impossible for me to pre- 
 vent the apprehension from passing through my mind, that 
 such might be the fate of other quarters of the globe in ages 
 yet to come, that their rocks must crumble and their moun- 
 tains be levelled, until the waters shall again cover the face 
 of the earth, unless new mountains shall be thrown up by 
 eruptions of internal fire. They told me in Volterra, that 
 this frightful region had once been productive and under 
 cultivation, but that after a plague which, four or five hun- 
 dred years since, had depopulated the country, it was aban- 
 doned and neglected, and the rains had reduced it to its 
 present state. 
 
 In the midst of this desolate tract, which is, however, 
 here and there interspersed with fertile spots, rises the 
 mountain on which Volterra is situated, where the inhab- 
 itants breathe a pure and keen atmosphere, almost perpet- 
 ually cool, and only die of pleurisies and apoplexies ; while 
 below, on the banks of the Cecina, which in full sight winds 
 its way to the sea, they die of fevers. One of the ravines 
 of which I have spoken, the balza they call it at Volterra 
 has ploughed a deep chasm on the north side of this moun- 
 tain, and is every year rapidly approaching the city on its 
 summit. I stood on its edge and looked down a bank of soft
 
 THE BALZA AT VOLTERRA. 430 
 
 red earth five hundred feet in height. A few rods in front of 
 me I saw where a road had crossed the spot in which the 
 gulf now yawned*; the tracks of the last year's carriages 
 were seen reaching to the edge on both sides. The ruins of 
 a convent were close at hand, the inmates of which, two or 
 three years since, had been removed by the government to 
 the town for safety. These will soon be undermined by the 
 advancing chasm, together with a fine piece of old Etruscan 
 wall, once inclosing the city, built of enormous uncemented 
 parallelograms of stone, and looking as if it might be the 
 work of the giants who lived before the flood ; a neighboring 
 church will next fall into the gulf, which finally, if means 
 be not taken to prevent its progress, will reach and sap the 
 present walls of the city, swallowing up what time has 
 so long spared. 
 
 " A few hundred crowns," said an inhabitant of Volterra 
 to me, " would stop all this mischief. A wall at the bottom 
 of the chasm, and a heap of branches of trees or other rub- 
 bish, to check the fall of the earth, are all that would be 
 necessary." 
 
 I asked why these means were not used. 
 
 " Because," he replied, " those to whom the charge of 
 these matters belongs, will not take the trouble. Some- 
 body must devise a plan for the purpose, and somebody 
 must take upon himself the labor of seeing it executed. 
 They find it easier to put it off." 
 
 The antiquities of Volterra consist of an Etruscan burial-
 
 440 LETTERS OF A T II A V E I, I. K K. 
 
 ground, in which the tombs still remain, pieces of the old 
 and incredibly massive Etruscan wall, including a far larger 
 circuit than the present city, two Etruscan gates of imme- 
 morial antiquity, older doubtless than any thing at Rome, 
 built of enormous stones, one of them serving even yet 
 as an entrance to the town, and a multitude of cin- 
 erary vessels, mostly of alabaster, sculptured with numerous 
 figures in alto relievo. These figures are sometimes alle- 
 gorical representations, and sometimes embody the fables of 
 the Greek mythology. Among them are some in the most 
 perfect style of Grecian art, the subjects of which are taken 
 from the poems of Homer ; groups representing the be- 
 siegers of Troy and its defenders, or Ulysses with his com- 
 panions and his ships. I gazed with exceeding delight on 
 these works of forgotten artists, who had the verses of 
 Homer by heart works just drawn from the tombs where 
 they had been buried for thousands of years, and looking as 
 if fresh from the chisel. 
 
 We had letters to the commandant of the fortress, an 
 ancient-looking stronghold, built by the Medici family, over 
 which we were conducted by his adjutant, a courteous 
 gentleman with a red nose, who walked as if keeping time 
 to military music. From the summit of the tower we had 
 an extensive and most remarkable prospect. It was the 
 19th day of March, and below us, the sides of the mountain, 
 scooped into irregular dells, were covered with fruit-trees 
 just breaking into leaf and flower. Beyond stretched the
 
 THE FORTRESS AT VOL TERR A. 441 
 
 region of barrenness 1 have already described, to the west 
 of which lay the green pastures of the Maremma, the air of 
 which, in summer, is deadly, and still further west were 
 spread the waters of the Mediterranean, out of which were 
 seen rising the mountains of Corsica. To the north and 
 northeast were the Appenines, capped with snow, embosom- 
 ing the fertile lower valley of the Arno, with the cities of 
 Pisa and Leghorn in sight. To the south we traced the 
 windings of the Cecilia, and saw ascending into the air the 
 smoke of a hot-water lake, ajritated perpetually with the 
 escape of gas, which we were told was visited by Dante, 
 and from which he drew images for his description of Hell. 
 Some Frenchman has now converted it into a borax manu- 
 factory, the natural heat of the water serving to extract the 
 salt. 
 
 The fortress is used as a prison for persons guilty of 
 offenses against the state. On the top of the tower we 
 passed four prisoners of state, well-dressed young men, who 
 appeared to have been entertaining themselves with music, 
 having guitars and other instruments in their hands. They 
 saluted the adjutant as he went by them, who, in return, 
 took off" his hat. They had been condemned for a con- 
 spiracy against the government. 
 
 Jhe commandant gave us a hospitable reception. In 
 showing us the fortress he congratulated us that we had 
 no occasion for such engines of government in America. 
 We went to his house in the evening, where we saw his
 
 '142 
 
 L E T T E n s OF A T n .\ v E L r. K K. 
 
 wife, a handsome young lady, whom lie had lately brought 
 from Florence, the very lady of the pianoforte whom I have 
 already mentioned, and the mother of two young children, 
 whose ruddy cheeks and chubby figures did credit to the 
 wholesome air of Volterra. The commandant made tea for 
 rs in tumblers, and the lady gave us music. The tea was 
 so strong a decoction that I seemed to hear the music all 
 night, and had no need of being waked from sleep, when 
 our vetturino, at an early hour the next morning, came to 
 take us on our journey to Sienna.
 
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